The Animation Podcast

I have a letter at The Animator Letters Project

2013-02-15T07:18:46Z

Yesterday I found an old notebook with a letter to myself that I never intended to share with anyone. It was written 13 years ago in 2000. It’s about me finding my process of hand-drawn animation – a collection of things I was finding to be true along my way and some pumped up advice on how to be courageous. I was going to post it here, but felt that it might better serve Willie Downs’ Animator Letters Project and he was gracious enough to post it there. I got a kick out of reading it all these years later and I hope someone else does too. If you have any comments, please leave them on the post on Willie’s site. I’ll be disabling the comments on this post.

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Show 32 – The “Unofficial” Tangled Animators’ Audio Commentary

2012-10-31T16:49:44Z

“You knew that every ounce of energy put into it, you were going to get it back in the theaters.” – Zach Parrish

Wreck-it Ralph comes out this week in America and it got me thinking that I should do some sort of lead-in to it. Everyone in this podcast also animated on Wreck-it Ralph, but in a completely different way and it’s fascinating to me to follow that progress. So I dug up this recording I made on April 14, 2011. It’s been a long while, but most of the gang’s all here for your listening pleasure. I wasn’t sure how it would come out so I sat on this one for a long time and NEVER listened to it. Shameful, I know. I played it this weekend and had so much fun listening and laughing, that I knew I had to get it out. After far too long, THE ANIMATION PODCAST LIVES!!!

Show 32 is a departure from the regular format. It’s an experiment. After Tangled (Amazon link) was released, I heard so many people wondering why there wasn’t any audio commentary on the DVD or Blu-ray, so I got all the animators who were available to join me in watching Tangled to talk about the experience of making it. Here it is: the UNOFFICIAL Tangled Animator’s Commentary made by the biggest group of animators you will probably ever hear in one room.

Here’s the plan: queue up your copy of Tangled to frame 1 of the actual film (before the castle logo) and hit pause. When we count down 3-2-1-PLAY, you un-pause and hear us talk through the film. Like I said, it’s was an experiment and we may not always talk about what’s on screen, but it’s a great opportunity for you to hear many of the voices behind the film.

Continue for audio file download links, and comments. No show notes on this one but plenty of links for all the animators…

Get the MP3 here: Show 32: Unofficial Tangled Animators’ Audio Commentary
(97.71MB, 1:46:30 minutes)

HUGE thanks to all my fellow Disney animators who pitched in on recording this (in order of appearance):
Amy Smeed IMDB
Adam Dykstra IMDB
Jennifer Hager blog youtube IMDB
Miyuki Kanno-Long blog IMDB
Adam Green website IMDB
Daniel Peixe website blog IMDB
John Wong IMDB
Zach Parrish website IMDB
Marlon Nowe website IMDB
Doug Bennett blog IMDB
Joel Reid IMDB
Mark Mitchell IMDB
Kira Lehtomaki blog IMDB
Patrick Osborne blog Twitter IMDB
Darrin Butters Twitter Facebook IMDB
Becky Bresee IMDB
Chris Cordingly website Student Film IMDB
Chadd Ferron IMDB
Clay Kaytis IMDB
John Kahrs Twitter IMDB
Chad Sellers website IMDB
Jason Figliozi blog IMDB
Malcon Pierce blog blog IMDB

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the individual speakers and not those of The Walt Disney Company or any of its affiliated divisions.

It’s good to be back. So what do you think? Should we do this again for Wreck-it Ralph? Let me know how this little experiment works for you in the comments!

No related posts.

Entertainment: when it rings true, but new

2012-02-25T02:30:58Z

In the comments on my last post, Alonso asks a great question. He wants to know more about entertainment. I don’t have all the answers but here are some thoughts…

It’s that old phrase “give ‘em what they want in an unexpected way.” Easy to say, hard to do because if you keep throwing away the obvious choices, you run the risk of just doing weird or quirky for the sake of it and maybe taking the idea way off course.

I wrote down this hypothetical for myself a couple years ago:

“If the director sees your shot and decides they don’t like your idea, what would you do instead?”

I like exploring this possibility when conceiving a shot because if this happens, you have no choice, you have to come up with something that not only satisfies the director but also your interest in animating the shot. You have to believe in the work you’re doing.

“Emotionally authentic” is what I mean by the first section of “believable performance,” so “entertainment” is something else. “Emotionally authentic” and “believable performance” is the standard. Every shot has to have that but when you push beyond believable and do it in an unexpected way, the audience gets jolted out of their boredom. THAT’S entertaining for THEM. The audience is the one who matters.

