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‘Mountain Yellow Legged Frog’ by Dai Toyofuku.

Recently I’ve been to an art exhibit entitled ‘In the Landscape Where Nothing Officially Exists’ conceived by Dai Toyofuku and participated by a selected group of dedicated artists and biologists. The idea is to raise awareness to the list of 50 plus endangered species within the Los Angeles basin through art and symbolically allow them to bio diversified through art representations and reposting of its imagery on the internet.

From an article in the exhibition catalog, Dai Toyofuku wrote-

“Art deals with culture and it is human culture that in many ways determines the future of many species.”

I think that’s a great insight from Dai. When applying art in light of culture, artistic expressions become accessible, relevant and pertinent, trimming away any pretention and artificial flavoring.

The exhibit consisted of the many artworks, each represents an endangered species. It was held at lunch time outdoor and coincides with a larger event relating to arts and education. During this brief hour long interactive exhibition, one by one, the artworks were announced in their chosen spirit of respective endangered species ranging from fish, amphibians, insects to small mammals and to be given away free of charge- with the condition that should one choose to adopt an artwork, one has to post its image somewhere on the net.

I’m much delighted and very grateful to have found this ‘Mountain Yellow Legged Frog’ as interpreted by Dai Toyofuku. And in a sense, its spirit is now popping up here in Rainplace and being reintroduced at where I live in Glendale.

In nature, this small amphibian lives in the Sierra Nevada Mountain and hanging to life due to modern thread. To learn more about them, you can click here.

(Dai Toyofuku is also known as Stephen Wong and a major artistic contributor to My Little WORLD).

And below, an animated demo I made from a recent trip to Denmark… wasn’t quite happy with the result, but it brings beautiful memories when I was there).

On surface, movements of structure can appear very complex with all its parts and compartments moving about all at once; but if traced to origin of source, these various parts orderly follow their turns into motion.

This origin rests at the instigating compartment, generating ‘leading force’ that creates a ripple to the entire structure and transfer itself from one compartment to another in chain reaction.

In 1st pass animation, I start with search to determent the ‘right’ spatial location to the very edge of the leading force by a simple line. This line is very crucial and must be in accord with the intended ‘feel’ of unfolding force. If it doesn’t reflect the ‘right’ location, it will throw everything else off.

In the sample above, the movement is initiated by the left leg, affecting the immediate pelvis to drop, followed by the ribcage then arms and head. Here, the spacing for the leg has to be at ‘right’ distance and is determined by the previous sequential drawings within the unfolding path of action.

As the leg muscle propelled the body off the ground, the leading force is transferred to the pelvis area; and so I began with search for right distance of the pelvis, utilizing the waist line.

Life and everything within unfold in series of cause and effect; it begins and ends by the start and stop given length of time. Animation is very much a reflection of this living experience.

Here, a plant given by a friend some summers ago. It is doing well and happy in my home. I really don’t have a talent to nurture plants, so I think this one is very patience with me. The shade of green That it has is very beautiful and calming.

My approach to a new scene begin with a search to find an appropriate performance to express the storytelling intent in relation to its scene length.

Intent and scene length are intertwined and inextricably linked. The chosen performance not only has to express the intent with interest but also communicate in timely manner conditioned by scene length. Camera movements, if any, is also part of influencing consideration.

An awareness to scene length and intent at planning stages helped to determine the amount of action to best express the scene, avoiding being too busy and hurried through, or too sparse and sluggish.

When a ‘right’ balance is met between performance and length, a ‘right’ energy tension to scene is achieved, creating a more captivating viewing interest to viewers.

For example, a scene called for an introduction shot of 3 riders in the night, on their way to a rescue; one of them is a novice and having hard time riding. Scene’s path of action is from far distance screen left, traveling toward camera and exit screen right.

From performance perspective, characters’ flight path and speed must communicate a sense of urgency, calling for a more direct route but with slight meander texture to reflect the nature of the transport (in this case, they’re fireflies). As they’re traveling, arc path of the third rider has a slight distinct in nature from the other two, revealing hints to his difficulty.

In this case, scene length is set at 4 seconds. Based on the predetermined background elements that the characters are passing through, I look for arc path and movement business that complement all the intended storytelling points required above within length.

Let’s say the scene is 5 seconds long, my arc path will be just a bit more winding, with extra dips and wider curvatures to accommodate the extra 1 second, and still maintaining the urgent feel in velocity.

(The above scene is one of the very first scenes I animated when first entering the industry, from Disney’s Rescuers Down Under).

Here, a memory of winter 2011 from Ireland.

