Getting Moving - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 211

postproduction can bring these days. So much can be shot against a green screen and the
characters' actions moved around the frame, or looped or l ipped. This is an absolute godsend
in series production and for i ne-tuning and correcting inevitable l aws, or duplicating shots,
saving precious shooting time. It's a way of shooting I'm getting used to and embracing, but
aesthetically I still adore the bare-boards approach of a space, a puppet and a camera. I like
the puppet being able to respond to the lighting or to other characters around, or unexpected
events as I'm animating. I'm a bit wary of creating a performance in editing, as I just see every
action as being specii c to a given situation. Of course, this is living in cloud cuckoo land as
reuse is an essential part of any production. Maybe I fear the improvements done in post
production as the necessary result of my bad animation, or maybe I am just too much of a
purist, or maybe it might be about losing control of one's work. It takes some of the fun out
of animation, but that is a totally seli sh thing as the viewers should not be interested in the
personal satisfaction of the animator. It is what is up on screen that counts.
My limited experience with CG animation has been mixed. I love the way that the machine
can take a lot of the actual physical labour and grind away, and that you can have the luxury of
preparation and rehearsal, and that you can redo moves, and that you can stretch and shrink
the timing, but I was frustrated with never being able to feel the character move as a whole. The
emphasis is on moving over the whole shot and not just the individual complete frame. It's just
another way of thinking, and its benei ts are clear to be seen, and I know if I had more experience
I would i nd great satisfaction in being able to get those subtle shifts of weight CG can do so well,
or in being able to go back and insert a gesture I had only thought of as I had been animating.
For the same reason, when I teach I am wary of too much emphasis on walk cycles, although
they are brilliant for working out the mechanics of motion. I would rather get the animator to
question why a character is walking, and what needs to be expressed: the performance. Cycles
are good for things such as non-anthropomorphised animals where a repeated action is what
dei nes that animal, but for a character, they walk somewhere for a reason, and they respond
to their settings, and they are feeling something, and they change their movement as they
get nearer their objective. These are the things I consider important. What is motivating this
movement? Unless there is a good answer, I'm not sure I would move it.
What is the best piece of animation you have done … and the worst? And
what is the most absurd thing you have animated?
JD - The fi rst shot of the Here's Lucy title may be my best shot (three takes required) or possibly the shot
in which the fl ower falls asleep in Brothers Grimm . The worst is two shots in Jack the Giant Killer - one with
the two-headed giant walking along the beach, the other the one-headed giant stepping over a wall (later
double-framed optically, which only made it worse).
TB - I was very happy with a shot from No Exit? , in which the skeleton pulls off his leg. It turned out very
well. I've done a lot of bad animation, but one thing I wish I could have had the time to change but didn't
was a shot in No Exit? in which the skeleton walks up a staircase. It's too long and ponderous, and jerky.
It drives me nuts. Animating a Jim Carrey puppet kicking the crap out of a Bruce Willis puppet was the
most absurd thing I ever did.