Strengthen What You Need

Superman (1978), played by the late Christoper Reeves, was a pretty cool cat. But even the Man of Steel can only do one thing at a time.

“Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand.” — Euripides, Poet

There’s a good saying about not being able to do everything, at least not all at once. The same goes with skill/talent development.

As artists, we can often feel compelled to not only multitask (which doesn’t work) but also to work on “everything” when it comes to developing our skills. But there’s only so much time, only so much energy. Furthermore, our current situation (work or otherwise) as well as our emotional state (i.e. do we even feel the urge?) both heavily impact our ability to further our skill sets. My advice is that you work on your MOST PRESSING NEEDS FIRST. Identify that, then go forward.

Now, the laundry list of items requiring development can be  daunting for any artist regardless of his/her current skill levels. Each element is difficult and takes a serious investment. A good example is drawing or acting abilities — no one can ever be too good or even good enough. But there are a few problems that might need addressing immediately if your animation struggles are substantial or holding you back. Here are the most common problems I see in the many cumulative years that I’ve been animating, directing and teaching.

PLANNING:

Planning out your work is not unlike making a travel plan across the continent. It takes thought, preparation and a budget.

Time and time again, where I see where most beginners, amateurs and even lower-level professionals suffer the most from is POOR PLANNING. Being prepared is more than just doing a few thumbnails or shooting some video reference. It’s about having a GAME PLAN. If you don’t know what your scene or character is about, or haven’t identified correctly the context or subtext, then you’re already on the wrong path. Questions must be asked and options must be explored. Furthermore, have some clear and FINAL IDEA what you’re doing, otherwise you’ll deviate once the going gets rough. WRITE IT DOWN. Don’t count on memory or your passion, both of which can change in an instant.

A good plan is a clear road map that sets you up for an exciting but possibly long and difficult trip. Know where you’re going, know what tools or skills you’ll need for your project, and have a solid sense of how long you plan to spend at each interval and on the total adventure. Having a game plan means clearly understanding how you’ll go from start to end. It’s about being prepared.

CINEMATOGRAPHY:

Mad Max Fury Road (2015). Good composition and choreography directs the eyes. You always know where to look in a George Miller movie no matter how frenetic the action may be.

Understanding camera, composition and choreography are some of the biggest deficiencies among working animators today. This is likely reflective of the current state of movies, television as well as the vast amount internet-quality productions by amateurs. This lack of care of good quality placement and movement of characters puts many animators off to a poor start. If you get used to seeing junk, you develop a taste or comfort with it.

If your skills in camera are poor there many books that teach the basics, including books such as Joseph Mascelli’s Five C’s of Cinematography, where you can get a better grasp on the placement and use of cameras. Knowing how scenes are set up and how they flow/edit together helps an animator understand not only the flow of a shot but also the director’s intent from a big picture perspective.

Learn the difference between good and poor composition, as well as choreography that’s interesting and clear versus that which bores and/or confuses. A study of art and film history featuring quality paintings, illustrations and movies will strengthen your eyes and enlighten your tastes.

SHAPE:

I love Andreas Deja’s animation of Scar. This compilation of scenes done for The Lion King show how powerful the use of shape and the changes between them can be when driven by solid acting.

Animators often struggle with finding the best poses for their animations. This problem comes from a poor understanding of how shapes work and what they mean. Without a proper period of artistic study and education, things like the power of straights versus curves and basic design elements such as the relativity of size, duration and visual textures, animators will never achieve appeal or charm in their work. This is why I’ve never met an animator who drew well be a poor animator. Drawing teaches us how to use our eyes. It’s never even been about physical hand-eye coordination.

The study of shapes and lines informs the mind what the image says to the viewer. This takes time and practice like anything else of course, but it’s astonishing how so many CG animators out there seem to dread the act of drawing or choose to diminish its value. It baffles the mind that an “artist” would want to avoid drawing. A laughable paradox if there ever was one. Studying nature, studying the creations of good artists, as well drawing from imagination, are all magnificent ways to improve your ability to make good poses. Draw, copy, or trace if you have to.

WEIGHT:

Stromboli from Walt Disney’s Pinocchio. Bill Tytla’s animation of this Disney villain shows what can be achieved when one has a thorough understanding of forces. This pose has not only fantastic weight and power but feels like it’s in perpetual movement even though it’s just a single drawing.

