Animation Lessons from a DreamWorks Animator | What is Subtext?

so I'm gonna do a quick intro of sure yes I am JP sands and you know me so I'll talk to them I'm JP sands I'm a second I'm a supervising animator here at DreamWorks I've been here for seven years over seven and a half I don't know I came in for well I guess before that I also I was a blue sky for about almost three years worked on Ice Age 3 and Rio and production prices for before that it was his school in college since I've been here I worked on guardians rides the guardians and mostly on pitch and after that I've unfortunately worked on three projects that back-to-back have been either put suicide or kind of shelved so a lot like out of the seven and a half years six and a half years have been on three projects that have been kind of shelved I know that yes oh yes it was it's fun times welcome to the industry stuff will happen yeah so I haven't been credited in anything I start from what I'm working on now which is I don't even know if I can mention it yeah it's a short that thankfully me and two other guys very talented guys are directing that would be my credit my next credit you know like a 6-year spam of nothing it's like I just like disappear from the industry so it's been fun but it's great because like you know you still learn and you still grow I've actually grown so much I feel like obviously in that's six years so even though I haven't finished the project and that no one knows about I'm still growing as an artist which is really what you want to do so it's your last public reeling your future public real are gonna be just well yeah and well very different because I'm directing this one so I didn't really hannah me you know but it is a character that I was souping before so I it's it's a mix you know it's like it's like it's like it feels like it's I'm part of this character but really talented animators animated a character so you know they put their signature on it which is awesome so yeah so be very different from like animation credit to this credit so I still feel like I just dropped out of the earth from as an animation career and I'll get back to it so that's my that's why I'm originally from South America I went all over the place like I started here apparently I was born here at DreamWorks and I like Benjamin Button know yeah so I was born in South America in Venezuela when I was like 10 I moved to Florida didn't know a word of English so I was fine so then I went to school then you know drawing all my life acting on my life and then blue sky and then here and now I'm sitting here in front of you with awesome sort of way so by the way if I fight sound really smart or like coherent it's because he edit the crap out of this because this is we're just I just literally sat down and we're just going you just you're you're telling me what I'm gonna talk about or ask me so if I sound good it's because of sir weight and your editing skills like wait wait a minute he's a really good editor man this loop is perfect you found the exact frame maybe I shouldn't move that way the Edit just you can't replace your mouth just replace my mouth I'll try not to blink to everything all right anyways yes so I'm excited about whatever questions they have and I'll try to answer as best I can with the knowledge that I have yes let's start with one of the questions that they that people ask but they don't know they're really asking okay they have other they have questions that really boil down to subtext and character yes because they wonder like Oh like how do you make this character feel a certain way or like how do you make it stand out and that it uh yes it's a passion about I am I'm absolutely passionate about it um that's another thing that I I also I'm part of CG terian which I teach animation course online and one of my courses is animation acting and animation which is all about making believable performances through carrot it's not just physical aspects of it but it's the personality the mentality the emotional and the psychological aspect of the character it sounds very complicated but it's me so I am very passionate about this because the more I'm into animation and I guess the reason why you're saying they might not know they're asking this question is because everybody starts the same way at least I started this way and I won't assume but most of us have where when you start animation it's about movement solely about movement that the ball starts moving and you're like I am an animator the ball is moving is alive you know and then you start doing a walk secondly it's even better the reality and something that I've learned and this is all from stuff that I've read and learned and asked and obviously it's not just from like you know when my wisdom is all from like hand-me-downs from like amazing animators and performers and even actors movement it's not what's gonna make your character come to life or make the character or believable or or or resonate with you it's not about the actual physical movement there's part of it obviously because you can physicalize emotional through movement but it's not really the movement of the character to to to actually bring them to life an example would be and you might be in this stage right now where you're animating and nothing's happening and he says man the character feels dead let me add something and then you add a little movement you had a shift or you had a scratch or and that solution is is that choice is your solution to have the character come to life but it really isn't because you're just feeling a void of movement to backtrack to the subtext and personality that's what