The Round Tablet

Found what looks like a collection of art tutorials.

Also Kyle Kenworthy's animation pinterest.

Ryan Woodward Animating from the Heart

 This is an old talk Ryan did about his short film. I was thinking about how if you resist your inspirations everything will just feel frustrating and ash like.

Animating from the Heart – Logic vs Inspiration Animator and Filmmaker Ryan Woodward from Creative Talent Network on Vimeo.


notes:
after I finish drawing the boards, I go into aftereffects, add some sound fx, some flare, some fake animation, you can have a lot of fun with it, you really feel like a film maker

The first instance when I clued in that I wanted to do stuff on the side

When I worked on Osmosis Jones I remember doing this scene that I was really excited and passionate about, it was perfect just the way I wanted and I passed it on, and when I saw it in dailies (after all the other departments had added their stuff) it had totally changed. When I saw it I was so upset and angry inside that they had touched my child and manipulated it into something I couldn't identify with anymore, it hurt. And my office partner said "you've got to chill out, you've got to go do something on the side, your own little project that you do on your own and invest all your passion into that so that when you're working on your day job you're not so emotionally invested in your drawings"

So if you have something on the side (even if it's small) it satisfies that creative monster inside you. Sometimes on a job you  don't feel like a creator you feel like a production guy. When you've been there long enough you start to forget what it's like to be a creator on your own, it just becomes a job. I noticed that my own personal aesthetic about what I think is cool in art all reflected on the movies I had worked on. I felt a bit like a slave that the studio is dictating what I like and not like. So I had to reassess what I actually like.

I loved modern dance, and figure drawing, but the idea of doing a film that way sounds like torture. Then the idea hit me, and the idea trumps all obstacles. When the idea hits you you think "either I do this, or I die inside"

Why are you making it?
I'm making it because I have to. I have to feel like I'm creating something


The one thing I really learned, I don't force inspiritation, I just try to prepare myself with a level of sensitivity that when inspiration does come it floors me like a train.

I just wait for those moments, where the heavens part and "aha". They don't happen very often, but when they happen, do something, otherwise youll be frustrated inside and you won't know why and everything will be grrrrr, and you won't know why. But if you really think about it you know what you want to do, you know inspiration hit you and you chose not to do it, that creates misery. But if you do it, even if you fail at it, that fact that you're doing it makes you feel alive and living some kind of purpose, you feel like you're being someone you were born to be, if it doesn't make a dime who gives a crap You did it. Just the fact that you did it you can lay back and breathe a sigh and you feel human.

the film: 
Thought of You from Ryan J Woodward on Vimeo.

Tangled Unofficial Animator Commentary

 man, HOORAY for Clay Katis!!!! I've learned so much from his animpodcast. Latest one included.

Since clearly Glen Keane is a god who helped push this movie beyond, here's the solid Glen Keane notes again (collected at Art of Glen Keane but originally from Mark Kennedy's site) (and then the old ones from animation meat )


here's the notes I took listening to the podcast:


glen was less concerned with the motion and more concerned with designing the appeal in the design of the golden poses

Glen always started with drawing the eyes, most of the time he spent on the poses, only 5% on the animation

It was frustrating to take Glen's drawings back and try and push the CG model into it, because the automatic deformations would make the model look really weird, so had to find a balance

a lot of what I learned working with Glen was appeal, and now when I work on a shot I tend to look at the facial expressions a lot, especially the eyes, and even the eyelashes. Really paying attention to the appeal of the face and how it works in the scene.

The director's called for a lot less "we don't want a gesture festival, just have him standing in this one pose" which felt like we weren't doing enough, but then watching it sequence it totally works

this is the first musical a lot of people worked on, we didn't realize how important the inhales are to animating to a song, the big gasp right before belting it out was really important

I used to think it was enough to  move the body as a whole believably, but Glen really showed us that the body the hips and torso and all could work together to express emotion and they could work together harmoniosly. Glen would always say TILT RHYTHM AND TWIST something you could apply to the face or any part of the character, or the whole character, those are the kinds of things that Glen would drill into us (what would glen do, that) general assymetry in the mouth, looking for appeal and focus in the eyes. That's one thing in Disney's DNA, the characters beyond just being well designed, they are posed within their own design that makes sense for who they are. How the characters occupy their own body. In terms of minimalism, Glen would show a drawing that looked so good just as a drawing that it didn't need to move so much

I remember Glen drawing the shoulder way up by the head and you're thinking "what the heck is he doing, he's pushing way to far" but then it all comes together and works beautifully. He's so good at zeroing in on the storytelling pose

animating songs? was it different?
the rhythm of the shot is a little easier to find because it's predfined (like the difference between a pantomime shot and a dialogue shot)