The Keys: Zootopia

Very excited for this!!

I did not create:
For educational purposes only
Copyright Disney

Buster Keaton - The Art of the Gag

Anyone interested in animation, or any type of storytelling should watch

Acting Reference #89

Time to start getting excited for Star Wars! Love the hesitation Alec Guinness has before answering Luke. This is a very tough question to answer and that definitely shows before his line delivery. When animating, make sure your characters are thinking...even when they are not speaking

 

Animate the Whole Face

Quick little tip I wanted to post. One of the biggest issues I see with people first starting animation (and especially when animating dialogue) is they don't think of the whole face as a unit. And I was a victim of this as well when I first started. I needed the characters' mouth to open, so I grab the jaw controller, open it up and move along. Not once thinking about how the face works and how its connected. Open your mouth as wide as you can right now....what happens? You probably widened your eyes, raised your eyebrows, your mouth corners pulled in...the whole face is involved. Think about the face as a whole unit, not just one jaw controller you open & close - it will breath so much more life into your animation.

Quick and dirty example I made - see how much more life there is once you start involving the whole face

Making of Aliens

I love watching making ofs to get inspired - here's an awesome 3 hr making of Aliens

Acting Reference #88

Classic shot of Robert De Niro in Goodfellas. In this shot - SPOILERS - De Niro is coming to the conclusion that he's going to have to kill a member of his crew.

I want to talk about his eye focus/direction. Often when we look at things, and especially people, we're not able to look directly at them for long periods of time. When animating, we often make our characters dart their eyes around, not focusing on things for too long to make it feel more real. But look at this example. Though his eyes are looking around, once they focus on something they stay locked. De Niro's character in Goodfellas is a very intense person who commands respect. When he looks at someone, he stares directly at them, no eyes darts looking away. He's commanding respect/daring someone to challenge him. It's like how a predator would look around a room, and that's what he is...a predator. Keep in mind who your character is and how that changes how they look at things in their world.

Animation of The Order: 1886

Nice GDC video on the animation of The Order