to me what really brings a character to life is the uniqueness of a character how does the character think how does a character feel in us in a situation how he moves based on his personality those are the things to me that really make a character resonate with someone because of his specificity you know in the acting you know as animators we need to be versatile and animators an artist you will have to animate hiccup and then you'll have to jump and animate Astrid and they have to feel very different you can't animate you can't pick the same choices that you would do with one character and just put them on the other one and plug and play and say okay I animated these characters and they look alive because in reality everybody's different you know the way I'm talking the way I'm sitting is very different than Sir Wade you might do it better he might look better doing it but we're very different you know so when you might have made a carrot you have to think that way okay how can I make this character feel different than this character and feeling to me is like the biggest thing one thing that I tell I'm going all over the place based on does that one question but one of the things that I tell students all the time is grab a rig whatever rig you have and animate three different characters with it and don't change anything physically don't change the color don't add a hat don't do anything like that and I made exactly the same rig but can you animate it so differently that it feels like a different rig like it feels like a different character like a different personality it could be the same exercise even better you know if like if a character is sitting and he sees something off screen and then it makes him want to go there you know it can be anything how would that character be different from the second one that you animate which will be he said so that he sees something and he wants to go there that really starts to shift your brain I'm like okay it's not about movement because you made this character move okay what's his personality what is he thinking what is he feeling and now do it with another character what can you change it's almost like when you see your frame from really far away and you don't you can't see the face but you can see the silhouette and he's walking and you know it's your friend it's because he has a certain walk he has a certain swagger to him good or bad but that's how you can tell that that's your friend because I have certain mannerisms and you know the feeling of the physicality of how they walk and to the subtext and everything is is always know what the character is thinking that to me is the biggest thing what is he thinking what is he feeling so if you're animating a dialogue and you're making up his character first find out who the character is you know like well he's a very introverted versus extrovert already there you can you can kind of give you like a road map to it to the character is like boss baby is very extroverted you know he's definitely not introvert Timmy which is the brother is more introverted you know I would say in some parts you can start differing I put it's really big here so I'm using as an example but already that alone will give you a lot of information of who the character is and you will start animating something it will be more believable because it's more specific on the emotion of the character or like just the persona overall to give you an example like I think I'm extroverted I'm really coming off like I'm just talking and I feel comfortable I'm engaged because I'm kind of sitting upright and I'm not you know I'm I'm trying to notice what I'm doing right now so I'm this person right now right so okay so I'm extroverted so that's how I maybe I would animate myself and I'm again how was your day and like oh that's great and like I'm using a lot of space because I'm comfortable with anything right now but if I was introverted and you were animating character introverted and let's say it's the same dialogue then what would be different well to me it's like a physical bubble so the bubble might be smaller so maybe now I'm crossing my arms and legs maybe I'm like sitting back you know this is my safety zone maybe I'm crouching a little bit maybe I'm not making so much eye contact because you scare me people scare me you know so I'm looking down Laura's like yeah you know animation is great you know I think personality is really important and you know like already whatever I'm saying at least the persona of who you are seeing is very different than the person that was like 30 seconds ago talking about this guy okay so it's just ways of like who your character is like find out who your character is because that will give you a lot of answers too and I also would also funnel choices and thank and I think I've talked to you about that we're like okay he's versus introvert or extrovert okay he's introverted okay how old is he even simple stuff like that - you know did he grow up you know scared of his life does he have trust issues like you can go really deep in because then when you have a dialogue and the dialogue is responding to a question then how would that person answer it even if the tone is there because as an animator you have the words you have the tone and you have the rhythm of the voice but that's it you have to put in the visual right and I'll talk about the percentage which maybe I should have started there but since you have that like okay he's introverted he has trust issues bla bla bla bla once you have that dialogue you can summarize okay how would this person answer the question how would he sit would he do eye