Monday, February 06, 2006

new reference and GPT revisions

"I Promise"

















NEW Grease Pencil Test Revision
















NEW reference of me acting silly

Thanks to the great advice I got from my former classmates, and at work from Jason, I was able to go back and retackle this shot. Jason had advised that I redo the reference to explore more terrified, praying poses. He aslo suggested the inward posture and rocking back and forth which I think is going to work well. I then reworked my GPT, keeping in mind all the staging problems from last week. I decided to go with a flying bug (thanks Albert!) since that would be easier for the audience to see enter and it wouldn't cause a problem with the placement of the campfire. I also had to edit the audio to add a small beat before the "aargh!!" so he has time to "see" the bug.

I think the poses at the beginning still need more work, my friend and co-worker Rebecca also just gave me some advice to have him look more "kid-like", perhaps having his foot up on the log. I am also not happy with the timing of the scared looks around, I feel like that needs more punch to it, to make him look more nervous. Rebecca suggested having him moving his eyes before he starts to move his head, almost like he is trying to remain very still to hear the noises. The ending scared jump part feels a little off to me still, the pose in the air and the landing poses aren't working for some reason. Hopefully I will get some good crits and be able to go back and revise this again.



















CLASS 2 REVISITED: OLGA

This is blast from the past, my first assignment of Class 2, the incredibly hard Body Mechanics Class, this was from our "personality walk from a stopped position" assignment. I really messed up most of this assignment, especially the walk which I decided to cut out entirely. But I thought some of the beginning with the posing in the doorway could be salvaged. I really liked the persoanlity and mood of this piece so I decided to go back and start fixing the million mistakes in it. So far I have been cleaning up balance, the spine and foot placement. The legs are popping all over the place since I haven't gotten to that part yet, and the arms are a wreck, this was back when I was using FK arms, o the horror!! Well let me know what you think, I have more work to do on this for sure, but do you think it's worth saving?

6 Comments:

At 3:46 PM, Blogger erica said...

Fun stuff! I think you could keep going with the runway walk, it's got some good posing and attitude in it. Just a few timing issues, but that shouldn't be terribly hard to iron out, it already looks better even with the pops.

Good reference footage, too, I like the rocking motion you've got going on while you shake your head. Do you find that it's hard to sit in front of a camera and act? It's tough for me to "get in the moment," my acting is terrible at first. Takes like 20 tries before I get something decent! I guess I just need more practice...

 
At 8:43 AM, Blogger anthea said...

Hi Erica! Thanks for your comments. I think I will continue with the runway walk after all, there are a lot of good parts to it, and it is worth fixing all the popping that is happening now. At least I'll have to do on the weekend.

Yeah reference footage can be tough. This was actually my 3rd attempt at it. I use reference at many different stages in my planning, so I might take a few passes at the reference before I get into detailed acting.

If I am having trouble deciding on an audio clip, I might try to act out a few different pieces of audio. After I have selected 1 audio, I tape more reference trying to work out blocking and staging, so I might try some standing, some sitting, different camera angles etc. Then after the staging and general idea is worked out I try another round of reference focusing more on the character, trying different takes of acting out the scene, by this time I usually have a more clear idea of how it is going to work and what kind of acting I want to come across.

I did get some help from my x mentor Jason Ryan on this last pass of reference. Even though I'm not in AM at the moment, I am lucky I get to see him here at work. He was the one who suggested to me to try to get a more clear terrifyed pose, and the ideas came from that, so I took another crack at the reference.

I tape a lot of takes and then end up spending most of the time editing it to study only the most clear ideas. Then I start sketching from that.

 
At 12:52 AM, Blogger kenny r said...

Hey anthea, I/we always love reference of you being silly. :) No, really, reference is serious work here. I some of your ideas where you're going with this.

 
At 10:07 PM, Blogger Dan Segarra said...

Anthea! I've put a request on Impro at my local library and they finally called me to pick it up last Friday. I haven't had the chance to go so hopefully I can get it tommorrow. I'm anxious to start reading it.

Your promise Grease Pencil test looks good. I THINK??? (big question mark on think!), that even though it's a natural reaction jumping back, I think he should still antic down ( VERY VERY slightly and quickly? ...like 1 or 2 frames quickly?) Just to muster up SOME type of energy in order to shoot back out so far. I dunno, what do you think?

Nice work! ;)

 
At 11:18 PM, Blogger Sara Wade said...

Wow girl! You've been busy! I like your new GPT of "i promise." I think you could get more stretch on the jump back though and maybe some strong spine reversal going on the jump, land, settle sequence.

Your new reference is awesome. Did you get a new haircut? Your hair looks super cute. Last time I saw you it was really long...but I guess that was quite a while back. I am SO jealous that you get Jason's advice at work. I really wish he was still mentoring at AM.

Thanks for your awesome crits on my showdown piece. I am going to try to find time to revise it this week. I'll send you a note when I get something posted. :-)

 
At 9:47 AM, Blogger anthea said...

hey everyone, thanks for all the feedback!!

hey kenny, yeas shooting reference in a very important step, it's just funny and embarrasing to see yourslef sometimes.

dan, great suggestion on the antic down, that section is a little underdeveloped at this point, i am still not happy w the poses, so i should get back in there and start fleshing it out, I think I would defientely need some sort of antic before the jump up. thx!! o yeah and impro was a great read.

hey sara!! well busy is relative, my job takes up most of my time, and this weekend the weather was so nice that i ended up not getting much done. I want to try your idea of getting more stretch and spine reversals, it definetely needs work at this point. thanks to all the great crits, i have a direction to focus on!!

yeah it's great being able to see Jason at work from time to time. He's super busy so I try not to bother him too much. There are some other animators I've been bugging as well, there's no shortage of genius animator's here, lol! sometimes I'm embarrased to show them my awful chicken scratch, but hey, that's the only way i'm going to get better right?

 

Post a Comment

<< Home