CarlosBaena.com

Combining multiple ideas into shots.

2009-10-12T16:30:00.001-07:00

Since this week I'm taking a small break, as I get ready to get back to work on TS3 for our last few months, I figured I'd write about something I've been reading and studying about a lot recently in terms of planning and shooting.

It's been more than interesting to figure out ways to combine multiple ideas in a shot, and see how it would play out in a full scene. So far until not long ago I kept thinking about one idea per shot, meaning something happens in shot A, then something else happens in shot B...then shot C....and it'd be the juxtaposition of those shots that give meaning to a scene.

However, I started running into the issue of a scene being a little too static, or the scene not being broken up enough from a shot structure point of view. Some stuff just felt plain boring to watch. All of a sudden, when planning animatics I'd find myself having separate shots and a scene that didn't feel dynamic. To put it simply, the scene would lack a lot of interest from a shot structure.

I continued researching different films to see what different Directors and/or DPs would do with their scenes. Also, at one point, Sharon Calahan (Director of Photography at Pixar), a truly wonderful person and very very helpful to me lately, brought up to me the idea of combining separate ideas into single shots. That soon made me want to go back to studying films thinking about that. Not only it would allow to simplifying sequences and be more practical in the number of setups, but also would add a bit more interest when putting the shots together. Easier said than done. When working on the Shortfilm, I found out that time on the set is more than a luxury sometimes especially when working with kids. Because of this, we weren't able to have the flexibility of working out some of the camera setups my DP Tiffany and me originally had in mind. Very difficult stuff.

However, it was still a huge learning experience to plan as if we would be able to nevertheless.
So with that in mind, I wanted to show an example I found very useful in learning about combining separate ideas into one single shot by a great use of camera work/leading the eye to where it needs as well as some great character staging choices.

The movie is Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946). If you haven't watched it, do watch it before to avoid spoilers. Here is a section towards the end of the film.

The middle shot while it may seem simple now, but it was quite eye opening for me.
We learn than the bad guy here (Sebastian) just found out that Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) is an american agent spying on him. So him and his mother decide to take some slow measures towards her and start to poison her.

This shot starts out with a relaxed 3/4 MS shot of Sebastian. What starts out as a simple dialogue exchange (where you almost expect to cut to the opposite 3/4 shot of Alicia) all of a sudden brings attention to what's really going on, the coffee. The camera tracks straight to the coffee and holds there. We don't see anyone putting poison on the coffee. But we get it. When Alicia is first talking, the camera is still on Sebastian, not her...for a reason. Then the camera while she's still talking, goes to the coffee, not her. We then see Alicia drinking the coffee, and right away the camera tracks from her face to a profile shot of the mother. Since the mother is in profile, we are pretty removed from her eyeline. I'm guessing this was done in purpose to have her in profile as opposed to an eyeline closer to us.

So in just one shot we get:

Sebastian starts to get Alicia to drink coffee
He's pretending nothing out of the ordinary is going on
This coffee is poisoned
Alicia has no idea what's going on
Sebastian's mother is also in it

Anyways, this series of moving tracks from one character, to the coffee, to the other character to the final character in a way it could almost be a bit too on the nose nowadays...However, for my purposes, it taught me a lot. It goes back to:

What's the point of the shot
How can you say it in an interesting way
How can you add suspense and drama out of the characters

To name a few. Then, back to the combination of ideas into single shots, I'd add:

How can I simplify the number of shots in a scene so that's not too many.
How can I cover more than one story point in a shot without making it too busy/distracting, and instead make the shot more interesting visually?
How can I improve the timing/pacing of the scene by doing this throughout?

Anyways, I hope this stuff is as helpful to you as it's been to me studying them.

Carlos.

Toy Story 3 Full Trailer

2009-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Enjoy it in full HD. Here is the link:

Toy Story 3 Full Trailer

I couldn't be more proud of being part of this film.
On this trailer I was responsible of a couple of parts. The 3 shots of the little kid about to chew Buzz Lightyear in slow motion, and the shots of Buzz when he pushes all the other toys away, strikes a Flamenco pose, walks towards the camera and talks in spanish.
Very very fun stuff to animate for me personally.

Carlos.

Rough Pencil Tests Site

2009-09-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

Great stuff in this link below.
Definitely check it out.

Pencil Test Depot

C.