contact would he not Woody fidget with his hands you know what type of things can you add that will really tell you that he has trust issues because that's what you want to visualize as an animator you want to give you the visuals because the audience will will will will listen with their eyes you know if that makes sense where they'll listen what the character saying but they will take in way more of what the character is doing you know I'll give you a number 93 percent of all human communication is nonverbal so which is ridiculous and that's what I start with with my class is 93 I'll repeat again 93 percent of all human communication is nonverbal now there's a certain percentage like 30-something percent which is has to do with the pitch and stuff but body language facial expressions eye direction mannerisms anything physical is a large part of that ninety seven percent so it tells you that okay as an animator you have the words which is just a seven percent now ninety-three percent of it is missing you know so that's what you have to put in as an animator and that's what tells you who the character is not only what the he's thinking or what he's feeling and the subtext of it but who the personality is persona and really quickly before I keep talking I can you got to stop me by the way you really have to stop me because I'll keep just I'll just keep talking and I apologize but the subtext to me is the most intriguing aspect of animation and just overall acting because subtext really is the underlining meaning of the words so if if if I sit down and I tell you I'm really happy to be here I can't wait to answer questions that's just the words right that's just 7% of the communication of what I'm trying to convey to you now as an animator you want to you need to add the missing length and 93 percent the body language the expressions eye contact everything so and I'll try to say it exactly the same way you know like if it was the same dialogue but if it's I'm really happy to be here I can't wait to answer questions so if I come in OOP and this is where I'm stuck all right I'll stay here I'll stay here but like if I say down and like I don't know why they got stuck yeah okay here we go technical difficulty CA okay that's why you smart okay so if I come in I was like I cannot wait to answer questions like I'm really happy to be here that versus I can't wait to answer questions I'm really happy to be here like already gives you a different tone you know and then you can go even further is like I'm really happy to be here I can't wait to answer questions you know like already like you have three a little bit of variety of it and like the first one is like okay he's really into this and the third one he doesn't give a crap about this he wants to be somewhere else or even better just be more than I'm breaking everything it's like dude I'm super happy to be here I can't wait to talk to you and answer questions they even forgot my line because I was looking at the phone because I wasn't interested and that's the the point like that subtext is whatever you do with the line what you give visually is the subtext what is he thinking what is he feeling always know what the characters thinking and there has to be a reason for every choice you make I'm dropping like kind of like little rules that I make for myself and I tell my students and by the way this is just me what I've learned and that's sorry I should have preference that from the beginning like everybody's in different levels in different stages this is not 100 percent right this is 100 percent wrong this is just what I believe in to the day you know maybe next year I'll be like oh I talked about this that's all wrong it's been a few years and I'm still consistent so it's feeling good but but that's just me like that's what I that's how I animate that's what I like to think about I like to think about what he thinks what he feels even workflow everybody will have different workflows I don't know how many people you're interviewing but everyone's gonna have like wow that guy said something completely different you know and it's not either right or wrong it's just like different workflows and different understanding of things and at the end of the day you have a solution to a problem but but anyway subtext to go back to that to me is a very one of the most important things to make performance believable aside from building a character and adding personality to it wow I just thought that was a lot it's like I should have just like I'm sure I could have answered that in like one sentence but okay next question I guess oh that scares me to talk about my workflow overall whoo okay how many do you have two days for this my workflow um so my workflow does change depending on the shot for sure from the technical aspect of it to like what angle I'm coming from and so it does kind of shift depending on the shot normally what I typically do is you get launched from a director and you have a dialogue and you usually have a storyboard playing or a layout which is just a very simplified 3d version of of what the character is doing sometimes it's doing quite a bit sometimes it's just like a placeholder for like the staging but the director will launch us and the the one thing that I want to leave with answers like the one thing that I need an answer if he does if the director doesn't provide it I need to ask it is what is the subtext again to go back to that is okay the character saying this and you want him to go from here to here and you want him to be high energy great but what is he thinking like what is he feeling is he truthful and what he's saying is