Stephen Gregory

Stephen Gregory's a Spline Doctor who started private tutoring late 2007. Ran across his tutor's (Bobby Pontillas blog about the sessions...

One of the things that he sees, seperating the great from the so-so animation reels is the thought process. The feeling that this animator actually sat down to think about what the character is doing, and why they're doing it. Learning to break down who the character is, any why they make the choices they make, is the harder part.

Before you start ask those pertinent questions. Who the character is and how s/he feel about what s/he's doing, essentially. Character's internal dialogue, and limiting your choices for acting based on the specifics of who the character is.

Where smitten guy in class is checking out girl, gets caught, and sheepishly feigns looking elsewhere, Stephen thought the idea a little bit generic, but to go for it anway. Here are some things he wanted me to do and think about before jumping in:
Start off by thumbnailing or writing down acting ideas you want to hit. Emotions poses etc. then take that with you in front of the camera and try acting out those ideas. Eventually it will all start to flow naturally and by the 10th or 20th take in front of the camera you might have some interesting stuff happening you can use for your test. This idea is typical of student work and the only thing that will separate it from the typical, is if you just don't animate your first idea. You'll need spend enough time working it out in front of a mirror or camera to break away from the typical. The other thing is don't try and copy the acting of this moment from "Superbad". People always pick up on acting that is taken from other movies.

Figure out your 1st golden, get the idea and emotion you want to sell and the pose you want to sell it. Make damn sure, then move on and see if you need or have time for any more golden's.

the key poses would tell the story, how you animated between those poses would sell the acting by making the physicality believable.

Nothing should be random, subtle movement shifts (keep-alives) should come from thinking about the physics and inertia of moving from one pose to another. How each part of the body settles, overshoots, or begins to sets up another pose, at times independently from one another. Its actually very difficult for anything to come to a complete stop without some specific residual movement.

The big key pose is the silhouette for the whole scene and then

I've been thinking about is how you lead the eye w/ how much movement you give a character. Where in the focal point is where most of the movement would be, and from there you sort of radiate out to much more subtle movement. So as not to take attention away from the focal point.

-Acting: Ideas & Choices - Somewheres along the line we were talking about acting choices based on the character & story vs. choices made for movement sake. And he told me about an instance last year where a student reel they got for the summer internship , had a character do a little acting bit idly playing with a bottle cap or something, and it just felt right and completely natural. And even though the rest of the reel didnt have the most "polished" animation in it. They were sold on strength of the ideas and choices for that one clip, and that person was picked up for the summer internship. And that alot of times people get hired into the studio on the strength of one shot, one moment from their reel. He mentioned again that someone can come in, sit down with the animators, and be taught how to polish and finish a shot well. But the acting instincts and choices an animator makes is hard to teach. So work to be extremely selective about those acting choices! Clarify if its ambiguous, and remember to simplfy! Make acting choices and not movement choices!

and from Dan Forgione

(paraphrased) every twitch and shift should be motivated by a thought/feeling. Those uncomfortable "I'm going to ask you out" nervous movements, each one should have a thought/feeling behind it "here we go... no, not quite brave enough yet"

You have you're main poses which in themselves say one thing, but how do you get to each of those poses, whether it is deciding whether to lead with the head, or torso, trail the arms, to antic, or overshoot, to zip into A from B, or ease in to one or another...whichever choice you make will have a direct impact on the translation of your main poses, because the character's body language during those transitions says just as much about how the character is feeling as do the key poses.

People tend to make choices on reels that show off they can animate, choosing a broader bigger gesture just to prove they can swing the arms around, instead of choosing a subtle one that's more in character.