Subtle vs. Low Energy - Part 2

Ok, now we're up for part two. Back in part one of my venture to solve the mystery of low energy vs. subtle I didn't really know what to make of the notes my mentor gave me for the Darth Vader shot.

Now I at least got a slight idea. Last week we started polishing our monologue shot. Check out the version I finished back in class five:



So, I really like this shot! It's fluid, smooth, good looking animation (on a student level, at least). And it has some sort of believable touch to it, it looks sort of casual and like something a person would do in this sort of situation.
Here's the thing though: Kenny asked me to lower down the volume and look at the animation without sound. When you do so, you'll find that you have no idea about what is going on in the shot. He even went so far to speak over the muted shot. Try it, it's fun: Mute the clip and go "Hey! .. You know what?... I think everybody blahblah" and so on. It totally works as well, right?

So I reblocked the whole thing in a matter of days. Which by the way made me feel super confident; I took the shot to this stage in 3 days, whereas the same took me four weeks just half a year ago!
I tried to really make the body language go along with the dialogue. Not to say that the body has to express what the character's saying, but it has to be related to what he's feeling! If a character tells one thing but his body language tells the exact opposite you have some great opportunities for interesting acting choices.
Anyways, here's what I came up with:



This is a lot more expressive and has so much more energy. Maybe even to a level that looks all cartoony and overdone, I'm not even sure if I like this version better or not. But I know it's communicating a lot better, and in the end I guess this should be all about communication. I think I'm on the right track with this. Even though it might feel a bit too snappy-happy and all over the place, it's a huge step when it comes to learning process and I'm really really satisfied with it.
In subtle animations, it's a challenge to get the emotions to stand out and vibrate when you have to stay in the boundaries of a character who's not moving a whole lot.
The thing I will have to try to work on in the future is blending: blending my feel for subtle animation with the newly discovered communication skillz (and yes, they're so mad, they come with a Z!).

If I'll be able to make this happen, the Vader Shot will stand out! Can't wait to get to work on it once AM's over.

Take care
C

Subtle vs. Low Energy - Part 1

Hey there, how's it going?

Class Six keeps me very busy, so I probably won't be posting as often in the upcoming two months.

You might remember that I worked on a brand new shot during break week and I was looking forward to hear what my new Mentor Kenny Roy thinks about it, as I feel like it's my most intense shot in the acting department to date.



Pity, I'm not allowed to work on it at AM as we are supposed to work only on the assignments we worked on with a mentor.
That's by the way the reason why the shot didn't progress, it still needs a lot of polish. But it looks like when I solved this riddle about Subtle vs. Low energy, I'll be starting over anyways, so I'll just leave it for now;)

Well, anyway, Kenny was kind enough to leave me with some notes. One thing he mentioned is still stuck with me and I haven't been able to wrap my head around it so far. He said that the shot is rather low energy than subtle. Whaaat? Isn't subtle the same as quiet and still? Apparently not! I'm still diving into this subject and I'll be sharing what I come to understand about the subject in the coming weeks.

Here's the notes I took from his feedback:
"Shot has some fundamental problems: It looks like low energy or subdued instead of subtle. A chair usually cuts the energy in half, you would have to go a lot broader with his movements to get high energy. Advice: have him stand up, put secondary action in there, i.e. have him hold his helmet and maybe have him rub over a dent with the thumb."
The shot was a candidate for my one person acting piece back in class four, so I had done all the preparation already. I had a first pass of taking reference where I was to include secondary action while he was holding his helmet and fiddled around with it. But then I decided to boil the performance down to it's core. The core to me, is this man, who is not able to see his kids anymore and how he's devastated about it. We have a huge story unfolding there. This man IS low energy! If you take a look at the original acting footage in the Wallstreet sequel (I couldn't find any footage online, unfortunately), you'll find that although Michael Douglas may be standing at the window, he doesn't move an inch during the whole scene. He keeps his hands in his pockets, maybe a shoulder shrug here and there. One pose.
It's the second time I'm getting a note that I should avoid a sitting character in shot. Well, if he's having a hard time, he most likely won't have the energy to move around and do stuff while expressing his emotional state. It's like cartoons aren't allowed to rest and be still at all!
I do understand that a cartoon's purpose is to entertain, but why would you turn a quiet moment into hyperdrive-mode?

I wrote an e-mail to Ed Hooks, the author of Acting for Animators about this and asking for his opinion and advice as well. I'm looking forward to hear from him and hopefully I'll be able to share some parts of his answer with you in a future post.
Meanwhile I'll be trying to find out myself and do some research. I'll get back to you as soon as I know more ;)

I'll be glad to hear your comments and thoughts!
Thanks & take care
C