if is he feeling something else when he's saying it's like what is actually the subtext and we all know what subtext is so it's I know so what's the actual subtext in and they'll just tell you sometimes you'll you'll have the director be like you know I don't know like here and you'll have them think which is great because then you're also part of it but it just you're you're kind of also helping find the believability a little bit more but directors and great directors always have that in mind so you usually don't have to ask so with that I go to my desk and I go get coffee no up ticket I play around I know okay we're flow this is so I want to make sure I actually explain it right okay so the subtext to me is what's gonna drive everything aside from also the character and personality oh dear God oh actually okay yes I can use it for this is to professional does that get this well okay all right okay so the first thing I do is is is break the this sound thing hold on hi how are you can you make sure I'm still listening I'm breaking everything okay all right so usually what I do is and and I do it less now because I'm so accustomed to doing it you know but I used to do this all the time specially on the rise of guardians I did it all the time I would write the dialogue of the characters of the dialogue that's like please get out let's say so please get out so I write down the dialogue usually if there's like silent pauses I put like pause and I write that sorry for my crappy writing so I literally write that on paper I don't do that anymore but that's how I started and then you go okay what is the subtext because again subtext is the underlining meaning or feeling we underneath the words so what is the character actually saying or thinking there so if the dialogue is like please get out you can easily animate like please get out and what happens with that is that you're literally animating what the character is saying so you're not providing the 97% oh god is turning like a lesson I don't want I don't mean to do it but if you but I'll just keep on it so if if you say please get out okay what's the best visual way to convey please what's the best visual way of getting out you're in the right mind so you're thinking that which is great because then you're animating is like okay please and then get out or get out or get out you know whatever there's different ways of doing it physically and then you can think of how the character would do it if he's extroverted is like please just get out you know or like like just please just get out you know like whatever percent personality and persona you give it but if you animate to what you hear if you animate the words then it's you're just animating what you hear there's no layering in the performance it's just flat because you're seeing and you're hearing the exact same thing please and get out there's no subtext there so the first thing I do is find the subtext and again if the director doesn't give it or if you're working on your own shots you think of your your own subtext and you try to make it interesting the the most polar opposites you can make it a more interesting is going to be that's kind of my my two cents on it so let's say the subtext is please get out maybe it's um I don't know he's embarrassed maybe so embarrassment could be the feeling the overall feeling that he's that he's feeling there so it can be like he could be something like oh my god because he's embarrassed it's like and it could be don't look at me based on he's embarrassed right I'm not even I'm not even thinking about actions right now I'm just thinking about subtext so now I've had I created my own subtext right like oh my god don't look at me because he's embarrassed right so the feeling is embarrassment so I would write maybe embarrassment I would write the image right so so far I haven't done anything animation wise I haven't shot reference or anything I'm only thinking of this right the next thing I do is I forget about this completely I forget about it it's not important because that's not what you're animating what you're animating is this so now you find poses that specifically find oh my god and then don't look at me so now you can find poses based on the characters like like oh my god you know like whatever pose you want to give it to convey oh my god or if it's like oh my god you know whatever it is and then don't look amazed like don't don't look at me now now you're saying don't go in and I'm literally saying these words sometimes want to shoot reference I don't say this I say this because it just helps me like get into it more so then I think of poses that like okay maybe it can be like this pose or this pose this pose or they can be dispositive of this pose and they want to go shoot reference I try not to have this in the audio in the background I know a lot of us do and a lot of animators do it and they do it great sometimes it throws me off because then I'm stuck with this exact timing and also the words so if I just animate to me saying it I would be like oh my god just get out you know like that then I shoot reference on the lobster marker I'm gonna shoot reference and then I find poses that best describe and then you animate that but now you're gonna have the please get out you know now you're gonna have saying something but now he's doing something else you know so that's how kind of you create subjects I this is turned into a lesson I'm sorry most of you probably already knew this so okay so when I do this I'll leave it nice and clean for later okay I can go back to sitting down because if not I'll just keep doing that and that's okay so once I do