Act 2

Again from Pigeon Impossible

"
Strategy 2: Fun and Games vs. Enemy Regroups. These are terms used by Blake Snyder in his Save The Cat books. (Awesome and highly recommended.) If we’ve broken down act 2 into two parts, Act 2A is the Fun and Games section. This is where we get to have fun with the premise of the movie. So, since the premise of PI is a pigeon wreaking havoc with a high tech briefcase, Act 2A is where that havoc is wreaked. However, the midpoint represents not just a turning point in the plot, but also a tonal shift. The stakes are raised and things suddenly get more serious. This leads us into Act 2B which Snyder calls “The Enemy Regroups” In PI, Walter has just put a halt to the pigeon’s destructive flight by threatening the bagel. He tries to get the pigeon out of the briefcase, but each attempt ends in things just getting worse. Hopefully since PI is a comedy, this section is still funny, but its definitely a very different tone than the unrestrained silliness of Act 2A.
"

hadn't heard that approach before, now I need to track down the save the cat book to see.


and from Jim Butcher (who's blog is apparently a small collection of essays on writing, he boils scenes into an easy formula for one)

"Here's the nutshell concept: Plan a great big freaking event for the end of the middle. You want it to be a big dramatic confrontation of whatever kind is appropriate to your genre. The fallout from your big bad Big Middle event should be what boots the book down the homestretch to reach the story's climax. Really lay out the fireworks. Hit the reader with everything you can. PLAN THE BIG MIDDLE EVENT. Then, as you work through the middle, WORK TO BUILD UP TO IT. Drop in the little hints, establish the proper props and motivations and such. Make sure that everything you do in the middle of the book is helping you build up to the BIG MIDDLE.
"

the formula for scenes: POV. Goal. Conflict. Setback
and the formula for the follow up scene (he calls sequel) to get you to the next plot point scene: Emotion. Reason. Anticipation. Choice

Paganini Face

Found this on the Pigeon Impossible blog, and like him I was impressed with how much expression and communication is expressed with the movement of the head.

Choosing a Palette

Color Scheme Designer

Kuler

color palette generator

gamut tool

Les Metiers

This came through a few months ago. Didn't want it to disappear because I like how simple and clean the style is.

JOBS : THE BAKER / LES METIERS : LE BOULANGER from lam le thanh on Vimeo.

Gorgeous Web Graphic Novel

WormWorld by Daniel Lieske. Interesting how each panel is just a new jpeg, so it just scrolls down, seems to be taking advantage of the medium. So much effort though, hopefully he finds the time to continue it. Looks like he worked on it straight for a year from the moment he got home from work until he went to sleep, that seems to be the only way to accomplish anything stop doing useless down time things to recover from your day and just toughen up and work on your own stuff (not like life is ever gonna give you a break to make it easy, so you have to make it happen).

"I realized that, compared to stories like 'Princess Mononoke', 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind' or 'Spirited Away', my own story framework looked quite dull - an evil beast spits out a dark Lord who wants to destroy the world. The only way to save the world is, to destroy the villain first. From a western point of view that might have developed into a robust story but there just had to be more."

and he has a retrospective of his art so you can see his evolution from meh to awesome

"I painted a total of 45 hours on 18 panels so I'm way over my estimated 26 hours from after the first milestone (which had only 9 larger panels)" and how he thought about and planned his time

Jessica Borutski

Awesomely talented Jessica Borutski's new short is out. Story may not be anything special, but all the pieces are well done and put together.

The Good Little Bunny with the Big Bad Teeth from Foolish K. Bunny on Vimeo.

her other

(couldn't find her official version of pandas

Ilusionario

Recently saw one of the latest CG flicks (nothing to do with the flick above;), and while the story was well put together the visuals just bored me. What's the point of making a really blue sky with really green grass? (Lango was talking about this a while back.)

So it had me thinking, "well, what would be better?" So I went wandering through my inspiration folder of images I've pulled off the net. I was digging one of the artists from the Illusionario team so once I tracked their cghub page down I found their blog and lol they're all ready making their own short films with their ideas.

here's the images that pulled me in, I was digging the way the non important environment elements unify into large monochrome shape blocks, there's extra texture in them if you are interested but the overall expression is made instantly.


and then I just love how fresh and bendy this character is (sorry if it's NSFW)


so I'll be doing some more digging on that site, but I'm running home now, so now I can find it later. Here's their youtube page

Vinamilk Stopmo ad?