Editing

2009-09-02T22:45:00.001-07:00

It's been great studying movies in different ways. Some days you study the performance, other days you study the composition. It never ever gets tiring. Quite the contrary. I've been studying several movies over the last year for different reasons each. I wanted to do a small post on editing as it plays a major role on what it is that we do, and it's very difficult stuff sometimes.

Editing can enhance a performance or break it. Simple as that. It can add another layer to the pacing of a perfomance, and it can simply add another layer to a scene in general. When you connect three shots together...all of a sudden, you have a whole new bunch of tools to tell your story, and you can tell it in a million different ways.

Simple rough example. Three shots. A shot of a guy walking on the street. A shot of a car in motion. A close up of the guy. As you place each of those shots in different places with different timing, you could get something like:

- A car is coming, and the guy doesn't see it coming.
- A car is coming and the guy reacts.
- Guy reacts as he's about to get hit by a car.

To name a few.
So to show a more powerful example, I chose an example from the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, a wonderful film shot by DP Conrad Hall/John Corso and edited by Wayne Wahrman. Beautiful photography in it by the way, highly recommended. Pay attention how this scene is edited almost as a shortfilm in itself:

This scene I found is a great example of bringing texture/depth to the pacing of a scene, by how each shot it timed out as well as the choices in each of the shots:

The early shots are longer. Less or none is happening.
We don't see what's going on through the early shots. By the framing of the chess game and Ben Kinsgley's performance, information is being held temporarily from the audience to keep us interested. We don't even get to see what Ben is doing in these shots. We just hear the sound of the chess game in the background getting stronger and stronger.
Camera is not necessarily moving as much. Just keep alive.
Slowly we are being let in as to what's going on. Still the timing of the shots is long.
At one point we are thrown in the action. The cuts begin to speed up. Framing starts to have some quick camera pans and tilts, and quicker and quicker timing as we go.
Music is keeping us in the moment as well.
Cuts at this point become twice as quick...and at one point the accelerate to the point of some shots just being a few frames long.
If you notice, some of the shots of the clock being hit don't match the actual sounds. I'd bet this was a conscious decision done by the editor, to add more confusion to the moment. They get in sync after a moment.
This editing ends up with one key story moment with the chess piece followed by a much slower tilt. The shot is held on the reaction shot of one actor, and held again on the kid actor. Not much else going on, not movement, no talking, nothing, just exchanges. This big change in the pacing gives contrast to all the quick shots that just happened.
That combined with the rest of the scene going back to slow pacing, allows us to take in what just happened. If the cutting was always fast with no break, you'd go crazy. If it was always slow, you'd be bored as hell. It's always finding a balance.
The slow (almost still) pacing now has that shot of the chess piece being hit by the actor who's been defeated. If you think about it, there is not only texture to the editing, but also a musicality to it, just like we find in timing.

Ultimately it is finding ways through the editing for the story to be told.

They always make it look so easy. And it's not. Editing done properly takes so long. What's difficult is to find the right reasons as to why you do something. It's not enough to say "I want to edit things quickly". Everything in film should have a purpose and editing is no different than acting, framing, composition, color.

Hope this is useful.

Carlos.

Abby, the 10 year old food Critic.

2009-09-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

My friend Abby came to visit the Studio about a month ago. Abby was in the Hospital for a while because of Crohn's disease, and couldn't eat normal food for a really long time. After watching the movie Ratatouille at the Hospital, she decided once she would be able to eat normal food again, she would become a food critic like the character of Ego. At first, her parents didn't really take it seriously. Once she was back home, she did go for it. And sure enough, she become one amazing food critic. Check it out.

Abbys Dining Adventures
Abby goes to Pixar Cafe

It was so great having you visit!

Carlos.

Timelapse Interview

2009-08-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

The guys at Timelapse.es asked me some questions about some of the videos I've been doing outside my animation work. This is something that came out as a fun hobby for me. To see the videos at better quality (or at least better frame rate), watch them here.

Timelapse Interview

Carlos

Hitchcock - Storyboard App

2009-08-26T07:37:00.001-07:00

For those interested. Cinemek just released an interesting storyboard application. Pretty much a picture software that allows you to edit things ready for storyboarding planning. Easily usable whether you are doing 3D or Live-Action. I haven't gotten this (just yet), but it sure has a lot of possibilities. Especially when you are on the go. Nice you can export as .pdf files as well.

Hitchcock Storyboard App

Carlos.

