What should I animate?? (Demo Reel List) - part 2

welcome back to an anthony and today is going to be part two of what should i animate part one was about an exercise list and this time it's gonna be about demo reel with examples of what you should be doing subjectively [Music] now there is a playlist about demo reels do's and don'ts and when we talk about is kind of an expansion of part one part one was the general do's and don'ts and analysis of stefan's clip which i highly recommend you watch and today i'm going to follow up with a recap of that and more examples where i want to show animation examples in terms of humans and creatures and a bunch of stuff where i thought this is really cool and this might be a good guide for you in case you are now going from exercises to actually applying all your knowledge into a demo real piece and before i continue you know what's going to happen here hi my name is jd and i do animation lectures like these i do animation analysis clips i do actually analysis clips i do reviews proc reviews i do a bunch of stuff feel free to check it out subscribe if you want to don't miss any of my uploads and if not that's also okay maybe i'll come into you later whatever you prefer had to bring in that little pitch as always now just to recap if you are now in the process of building a demo reel the main thing is always put your best shot first don't expect people to watch the whole thing and bury your best shot towards the end as like the grand finale best shot comes first your demo also has to be short it used to be two to three minutes for me way way back now i would say a minute is pretty good even for 30 seconds you get the idea of is someone okay or not let's see like a minute would be okay and then of course tailor your shots towards the company you want to work for so what does that mean a little quick breakdown quick recap check your animation style right so if something for real it's not going to work for future animation companies so check if it's vfx games all that stuff totally different styles and totally different content so make sure that is already checked don't make it look an exercise right so if your company that's about features it's widescreen you got more composition interaction with satchels again what is the company doing kind of try to emulate that so you can show hey i can do what you do hire me so it's not just a character in the middle of the shot lifting up you know a box and then that's it just kind of go beyond the look of the exercise i'm not talking renders i'm just talking the content and showcasing your creativity and the body mechanics complexity and if you're doing performance stuff and you're picking audio of course make sure that the audio isn't something that's appropriate for the company working for i also did something about audio link description or i'm blending in as always here now a bit more detailed make sure that you showcase different skills in a variety and a complexity from shop to shop of course you can combine that into one shot but generally you want to show weight you want to show pantomime you want to show full body mechanics you want to show performance in terms of lip sync maybe a mid and also close up also within that performance also contrasting stuff where something funny something sad it's not just one note so you don't want to do a reel where everything is kind of waste up frame like this and then that's the whole thing right so then you're missing out on full body mechanics for weight and balance so basically each shot would be showcasing one skill it's kind of cool when you take all these combined right it could be a lip sync combined with weight but make sure that you don't repeat yourself either so if you have a really good weight shot like a shot that showcases weight that's it don't show three shots with weight it's kind of repetitive again people don't have time to watch the whole thing keep it short showcase i can do this i can do this i can do that and the variety isn't just in terms of weight and acting stuff like that is also humans gender size scale creatures just show that you can do humans creatures and objects like you're good at admitting a bunch of stuff and if it's more like towards the vfx then also sure you can do camera work again the demo reel is there to showcase what you can do so that the the prospective employer goes oh that was pretty cool it's not like every shot it's going to be that's great we need all of this so that's just oh that was cool but this especially is what we're doing right now for this project let's hire this person now all of this should be wrapped up in something that's fun to watch i mean it could be also sad obviously but something where you can tell that the person had fun animating this a great example would be maya and the three you watch this i finished it's great it just seems like every frame just exudes fun and excitement and people just love doing this and hopefully that's what you get from your reel as well so your real should be showing your personality your sense of timing just kind of who you are so it's not a rehash of other shots you're gonna see online like who is this person that's cool then you get the interview and then it can invalid you in terms of as a person how you will fit into the team and so on now that's a bunch of words might not be super helpful so i want to show you some visual examples you can kind of see as reference oh that's cool and maybe it serves as an idea of what you could do of course i will always plug my acting analysis and tips for animators playlist because that's all about seeing something taking that idea and doing something else with it so if you want the general list of ideas for your shots check out the playlist i will always push for my playlist of that now when it comes to visual examples i highly recommend the 11 second club so check out the current competition or the archives the number one spots are really good and it gives you a general overview of the do's and don'ts like what has been overused what kind of rig what kind of set and so on i also recommend the anim challenge check out their account they have great challenges great rigs but also lots of tips and dissections all kinds of shots so this is also great reference of do's and don'ts and general inspiration then i would also go through the showcases of the different schools like animation mentor the adam school showcase is also really good item squad hasn't updated in a while but they still have a lot of really good stuff so i would definitely still check it out but my favorite channel for examples and breakdowns would be the 3d animation internships channel it has so many tests and breakdowns and progression reels and before and afters so go check out the videos they upload a bunch and it's so so helpful so this would be my number one tip check this out this couldn't be a better reference for your demo reel and generally i wouldn't just look at what students are doing or in turns just look at what professionals are doing in terms of shorts as well there's so much awesome