Wednesday October 6th 2010

[arif]

We are starting this thread early to give members a chance to upload any video or images they want critiqued in October 6th seminar. The best format for video clips is .MOV files (MPEG-4 Quicktime videos).
Throughout the week, Dave will try to incorporate as many images and video clips as possible into the live seminar.

The deadline for clips and images to be critiqued in the live seminar is Tuesday October 5th, 2010 @ 5:00 PM sharp AZ time.

Thanks


Here is the New Link to watch the live Seminar.
http://donbluthanimation.com/_Don_Bluth_Animation_live_seminar.html
You must be logged into your Don's Club account to see the stream.

Please post ALL questions in this thread.

[arif]

From Joe Dorsey

Here are a few things I worked on this week Don.

These are two of Seth' dragons. The girl (Kindle) is trying to woo Hearth. But, Hearth just wants to go adventuring.

http://donbluthanimation.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=260&pictureid=1222


Here is a take I found from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" after he drinks a bit of liquor.

http://donbluthanimation.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=260&pictureid=1223


Lastly, here is an inbetween pose from "The Brave Little Tailor". It took me a while to narrow down one pose because they all had their own charm.

http://donbluthanimation.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=268&pictureid=1224

[arif]

From Solium

Hi Don,

First off I have my line art of Daphne. I hope you could print this out and show where corrects could be made to the drawing.

http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac270/cgt-graphics/Fan%20Art/Daphne-Line-Art-01-web.jpg





Second: Here's a concept drawing for Santa Claus. In my mind Santa is a very magical character so I designed him with a robe and staff and wanted him to look regal.

I have two questions:

(1) Do you think his back side is drawn correctly? It dosent look right to me.

(2) I'm having a problem maintaining consistent form with his beard. Any suggestions on how to keep the consistency in shape and volume? I think this would also apply to drawing hair and feathers.

http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac270/cgt-graphics/Santa/santa_concept_01b_web.jpg

[arif]

From Andrew sharp

Hello Don and Dave hope the seminar is going well and you guys are having lots of fun. I've been working on the walk cycle of elf character.
the walk cycle (hope these load this time)
http://www.donbluthanimation.com/videos.php?showvideo=510


I noticed something on the walk cycle the character is drawn really big in the frame and her strides are long even at 24fps I find that the background still strobes any suggestions
the walk cycle with background
http://www.donbluthanimation.com/videos.php?showvideo=507

Some character sketches of a pony I'm working on. http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc396/andrew_sharp1/PONY2.jpg
Thankyou very much Don and Dave

[arif]

From Seth-2

Hi, Don and Dave!

#1: I wanted to try my hand at putting together a model sheet. Here is a sheet for Pootin the hellhound showing how his flames are affected by his mood. Please share your thoughts on the layout and whether or not the sheet needs more information about the character.

http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/8316/pootinmodelsheet.png

#2: This is Grizelba, a fortunetelling dragon character of mine. Her character traits and spiral markings are influenced by Celtic folklore. Do you think her design is too complex for an animated work or am I just being paranoid? :)

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/473/grizelbafinal.png

#3: Finally, I had a question about your workshops. I realize that these are geared primarily for animators, but if the demand grows, would you consider teaching workshops about character development, directing, or scriptwriting to name a few?

[arif]

From Casey

Hey Don and Dave!

Hope you both had a wonderful week!

This week I'm focusing on some jump animation tests here's my first attempt. I'm in the middle of working on a long jump at the moment, but I'd love any advice on my first go around.

http://www.donbluthanimation.com/videos.php?showvideo=508

Thanks for the tip about checking out Ken Anderson's work. He's amazing. I still need to study Bill Peet though.

One of my big influences and reasons I wanted to get into animation is the work of Hayao Miyazaki. I was wondering if you've seen his stuff before and what your thoughts were on his style and body of work.

Thanks again for the great Seminars. They're really inspiring!

~ Casey

[arif]

From Sung

http://www.donbluthanimation.com/videos.php?showvideo=509

Hey Don and Dave.

Sorry for the flickering background.
This is a falling leaf. An exercise in spacing. Please be brutal Don.

Thank you.

-Sung

[arif]

From Jeremy Hopkins

Did Sandro Cleuzo animate the orphanage manager in Anastasia? The animation looks very solid, looks like the animator understood your animation style but also enjoyed Milt's design principals. It reminds me of his work.

[arif]

From Rich-E

http://www.donbluthanimation.com/videos.php?showvideo=511

i've used silhouette and i want to show sadness in this walk . when drawing this i was listening to violin solo's that evoked a feeling of sadness as Sil is making his journey along his lonely road. in this clip Sil is sans music.

question:

why do we never get to see the Irishman?

[Richard Willimot]

Hello Don and Dave, I designed this pup for another project ;) but would like to flesh these poses out a bit more and eventually use him in something. Could you please off some advice on poses 3 and 4. Pose three is supposed to be a reaction shot where he squishes his face up line "oh no! you didn't". And pose 4 is supposed to be the quizzical look pups get.
http://i786.photobucket.com/albums/yy147/pengy300/willimot_pupthumbs.jpg

[JoshSketchInMotion]

Hey Don,

Do you keep in contact with those you have worked with on various films in the past and still have a good friendship with them?

On another note I met this guy Kevin Sullivan who teaches at my college and he worked for you doing backgrounds on Thumbelina and A Troll in Central Park and I was just curious if you remember him.

Joshua Phillips

[OwenWelsh]

Hello Don,

I was wondering if you could please give me your honest opinion of this model sheet I made for a mushroom named Gombo.