Toy Story 3 - Lee Unkrich

2009-08-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm really learning a lot with our Director Lee Unkrich.
This is a great honest interview about Toy Story 3 that he just did at Comic-Con.

Toy Story 3 Lee Unkrich Comic-Con

Have a great weekend.
Back to work.

C.

Update

2009-08-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've been really missing in action. We are getting really busy on Toy Story 3, and on my weekends we've been doing camera tests/casting on the Shortfilm. I can't talk about ToyStory 3 and I can't put anything Shortfilm content related. But I can talk in terms of the technicalities or the process in case anyone out there is interested in this process. I figured I'd post my findings here and there, since it's quickly becoming a fast educational experience for me. Here are some behind the scenes pictures of a few of the Shooting test days with my Director of Photography Tiffany as well as my Lighting Supervisor Luigi, where we were testing lenses (I have dreams with the Arri Ultraprimes, they are amazing lenses), some tracking systems and some location scouting.

Behind the scenes pics

To put it simply, the experience so far is damn hard. It's difficult enough to visualize a particular shot or scene in your head. But once you do, you get excited about it, you do a 3D animatic of it, you get even more excited about it, and sometimes later you find out all the hard work you have been putting in it, and all the planning may not be able to get realized in the same way you wanted due to the limitations of the equipment and/or budget. So we've had to add that and be conscious of it to our planning process in order to realize the point of the shot or the scene. So we are going to do two planning passes, my dream "hell yeah" animatic pass is what I'd love to see on screen....and then I'm doing a "oh, ok, damn it...let's try this then" backup animatic pass after discovering what our limitations might be. This way we still get what we need somehow. Hopefully. If we get the first choice, then great, I'll have plenty of Sangrias that day...otherwise, we go the backup route. Therefore, I've been currently working on doing these 3D animatics of the Short with my DP Tiffany, and getting help/feedback from people at my work that do this as their day to day. It's nice to be back with Maya on the computer. It's been quite a while. Also been working with each of the departments on getting stuff done on their end. This part has been more than fun, especially when the people you work with are really professional, no egos involved and definitely fun to be around and have a good time in the process. I'll post more things like these, and will share what I'm learning with this film after we are done with the film, since now I have little to no time to post much on my blog.

It's nice to spend time on the opposite side of what I currently do on my day to day, which is to animate. But something it's been great to learn for me is to step outside of my animation bubble, where I'm in control of every single detail in my shot, and instead have people add their input/involvement in the main areas of the process.

Carlos.

Great Dog Short

2009-06-10T17:40:00.001-07:00

My co-worker Dave sent this out at work today, and it had me laughing for a while. Reminds me a bunch to "Family Dog"...which I loved, and could watch it a million times. This is a pretty amazing little short in itself. The character has personality, appeal, and is interesting and funny within seconds of playing the movie. There is something to be said about ways to introduce a character. And in my case since I love dogs, it keeps me watching as I find something new every time.

Check it out:

Fed up

Carlos.

Toy Story 3 Teaser!

2009-05-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

In addition to UP coming out today (go see it!), I just found out that the teaser trailer for ToyStory 3 is online. See it here in HD, it makes a difference:

ToyStory 3 Teaser

So happy it's finally online. This little teaser was a lot of work. Everyone in the crew did simply amazing. I was responsible for animating Buzz when he bumps into Woody until he claps and the lights turn off. I'm more than excited for this film. One more year to go!

Carlos.

On Film Acting.

2009-05-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Been busy so whatever I'll be posting I'll try for it to be helpful. So, with that said I have to say I just love the internet. Really. What a wealth of invaluable information.
I found some links of some actors sharing their thoughts on acting, that I wanted to pass on. How that translates to what we do as animators, I wanted to bring my thoughts on as well:

Anthony Hopkins

This what a great one as he basically is telling us, sometimes you don't need to do much to convey strong powerful emotions in the scene. Sometimes is nice to let the camera do part of their job. If you have a slow push in on the character, but the character is moving a lot, what happens is, first you miss what the camera is trying to do. Second you miss a great opportunity to get internal on the character. As animators (especially starting) we always have this desire to do a lot, to always have our character gesturing, to have a wide range of facial expressions. Well, some shots will call for that, but other ones certainly will not. So keep that in mind when approaching your shots. There is a nice sentence he says at the end where he goes "Don't signal to us what you are feeling, speak the text, be clear".