The lack of understanding in weight is the number one obstacle for beginning animators. It’s simply not something you can just fake or copy. It’s either there or not. The fundamentals behind understanding weight and knowing how to execute work that has weight comes down to one word, forces. Good animation displays the elements of force working at all times, and the best animation uses forces to accentuate or even amplify the quality of scene (e.g. the powerful artistry of Glen Keane comes to mind).

There are only several primary forces when animating: gravity (which pulls a character/object down constantly), a character’s inner force (i.e. the will and physical effort used to oppose forces in its way), and external characters or objects (which might exert their own force upon your character(s). Only by accounting for all the forces in play will a scene carry real and believable weight.

PATH OF ACTION (POA):

This analysis I made of Frank Thomas’ animation of Baloo shows the importance and beauty of arcs and overall paths of action. From Disney’s The Jungle Book.

Understanding arcs is a the key to getting movement right. But arcs are only a small portion of the path any object takes. The path of action (POA) is the total physical and visual journey of say a hand or head of character in movement. This needs to be clear and believable, which means the animator must be aware of its placement and path the whole time within the world space.

Unfortunately, most artists just haphazardly go about animating the movements of their characters not thinking about the time, spacing or path and how it impacts the final results. With good awareness, you can plot out visually, or mentally in your mind’s eye, how any particular part of your character is traveling in space. That’s the key — seeing and visualizing things moving in space — visual rhythm. When this is neglected, animators could easily find that their scene either lacks appeal or moves far too much (or both). Appeal is not something that comes exclusively from shapes (i.e. poses) but also from movement.

SUMMARY:

These areas of our craft are all very basic yet difficult to master. Simplicity is the aim. So this means that if you struggle in one of these areas especially, work specifically on them. Isolate your issues and dedicate serious time addressing your deficiencies. For example, if you’re really struggling with spacing, then grab a bouncing ball and test out what different kinds of spacing looks like while NOT having to deal with fancy arcs or multiple limbs. Work only on one thing at a time Don’t worry about other problems so much, at least for now. It’s the best and most simple way to learn — isolating your focus. It’s akin to limiting the number of balls you need to juggle in the air. Of course being simple is often the hardest thing to do because we’re so obsessed with doing more, all the time.

“The bane of Americans is overwork-and the ruin of any work is a divided interest. Concentrate-concentrate. One thing at a time.” —Mark Twain, Writer

Favorite Films: Science Fiction

Science Fiction films can be the funnest films anyone can watch. To ponder about the future and the fate of humanity is always bound to intrigue the mind. Unfortunately, like many bad comedies or empty action flicks, they can easily be handled with crassness and flooded with superficial externalities. In this case, this means seemingly justifiable pyrotechnics and senseless use of VFX — eye candy that exists for its own purpose rather than serving the film — because producers and audiences alike think that that’s what this genre is all about. Of course, they’re wrong; the real beauty of science fiction lies in its ability to move our minds and then surprise us with its visual strangeness and beauty.

Here’s a small selection of the films, both old (and slightly newer), that I watch periodically that bring out the best reasons to watch science fiction spectacles.

2001: A Space Odyssey (directed by Stanley Kubrick)

Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking original film based on Arthur C. Clarke’s novel practically defines the genre. The best modern sci-fi movies (such as Gravity, Interstellar etc) all pay tribute to its grand scale, epic cinematography and moments of solitary repose.

But here in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey we go deep into the biggest questions about our existence — where we come from and where we’re ultimately heading. Beginning with the sudden appearance of the monolith during the age of the primordial apeman to the arrival of the star-child, the film covers the largest existential scope imaginable. The slow measured pace of the filmmaking gives the movie weight, balancing the ethereal with real physical tension. We can feel the scale of things — time, space, life — all the while observing the unknown yet somehow feeling a part of it. The film travels through four major segments in time and location; the discovery of tools in earthbound pre-human history, man’s journey into space, the arrival of self-aware artificial intelligence, and lastly, the death/rebirth of man. Each of the phases becomes more intellectually challenging than the previous, a fact that drove both audiences and critics alike to lose their minds in their analysis and criticism of the movie upon its initial release. Even today, there’s still no agreeable consensus as to the film’s exact happenings and their meanings, the philosophical and the allegorical seemingly open-ended.