We see people being normal all day. Even worse, we see people acting normal in movies (and especially animated ones) all too much. It’s the brilliant animators/actors who turn ideas on their ear and make the audience see something that rings true, but new.

Of course, entertainment takes many forms – acting beats, timing choices, poses, etc. I always think of Milt Kahl as someone who never went for the first idea, at least for a great pose. Look at this image from Andreas Deja’s great blog as an example:

Or this Milt image from Mark Kennedy’s blog:

There are tons of examples of Milt always searching for the most entertaining and clear pose for an action. And it’s not even always crucial shots but he continually searched for a creative way to solve problems visually. That’s just one of the reasons why people still study his drawings and scenes. As great as he was, he didn’t go with his first thought.

So how to learn to be entertaining? That’s the trick, isn’t it?
It’s part taste – what do you like and what do you respond to?
It’s part personality – do you have your own take on things that other people wouldn’t have?
It’s part observation – watch people, keep a sketchbook and STEAL their behaviors for your scenes. This is why EVERY animator should have a sketchbook to record life.
It’s part discipline – don’t allow yourself to do the easy, obvious choice. Any good animator can do that so make yourself irreplaceable and bring what they aren’t thinking of.

Here’s a great compilation of Cary Grant moments. (It won’t play here, but click it then click through to YouTube.) He endures as one of cinema’s greats because he repeatedly created memorable performances by doing things with his unique spin. He was an ENTERTAINER! You’ll probably want to turn off the music, but maybe you’ll like it. Notice the parts you respond to. When do you smile? (That’s you being entertained, by the way.) I bet it’s when he does things that you don’t expect.

Some basic animation reel advice

2012-02-25T02:28:57Z

First of all, hi everybody. I’m inching my way back to the site. So much clean up, dusting off and re-learning how to do things around here but that’s for me to worry about, not you. Here’s a baby step in the right direction.

I received an email this week asking for some advice on what would help someone get into the animation trainee program at Disney. My answer applies to any level of animator. Of course, I think this advice would help many people, so here is my brief, but fairly complete, answer.*

Four things that make a reel work, in order of importance:

Believable performance. Not necessarily “realistic” but believable for the style of animation and situation. This is the part that is hardest to teach. Do your characters show that they are thinking, making decisions, judgments, choices on their own. Do the expression, body posture and dialog shapes accurately reflect what is being said (or what isn’t being said)? Over acting, bad acting, unbelievable acting, and acting that does not fit the situation – those are the the biggest turn offs.

Convincing physics. Do you know how to move characters? Do they have weight? Will I believe they exist in a reality that has gravity? Do they feel like they are built of flesh and bone and not just filled with empty space? Are movements motivated by internal forces – both mental and physical?

Entertainment. Do you have original ideas and ways of solving problems that aren’t typical? Show us how you think that’s different from the crowd. Do you pass over the obvious and make choices that are surprising AND appropriate for the situation?

Polish. This is the bonus round. All of the above are most important but if you can do them along with great polish – spacing, arcs, timing, slow-ins/outs, no pops or wonkiness, obvious care in the details – then your work will stand above the rest.

You may look at your body of work and think that you’re missing some of these things. Well, what is stopping you? You have the tools to animate. You can carve out some time. Do it and animate something new that gives us all of these things and your chances of getting the position you want will greatly improve!

*Of course, this is my own opinion and I am not attempting to represent Walt Disney Animation Studios. With that said, I have worked there forever and I’ve seen thousands of reels and hired scores of people.

UPDATE:
Here’s a follow up post.

Show 31* – Disney Talent Development Alumni (*Animation Mentor Exclusive)

2009-10-07T07:20:25Z

“You learn everything from every production that you’re on, even if it’s, you know, a commercial that lasts three weeks. You learn something from it.”

It’s finally here – my exclusive podcast for Animation Mentor! It marks a few firsts: my first podcast in over a year; my first roundtable with five guests; my first women guests! Since this is an exclusive, you’ll need to head over to Animation Mentor to listen and download the show. My focus for this show was to grab five artists at Disney who recently went through the Talent Development Program at Disney and talk about how they got there and what it’s like to work at the studio. My guests include Story Artist Jeremy Spears, Visual Development Artist Lorelay Bove, Rough Inbetweener/Jack of all Trades Joe Pitt, 2D Animator Sarah Airriess, and CG Animator (and Animation Mentor alumni) Kira Lehtomaki. Please leave your comments and feedback on this this post. I’d love to hear what you think.

