Position of the Month – Animator – Conversations with Artists

The following is a conversation with, Paul Griffin, a freelance animation director for feature films.

Tell me about yourself.
I started out as a traditional character animator and quickly moved into CG when it came along around 1983 and started directing animation by 1985. There’s been a lot of variety in the work over the years: commercials, TV shows, video game cinematics, music videos and movies. You can get an idea of scope of the films by looking here later: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0341331/

What are some of the challenges animators face? How do you overcome those challenges?
The way I see it… The biggest challenge animator any animator faces is to make characters  believable and have them seem real to an audience. This holds true for both cartoon and for VFX creatures.  A character can
move and move well, but the real challenge is to make them convey emotion to the point of connecting with most people. Good actors can do this as can good animators. I always like to study great performances, analyze what makes the performance great, watch how an actor can emotionally change gears and try to learn from that. It really helps as an animator to loosen up and get in touch with being able to do that. Taking an acting or improv class can help or just being willing to get in front of a video camera or a mirror and learn to read what the tells are that help you convey the emotion you’re reaching for.

Secondly… Mechanically, the toughest challenge is to have CG characters convey weight and mass. CG has a tendency to make creatures feel light due to several factors. Often the heavier flesh that provides overlapping action is missing. Sometimes the very physiology can lend to this as well — for instance bipeds rigged with a reverse leg often look like they are tiptoeing, and not given to feeling that they have great
weight. Again, video reference can be a fantastic aid. Look at the way things move in nature. Also get out of your chair and feel how a character might move — if you can feel the performance in your body, develop “muscle memory” of it, you’ll have an easier time animating it.  Don’t forget simple maxims — like big things move more slowly. In fact, collect a bunch of truisms that are general for animation that you can use as guidelines, as well as rules you can can and can’t break. Those rules will be less rigid for cartoon animation and more rigid for VFX creatures.

What is the difference between animating for a full CG film and a visual effects film with a mix of live action and CG?
Its not as different as people might think. Both the full CG film and VFX live action film require great awareness of the acting and performance skills I mentioned above.  The distinction is being able
to discern the qualities needed for each area. Cartoon animation thrives on stretch-and-squash and the action can be quite broad when called for. The Anticipation/Action/Reaction that gets drummed into cartoon animators’ heads comes into play here. Performances are more akin to the screen actions of Charlie Chaplin or Theda Bera.

VFX creatures are much more subtle and nuanced. Sometimes the anticipation or reaction will be barely perceptible. The action  is what is most significant. The broad actions that are so much fun in cartoon animation get set aside, and the animator has to rely on a different aesthetic to convey both the physical action and the emotional context. Identify actors you consistently like and figure out why. What makes them appealing? If you can figure that out, you’ll go a long way towards identifying qualities you’ll want to put in your work.

Having worked successfully in both cartoon animation and in vfx, something I find interesting is a general bias that exists in both camps.  Cartoon studios think only classically trained cartoon animators can do their time of work while some VFX studios think that cartoon animators will over animate vfx creatures. While its true that some animators can’t work both sides of the fence, I’d say that, on the whole this really isn’t true. Pigeon holing animators into one genre or the other is a mistake.  Good animators, I’ve found, are
extremely versatile actors and can easily slip from one role into another and slide into a cartoon rabbit suit or pilot a dinosaur just fine.  It all depends on their skill as an actor and their awareness of the physics of motion.

As an Animation Supervisor, what do you look for in an animator?
As an Animation Supervisor I look for:
good timing.
willingness to discuss ideas.
ability to take direction and then,
looking for opportunities to “plus” the action, make it better.

As an Animation Director I look for:
good acting choices.
intelligence and humour.

In all cases I go great lengths to avoid:
a consistently bad or negative attitude towards the work.
a non-willingness to learn or try new ways of doing things.
disrespect for other crew members.

How does knowledge of mel scripting help as an animator?
Sure, learning mel can help but if an animator is so inclined to learn a scripting language, I’d recommend the better thing to learn these days is Python. Its much more universal and can be used for much more than just inside Maya. Knowing a scripting language can certainly help but so does a knowledge of rigging, modeling and most areas of CG production that will make the animator a more well rounded resource.

If you had the opportunity to take some courses or workshops to help you advance in your career, what would you take?
Well here’s a few things I’ve done over the years that I’ve found helpful (in no particular order):

– Acting for Animators – specialty classes for animators are out there. (See Ed Hooks)

– Improv/Theatre Arts – or join a theatre group. Community college have lots of these. Grow as an actor.

– Art Direction – a great way to add visual design elements that will help you stage your animation in better ways.

– Basic Photography – another way to start observing and seeing composition in nature and the real world.

– Screenwriting – understand what the story is and learn what motivates your characters.

– Architectural Design – excellent training for 3D space, composition, set design.

– Programming – helps you make tools to automate the repetitive tasks, or just learn how to talk effectively to a programmer. Basic through advanced Unix/Linux – what serious studios use as an OS.

– Ongoing life drawing – find lines of action in the human form. Primary, secondary and tertiary. Study tension and grace.

– Music – is timing, the space between the notes is important, as is the space between drawings. Animation is music.

– Editing – helps animators learn to cut on action. Learn to lead the audience’s eye to focus on what’s important. Gain respect for every frame.

– Film Appreciation – learn the language of film and what master film makers can teach us. Wilder, Hitchcock, Capra, Cukor, Hawks and many others inspired today‘s best film makers.

– Pre-Med Biology – Kinesiology (Study of Human Motion), Anatomy – lot of homework, but knowing the underlying structure of how bone, ligaments, muscles and fat affect the skin is really helpful.

Position of the Month – Compositor – Interview

In the final component of this month”s “Position of the Month” is an interview with Janeen Elliott, a Senior Compositor at Image Engine. I want to give her a big thanks for taking the time time answer my questions. Now on with the interview…

• Tell me about yourself.