that I shoot reference or I draw sketches I draw sketches I sketch out different ideas imposes for it before I shoot reference because I want to find out like visually what's what could be an interesting way of doing it and then I shoot reference and I forgot about my drawings I forget about the dialogue and I just concentrate on the subjects and I just shoot many different ways on how to do how would I would do it and again this is I'm talking a lot about planning and I I cannot stress enough how important planning is for your animation I always explain it like a wind-up car and I think I said it the same way to you maybe I didn't but it's like you wind up a car right what you want to do as an animator is like jump right in man like I want to start animating when I start bringing them to life and everything so you'll get right in Maya and you start trying stuff out and things and when you you know changing a pose takes time and like window-shopping as we call it in Maya takes time because you're trying something out let me try another thing and it just it takes time to actually create a post so there you just wind it up a little bit and now you're just letting the car go but on what I like to do it just keep whining and I just wind up the car and while I'm whining it's me planning okay I'm gonna get all the bad ideas out first and does that work I'm gonna shoot reference and I shoot reference and then they look at me like it's not interesting let me try it again and I shoot reference again and there may be a tweak the subtext and I keep whining but then once I have everything done are you let go of the car and it's gonna go way out there really fast and it's gonna beat the car that's going is really slow because you wind it up so much that's my analogy it's probably horrible but the point is like the more planning you have you have all the answers so when you get into Maya or whatever program you're using you don't have to use the time on like researching and trying to find out the answers you're just literally not only not only you can do it because you have all the answers that you're confident in it and confidence goes a long way because you can go really fast you know and some most of the time you're on the dry track I mean especially if it's your own stuff like that's the choice that you made and that's a statement you're making but more or less when you're showing a director if you really understand what the director wants and the subtext and you really really get into the planning of it I do this once you show you're really on the right track and you block it out like this you know there's moments where like you have two weeks or at least for me there's been like two weeks of of a schedule for a shot and I remember one week was just planning because I couldn't get it right and I knew I was gonna struggle when I get into the program and it took me a week to like shoot reference and find poses and look for reference that had the same persona and personality and everything and singing in the rain I used the reference for one of the pitch shots I remember like oh that's it you know that was like the fourth day in and I still had an animator and anything but I was able to block it and animate it in one week and I'm not like it was I could because I'm fast it's not at all but it's because I knew exactly what to do you know and everybody can do that if you just know what you're good at getting yourself into that's my like workflow on how to think about a shot at how to find solutions physically when I go in there is it's just the typical post to pose you know I try to find the beats the beat poses kind of like be ports of what my shot would look like and I just go from there and so it is pretty much post to pose then I had my breakdowns and I do expressions with the pose altogether sometimes I don't worry about lip sync lip sync is the lease of things that are worried about I do put expression because I have to do a lot with the subtext of the character but lip sync is one of the last things I really worry about unless there's like be like please go out you know like then I add those and just for visual because it does say something for the pose but I do post a pose expression pose everything and I try to it doesn't have to be perfect but just do a pass so I'm like what it kind of is and then you can fine-tune it then you do your breakdowns and what I like to do also just one last little thing with the workflow is don't play blast as much which I know it's impossible and it sounds like it's impossible but my friend of blue-sky gave me this tip ones and it changed the world for me because jacket is great hi you changed my world she was super sweet and she gave me this tape and to me it was like oh my god it's amazing because what happens is the reason why you have to ask all these animators next to you which is a great thing to do another reason why I have to do it is because you don't have fresh eyes on your shot like you look at it so many times that you don't even know what's right or wrong anymore if you don't play less as much two things can happen and both are great one is you're having to think about timing more you're having to think about the flow of the shot the texture and the rhythm of it without playing it without movement you're doing it with your head you're thinking like timing 1 so kick like bum bum bum bum okay so I'll block that I was like what if I if I want to like it's like please he gets out and there's a pauses like just get out and he does a quick thing like okay that's winning like that's a second maybe a second and a half so that's like you know 30 frames let's