Another area he discussed, which I thought was great, was when he was talking about a Meryl Streep's comment on one of her scenes. Her point being that sometimes concentrating too much sometimes creates the opposite effect to what we want, because by concentrating we are tense, we are thinking about it too much, etc. So sometimes is the opposite (lack of concentrating) what we want. Just letting go and relax and see what comes out. Think about that when shooting video reference for your shots. It's not always good trying too hard to bring out some sort of emotion.

Wonderful stuff. Interesting the thought from Rod Stieger as wel as James Lipton throughout. Ultimately it's about the choices in the scene. As animators, you can have great polish, great poses, etc...but if the acting choices aren't there, then you still got nothing. That's why it's great to observe what great actors do...definitely observe what real people do. There you'll find really unique stuff. As actors we are always doing our own interpretation of a feeling, an emotion, a moment. But real people when they do that, it really is the real thing. So watch documentaries. It'll give you absolutely great choices.

Think about this for a second. Imagine you have to animate a scene in where a kid is struggling thinking about something. The scene could go in a lot of different ways...he could be struggling in a sad way, he could be struggling as if he knows something but doesn't remember it, he could be struggling as if he doesn't want other people to know, you call it. Well, you can act out that stuff, but you can always find real case scenarios like the documentary Spellbound where you'll find plenty of cases where kids are thinking, struggling and coming up with wonderful choices.

Back to the Brando Method, there is a section where James Lipton puts it very clear:

"[...]...2 actors and a Director making choices that are unique to the actors, that are unforgettable and that have made a four minute scene one of the most famous moments in cinema history"

There is a scene talked about in part 3 about the scene of Brando/Eva Marie Saint and the glove from "On the Waterfront". It's great in terms of working with the circunstances, given an accident (glove dropping) and doing something different and special with it. Read more on it here. All of a sudden, Brando adds a new dimension to the scene, something that was real, that both him and her could work with. In the animation world, it's always something worth exploring for me. What props are in the scene, is there something on the set that I can use? Can I do something additional in the exchange between characters that not only does what the scene calls for and what the director wants, but adds an additional layer of interest? Many times this is hard, but when you find it, it certainly pays off.

Watch all three parts of the Documentary on Brando. It gives you a new insight on what it is that we do. This is to me what we aspire as animators. In creating scenes that while are very much on character they still have unique and original acting choices that are memorable, real and thruthful.

Hope this helps.
Have a great Sunday.

Carlos.

Work & Website

2009-04-03T18:40:00.001-07:00

As you can tell, I haven't really been able to keep up on posting useful information on the blog.
2009 is looking to be a pretty busy year for me. Toy Story 3 is in full production. Being the first Toy Story film pretty much one of the reasons I wanted to learn animation and one of my favourite films of all time, I wanted to make sure I dedicate the time to this production. Additionally, I found out a few weeks ago that I'm going to get to direct an Independent Live-Action Shortfilm produced by Pixar along with a fantastic crew/co-workers. The opportunity and the chance to work on both TS3 and to direct a Shortfilm here at work, is an amazing one, therefore I want to do my best. Unfortunately, I have to put other things/projects on hold while I work on these two films this year...and the blog is among one of them. I won't be able to post as often as before...but hopefully here and there I'll try to post something that is of some help to you all.

Carlos.

Tribute to Milt Kahl (Los Angeles)

2009-03-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

For those interested. I'd love to be able to make it to this. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is having a Special Tribute Event to Milt Kahl, one of the most inspiring animators of the Nine Old Men.

Events like these are always incredible. Andreas Deja shared a bunch of drawings from Frank/Ollie he had at last year's Frank/Ollie Tribute at Siggraph, and that stuff is very motivating/inspirational to hear regardless of whether you animate on 3D, 2D or Stop-Motion. Very recommended if you can make it, especially for those in the Los Angeles area.

Milt Kahl: The Animation Michelangelo

Carlos.

Where the Wild Things Are Trailer.

2009-03-25T13:40:00.001-07:00

To follow up on my previous post regarding Spike Jonze (a personal favourite of mine) I just watched this Trailer. Don 't even know where to begin about how excited I am about this film:

Where The Wild Things Are Trailer

C.

Spike Jonze's "Heaven"

2009-03-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

I try to post usually about animation/film things related. Ok, sometimes I may post about things I may be into such as skateboarding or Spain Soccer team winning the Eurocup. :) But this is one of those times where I get to post about two of them at the same time.