I’m a compositor with over 10 years experience in the industry.  Prior
entering the industry, I graduated from York University with a BFA split
major of design and drawing, as well as studied at Seneca college for 3D
animation.  I consider myself an artist first and foremost.   I started
down the path of becoming a compositor when, in school for 3D animation,
my instructor told me that I’d “make a good compositor;”  to which I
answered “what’s that?”   At that time there were no schools for
compositing as a specific discipline and I had no idea what it
entailed.  After learning about it, I pursued it & thankfully have done
well with it since then.   I have had the great opportunity to work on
such films as the Matrix sequels, Poseidon, Pirates of the Caribbean II,
and Star Wars Episode 3 among others.

• What are some of the challenges compositors face? How do you overcome those challenges?

Probably the biggest challenge faced by a compositor is that we are at
the end of the production line, as far as in house VFX work goes.
Therefore, if any particular step along the production lags, or is
forced to make many changes, their timelines may have the capacity to
slip, whereas ours generally do not, or only do by slight margins.   In
an effort to overcome this, a good compositor must know the limitations
of the software, and of themselves.  They must be adept at coming up
with solutions and workaround to solve for any problem, creatively.
Knowing what you’re dealing with before hand can help a great deal –
looking at reference, benchmark shots, other films that may have
influenced the one you are currently working on, etc.  This can get you
in the proper mindset for what look a VFX sup is looking to achieve, and
help to get you to that point quickly.   Other than that, patience is
definitely a virtue, as I’ve found often that in a crunch, scripts can
get very large, and when they get large can increase your render times,
and make your script prone to crashes.   With patience one can work
through the script calmly & efficiently adding only what’s necessary.

• What is the difference between Nuke, Shake, and Digital Fusion?

I can’t speak to Digital Fusion as I’ve never used it.   Shake and Nuke
are similar programs in that they are both node based systems.    As
with any software, there are pros and cons – especially on a personal
level (there are things with both that I personally love and hate).    I
would say that there are 3 main differences between Shake and Nuke.
The first one is that Shake will treat incoming plates and elements as
raw images.   It will not treat your plate at all unless you tell it to
do so.   By that I mean if you have a .cin plate for example, you would
have to do a Log2Lin conversion to get it to float linear space.
Likewise, there will be no viewer lut whatsoever applied unless you
specify one.   Nuke on the other hand, assumes that you will be working
in float linear space, and will convert all incoming images to float
linear by default, unless you specify not to.   Also, by default, it
will apply an sRGB lookup to the viewer.   As a person coming from using
Shake for a number of years, I found this process of doing-it-for-you a
bit confusing, but once you get used to it makes sense.  The second
thing that is different is that Nuke uses channels in it’s scripts.
Shake will use many different inputs to plug into different nodes as a
way to power the result, but with Nuke you pipe mattes, layers, or
elements into channels which you can access within almost every node to
affect it.   This process keeps Nuke trees quite clean, without all the
noodles found in Shake, although one must be aware to watch out for
which channel is affecting what.  The third main difference is that Nuke
has 3D capabilities.  Shake does not have any 3D capabilities, and in
that way gives Nuke a whole different level of functionally.   With it
there is the capacity to project images or textures, do rough lighting,
set up a nice pan & tile setup, import cameras from 3D packages, etc.  I
have only been using Nuke for almost a year now, but it’s 3D
capabilities have helped out immensely.

• In your opinion, what are some key soft skills that are essential as a compositor?

There are many “soft skills” that are unwritten as a compositor.  One of
them is to take and give criticism well, although taking is generally
more important.   Every day you are given direction on where to go with
your shots, and you must be able to handle any criticism of your work
professionally and with a somewhat unbiased eye.   As I’ve said
repeatedly in the past, whatever film you may be working on is “not art
for you, it’s art for someone else” and you must deal with it
accordingly.  The other side of that skill is a difficult one of being
able to interpret what someone is asking of you – aesthetically
speaking.  I have worked with VFX sups before who are less than precise
in what they have asked for, in which case you must use your aesthetic
skills, and draw on what you’ve seen in the reference to interpret what
he or she is truly looking for.   Barring that, you must have the
diplomacy to be able to ask them to clarify their direction.   It can be
a delicate business.   The other main soft skill is a good eye for
detail and subtlety – compositing lives and dies in the subtle nuances
of what we do.  Of course, other great skills are self management,
organization, being able to work as part of a team.

• How does traditional painting and illustrating skills help you as a compositor?

I find that my traditional training has helped me immensely in my
career.   All the training that went into understanding colour, balance,
movement, etc. I draw upon every day.  And of course, the study of art
history lends itself to my work as most filmmakers are also influenced
to a degree by great fine artists, and having that knowledge in the back
of my mind helps along the aesthetic of the shots that I’m producing.
While some people do indeed have “an eye” for visual arts and can pick
things up quickly in this industry without formal training, I do feel as
though we deal in a visual medium, and without a strong basis in visual
training it would be more difficult to trust oneself and one’s decisions
in producing shots.

• If you had the opportunity to take some courses or workshops to help you advance in your career, what would you take?

Since I’m recently new to Nuke, some advanced Nuke training would be
great in order to get more out of it as a software package.  These are
things that eventually come to you through experience, but it’s always
nice to learn from others – especially experienced users – as they’ve
generally got some great tricks, or alternate ways of doing things that
could speed up your workflow.   Also, I think a refresher photography
class would be helpful.  There are basics of film – lens and physical
film – that every good compositor knows, but I think a refresher basic
photography class would be a fun as well as informative way to boost
your understanding of what we do – to see the world through the eyes of
a filmmaker, rather than a traditional artist.