work being released all the time i talked about spreads right before you can see that opening shot analysis in a different upload and it's awesome to see this whole thing now rendered and it's it's absolutely beautifully rendered it's great but in terms of animation it's absolutely fantastic i don't want to spoil too much by going forward and revealing what's going on but it's really good again it serves as really good reference so make sure that you check out what other people are doing what is the curtain level check out shorts check out animation series on netflix wherever you can always kind of stay up to date in terms of what is the current quality bar it's also helpful to follow artists for instance on instagram like michael woodside he posts a bunch of stuff sometimes animation tests as well definitely check him out and one of the examples is this one now it is a bit on the longer side it's 45 seconds i'll play it afterwards but the reason why i like this is because here's an artist that said this is what got me into in this case disney right so when an artist posts a shot where you can see the usage of props you can see that of this you can see how the character changes over time and actually analyze this clip in a different upload it is really cool to see as an example of this is what i did and this is what got me into the company so let's play this in full [Music] [Music] and it doesn't always have to be something with a lot of sets and i mean this uses props as well but it can also just be a character in an empty scene and this apparently the shot by kevin got him into blue sky well let's play the whole thing so you can see how awesome it is no i want to talk to you you have been selected as the subject of my important person school essay shut up oh don't tell me to shut up question one i showed some of this clip in part one but i want to show you why i included this because if you listen to the audio it's very old school with the sound quality the music and it's great that it's lit like this it's black and white it has a bit of effects on top of that in terms of making it look like old footage you can see some of the scratches there so as you prepare your shot for your reel think about the whole package again lighting doesn't always have to be there no it's time consuming but think in terms of presentation and going the extra mile in terms of how do i want to present this how does it fit and how will i stand apart from all the other shots that people see on demo wheels so let's play the full thing and if you thought it wasn't after my head well you're not really scared of my father no i am pretty scared of you it was such a good shot same thing with this one this one again uses props has lighting it's definitely more complex you can see this here as the whole thing starts but this is something where i was talking about to my students a lot in terms of effort where like every frame is really pushed in terms of posing in terms of the face in terms of fingers there's so much that's awesome in this shot and i think a great example of how high the bar can be when it comes to the emerald shots so let's play the full [Music] thing about you is so terrible [Music] things don't always have to be super expressive with lots of singing and action things can also be a bit more quiet and a bit more focused on a subtle performance so i'm gonna include this one and you can see the whole thing here on this website but it's great because he shows the process of his reference what it did in terms of blocking it's also nicely lit just as a general presentation it's really nice and the animation is really nice and subtle so let's play this one in full right now there's sorrow pain don't kill it and with it the joy you felt and i highly recommend that you go through existing shots meaning exiting from movies or tv shows and analyze these i love this one i'm gonna turn off the sound and play like these just to quickly show you so this would be your weight assignment so when i talked about before that your shot should look like an exercise shot this technically is a way to simon in terms of pulling and then you have a different kind of pulling and then after this you have a pulling of this kind where he pulls her like that and then you have another moment where he lifts her up like this so if you play this whole thing in full here that's what i would do in terms of your learning progress look at a shot in the movie take that moment and analyze it why does this work why is it appealing what are the characters doing and you still get a lot of lip sync in there full body weight of course the render is really nice but make sure to check out what are professionals doing i highly recommend that you also look at character tests so any type of animation test that people do before their movie starts it's also a bit looser also a bit longer but really focuses on the animation and body mechanics and you can see here in all of these it's basically a sit down assignment i also talked about this shot in my previous clip but i always bring it up it's one of my first examples to show to the students because i tell them do a sit down and those are really difficult to do depending on how far you want to go but they don't have to be boring you can see that there's a lot of contrast in these how do they interact with the sets with the props how do they sit down in terms of the speed of it are they tired are they excited you can see here there's so many different examples this is a longer one so check the full thing out lots of contrast i love her i love how she gets in with the legs you're ready and so great and you can also go really really broad in terms of i'm sitting down but then after that there's still something that happens where i can go a bit bigger towards the mechanics and wait so i love this example and definitely something to look out for in terms of inspiration and this is why it's great to look at internship reels because you can see they go from objects to another object to a bit more interaction with that object two walks and a bit more character driven walks i love this here that it goes through the whole set different kind of personality walks and i love this here such a great example also great show of weight here how many does this and he continues with lip sync and i'll especially love this one just because he incorporates everything in terms of props and sets how a character gets revealed in the back how this character has to interact with the set and the props it's just an overall really great example so again look out for internship reels and progression reels that people have done for the companies and actually let's play this one with sound in full wow nothing nothing what are you what are you what are you doing so what do you do with all this yeah well i'm not really supposed to talk about it amazing now what you shouldn't be doing is copying reference like this or even copying animation especially but this is something that is good to learn where you want to look at mannerisms and movements but please do not do this here