Storyboard Redrafts: Dynamic Angles vs. Design for Easier Animation

Early on in the storyboarding process for Zachariah Brainchild, I was limiting camera angles of characters so that we could re-use symbol-based bodyparts in the Flash animation.  By keeping the views either strictly front, 3/4, profile etc. without the more interesting camera angles (high-angles, low angles etc.), I thought it would make the animation process easier.  While it would make things easier (we could make more use of a smaller set of symbols in the library), when looking at the storyboards after the first draft, it was quite apparent that they were lacking the dynamism that I had hoped for.

I think by embracing the idea that we will have to illustrate fresh poses and angles for many shots, has freed up the creative choices in designing shots and poses for the more recent storyboarding work.  It is a alot more visually appealing now.

I have purposely kept some scenes/ shots flat, particularly where comedy is involved (Joe Murray has mentioned that flat staging is good for comedy), but in many other shots, we have gone for more dynamic angles. 

In the redrafts we also tried to push the subject to the left or right of the screen (sometimes going by the "rule of thirds"), as our initial boards were quite centre-focused.  We tried to create more depth in the staging as well, by having angled horizon lines, rather than flat staging.

There will be a bit more work in the animation process now, but I think it is the right direction to go in.  My original intention for the cartoon, which I wish to keep to, is for it to be reasonably cinematic.

Like John K in the below post, I think it makes sense to have fresh poses illustrated, rather than something "frankenstein-ed" from stock body part symbols.

I would actually rather have more limited animation (eg. where a character may hold a pose for awhile), but if the camera angles and poses are strong.  A lot of TV anime is like this.. strong illustrated shots, with dynamic angles and poses.. but fairly limited animation.  

John K on Flash: "A Necessary Evil"

An interesting post by John K on his views about Flash animation.

Some quotes:

"It's the key poses that tell the story. They are the drawings that the eye sees and responds to.
If I can't afford lots of inbetweens, at least I want to have the story telling-and entertaining poses."

"Many producers and in my opinion, non-creative types believe that having a lot of inbetweens is what makes quality and they are willing to spend a lot of money for drawings that no one sees. At the same time telling the artists who do the key poses to not ever make anything new up."

"I like having smooth inbetweening, but it doesn't normally add to the entertainment value, it just connects the key poses without causing obvious jerky movements."

"I would rather have original drawings with cheesy inbetweening than really smooth boring drawings and poses that we have seen a million times before."

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com.au/2007/11/flash-vs-traditional-vs-asia.html

My Little Pony: Evolution of a Scene. Hiccupping.

This is an "Evolution of a Scene" clip from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  In this series of clips, you can see the scene evolve over time, as the animator reworks and tweaks the animation.

I chose this one to post as I absolutely love how they handled the way the character hiccups - throwing the character in to a really strange, comedic pose for a short burst and then back to the original pose.  I think this would add a lot to the way Mandelbrot is depicted when he's a mutant.  Perhaps he could make strange "tic", gargle and (short) scream sounds when he's a mutant.. to show that he's not in full control of his body - accompanied by weird poses that he gets thrown into momentarily.

For links to other My Little Pony: Evolution of a Scene clips, as well as interviews and other resources, check out the "Animation" page of the Friendship is Magic Wiki

http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Animation

 

Interview with Craig McCracken and Eric Pringle on Powerpuff Girls 10th Anniversary Special

http://web.archive.org/web/20101215033235/http://coldhardflash.com/2009/01/powerpuff-girls-10th-anniversary-interview-with-creator-craig-mccracken.html

Some great stuff here.  The original series was drawn animation by Rough Draft Animation Studios (based in Seoul), while the special was animated using Flash.

Criag McCracken says, "Our animation director Eric Pringle researched the old episodes to get the same feel as the hand drawn animation Rough Draft produced. Inbetweens in Flash can have this mathematical perfection that can appear a little cold. So the team was removing tons of frames, putting things on 2’s to get a warmer, human feel."

"AARON: Did Flash help speed up the production?

CRAIG: Oh yeah, it cuts the animation phase of production practically in half. But the best thing on a Flash series is the animators are right down the hall – it makes doing retakes super easy."

Eric Pringle says that they tried to avoid the "anticipation-overshoot-settle" technique that they used a lot on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.. and that gets used a lot in Flash animation.  They avoided it because it would not match the animation style of the original series.  Like Pringle's Flash work with John K, easing seems to be important:

"So when production began on PPG, a rule was set for the animators to not use unnecessary antic-overshoots-settles. As a result, we either substituted these actions with slow ins/outs, or simply popping to pose without any settles."

Pringle goes in to depth describing the process of nested layering of symbols for the main characters, as well as using masks for the faces and eyes. 

John K's take on Yogi Bear

Between 1998 and 2001 John K worked on several Hanna-Barbera cartoons for Cartoon Network: three Yogi Bear cartoons which he directed and animated, Boo Boo and the Man, A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith and Boo Boo Runs Wild, and two Jetsons cartoons which he produced, Father & Son Day and The Best Son.
 "John Kricfalusi". IMDB.com.

I watched "Boo Boo Runs Wild" and noticed some things that made me think there was Flash animation involved.  "Boo Boo and the Man" has a Flash Animation department credited.  Check them out for good Flash Animation.

Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures

Ralph Bakshi and John K worked on Mighty Mouse together. It is considered the forerunner of "creator-driven" cartoons. Stylistically, it shares elements with Ren and Stimpy with lots of extreme/exaggerated, funny poses.

"The animators had much more creative input, driven by Kricfalusi's production system that emphasizes artistic contribution in every step of the process, from outline to storyboard to layout to the animation"
Nolen-Weathington, Eric (2004). Modern Masters Volume 3: Bruce Timm. TwoMorrows Publishing. pp. 26–32.

John K directed this episode:

Great Interview with John K and Flash Animators

http://www.coldhardflash.com/2007/07/comcast-and-john-k-got-game.html

This interview has some really insightful comments by John K (eg. about sourcing and working with artists and animators from the internet): "My new working method is possible because of the internet. When you have an actual studio in a certain city, your talent pool is limited to who lives there and is available."

One benefit for people working in an animation studio is to learn from those with more experience.  It seems John is using the internet to extend this (eg. with his publicly available John K curriculum site).

"AARON: What type of art direction did you offer Kali before she started painting the BGs?
JOHN: I told her to read my blog posts on color and do exactly what they say to do, and don’t do what they say not to do."

There are lots of great comments about Flash animation techniques and style from Eric Pringle and Kristen McCormick, the two main Flash animators on the project (a commercial for Comcast).

Eric seems to think that putting eases on tweens in very important as he mentions it a couple of times, once when he is asked about the direction given from John K: "John’s main goal was to make this commercial not look ‘Flashy’ but still be smooth. He didn’t want too many overshoots, even timed tweens, or over distorted drawings using the transform tool. Most of the revisions he gave me were to substitute overshoots with slow ins to eliminate the jerky animation we often see in Flash cartoons." 

Another technical bit of info from Eric: "On the Comcast commercial I used some shape tween methods we use on Foster’s. After setting the shape tween, I keyframe it out and use the layer frame distributor plug-in and then export the FLA (Flash file) to an Illustrator file and apply the art brushes and import that stuff back into flash. I did that with the dinosaur’s neck and the dog’s nose animation. Also I used the tween2keys plug-in to eliminate some of the tweeny animation in some of the shots, but that’s not really a trick. For the vibrating fx on the burst and weird shapes I just made some shape tweens and then clicked the smooth tool a few times to slightly distort the shapes on each frame. Other than that stuff, I didn’t do anything other than slide John’s drawings into each other and hope for something nice."

Eric talks about animating mainly with pre-existing symbols in TV series work as opposed to working from layouts (which he did with John K): "On the TV series that I’ve worked on, everything is stock digital puppets with a few special poses here and there. On the Comcast commercial nothing is stock – John drew layouts for everything. I enjoy working with layouts a lot more, the poses tend to be stronger and more organic. Working with stock it’s always a matter of trying to Frankenstein a pose together, like getting the correct hand from the library to fit the pose, “eh, it’s the wrong angle, hopefully no one will notice.” However, for me, working with layouts makes the turnaround time much longer; maybe I’m just not accustomed to that kind of process anymore. From my experiences working with both layout and stock pipelines in Flash, working with stock is the best way of going about making a TV series. Layouts require too much clean up and rigging that would most likely bottleneck somewhere in the production. Though the quality is better with layouts, it is just not economical for the demands of the studios with tight budgets and tighter schedules, especially when competing with overseas shops."

Animation Style Reference: Tarboy

This is a fantastic example of limited Flash symbol animation.  Andi showed me this awhile back- it was done by one of her students at QCA, Griffith!  It is very inspiring.. even more inspiring that is is a student work :)  The animation is very cleverly done.  Again, you can tell that it is using symbol elements, but it's so dynamically animated, that it still looks great nevertheless.

My Little Pony Flash Resource Kit

Here is a link to a My Little Pony Flash Resource Kit.  You can open it up in Flash and analyse how movements are made by scrubbing the playhead slowly along the keyframes!  Unfortunately, they didn't keep the original symbol-based animations.. it's all been converted to keyframes, but it's still amazing to see like this.  It's actually from their games, but the animations style looks identical.

http://drud14.deviantart.com/art/My-Little-Pony-Flash-resource-kit-version-2-2-303426524

Animation Style Reference: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic

This is a great example of Flash symbol style animation.

The Animated Series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is made using Flash!  If you watch, you can tell that it's done using the program, BUT they've done a fantastic job with the animation style. 

It has a very lively look to it, that suggests fluidity.  Things seem to constantly "happen" in the characters movements.  They are very rarely just stuck in a static pose.  Apart from the primary animation, there is a lot of secondary and tertiary animation.

Animation Style Reference: "Dirty Harry" Music Clip by Gorillaz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLnkQAeMbIM


I consider this Limited Animation, and yet it is still effective, due to the strong illustrations and poses.

This animated music video has many elements in it that are great and approriate references for the ZB Cartoon: 
- Strong Illustrations + Poses
- Photorealistic Backgrounds
- Shallow Depth of Field
- Shifts of Focus
- Lens Flares
- 'Lit' Colouring Style (This is something that would be ideal, but we may not have time for.  It really does help integrate the 2D animated characters into the photorealistic world though).

The Dirty Harry Clip looks like it has been done with Traditional Drawn Animation, but I believe much of it could have been done with Flash symbol style animation and it would have been similiar.  It's only when the characters rotate their angles occasionally that you can see that its drawn out frame-by-frame.