@Animpodcast on Twitter and #Animtip Tuesdays

2009-08-19T15:16:31Z

I’ve been sorely absent from this site for a large part of the last year, but I haven’t dropped off the hairy back of the internet. Pinched with little time to spare, I’ve fallen for the ease and short form of the tweet. I make a point not to tweet my life, so you won’t hear that I’m out of milk. But I do tweet about animation, which leads me to the best part…

I started a hashtag (a way to mark topics) on Twitter called #animtip.

Click this search and you’ll see what it is.

PLUS, every Tuesday is now Animtip Tuesday where tons of animation fanatics post their animation tips on animation. It’s fun and inspiring. Share an animtip on Twitter any day of the week, but especially on Animtip Tuesday.

I’ve added an icon at the top of the site to find me on Twitter. My username is AnimPodcast. If you follow me, send me a tweet to let me know who you are.

Sandro Cleuzo has a blog

2009-08-17T22:35:48Z

Fantastic animator Sandro Cleuzo sent me an email this week to tell me about the blog he has started. Only six posts in and it’s all great stuff. I can’t wait for more. He’s including some background of the images in each post, which will be of interest to those who like to learn about production work that never made it to the screen.

Sandro easily fits in my top ten of working traditional animators – if you think the drawings are beautiful, you should him move them on screen. I had the pleasure of watching him work on The Emperor’s New Groove, Sweating Bullets/Home on the Range, and The Princess and the Frog. Check him out:

Inspector Cleuzo

Site Re-design – kicking the tires

2009-08-17T07:46:38Z

In case you check back once in a while, wondering if the site is falling apart from disuse, you’ll see that it has been dusted off and slapped with a brand new coat of paint! This isn’t just a tease, I am getting back into the podcasting business. (I never left, really, I was only stretching my legs for a bit.)

I really wanted to get the shows into the spotlight. Now you’ll always find the latest show on the front page, above the fold.

This isn’t just a cosmetic overhaul, I decided to make some tough choices, like changing my link structure to a much simpler format. SO… if you’ve got links out there pointing here, they may not reach their final destination. That’s OK. We’ll rebuild together.

As with every revamp of the site – at least it’s been my experience – things will have broken, and may not work like before. I’ll be tinkering, discovering, and patching as I go. If you run into anything drastic, pitch me an email and let me know.

Some features are drifting into the shadows, while others are lurching forward and begging for some love. It will all balance out as we get back into the swing together.

I’m adding an image for when I tear it all apart next time and people wonder, what did it look like before?

Walt Stanchfield Books

2009-08-17T02:40:31Z

I’m going to take my time here, so I’ll put the summary first:
BUY THESE WALT STANCHFIELD BOOKS!
Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 2: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures

Ok, now for the long version…

In 1994, during my first week as an intern at Disney, everything was magic to me. They had a shelf full of fresh (and expensive) animation paper for anyone to use. Draw through your stack? Take some more! Unfathomable. The pencil supply shelf was like a treasure chest. I figured that these must be the most popular pencil choices of hundreds of the greatest artists from over decades of use. I took one of each to figure out which one would be the key to unlocking my latent drawing virtuosity. (None of them worked.) There were drawing classes every lunch hour – with food provided! Was this heaven? I was so wide-eyed and for years I saved every scrap of paper that came across my desk because I just knew that when I am 87 years old, I’ll spend my hours going through dusty old boxes, reading memos reminiscing how great life was.

The weekly newsletter was a treat. It was called The Twilight Bark, after the way dogs sent news in 101 Dalmatians. On Monday mornings a copy would be waiting at your desk. Reading it made me feel like I had been given access to an exclusive club (which, I guess, I had). On my second Monday, the newsletter ended with a few pages of advice on drawing with examples of quick sketch gesture drawings. At the end of the typewritten pages was the handwritten signature ‘Walt.’ I assumed it was an old memo from Walt Disney, but I never knew he did any sort of instruction like that. Well, he didn’t (except for a few memos that float around).

The Walt, I soon learned, was Walt Stanchfield. Walt had retired from animation production, and he was at least in his seventies at the time, but once a month he returned to the studio to teach for two lunches. That’s when he would drop off the pages for his latest newsletter and it would appear in The Twilight Bark to the benefit of the entire studio the following week. That was REAL magic.

Walt had the most joyful, energetic spirit I have ever known. Yes, his classes were about drawing, but they were also about seeing, judging, storytelling, passion, life, creation, sports, clarity, art. “Live life dammit!” is something he would say. He’d tell us to ignore all that garbage we learned in anatomy class. He wanted us to make decisions in the drawings and tell a story through the image. If we drew the model exactly, he’d show us how more interesting it would be if we pushed the pose, moved the hand out here for clarity, tilt the chin to direct the viewer’s eye to where we want them to focus. He didn’t want us to draw what we saw, he wanted us to take in the idea and power it on to the page with verve and directness. He was so hooked on creativity. He’d sometimes share his latest drawings that he made while driving down the freeway from his home near Solvang!

