Overview - That 'Aha' moment ... Part.1

Most of the shots that we have up until now is obviously involved a lot of body mechanics. We push the poses, make our characters jump off a cliff, climbing, swimming, and do all the cool stuff that we probably can't do! This is of course a really cool thing. In class 5, i decided to try out a very subtle acting since i did such a broad shot in class 4. I feel that the shot opened up my eyes, it introduced me to a lot of new and exciting thing, and there were a lot of 'aha' moments!

The First 'Aha'
(Wow, i can't believe i just wrote that as a title haha.. i hope you guys don't mind.. :p)
The first 'aha' moment was when i put a gesture on my character and my mentor told me that it was not necessary. So here is what went through my mind. It was weird to have my character sat on the sofa. It felt like she was just there, staring at me.. *gulp... At that very moment, my mentor also mentioned in his critique that i should try out couple more acting choices. So, I shot a new video reference right away with that advice in my mind.

I'm obviously not a pro in acting out an audio clip, but i kind of figured out where i went wrong. I was thinking a lot if i should put my hand on my forehead or if i should holding a cup while i was acting the audio out, where i should have thought about what will my character do and what is she feeling right now instead. As the result, I had a reference where i rested my cheek on the back of my hand and looked very sad. I would say it was one of a really cliche idea. I brought this gesture to my blocking without thinking anything else. You can check out the playblast below:

My mentor explained to me that it was an ok gesture to add for the shot, but Do I Need It? Another thing that he pointed out was that the gesture felt like it did not show the right body language, that i wanted to show in this shot. This body language is probably more proper if the situation in my shot is more casual. In this case, my character is seeking an approval from her senior, which is why this gesture and body language did not suit for this shot.

The main lesson is always think what our character feels and what our character will do. I have found that by asking this question to myself right before I shot the reference is always very helpful. This really helps me out to put myself in their shoe. I also believe that shooting a reference with props is a really good idea. However, i feel that maybe we should think it twice if we need them or not, especially if we are shooting a subtle shot.

I recently polished this shot and i did an eyebrow pass for the girl. I realised that i really don't need that gesture when i watched the shot again. The reason is simply because the audience will look at her face right away and they probably will not realise the body movement. This is something that my mentor has mentioned too, but for some silly reasons this just really hit me recently. (Not that i did not trust his advice! i think it just takes me some time to really process it :O )

I should say that the temptation to move the body will always be there, but when it strikes you, maybe we can try to ask ourself if we need it or not.

The Second 'Aha'

This goes back to my first one person dialogue shot. I had a very hard time blocking the shot! :D My mentor explained that we should have basic mouth shapes and basic facial expressions when we start blocking a dialogue shot. Long story short, i was unable to understand the concept. It sounds very simple, but I had a hard time to apply it on my blocking. Worry not, i will not discuss about those difficulties again, let's carry on with the now and not the past :O

The assignment which we had to pose our the facial expressions on bishop was the one that taught me what this concept means. I spent more times to listen to my audio file and really tried to find the main beats on the audio. I started from here and once i got them, i marked the words on my note. I went through my video reference and i checked out the facial expressions on the words that i had marked. Instead of posing the expression on bishop directly, I used a mirror. I feel that if you posed the expression that you see on the mirror, somehow you will feel the words too. I think it is very important to capture that feeling, this way we will not just simply pulling the controllers and mimic the facial expressions. 

I figured this out when i re-blocked my shot. Below are the playblasts of shot 1 re-blocking process :

Re-Blocking the facial expressions and mouth shapes. Keyed all the main beats.

Added some breakdowns on the body and gave some breakdowns for the facial animations.

Added more breakdowns and in betweens for the body. At this point, i ignored the facial expression and focused only on the body. I wanted to see if the body movement alone worked well or not.

At this stage, I was unsure with the lip sync. It felt weird to see her mouth shapes did not match with the audio, so i decided to 'pose' the syllables too. I kind of feel that she is a bit chattery here.

This is the second shot. I kind of found out that i actually did not have to 'pose' the syllables. I posed the lady based on the main beats and i continue to work on her body animation.

 

*Tips: Proxy mode can be a good way to refine the body since it does not have facial expression, which means less distractions.

*Hit the spline button... uh oh D:

Shot 1 Refining stage and blocking+ the second shot

I feel that i got more familiar with the process when i started refining the second shot. My workflow for the second shot was:

1. Find the key poses and key expressions.
2. Blocking : Body only.
3. Blocking plus : Body only.
4. Layered in extra facial expressions and mouth shapes.
5. Keep refining the body.
6. Refining the lip sync.

Below are the playblasts up until step no.4 above :

 

Refining the body.

Shot progression up until step no.4.

During these weeks (it was around week 6-ish) i started to feel that everything starts to make a lot sense. It just clicked in a lot of ways, the shot was so difficult but i was overflown by joy at the same time! *tears of joy :')

I'm gonna wrap this post here since it's been a really long one O_O. More about my findings on the next post! Thank you everyone for reading this post, i hope i did not bored you guys! :O

Have a great week and Happy Animating everyone!

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