He's a frightened and scared little creature for he has no arms and has forgotten how to get back home.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p143/robertow/gombo_finaljpg.jpg

[Solium]

Dave and Don if you can fit this in that would be great. If not I understand. I am still developing my "Santa" character. Someone said my original design was far to remove from peoples perception of Santa. So I decided to work on his design some more and implement more of his classic character traits. Do you think the second design is an improvement over the first?

http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac270/cgt-graphics/Santa/santa_concept_02web.jpg

[zanekohler]

Hi Don,
I have two question about the X Sheet and beats.

First, Could you recap how you find the beat from dialogue with the metronome?

Second, After finding the beat in the scene you marked the frames on the x-sheet where the beats land. Are those marks just for notes so you can see the time laid out on your xsheet OR are those marked because they are to be drawn? If they are to be drawn, how do those differ from key frames?

Thanks

[tk421]

Don,

I have been struggling designing my own characters. When I do Monkey See, Monkey Do, the drawings come out fine but I don't draw as well on my own designs. I'm trying to find the best way to perfect Visualization for me.

Here are some practice drawings I did. The first one's are from Disney movies and the last one is a dog character that I am developing. Any ideas on how to break free from only being able to design & draw characters besides just copying?

Thanks much,

Erikk

<img src="http://www.thunderlightstudios.com/bluth/raa.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />

<img src="http://www.thunderlightstudios.com/bluth/pinoccio.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />

<img src="http://www.thunderlightstudios.com/bluth/jimminy-cricket.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />

<img src="http://www.thunderlightstudios.com/bluth/revis-multi.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br />

[OwenWelsh]

Hi Don,

Question 1:
I'm trying to figure out what the best way to time for music is. I know that you say that its best to go on beats of 8. So 8, 16, and 32s would easily aid the music composer. But wouldn't 6s, 12s and 24s work just as well? 12s after all is marching time and there has been music put to this beat.

Question 2:
Could you explain how 1/4 time, 2/4 time, 3/4 time or 4/4 translate into beats? When we talk about beats in animation do we actually mean tempo?

Question 3:
Have you put a run on 8s before? or is it better to put it on 6s?

[Richard Willimot]

Don, I know that some actors will stand pat when the director wants their character to do something they wouldn't do. As animators should we take the same care of our characters?

[AJartist]

Much has been said about Milt kahl's acting ability....but do you know how fast he got through his scenes?

[OwenWelsh]

Dave can you ask Don that if he's feeling well enough tomorrow if he can take a look at what we've posted on the online workshop critique thread so we can get feedback before Saturday and maybe make some revisions.

[lavallelee]

Hey Don, I hope you get better.

My question today is about using live action as reference in acting animation. I find it really hard to get my acting on camera to drawn paper caricature. How are some ways to go about studying live action for an acting scene?

[samuelvictorjones]

Hi Don, so sorry to hear you are ill.

I've been really concentrating on storyboarding recently. I bought your dvd & really enjoyed it & got a lot of inspiration, as far as showing action & creating sets goes.

I've a lot of experience directing & editing Live Action feature films, & as you know, I joined the site to explore the possibility of one day creating an animated feature.

When directing live action, I approve the script, oversee the dressing of the sets, but then adapt & improve camera angles & shots on the day by how everything looks through the viewfinders & preview monitors. I have an idea of the shots I need, but on the day I always see more creative or interesting shots to improve.

I'm interested in how you personally go about planning the camera position, angles & framing for storyboards. Do you have a process you go through designing a set them placing the camera, or just do it instinctively?

[lavallelee]

Hey Don,

1.) Out of all the features films and games you made, which one was the hardest to complete? How also do you know it is complete.

2.) Which one do you think had the hardest/best animation?

3.) In your movies and games, did you cut a lot of scenes and how did you come to the conclusion it needed to be cut.

[AJartist]

The best Hand animation I've ever seen was Chernbog's hands on the Night of Bald Mountain sequence in Fantasia............however, do you reccomend studying any other scene or animator that communicated really strongly with hands?

[samuelvictorjones]

I'm slightly confused as to the difference between thumbnails & extreme poses.

I understand thumbnails are usually drawn several on a page to get an idea of the movement. But surely thumbnails are rough versions of key poses themselves? - & If this is true, if we draw the thumbnails on model & in the correct proportions, could we not cut them out & use them as extremes? If the difference is more pronounced, please explain further as I'm not sure I understand fully :)

[samuelvictorjones]

I recently got the Princess Edition of Anastasia with a very many extra features, including a wonderful documentary & commentary from yourself & Gary. Firstly I'd like to say I love the movie! I found it interesting that in both features you mentioned enjoying making the film in Cinemascope format. However you often talk in the seminars & workshops about doing things with academy formatting, but planning for a 1:85 cut-off. Of course, cinemascope is even wider than this. I'm interested as to when you would recommend this very wide format, & if you'd also recommend using the cut-off method & draw & animate off-screen, or if when in cinemascope you use that format exclusively?

I mainly ask because I often artificially crop films I make to cinemascope as it makes cheaper films look higher budget, as the majority of high budget Hollywood action films seem to be made in this format. Are the majority of new animated features also using this format, or do they stick to 1:85.

[samuelvictorjones]

Last question I promise!

I've been making video references for the workshop video, & have learned a lot. I tried to very much overact the poses, thinking it'd work fine.

I've reached the conclusion that not only do the extreme poses of the video reference need exaggerating to make it look correct as a cartoon, but also the timing needs to be exaggerated, swinging in & out of poses in a more pronounced way. Is this the correct conclusion to reach?

This can sometimes throw the drawings out of sync with the audio slightly, is there a good technique when producing live action specifically for animation to help when using the reference for video?

[zanekohler]

Not sure if you already have and I missed it. But have you ever done show & tell with the puppy? It would be fun to see this unseen celebrity ;)