say so in 30 frames he needs to do this so if you break it up like the big part is here so then you're like really thinking about your timing and that helps you develop your your your your confidence in in timing and rhythm and spacing with your shot because you're having to really think about it because if you just like try it press play or play blast yeah that's way off let me just squeeze it prep play bust yeah and you're doing it like okay done but you didn't really learn anything you're just reacting to what you're seeing you didn't really try to go through a process from nail it so that's one thing you start to develop that skill set which is great because it makes you a faster animator I'm a more productive at me the other thing is it keeps fresh eyes so what I like to do is I actually block out my shot and very few cases I break this because I don't want I don't trust myself when I look at my stuff for too long I block on my shot with key poses and a few breakdowns to get the rhythm in there and that's when I play best for the first time so when I'm when I'm when I'm seeing my shot for the first time I have all my keys and the main breakdowns so you're kind of seeing the shot for what it is and it's great because you're seeing it like you're seeing somebody else's shot for the first time which is super easy to be like that I like that I don't like I don't get what's happening here that's too fast too slow like you'll be able to get that really quickly if you play less too many times you won't have that eye for it it's kind of like when you're drawing something and you draw on your drawing Jurong like it's great it's perfect and you do that like you look at it in the mirror that trick in high school or middle school used to all the time you flip it in the mirror and you look at it and it looks like yeah it's all shifted because you were drawing like maybe this angle and like when you do this and then you do it then you start seeing all the imperfections that you didn't see because they see it from a different angle it's kind of the same thing that's my workflow I don't know if I don't know I don't know if I skipped anything and then and thence planning and polishing is I just start from the root and the legs and then the arms and the head and or really do the torso with the head and then I worked my way out I never use Iko arms only unless they're contacting or grabbing something and even then sometimes I just like actually do FK it started from laziness which actually doesn't make sense because if it I can block it out really quickly actually but it takes more time to make I K feel like FK when you're supplying because because you're faking the length of everything you know like I walks like if you're gonna do a walk cycle to do it in I cave would be impossible it's not impossible if there's an animator an amazing animator here that does AI K and I have no idea how he does it he's like he's like he's magic okay Carlos yes it's insane he's amazing he's one of like he's like I look at his work and I was like how the hell do you do this and then I found out that he uses I case and I think that he uses mostly I cams and I'm like what like how that and he's really fast like it's like he's a freak you know the best way possible so not a lot of people can do it because if you animate a walk cycle and you're animating like like this with FK it's just one curve here one curve here and one curve here and that's it and then you can offset and whatever and then you have it in AI K it's it's X&Y and then you have the elbow and then you're having to like fake this arc it's it's so hard to make it look natural and FK to block it out as easy and and one workflow that some people do is they block it out in AI K and then when they really like it they just flip it to all FK you know but sometimes I could create problems because of like you know like rotation of issues from here to here you know so that's one thing because I every now and then I hear and I think you mentioned that once of or we were at lunch and somebody was talking about a student and they were using AI K which I did that too by the way so it's just a learning process but it when I heard that I'm saying oh yeah that's right that that's still a thing like that's that process that you that you need to that need to learn because again there's some people that can do it and that's that's the whole point about at like really looking at all the workflows that everybody has because everybody's different and whoever you are right now even though I don't know how many people can watch this but if you're watching this if anybody watches us if anybody is care if you're still here listening to me Jesus I applaud you and I'm sorry but but your your your workflow can you learn from all the from everybody else but your your individual skill set is depending on your workflow so you can learn from all these different workflows and it doesn't mean that one it's gonna work better than the other one it's what works better for you that's the important thing it's not a cookie cutting thing where like you know some things might gravitate to that like most people should use that's okay because of this but you never know some people might use I can they might be better than trying to use FK so that's what I'm getting at like is there's no right way or wrong of doing it there's just your right way or your wrong way of doing it you just have to find that out and you got to do it by animating a lot which is a good thing oh okay open one of my shots you so what's that good the opener shot up and white I can hold a shot like yeah my first body mechanic shots