Having Trouble Progressing With My Demo Reel

#1

Or at least what I hope will be good enough to go in my demo reel. Basically I have been animating off and on for three years in my degree, but those were rushed, “meet the deadline…happy with a pass” animation. (The course was tons of work)

   For the past three weeks or so, I have been trying to get a few good sequences out and I’m finding that I’m stalling. It’s not that the animation itself is bad (I haven’t got that far ;)). It’s just that I can’t actually get from beginning to end in a simple ten second scene without:

1: Over tweaking all the pose to pose stuff until I’m fed up and scrap it.
2: The opposite: trying to get in all the pose quick and then, when reviewing them, they aren’t up to scratch or don’t fit together.
3: Or sometimes finally getting to the in-between stage, and finding my poses further down the timeline just don’t work with the in-betweens anymore.

   I can put these mistakes down to trial error and practice. But I have a feeling there's something wrong with my mindset and methods. I have 8 weeks and I’m hoping to have something viable to show for it by then. 

   Also please note I understand animation takes years to master. So I’m not implying I'm hoping to be a pro, and produce a mini Pixar film in 8 weeks. Although I know I have the knowledge and practice to make, at least, a half decent demo reel in that time, I KNOW this. But it’s my workflow, my process that is giving me fits. I just can’t seem to get from beginning to end of a scene.

   Any tips? Any advice? What is your process and workflow? Do you do strictly pose to pose? Straight ahead? How did you go about it when doing your first animation (if you can remember ;))


  Also another, (somewhat unrelated) question. How long does a 10 second scene usually take animators in the beginning of their careers? (from beginning to end, including all the weight and spacing etc.) Just so I have a bearing on my timetable.

   Hope you guys can help. I’ll keep plugging away. I know it’s not going to be easy. But right now it’s less difficulty getting in my way, and more my neurotic brain stopping me from progressing.

    Thanks a lot, and I truly appreciate this community, would be lost without it :)
#2

I created an animation workflow training dvd a while back that may be useful to you. It probably answers most of your questions. I used to sell it for around $100 but I am now giving it away. And I’m in the process of uploading it to a public download server so my server doesn’t die when people start downloading it, but it takes quite a while to upload. Send me a private message and I’ll send you the links to my regular server.

As for how long it takes, that really varies quite a bit. But consider that Animation Mentor gives their initial students around 2 weeks for something like a walk cycle (blocking in the first week, refining in the second week). That walk cycle isn’t very long - two to three seconds maybe… Also it depends on the sequence. Is it simple, or more complex. Of course the more complex the more time will be needed.

#3

in terms of time frame, it really depends, when i was working in kids tv i was doing 4 - 6 seconds a day! (a bit shoddy) but i hear at pixar its 6 seconds a week or something, maybe less. you get about 6 weeks at animation mentor though for an acting shot. there really isnt a timefame, it all depends on your stage of development

i think it is very important you dont worry about timeframe at this stage. learning and being efficient are 2 different things, you cant be efficient until you have come through the extreme workflow angst and begun to get a grip on things. so really, dont worry about it now, speed comes with experience and confidence, you are at the early stages. so i would suggest for your 8 weeks it will be a huge success if you can overcome your workflow issues and made 1 short animation 5 - 10 seconds. when battling workflow issues dont see it as ‘dam, im having so much trouble, i need to get this done’ as it will make it worse, i know its hard to slow down sometimes, there are so many pressures in life… but you really have to tackle the workflow head on and accept sometimes if you have to go insane for a month feeling like you arent getting anywhere, that when you look backis when you are learnin g the most, as you know something is wrong and questions are coming up and you are looking to fix things. so basically factor in this workflow angst time, even if you can just get a nice 5 seconds, then if you understand your worklow by then, you can then start reeling them off.

and also it wont help thinking too much of a seperation between ‘pose to pose’ and ‘straight ahead’ its misleading. unless you are going to do stop motion where there is no other choice, i would say the vast majority of 2d and 3d animation that is any good… (aside from visual effects) starts off with the storytelling poses. straight ahead implies it is just organically comes together by magic. any decent animation workflow i have seen (aside from visual effects) starts with strong story telling poses. The ‘straight ahead’ part would just be having the confidence and knowledge to go at it in a organic way to get between you poses and make it elastic and fun and try a few different things out, in a sketchy loose way before making and full decisions, but that is always based on a foundation of strong poses. a ‘pose to pose’ looking animation is just something where timing is a bit even and things are leaving one pose and arriving at another quite uniformly. so clear solid key poses are the way to go, always, unless its very physical and dynamic, even then its best to pose it out. so basically there isnt really 2 ways, a good workflow will be both well planned and organic, that is knowledge and confidence.

if your in a really pickle…(ive been there) restart, male you golden pose, and send me a playblast, ill crit it, and just dont move forward until you are happy with those poses the animation kind of works as still images. forging on regardless is definatly a recipe for disaster…

#4

thanks for your reply.

everything you have said makes total sense and i really appreciate you taking the time to advise me like that.

i will be following your advice and just staying active and try and stay positive, and not forcing myself into a rigid objective.

i will use this eight weeks the best can to just start egtting a workflow down and most importantly stop the task from becoming frustrating to something that i hopefully truly enjoy. then i can go to canada and build a decent demo reel while im out ther. (im there for a year, so even if i spend six month on my emo reel while applying for jobs it will still be great)

anyway i have been working on somethign for the past three days about ten seconds. all of the keys and extremes and many of the breakdowns are in. and im looking at correct errors in the in-betweens and sorting out the spacing next, im hoping it tuns out okay, but im not too stressed right now. im fine either way, im starting to feel more comfortable with the whole process and thats making me much more positive and effective.

i also bought a camera and gorillapod so i can effectively record myself doing some basic actions, (will also be useful for when i go abroad for the year :)) and im hoping that getting good read from real life will also help bring life to my main storytelling poses.

#5

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