When anyone asks about what type of drawing classes to take, there are two answers I always give: figure drawing and Walt Stanchfield style gesture drawing. Walt’s drawing is a unique brand that isn’t taught very often. Luckily, some of the people I took Walt’s classes with have carried on the tradition and are teaching what Walt taught them. Tom Gately works and teaches at Pixar and Dave Pimentel works and teaches at Dreamworks. I’m working on some unsuspecting souls to teach at Disney right now. The reason I give for recommending the Stanchfield style of drawing is that it is what I use most in my daily work. Doing CG doesn’t demand much drawing from me, but when I’m planning out my shots in thumbnails, I’m using everything I can remember from Walt’s classes and his handouts to find clarity, directness, and entertainment in my poses.

After all these years, I’ve given or thrown away most of the things I saved those first few years, but not the Walt Stanchfield notes. Those are more valuable to me than anything I have collected from the studio. They’re just a stack of photocopies, but they are a symbol of Walt’s passion for life, and his constant search for inspiration that he translated into ways to inspire us. They remind me of the times when the model was stuck in traffic and he would get up and pose – he was the best model we ever had. They remind me of how he’d lean over my shoulder with his coffee breath to correct a drawing, then ask to have it. That meant it would probably show up in the next handout as an example of what NOT to do. He’d pat me on the shoulder and say, “Don’t worry, I won’t use any names.” I miss that coffee breath. They also remind me of the few times that he used a drawing I did as a good example. I can’t tell you how proud I was to be “published” in Walt’s “Words of Wisom.” It meant I had actually done a drawing that was good enough to possible inspire someone else. I’m sure he knew that helped students like me far more than any readers.

Last year, I heard that Don Hahn, of Disney Producer fame, was working with Walt’s widow to take the years of typewritten, photocopied handouts and compile them in to books so that anyone can have beautiful copies of this inspiring collection. Well, the time is upon us. Next month, the books will be released. I found out because I was contacted by Don to tell me that one of my drawings is included. Even after life, Walt has once again provided me one of my proudest moments in animation.

So if you can’t tell, I am giving these books the highest recommendation. The “Words of Wisdom” are that and much more. They are filled with fantastic examples of how to clearly draw, fresh perspectives (even after decades) of how to look at life and creativity, and tons of quotes and references to books and artists that will keep you searching out new avenues of inspiration, just as Walt Stanchfield did. Get these books.

For some more one Walt and his “Words of Wisom”…
See the trailer:
at Don Hahn’s website
Read about Walt and the books (with sample pages):
on Mark Kennedy’s blog
on Hans Bacher’s blog

Show 030 – Eric Goldberg, Part Two

2009-08-18T02:38:57Z

“I like to draw everything that has a sense of give to it, and a sense of life, and everything that will support the idea of the pose and then build the anatomy on top.”

The interview concludes in Part Two where Eric Goldberg shares his extensive knowledge and appreciation for animating as he talks about many of the projects he has directed including Pocahontas, Rhapsody in Blue, and The Monkey’s Tale while the conversation continues to touch down on the details of the craft of animation. Eric is currently animating on the upcoming film The Princess and the Frog.

Continue for Show Notes, audio file download links, and comments…

Get the MP3 here: Show 30: Eric Goldberg, Part Two
(29.1MB, 1:03:19 minutes)

Or get the enhanced version playable only with Quicktime, iTunes, or iPods.
(Includes chapter breaks, pictures and links in addition to the audio.)
Get the enhanced podcast here: Show 30: Eric Goldberg, Part Two
(30.9MB, 1:03:19 minutes)

Amazon.com Widgets

SHOWNOTES

00:00 The Intro Voice
00:05 Sponsored by –
00:23 Introduction
Character Animation Crash Course
01:36 Approach to drawing
05:29 Anything to add on the Genie?
09:31 The style and tone of Pocahontas
14:13 Pocahontas: Adventurous art direction
17:02 Pocahontas: Most difficult film to date
19:35 Pocahontas: Defending its biggest criticisms
22:11 Directing shorts vs. features
25:49 The breadth of sidekicks
28:37 Less accessible projects – The Monkey’s Tale
36:41 Storyboarding for animation
42:46 Eric Goldberg – cartoon voice
44:48 What is possible in CG that hasn’t happened?
56:06 How is it at Disney today?
57:42 Conclusion
57:55 Voicemails/Feedback info – Email Clay – Link to Voicemail
1:02:16 BOLT
1:02:42 Sponsored by –