for your demo reel do not copy existing performances make sure that you are as original as you can be now it doesn't have to be just for humans this is a great test with creatures so let's play this one in full my name's blue like the cheese but there's no mold on me stupid stupid stupid so make sure that when you go through demo reels that do not only look at humans look at what they've done with creatures and blue sky has done so many movies with creatures the the amount of original acting choices and mechanics and push animation styles is so great so really make sure to check out this whole reel i'll put the link in description this is the longer wheels i'm not gonna play the whole thing in full here i mean you can also mix things right you can also do humans with creatures so you can see how this continues here where it's a bunch of stuff where the creature kind of behaves like a dog and then goes back to being a horse so obviously you can mix and match it would be a great example of okay well what can i do to do a bunch of stuff in one shot creatures humans full body lip sync this would be a great example of a mix of everything so it doesn't feel like this is an exercise shot that a student would do let's go back and play the whole thing in full oh he's nothing but a big sweetheart isn't that right maximus you've got to be kidding me look today is kind of the biggest day of my life and the thing is i need you not to get him arrested just for 24 hours and speaking of creature shots and then adding lip sync this i think this clip i've shown is that i don't have any uploads of mine i'm going to show it again this time with sound here in full because it's so good i love this and a great example of not having a set it's purely just this character kind of waist up but it's so appealing so i do want to show it again because i love it we were having an argument one day he was saying he was hungry i was saying i was hungry he was saying i eat more i'm saying that's just rubbish i eat a lot and he was like well i'm a guy and then that that was the end of it now if you do want to combine everything in terms of creatures and sets and sounds and everything this shot i'm gonna play in full afterwards is a great example of everything has camera work humans creatures interaction there's a bunch of stuff in there a really good showcase of how you can combine everything into one really cool shot so let's play this one in full [Music] and again look out for variety so this is a creature that's as a test from zootopia by shofu it's really great because it has creature moments and sometimes in the move in terms of how the tails move or little things like this but generally it's definitely more stylized and play the whole thing afterwards where you can see how it plays with such a great moment there with a bunch of stuff so again in terms of dimmer wheels you need to show a variety so this is something that is full on just like a creature we're going to blend in this clip here which i love where it starts off kind of like a horse i mean it does sniff already like like a dog but it has a bunch of things combined especially really really appealing timing i always love this shot and i always show it to my students this is a great example of really fun timing in terms of a creature shot that's stylized or you can do a shot like this that's technically a creature but it's basically a human performance i am about to humble gato in search of his next meal perhaps you gentlemen can help me find a simple score and then come back to this one that you're gonna play afterwards but again you want to show variety where you have creatures that move like creatures creatures that move a bit more stylized super stylized so again your demo should be a showcase of a bunch of different styles so that you can show all the different skill sets you have [Music] and if you want to be more ambitious you could also do a full sequence like this this might be tricky for real because it's kind of long but in this case it shows creature work it shows human work it's full body mechanics they're flight mechanics as well there's a bunch of stuff included here so that could also be something to consider if your reel isn't too long already so maybe you could do something where you break this up whereas maybe something like this shorter and then you have that as a cool moment maybe this like this where you can do a bunch of stuff combined but again this is definitely extra level so it's not just a character an empty scene just standing around doing not much this is a really great example of a bunch of body mechanics and flight mechanics in one i'm playing this backwards here now as you saw this was a lot of animation examples with humans increasing stuff and nothing with games games i don't work in games i really have no knowledge i watch a bunch of stuff when i hear things and it's cool and i'm kind of super surface level i wouldn't say knowledgeable i'm going to go that far but if you want to know more about games i highly recommend you go to harvey newman's channel check it out it's all about games and also more so check out his channel it's really good i know this uploads a bit on the longer side but i wanted to include the full length of all those examples so you don't have to go and look for the link and hunt for that clip and blah blah blah blah so this upload serves as a reference guide in terms of this would be cool to emulate to be inspired by and so on now if you want to stay up to date on examples and shots are really cool i highly recommend selfishly my twitter just go through the likes the likes are not just things that i like but it's kind of like a bookmark of all things animation and if you're too busy for that my animation minute covers that as well or that youtube channel i referenced before that has so many breakdowns and examples is such a great resource for industry shots and internship shots and just something you should always check out speaking of checking out if you haven't checked out yet because it's a longer clip if this was helpful you want me to help you with your shots and make your shots even more awesome you know the pitch i have workshop so you can sign up at any time link in description with all the information so let me know email me let's talk let's see if i can help you and other than that thanks for watching to the very end you're still watching i always appreciate the patience and that's it from me and hopefully i'll see you in my next upload

Channel: Jean-Denis Haas

Views: 11,544

Keywords: animation demo reel examples, what to animate for your animation demo reel, animation demo reel tips, animation demo reel industry examples, animation demo reel student examples, animation demo reel pixar example, animation demo reel 3d, animation demo reel length, jean-denis haas, spungella, what to animate on your animation demo reel, demo reel tips for animators, demo reel tips for animation students, animation demo reel tips and examples

Id: xtbREKcp3QE

Length: 18min 11sec (1091 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021