Despite such convoluted confusion — done on purpose according to Kubrick — the film draws you in deeply. The strong single-point perspective camera provides not just clear focal beauty but a mood that complements the movie’s grandness. This feeling of scale is furthermore complemented by arguably the most powerful opening score in film history, all helping to make 2001: A Space Odyssey the ultimate science fiction experience.

Alien (directed by Ridley Scott)

Another film I watch annually is Ridley Scott’s sensational and terrifying masterpiece Alien. Promoted as a typical “monster in the house” sci-fi/horror flick, Alien is so much more. It’s a film the begins in sleep and ends in sleep, noting perhaps that humans have been comatose the whole time, not knowing the reasons for anything. We begin with a bunch of rocket scientists onboard a spacecraft set on a routine interstellar mission. But before long this crew finds itself deviating from its plans, and on its way, picks up an unsuspecting hijacker. We don’t know where it comes from or what it is, but it comes to terrify and ultimately destroy the entire crew save for one pilot, Ripley, played with strength and sensitivity by Sigourney Weaver.

I saw Alien by myself when I was quite young, in a foreign city (which is probably why I was even let into the theatre). It scared the heck out of me. And some of the scenes still throttle me today because the suspense is so brilliant, that even when you’ve seen the film, it still gets you. Aliens (the sequel by James Cameron) is also entertaining, but in a different sort of way. Weaver again, is brilliant in it, in what I would truly call a strong woman’s role (as opposed to what’s being proffered today — sexy actresses who fight fearlessly with their superpowers.) Here in Alien, Weaver’s Ripley is scared, vulnerable and resourceful. You feel her plight and admire her courage. Supplemented by H.R. Giger’s legendary designs and a quiet yet ominous score, Alien is a great film, perhaps even Ridley Scott’s finest.

Total Recall (directed by Paul Verhoeven)

I love Paul Verhoeven. His films aren’t afraid to be a little silly and fun (check out another sci-fi gem, the original Robocop). Yet, at the same time, his filmmaking skills are formidable. With astute camera work, brilliant pacing and prescient imagery, you really get into his adventures. Total Recall, starring the one and only Arnold Schwarzeneggar, is Verhoeven at his best. Set in a modern yet industrial future, it features a perplexed construction worker who’s obsessed with a series of dreams about Mars. In his search to alleviate these tensions, he goes to Rekall, a vacation company that sells virtual tours — dreams “so real you’re mind won’t know the difference.” When things go wrong, the protagonist Quaid, played by Arnold, ends up on a dangerous adventure on route to finding out his true identity.

Loaded with memorable sets and action sequences, Total Recall, is bursting with brilliant twists and turns and is just loads of visual fun. The casting is perfect — both Arnold and Sharon Stone are fabulous here — and despite the unbelievability of it all, you willingly fall right into the chase. (The same cannot be said about its remake, starring Colin Farrell despite Farrell being a superior-trained actor.) It’s a film I just want to see every once in a while, like going for a great double cheese burger with all the works.

The Day the Earth Stood Still  (directed by Robert Wise)

This is an old time gem. Despite it’s dated (1951) visual effects and simple black and white film stock, Robert Wise’s The Day The Earth Stood Still continues to carry with it real drama and feeling. The story begins with the arrival of a stranger from outer space, played by Michael Rennie, who comes to warn our species of its insensitive and harmful ways of doing things — supposedly our proclivity for war and the recent development of nuclear weapons.

Arriving in humanoid form, Rennie’s Klaatu, is calm, wise and patient despite being surrounded and later captured by the US Military upon his arrival in a “flying saucer” (yes, this is very mid-century). He later escapes, and upon befriending a widow and her young son, makes known his real reasons for being here and who he really is. With orders to destroy the earth’s inhabitants should we not comply, Klaatu’s robot Gort (which represents a fleet of the same such powerful technology that patrols interplanetary peace) sustains a menacing presence despite his low-tech appearance by today’s standards. But in Robert Wise’s film, it’s the ideas that resonate, and the care and attention to the plot and its characters. Despite its age, I still love this film. There’s a sincerity in the delivery and in the message that it conveys — that is, the preciousness of life and peace here on this tiny planet.

