As animators we are also actors – how can you give life and personality to a character if you can’t act or represent them correctly. You must know your character and make him unique.
This last task of term 1 was to create a performance animation in which we had to shoot our own footage and audio. I admit I could not find a sound clip that I actually liked for a long time, I wanted something funny so I went looking for things in Jim Carrey movies as he is a very expressive person and has the best facial movements. But then I realised I could never perform something close to what he does. Modern Family was also in mind but I couldn’t decide so, I watched a video from Sir Wade on youtube and he had some tips about picking audio clips for animation and it really helped.
Then… It came to my mind! Monthy Pitons! My father was always a fan and made me watch it all as a kid and it is certainly fun – ofcourse I could never perform like them either but I could be more creative in representing the dialogue. They have much more monologues and a very thick accent so I took the challenge. The audio clip is from the 3rd episode of the series Flying Circus (1959 – 1974) in which Eric Idle playing Arthur Nudge engages a man on a bar to ask how it is like to be with a woman, so he has a very confusing and weird way to ask the man how it is and in the end he says “… what’s it like?” and reveals he has never been with one.
As he talks very fast I had to write down what he said and repeat it over and over in front of a camera – very embarassing! I wasn’t made to be in front of a camera.
– Is a… is your wife a goer? Ay? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Nudge nudge know what I mean? Say no more!
– Your wife? Does she go? Ay? Know what I mean? Know what I mean? Does she go? Ay?
– I’ll bet she does! I’ll bet she does! Say no more! Say no more! Know what I mean? Nudge nudge!
I chose the rig called Clairee Boy and recorded the reference footage – which was not great
This rig has the best phoneme system, the chin is included in every mouth movement, I only noticed this when I started working on it, it was a great surprise. When the phoneme animation was finished I had to start blocking everything else.
I went to the shot for reference and used mine too, although I was reading the script as he talks too fast and I always missed something when I wasn’t looking, so the reference footage I shot is really just a reference of real movement to complement with the original footage.
I had to have some sort of set dressing even if it was just a table and a few chairs so, I found some on free3d.com and added them to the project and had my character sit on a chair so it looks like he is talking to someone, even if it is in a monologue mode.
Blocking
After I finished the blocking I sent my work to Luke for feedback and I realised my blocking was half done, the feet don’t really move nor the eyes and eyebrows nor the fingers. I was so focused on giving some expression to the spine, arms and neck, that I forgot the rest. This project definitely opened my eyes and taught me that I have to be more aware of everything else, the more we work on something the better it looks – even if my character is sat down and no one really looks at the feet, they are part of it and everyone moves every part of their body while talking, the eyes don’t stay on the same place and we blink more than we think of.
The next stage of this project is to improve my blocking and polish the final shot.