Dialogue Piece - Workflow 02 - Acting and Reference

I decided to pick a sound clip from cancelled BBC sitcom 'Siblings' . It made me laugh and had some cool little qualities to it that I thought would be really fun to animate.

Sound Clip: https://www.dropbox.com/s/60bu9rz72lgq38f/shorter_version.wav?dl=0

The first thing I like to do is just sit and listen to the audio over and over. I tend to get an image in my head of who the character is and the general situation that he's in. (Refer to the acting essential blog post for more acting notes (Acting Essentials) This really helps inform the acting decisions later on.

I try to keep in mind several key points: What's the story? What is the scene objective? Overall objective? Obstacles to the objective? Play an action until an obstacle makes you play a different one.

From here I'll write down the dialogue and work out the general rhythm and timings of the speech. As well as writing down the acting beats:

I'll then put the audio on loop and start filming some video reference as i mouth the dialogue. 

Have a look at this video from AnimSchool where a mentor talks through different ways of approaching video reference:

Dialogue Piece - Workflow 01

Thought it'd be a good idea to blog my workflow for this dialogue and acting animation exercise.

I'm currently in the blocking phase so i'll be recapping the previous steps. Nearly all of this information is simply me passing on that which has already been worked out by many other more accomplished animators than me. Check out AnimSquad for a huge array of knowledge from some of the best people in the industry.

1. Choosing a Sound Clip

The first step in animating a dialogue piece (obviously)

There are quite a few things that are important to keep in mind when choosing to animate a dialogue piece. 

Firstly it's super important to know what type of animation that you want to animate before looking for sound clips. It could be a humorous, sad, dramatic, feminine, etc. Knowing what you want will make it so much easier when looking for sound.

We must also look for something that is interesting to listen to. For example monologues tend to be very boring. They're tempting to go for but without the context of the film or TV programme it's being taken from it will be very dull. That being said, it's also better to tend to avoid super dramatic scenes as the lack of context makes it hard for the audience too. 

Aspects that make a good sound clip:

• A fun payoff at the end / interesting twist
• Having a character audibly thinking (e.g. taking a breath, stumbling over words, human flaws)
• A good rhythm to the speech

The best place to look for dialogue is usually TV shows. Just have fun on YouTube searching for favourite shows and actors. TV is sometimes better than film when looking for dialogue.

Lastly, play the dialogue to friends and see how they react. Usually a good way to tell whether it's worth pursuing a clip or not.

Next up, prepping the shot...

Comparing Acting and Performance

Found this fantastic clip a while ago and thought i'd share it on here. It's a great example of taking a piece of dialogue and finding two completely different ways of performing it.




The acting choices turn the scene into either a dramatic piece or a comedic one. The way the actors choose to pause and run the dialogue is particularly interesting too as well as certain emphasis on words to really hit those emotional beats. Denzel breaks to allow time for the audience to laugh whereas James Earl Jones will break at different times to emphasise the poignancy of the message he is telling his son.

So many great acting notes to take away from that clip.



Whilst i'm at it I'm a big fan of James Earl Jones and his poetry readings, have a look at this clip below:



James Earl Jones Performs Shakespeare at the White House Poetry Jam: 3 of 8 from The White House on Vimeo.


I could watch this performance taken from Othello all day. Incredible reading and acting. Even when some of the Shakespearean dialogue becomes a little hard to understand, the emotion of the words is never lost which is all down to the acting. Love this stuff!

Summer 2015 Showreel - James Saunders

An update to my showreel for the summer:

Summer 2015 Animation Showreel - James Saunders from James Saunders on Vimeo.

Walk To A Stop - Animation Exercise

More animation exercises woo!

Used some reference to help me do a fairly detailed walk to a stop. Was a really fun little exercise to do:

Walk To A Stop - Animation Exercise from James Saunders on Vimeo.

Dog Animation WIP

Been working on this dog animation the past 3 days. Really fancied doing some creature animation with a bit more personality than a vanilla walk cycle.

Dog Getting Up WIP from James Saunders on Vimeo.



I worked off a couple videos as a reference guide:




I began by working in all the major keyframes from the reference. I would then try to keyframe the entire dog on these major keyframes. For the most part this worked and helped me keep my time slider clutter free at this first stage of animation. For the more complicated movement as the dog gets up I did have the break away from this a little bit.

I then checked out how the animation was looking out (not great) and then went back in and started the tailor the animation slightly to how the rig was constructed as well as exaggerating some motion following the animation principles such as overlap and removing twinning.

From here I had an okay base to start working over some more, fixing some feet issues and general mechanics. (I've found the more I paid attention to the mechanics at the beginnning the smoother the animation went). Always checking the graph editor for funny shaped curves.

A quick final go over to smooth some more stuff out and that's just about where i'm at now. 

Check out 3dhit.co.uk for some critique and more personal work

Panther Walk Cycle

I've been working on this panther walk cycle on and off the past couple weeks along with a few other exercises. Been trying to improve my realistic animation as it's an area in which i'm lacking at the moment.

Using plenty of reference as help I think some progress is being made.



Panther Walk WIP from James Saunders on Vimeo.



There are tonnes of little nuances to a cat walk which I had never really noticed before studying the reference.

Going to try and improve this some more next week!