Brazil (directed by Terry Gilliam)

One of the strangest dystopian movies of our time, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is a delectable visual treat. Unique in its character development and loaded with the kind of bizarre antics that are to be expected from one of the geniuses of the Monty Python crew, Brazil nonetheless makes a strong and cohesive statement about conformity and tyrannical government power. In fact, the film is all about control and the battle for physical freedom and intellectual sanity.

The wonderful set pieces alone are iconic and the characters — from Jonathan Pryce’s  befuddled Sam Lowry to Robert DeNiro’s terrorist spy Harry Tuttle — bring flavor to the scenes. Gilliam’s frequent use of wide lenses and cantered upshots, give an already strange world a buffoon-like quality, filled with ludicrous scenarios and absurdly loud human behaviour that makes this all the more surreal. It’s as if the director threw in everything that he found obnoxious in our current human civilization, amped it up a couple of notches and filled the entire world that way, everywhere, all the time.

Brazil is a powerful warning about consumer driven distraction, industrial dominance and totalitarian bureaucracy. It tantalizes with its visuals and its break-neck pacing and finishes up with a perfectly convoluted dream-like climax. It’s a film that makes you wonder what’s true and what’s not from beginning to end.

Gattaca (directed by Andrew Niccol)

This is a true thinking person’s film. Without any dependence on special effects or fancy set pieces, Andrew Niccol’s Gattaca gravitates ours concerns about mortality and the impact of one of our most prominent technologies, genetic engineering. Starring Ethan Hawke, the film features a young man who finds a job passing himself off as another person, a genetically superior human, a champion swimmer played by a very charming Jude Law, who due to a night of drunkenness is now a paraplegic. Hawke’s character Vincent aspires to travel to outer space, where life is better and free from genetic discrimination. But being born outside the world of eugenics he has no hope of achieving his dreams, at least not until he signs up to fake an identity of Law’s character, Jerome, who needs the money and the illusion that his life still has some sort of meaning.

In his pretending to be Jerome, Vincent encounters all the troubles associated with faking it in a world where everything is tracked: height, fitness levels, eye scans, and even hair and skin follicles — basically anything and everything that could identify and locate an individual in a fully-monitored society. Yet here’s the catch; because everything’s computer tracked, no one doubts the most obvious — namely that Vincent looks nothing like Jerome but since no one looks or doubts when the machines say “match,” it all works. And it all does for Vincent as he gets a job at the space launch academy Gattaca (set tastefully inside a Frank Lloyd Wright building my wife used to work at it) until a murder happens. Then things get messy.

The art direction, acting and atmosphere are subdued and appropriate. And, unlike most other science fiction movies, it’s one that portrays a future that could very well become true in the not too distant future. This makes Gattaca one of the smartest and most provocative films of its genre.

Blade Runner (directed by Ridley Scott)

Ridley Scott’s other masterpiece Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, is the ultimate dystopian set piece. In a world of flying cars, a vanquished sun, and androids, the big existential questions dominate this beautifully produced film. Set in Los Angeles during the year 2019 (as usual, science fiction is always wrong on the dates when it comes to technology), Blade Runner feels a bit like a futuristic cops and criminals mystery thriller, but it isn’t. Ford, who plays a “Blade Runner,” is a special agent out to spot and “retire” (kill) replicants, androids who are no longer licensed to live. In this case, the escapees are Nexus ex-military units that have come back to earth after abandoning their assignments as warrior/worker slaves. The idea of self-aware robots that look human challenges the very existence of our species and the reasons for our survival, especially given that AI robots would be superior to real humans in almost every way; beauty, strength and intelligence. But here’s the catch; these Nexus androids were programmed with an expiry date. This makes for an excellent premise.

Much has been made of the recent sequel, Blade Runner 2049 starring Ryan Gosling. It’s carries with it the same existential questions and makes a valiant attempt to provide more answers. But because it does, or tries to, it weakens the mystery. What makes science fiction like Scott’s original film so great is it takes pleasure, and gives you that same pleasure, in not knowing the truth. We live for this mystery because questions hungrily drives us forward. Complemented by Harrison Ford’s bewildered presence and Rutger Hauer’s chilling performance as Roy Batty, as well as its distinctive production design, Blade Runner will always remain a landmark film and a true favorite.

To see other Favorite Films go here.