AM - Class 5 / Week 7 - Lecture

Advanced Look At Entertainment.

This lecture was presented by Doug Sweetland, animator at Pixar, and director for the famous Pixar short film Presto.

Here we go!

What is entertainment?? from an animator's point of view, entertainment is using his bag of tricks like Overlap, follow through, blinks, double takes, gestures, etc.. all this is great, but these tricks by themselves are not necessarily entertainment, they should be used in a way that serves the meaning of a greater context, otherwise, they're pointless.Audience don't go to the theater to watch the animators bag of tricks, only animators do, the audience are looking to be entertained by a good story, so animators should find a way to use there techniques to add meaning/entertainment value to the story.

A 'Story' is a serious of events; An 'Event' is a gap in expectation, it raises questions about outcome that compels the viewer, same as Jokes, a Joke has a setup that will imply one outcome, and a punch line will deliver another outcome.

This is the anatomy of an event: a Setup or expectation, and then the outcome, the outcome begets another expectation that will lead to another outcome.  this series of events will create a story, a story over all is generally raising the big question, & we know that the story ends when we get the answer for that big question.  Its very important to know the anatomy of an event/story because that will help you to focus on the idea your animating, whether its a setup or an outcome.

Here is few notes from this great lecture:

- A character SHOULD NOT do anything without needing to do it.

- Create poses for the characters specific to the situation at that moment in the story.

- Entertainment is heightening the juxtaposition between what the character wants and the reality of the situation, heightening the juxtaposition of what's being said & what's being felt.

- In your acting choices, chose the action that expresses what the character is feeling, not what the character is saying.

- Sometimes you need to sacrifice a certain performance that you initially had in mind for service of the main context.

- Identify the status of your character, whether he's a high status important person or low status person.

- Looking for new ideas is good, but also experiment with using old ideas in a new context.

-  Avoid making the performance of your character one dimensional, don't think of happiness as just happiness, & sadness is just sadness, that is very flat, you want to find a way to approach emotions not in a direct way.

- Emotions is inferred by the audience through the event, but should not be forced on them.

- The best shot you'll ever going to animate is the one that your animating right now!