and if the guy runs up and he climbs this thing and he goes over and I'm like okay and I went into like tweak something for whatever reason I think for something here and I look like it was all I K I was like I can't why X then why did I do that like I remember being like oh so much easier to put it right yeah but like I'm sure I struggled to get all those arcs but it's like going back to like tweak out a fixie and that's interesting cuz like sometimes we have to go into somebody else a shot to to fix something or tweak something it rarely happens but sometimes you do or even to learn and you get that where like you open it up like I don't even know how you did this like how the house eat or what where's the curve to rotate like what how's it character rotating like it's not the body it's like the shoulder and the hips that and like oh they separate that oh kind like you can you start getting all these idea and yeah it's a learning like you'll you'll change our work flow through the progress like you'll fine tune your work flow to it to work better for you which is great so that's good that means you're you're progressing oh absolutely well you have any other final thoughts or things in a plug or no no plug no I don't wanna be that guy visit my website and JP sands calm I don't know if I still have that website it was a high school college website um plug I will write there's so many things like okay I'm trying to think of like if when I was a student what would have liked to be told I think everybody looks for like the animate button what's like that what's that one thing that you can secretly tell me that you learned that will change my workflow it unfortunately doesn't really work that way it's just practice the one thing that I will say that it's helped me a lot and it's helped a lot of people it's helped you and because you can see it and it's helped so many people is collaborate you know just talk to people ask them and sometimes it can be nerve-wracking I know for some people it can be super nerve-wracking sometimes it can feel that they're just criticizing your work and I totally get it because I have friends that still feel that way but just remember that when you're watching if you're sitting in a theater and you're watching a movie and you're watching any shot really any shot and you think wow that animator is fantastic like how not only he thought of that the choice but like the execution it's unbelievable like that animator is amazing well it wasn't just one animator like not only the director might have told him do this maybe he was copying some of the storyboard that was working great maybe another animator gave him the idea but even if the animator came up with all the choices and came up with the execution obviously and did all this stuff he had help from like supervisors and head of animation and necks and the animators next to him where he asked like what are you things like what if you do this fast I'll give you mill texture oh great and it's just a big collaboration which is what I love the most about this whole industry that we collaborate to make each other better it's not about who's better between us it's about how do we make each other better like that I love that aspect of it so when you look at a shot and you love it because I used to have them in tears like man that guy's amazing that guy's amazing and they are obviously but they also had help from a lot of people and so really collaborate with your friends and family your mom might not be the best idea cause she'll just think it's wonderful honey so maybe we don't use that but all your colleagues and your friends and even if they're not animators you know like even if they don't know the craft but you want to know if the subtext is coming through is like eight what do you get from this character is like oh I guess he's really embarrassed great I'm on the right track and if the answers like I don't know there's like okay how can I make it more stylized to make it feel like he's more embarrassed and like you have that and sometimes you'll get like different responses and different ways of solving the issue and when that happens just concentrate on okay what's what did people get what if people didn't and you have all these like choices that people give you to solutions and sometimes it's more important to like you find the solution sometimes it's the best way sometimes because of like you get lost of like okay I have 50 different ideas but what you can get from it is like but everybody had an issue with this section like you know everybody gravitated to this they don't get and there's how you can fix it and then another person this I don't get this how you can fix it and this is and you get all these and that might confuse you but what you're not confused in is that it's not working you know so then you can find one that you like that goes with along with a personality or whatever story you're trying to tell or just think of your own but just collaborate like nothing bad will come from collaborating we become we grow thicker and thicker skin through this process I really feel like because you get more and more used to notes and you get more used to like feedback and it becomes less about criticism or like oh man I've failed and it becomes more like that's awesome I tried something it wasn't working they told me what's not working now I see it they gave me great ideas and now it's better even with the short that we're doing now there's there's a few ideas that we have in that came from animators that looked at it and story guys that we showed to the team and they really liked it and and and I'll throw owners