| home / 3D / stopstaring / 1 |    [previous][next] |
|
|
|
I really wanted to intensify her through listen up buddy. I felt that she wasn't telling her focus what's up, and the dialogue really is telling somebody "the deal." I dropped the brows low, but didn't give them any real expression. Starting at there's two kinds I gave the brows a little bit of sad shape, which, with the brows down low, and the head tilted forward, and the kind of line this is, creates an air of arrogance. Remember, I was looking for a way to hit that part of the line earlier in the process-and finally found it here! I both raised and saddened the brows for big dumb, using that blink and mouth click as the place to transition, which is now turning into a great little attitude moment. As she returns down, there's really two things to accent, stupid and you. To save myself range, I decided to not drop the brows on stupid, but instead just shift them to angry, and then drop them and lose the expression on you. The reason I did it that way instead of dropping them first and then adding mad on you, is that I liked the look of the dropped expressionless brows better, and putting them second, makes that expression more her "final" destination than a transitional pose. This last pose also looks like the expressions near the start, giving her a more consistent performance.
The next shift is the skyward gaze, for which I did a pose similar to the one I did for the first. It's a good idea to do that if you can; it creates almost an anime three-frame cycle, where you bounce between your established poses. Used well, going through your three-pose cycle strengthens the scene-people are more likely to remember it. Just don't do it for everything!
For this one I was pretty happy with the overall feeling, so all I did was put some of the left-to-right motions of the eyes into the head movement as well. After that, since this scene is a little longer, I moved all of the animation three frames earlier, just to see what would happen, if the illusion that thought came before action would work. In the emotion, the eyes, and the head, it was great, but my sync fell out of-well, sync. I hit Undo, and then shifted only the other four sliders (excluding Ctrl_Sync) ahead, and that worked great. That few frames of difference really helps the mind behind that square.
Default Grey
So, if you were in a world filled with colorful, photo-real, perfectly textured models-with hair and shaders and soft-body dynamics and all that jazz-wouldn't you be a little grumpy to just be a grey box? Box Head is. From the companion CD, import DefaultGrey.wav into a scene with Box Head. I blocked the range at 0 to 550 frames. A finished version of the scene file is on the CD as well: DefaultGrey.ma. "I'm default grey. Stupid grey. Boring. Doof. You'll get yours, red. Flashy, oo! Look at me, I'm red! Oh you, srr err razafraz…".
Time check: This should take almost a full hour from start to finish.
An AVI of each step as it's completed can be found on the CD:
This is the first example involving a big breath. I treat breaths just like musical sounds: an inhale is up and an exhale is down. For this opening sigh of discontentment, I crept the head up until the peak, and then dropped pretty swiftly on the exhale. The first actual phrase, I'm default grey, also has a great up and down to it. As with all sounds like that, I crept the head up during I'm default and then nodded the head down on grey, right where the sound levels out. It gives the word some impact, just like the vocal performance. After that, the actor makes a sheesh, or quick exhale sound, I'm going to do a motion like a nod, but upward, as if he's tossing that sound out. It visually matches the sound and its "whatever" tone. I'm going to drop the head for stupid, and then do another of those reverse nods for grey. When an actor delivers a scene consistently, you're likely to run into these repeated sorts of motions. Until boring, there's a hold, nothing big happens, but boring is tossed out pretty hard, so I decided to nod on that sound but return the head to where it was previously. I did the same on doof. To get more impact on doof, though, I actually crept the head higher after boring. To nod the head down to the same level as boring was a bigger movement from this higher start-point.
All through the oo flashy oo look at me I'm red, I crept the head higher and higher, but I bounced it up and down as I did. The sound was very banshee-sounding with warbling, so I mimicked that in the head's up and down motion. After that the actor breaks into a lower-level oh you, son of errr arr and various other noises. I just dropped the head down for that, and that was the end of my work on the head Up and Down for now.
I dropped the eyes for the defeated-sounding sigh at the start. Now, with all these things going on, this guy's really starting to look pathetic Eyes down, as I've said before, doesn't automatically create sadness, it just works sometimes,-like now. I decided to make straight down his "reality" point, so I held it for a long time; that makes it look as if he's actually focused on something. What it is is irrelevant, but it's something. When he then moves his eyes (character) right briefly, that just looks like where his eyes settled as he was thinking, not necessarily a focus. I moved the eyes there for the sheesh, and then quickly moved them to the other lower corner on stupid, and then picked another position on (character) left as yet another sort of "thought" point for grey. He stays there through boring, and then goes back to his dejected "home" position on doof.
Next was a very specific timing thing. I'm not crazy about characters looking at each other too intently if it's not clear why they would. I have Box Head look at whatever "red" item is next to him, but made the shift on the word yours before red. I could have done it earlier in the line, but that might denote some real conflict between Box Head and the color red. By making it ever so slightly before the word, it creates more of a sense that he's just angry and looking for someone to blame. I thought that was a better direction. If you want to see the difference, in your scene make the eyeline change earlier; the sense of more contempt and history between Box Head and "red" is obvious.
From here, the eyes stay on their new home focus until he gets into the heavy mocking sounds, where I shot the eyes upward. Mocking often leads to eyes upward; I don't know why, it's just an established thing in both life and cartoons. As the warbling sounds continue, I moved the eyes back toward his focus, and held them there for the rest of the scene. This now does what I was talking about earlier where I chose not to shoot the eyes over too early. He's really decided to make it personal, so now that's fitting. It also was a form of stepping over several poses. By not having "red" be the object of too much intensity earlier, we can go back to that pose and make it stronger with a hold, ending on a stronger note.
| home / 3D / stopstaring / 1 | [previous][next] |
Legal Notices, Licensing, Reprints, Permissions, Privacy Policy.
Advertise | Newsletters | Shopping | E-mail Offers | Freelance Jobs 
Created: March 11, 2003
Revised: November 7, 2003
URL: http://webreference.com/3d/stopstaring/1