Spike Jonze just put together a new music video where he used additional footage and re-edited previously used footage he shot for an skateboarding intro a couple of years ago. The result of this is an even better wonderful and spectacular mix of visuals and music.

Too good not to share.
Enjoy.

Spike Jonze's "Heaven"

To read about it, go here.

Carlos.

New UP Trailer

2009-03-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Make sure to check it out (in HD).

UP Trailer

C.

Day and Night

2009-03-02T01:53:00.000-08:00

These days have been raining and cloudy non-stop, so I shot some timelapse Footage shot from TwinPeaks in San Francisco, and put it together in this short video for fun. Used PcLix LT and the D90.

Day and Night

C.

Commercial

2009-02-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

My father just sent me this. This is one of those TV ads, that not only touches you but leaves a big mark. It's a spanish ad for the Asociation Afanoc...and well, it's just beautiful.

Un Gesto de Amor

Enjoy.

Carlos.

Congrats to Wall-E and Spain

2009-02-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

Watching the Academy Awards is always something special to me. Not so much for the awards or the glamour, but because to me it feels like a big celebration of filmmakers/everyone involved as well as all the extremely hard work that goes into the craft. Been watching them for as long as I can remember...even when I was in Spain and had to wake up at 3am to watch them. So last year I felt more than proud to be working at Pixar and to being born/raised in Spain...having both Ratatouille and Javier Bardem both win Academy Awards. Yesterday I felt the same if not more having Wall-E and Penelope Cruz both win Academy Awards. I especially liked both their speeches for different reasons. So from here just wanted to congratulate again the Wall-E crew I had the pleasure of working with as well as Spain/Penelope for the Awards.

Co-worker Ronnie del Carmen posted some more on Andrew coming back to Pixar to celebrate.

Carlos.

One year later...

2009-02-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

It's been approximately a year since I updated the site. My goal was to make it a simpler site to navigate, and simpler site to add movies/content/educational stuff to it. I wanted to make sure I thank again my friend Michael for making all my design/interface thoughts and ideas on the site a reality. You rock.

So, pretty much I'm posting about anything that relates to Films/Animation since that's my passion...and anything that can help anyone out there. Again, since it's been a year, let me know what sorts of things you'd like to be discussed (that's not Pixar sensitive/undisclosed material which I can't talk about), etc. Also, since it's pretty much impossible for me to keep up with email sometimes, I'll try to address general questions I get asked in a post to help more people.

Have a rockin' Sunday.
And from here best of luck to all the nominated filmmakers at the Awards tonight. Since I work close to see of them, of course I'll be rooting for Presto and Wall-E. But I know some other people who's also nominated, so I wanted to wish them good luck as well (Shuzo, that goes for you!).

Carlos.

Dramatic Choices.

2009-02-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

I wanted to continue bringing up the topic of choices in acting. It's not a small topic...and quite honestly, to me it seems to be the one topic to continue learning regardless of how much animation experience you may have or not.

Sometimes you watch a movie and someone in that movie that's not necessarily the main actor just blows you away. That was the case of Tony Collette in the film "The Sixth Sense" and her character Lynn. Not only she was believable as her character Lynn, but also she was natural and she comes up with great acting choices. I enjoyed the film quite a lot when it came out and haven't watched it again until recently. I'd love to show this one scene towards the end of the film where she really impressed me in all levels:

So much to study in this exchange.