name in there he had one ideas like what if he does this and to me it was like oh my god yes that's amazing I have to do that and that changed a lot of like the storytelling because of that one little thing because we did that little acting thing on that one beat and it was a more like a story change we added it to a next section and it just created this connection between who the character is I mean if you're not open to listening to things like it's never gonna be as good as it can be because you're just closing yourself off and I know a lot of people have that like they open up and that's great just keep doing it last thing is the industry is very small you don't know who you're gonna talk to you don't know how they're gonna help you in the future so always always be kind that's it like a life thing just always be kind but we're here to support each other and to help each other you know a few years from now you'll be somewhere else and I'll be like oh my god give me more information about that you know but if I was a not a nice guy to you then I wouldn't you know not that you should do it because of that oh God like what am I saying like just be nice okay but it's a small industry everybody knows each other you know just just just collaborate like really like your work will never be as good as when you're collaborating with a team I think I've said the same thing about 50 different ways in the last like five minutes so I'm gonna stop talking and the last thing is like once you never stop learning and that should be your mentality like you're you can always learn something new you can always progress and make yourself better you should never look at your work it's normal to look at your work and be like crap it sucks like we do that all the time like we're doing our real or latest real and you might see it as like man it has all this feature work but the animators like crap crap crap like I hate it but because we were growing you know like we we did we saw what we did for like let's say complement of three and we have this shot and people like it but he's like ah should have done this and this and that's normal because that means we're learning it's really rare if you look at your words like nailed it you know and it's like a year old that's when you're like you should like you know try to like keep progressing maybe there's a few people out there and there they are that amazing that they should say nailed it so but I he'll never get to that point I'm always like oh god how are you why should I do that and then you'll start also learning like who's good at what that can also help you you know like I mean he's great at lip sync that kinda hand meter he's great at lip sync so I'll go to him is like just picking apart and then he'll just be like the MDL vo one frame to three and I'm like oh my god okay great and you'll kind of like have those people that are like masters to a little thing that they just just you know yeah that's my I don't even I forgot what even what the question was like final that's why it took forever cuz like I'm doing I only talked about yeah yeah don't do that to me um yeah so I hopefully that have was some help and just practice keep animating and just create that mental library when you're watching stuff you know even live-action like I do it all the time I see an actor do something I'm like oh my god that was a brilliant way of doing it and just keep it in here one day you'll have a shot and be like oh it's like that actor when he did this like I'll add that personality and it's just like you're building like libraries so that way you don't do that way your first choice is not like cliche acting that's one thing that a lot of people ask sometimes is like how do you get away from cliche acting one is building that library and one is studying like psychological aspects of like a person like how they move and that comes from a personality thing and and again finding the subtext and answering is the introvert extrovert doing all that stuff will get you away from the cliche acting because if not you're going like you know oh my god let me think you know then you'll start doing the same choices but like let me think like yeah this or this there's a lot of stuff that becomes cliche but also you're animating again what you hear so that's already a cliche in itself it could be so now if you are not animating what you hear it's not a cliche because you're not doing think you know maybe the subtext is like I don't want to be here right now it's like yeah let me think and now like it's like you know you're you can't do a cliche because you're not animate what are you hear stop me please I'm gonna keep talking it was nice to see you guys but I love this I love that you're doing this is amazing I hope you get a lot more people to do this because I love sharing any thoughts that might one person out there might hear and like that to me is great collaborate help each other out it's the best thing you can do and believe in karma it will come back to [Music]

Channel: Sir Wade Neistadt

Views: 78,002

Keywords: animation acting, animation lessons, animation interview, dreamworks bilby, artist interview, acting tips, acting interview, animation acting shot, how to animate acting, how to animate characters, animation subtext, animating personality, animation tips, 3d animation planning, cgtarian, animation mentor, how to get an animation job, halloween animation, animation demo reel, demo reel tips, animation workflow, animation workflow maya, video reference, animation reference

Id: GDxaPJHWS1E

Length: 44min 50sec (2690 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 16 2018