Week 5 Blocking continued

Topic: Reviewing the rough animation, phrasing actions and poses

Notes: Phrasing actions and poses to dialogue beats. ‘Phrasing’ is defining beats in your shots. Sometimes we need to combine beats so that the scene is not ‘over animated’. Other times we need to emphasize beats to make the acting clearer.

Lecture/Demo: Adding counter balance to the rotation of the spine, based on the movement of the root.Working out the movement of the feet, even if they are offscreen.

Activity: Watch Richard Williams DVD Dialogue 1, Phrasing actions and dialogue

Dailies: Critique blocking

Assignment: finish blocking

Animating Dialogue

When you are planning the acting remember: We're not illustrating words, we're illustrating thoughts. The expression chosen is illustrating the thoughts of a character and not the words he is saying.

Listen to the track and visualize. Look for a change of attitude. Look for Humor and Entertainment. Be sure you have the right staging to show all the expressions in your scene to the best advantage.

Keep it simple and have fun!

This week we are working towards final blocking.

As you are refining your poses:

• Add head nods, ground the action all the way down the spine. Copy the curves to the chest and hips, and scale them down.
• Add counter balance to the rotation of the spine, based on the movement of the root.
• When the hip is tilted right, the chest counter rotates left for balance. If necessary, work out the movement of the feet, even if they are offscreen.
• Keep movements snappy - less time on inbetweens, more time on the poses.
• Rework and refine the poses for the arms, repositioning if need be while keeping the timing intact.
• Block in facial expessions. So far we have worked with the brows and eyes. Add mouth movements that are driven by emotional changes (as opposed to dialogue). The expression must be captured throughout the whole body as well as in the face.

• Adjust the timings of the poses to work with the dialogue more properly. Anticipate dialogue with head, body or gestures 3-4 frames ahead of the heavy modulation (accent)
• Lock down the poses. Remove any unnecessary movements, exaggerate and hold poses as needed for clarity. Resist the temptation to tell too much in one 'drawing' (pose).
• Resist the temptation to begin overlapping before the posing and timing of the shot has been worked out!

ASSIGNMENT : final blocking for next week.