She starts out very subtle. "Secrets?"..."What is it?". What I like is that, she's not the center of attention and lets the other person talk, giving this part of the conversation a nice balanced feel. Also her delivery feels natural and not over the top.
When the kid goes "the lady is dead and standing next to my window", Lynn does a small pause and sits back. In this pose all that's going on are a few eye darts of her searching for the dead woman. "You are scaring me", her whole body language feels contained and there is not much going on other than her lipsync. It could be easy to go over the top (even if it's a slow scene) in an animated shot, and animate the head, etc. However, the fact that she's very still when delivering that line makes gives the scene a more intense feel. Be that creepy, scary, whatever makes you feel at that particular moment.
"They?"..."You see ghosts Cole?"...her body language is still very much still. Sometimes less is more, and less will give your acting shot more intensity.
"They talk to you?": the mother in the film loves Cole very much and that's a big part of who she is in the film and her personality regardless of what she's going through, and this line could easily be delivered or acted out with a facial expression that reads almost making fun of what Cole just said "Ghosts want me to do things for them". Instead, what I really liked in this part is that she stays as the loving mother, so her delivery "They talk to you?" comes off genuinely interested while trying to make some sense of what she's hearing.
The exchange of him asking her what she's thinking and asking her if she thinks he's a freak, again, her performance is pretty straight forward. Staying on character, but also not going over the top. The next parts are the areas that really hit me.
"Let me think for a minute...", her subtext and facial expression reads as if she's been close to being knocked out, in a smaller level. But again, the fact that her delievery of these lines are not big in any way, gives the scene more intensity (at least for me).
"Grandma says hi": She looks quickly, and her timing is faster. Her eyes (very subtlety) widened, and as Cole continues talking, she slightly starts to turn her head away from him while her eyes are fixed on him. Her mouth opens in awe, again in small increments. All this while still subtle it sure adds a lot. Her body language is both saying I don't want to hear this, and also saying what crazy stuff am I listening to right now?
"What?"...a small detail that I personally enjoyed very much. Her lipsync anticipates the word "What?" for a little while. So she stays in the word "O" for a while. It's quite a nice choice. Also notice her eyebrows raising slowly. They don't really move much when she actually says the word. Again, it's nice to anticipate slowly.
"Grandma saw you dance": again, another quick look...this time, her head and body are more involved. This from a pacing point of view is just great, because it advances the scene. Goes somewhere. It's important to go somewhere with our acting and our shots. The fact that she doesn't say a word and just keeps looking at Cole and listening, makes this moment anticipate the rest of shot in such a powerful way.
At this point she's thinking and remembering. So she's darting around thinking, even when she breathes. Again, it's nice to see her eyes anticipating the head move, by her thinking/remembering. It's as if her remembering is taking her to places and the head moves with it. Weird way to think of this moment, but when we remember very powerful memories, it's always interesting and very educational to see what our eyes and head do and how related they both are.
She's still listening. This time her hand covers her mouth. It's such a nice choice. In the book "ManWatching", Desmond Morris talks about how covering your mouth sometimes indicates "holding back information". The hand is covering the mouth since the brain unconsciously asks it to suppress the information. Could be true in this case or not. But in either case, to me, from an animation/acting point of view, this felt like a very original choice...that also gave intensity to the moment and how her character is feeling. In a way is almost like all this information she's being given and that she's processing, is too much for her to take.
On that same note, notice how she almost doesn't know what to do with her hand (when it's by her nose). Her facial expressions and how she covers her face/nose with both hands speaks by itself. Her body language, her shoulders raising and her spine starting to bend, shows me that her character is at her most vulnerable level. She's obviously about to breakdown, to the point where she can't barely talk. Even when she does talk, she takes a break to get air (hands by her neck), but also get her stuff together.
"Do I make her proud?". Her facial expressions at this point are not just expressions of sadness, but also of pain. Sometimes, as I pointed out in the past, just because a character is sad, doesn't necessarily mean her facial expressions have to be sad. She's having a really hardtime even speaking because of all the emotions going on in her head/memories.
Then she adds that last bit (non dialogue) after her delievery, which always gets to me everytime. Really powerful stuff for me.

I think her acting in this scene is not only believable but also powerful.
There could be a million other things that you notice...and probably not all the things in this scene spoke to you how they spoke to me. Also, there could be a million different ways to act this out and animate a conversation like this.

Ultimately, the great thing about what we do is how many choices we have available and how many different ways we can say something, and make an audience feel.
I hope this scene was as inspirational to you as it was to me.

Have a great week everyone.

Carlos.

Planning Case Study: The Incredibles

2009-02-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

A study of the process of planning of one of the sequences from the film The Incredibles that I had to animate in the past, and the importance that planning had for me in preparing for this sequence. Showed several planning elements such as video reference, film clips and thumbnails.

Planning Case Study: The Incredibles

I hope this is helpful to people.

Carlos.

Wall-E Sequence

2009-02-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share one of the sequences I had the chance to work on in the movie Wall-E. It was a really different style of work I got the chance to do based on other things I've had to animate in the past, and I felt pretty lucky that I got to animate this. It was a difficult sequence, but the most fun for me.

Wall-E Hurt

Enjoy.

Carlos.

Lonely Tree

2009-01-31T01:42:00.000-08:00

Some random tree I found in Spain over the holidays.

Lonely Tree

C.