Things we take notice and things we don’t are very inward and have much to do with the texture of our creative work; in turn, they are reflections to how sensitive we each are, what we truly see and what we find of relevance…

Looking at these fishes at first glance, maybe one find nothing of interest; but once one decides to be inquisitive , there is always- so much, much more!

If we were assigned to animate a fish of similar elongated shape just drifting about, not doing any thing special, to do just that, that which invoke a full sense of life, is already- something very special!

As simple as a wave of tail fin or a slight flex in the spine, animation movement become magical and poetic in nature when we’re not just simply copy and duplicate how this fish look and move in reality, but how this fish really feels like from one inner perspective.

The more interesting and beautiful each little aspects one find in seemingly ordinary day-life, the greater the possibility for a much richer and in-depth work one can create.

For me, to be able to share this inward experience of life that is uniquely to each- is one of the highest attributes that one can give to one another.

I’m off to Ireland for 3 weeks, to give a series of workshop and presentation; hosted by my good friend Barry of Barley Films in Dublin.

I often rely on this hippo to share my thinking approach to animation when making live demo. (This one was made at The Animation Workshop, Denmark.)

To address animation mechanics in timely manner, I ended up doing jumps a lot. Though it might appear repetitious, but it isn’t. Every jump has its own life and yields its own textures, just as no two leaves are exactly alike.

For certain, one’s inner mood at time of creating is always different, and its conditions will subconsciously reflect through things one does.

For me, being in touch from this perspective will bring about fresh and relevant animated movements, regardless of the sometimes repetitious surface nature.

(One thing with live demo, I never have enough time to take it to completely tie-down; so this post, in part, is for all my new friends from the two recent trips to Hawaii and Denmark. You can read more on my tie-down thought process from here and here.)

And here, the colors of autumn in Viborg.

In plotting approach, the entire scene is plotted out with an initial set of extremes, creating anchor points for action to pass through. These extremes may be absolute and movements has to unfold directly into them; or they can be subject to adjustments as more extremes are filling in and a flow of movement begin to emerge.

Plotting approach begins with dividing action into phrases. A phrase is determined by one main unfolding arc. An anchor extreme is plotted at start and end of each main arc, continuing to end of movement.

Next is to back-paddling, adding more extremes between anchor points, slowly closing up the wide gap. Two key elements to consider for the back-paddling extremes-

- First, to established the curvature of the unfolding arc.

- Second, to determined the leading force within a structure, initiating the delay of body parts.

The number of added extremes between 2 anchor points depend on how complex the unfolding movement is.

There are two ways to back-paddle- one is to established a natural flow of arc, the other is to complicate it. (A mixture of these 2 qualities would create interesting texture, allow greater contrasts within movement as in this sample scene.)

This ability to fully control and precisely dictating movement in analytical manner is one major strength for the plotting approach, allowing the ability to invent fantastical and improbable movements that are impossible in ‘real-world’ physic, but yet looks right in its animated universe.

On the disadvantage side, since there are very wide spacing gap between anchor extremes, and going backward to add more unfolding extremes, a sense to flow of movement is very elusive during the animating process. As result if not careful, movement textures can appear more mechanical than organic, often appearing light-weight or uptight, lacking a ‘feels-right’ sense of underlying forces.

Here, an image from a trip to Baboa Park. Seeing those water birds taking their ‘here and now’ so carefree, as if time was of no concern; they reminded me eternity and a glimpse of what must be like being there…

We often ask ourselves- ‘do you animate pose-to-pose or straight-ahead?’ (Referring to how we each approach the animating workflow and process).

For me, pose-to-pose means the animator knows where to go with the scene, from one relevant gesture to the next; straight-ahead is to not having a clear and predetermined unfolding path, letting the moment dictate itself.

These 2 critical recognitions are not workflow themselves, but preceded the workflow to animating.

Regardless of having clear pose-to-pose in mind or straight-ahead, the actual animating workflow can be identify as follow-

* Unfolding extremes out-of-forward-order, plotting forward then goes backward, adding more extremes. (1)

* Unfolding extremes only, in forward manner. (2)

* Unfolding extremes mixed with potential inbetweens in forward manner. (3)

* Layering process, unfolding partial body parts in various separate passes.

* A Mixture of the above.

There is no one definitive way to animate, but all paths share one common goal- to achieving vibrant and life-like animation.

Each workflow has its strengths and weaknesses and yield a distinct texture of movement.

This recognition will allow the animator to greater flexibilities to expressing movement; also, to implement textures of movement as part of art direction to overall film design.

(In next few posts, will explore in-depth to these various workflows with still images from above animation…hope you’ll find them interesting.)

Here, a reflection on a pond from Chang Deok Gung Palace; I think Spring has yet to awake…