Vinamilk "Jump" from Frank Barton on Vimeo.

by the frank barton company

* found on lineboil

Clifford Stoll - mad scientist - varied timing

This guy is fantastic (real life Doc Brown) I don't really follow very easily what he's saying, but the reason I put it up here is because of how he moves. He's leaping out of his skin in the beginning, totally unexpectedly and very entertainingly. But in the middle he calms way down and is really still. Makes me think of all the talk about having different textures and rhythms in your animation.



* found by someone else I think, don't remember. Ted talks are awesome though

Interesting Fashion Photos

Blog of interesting fashion photos TwistedLamb image inspiration I guess :)

And another

Top Hand Drawn Animation Blogs

Someone's handing out awards. They've got a list of awesome artists. Throwing it down here so I can look through them when I have a chance.

Top Hand Drawn Animation Blogs

Crying Reference Julianne Moore

* found by I don't remember :(

Glen Keane interview

(My wife just delivered our baby Sunday, so not as up to date on the bigger world lately ;)

Interview with Glen Keane post Tangled.

My sketch books and the figure drawings are the source for everything I’ve ever animated. It’s all these observations. The little things that make a huge difference. You don’t see it unless you are drawing it, and you have to draw it. In order to draw it, you have to have observed it.

This is what I was challenging the animators with constantly on this film. I’d say ... This is your moment. So you take the moment, and find something real personal, and put yourself into it. Don’t put yourself into past Disney movies. Don’t copy anything. Make it personal and real

I know that there’s people who possibly work at studios for a long time and they lose themselves. They become, I don’t know, a formula of some sort. A caricature of themselves. And I really don’t want that.

The thing that happens with the computer is that it’s always seducing you to buy into ‘less than’. It’s seducing you to fall in love with a nicely rendered form. And the shading that is done so nicely on that shoulder. But who cares that the shoulder is pushed here [motions away], and it’s anatomically impossible! Look at the way the wrinkle falls on that dress! It’s like, grrrr! I’d look at that, and in the beginning I was so frustrated, seeing what the animators were presenting to me. It was horrible!

What I’m trying to say is that I know you have to work so long and so hard just to get it to a level that’s even mediocre. But we can’t stop there. You have to be so convinced inside about something that you believe, that you will say no to the computer, that’s not what I want. Yes, I could do that, but this I what I want, I have to go to the end and get that. So how do we get that? That’s where I’d start to do the drawings, and push the shoulder.

See, the computer always tries to do everything symmetrical. Asymmetry is beauty. Symmetry is cold, and lifeless.

And I showed Ollie a scene of Tangled... I said “look, freckles!” ...

Ollie said, “Well, Glen. What I was wondering is, what is she thinking about?”

It was like, gah, yes. Who cares about all of the icing on the cake, if the cake isn’t tasty... Have a goal that’s worth fighting for. If you don’t, the computer is like a used car salesman. It’ll always make you walk off the lot with something you don’t want.

People were second guessing now, they would predict what I would draw beforehand, and they would do it. And I found I wasn’t doing those drawings any more. I was doing less and less drawing. My drawings are different now, they’re very specific about acting choices.

I realised I don’t have time to learn this [how to animate on the computer]. I thought if I become soft, and too sympathetic to their suffering, I will give them too much freedom.


It’s actually the only moment in my 36 years of Disney where you see my drawings up on the screen. All the others are somebody’s clean-up of my drawings. But it’s in Pocahontas, in Colors Of The Wind, and it’s the charcoal drawings that I did.

And we used the computer to paint it, but keeping the charcoal lines in. I thought, that’s how I want to use the computer. I want to find a way to really celebrate drawing. To really value the energy of a line. A line to me is like a seismograph of an earthquake, that measures emotion. And when you clean it up, you take so much out. That’s another direction that we can go because of the computer.

I love to do a drawing of a child sitting on a chair. I’ve never seen a two children sit on the chair the same.


Grease Pencil