Animation Mentor Newsletter





	Animation Mentor: How did you come up with the concept for your short film? Mario Pochat: The concept of my short film is based on a personal anecdote, and then adjusted to tell an animated story. I was working at an advertising agency where a friend of mine and I used to play a golf game on a Macintosh during lunch, this turned into an intense daily competition. The one-hour lunch wasn’t enough time to finish the 18 holes. We kept extending it knowing we could be seen and heard by our boss at anytime, this just added an extra level of adrenaline. We would play and celebrate our scores in a quiet manner, making as little noise as we could. Of course we were never quiet enough. Eventually our boss did show up a couple of times to see what was going on, fortunately for me we were playing at my cubicle. All I needed to do was to swing my chair around and pretend I was working at the other desk. My friend got kind of reprimanded. The situation was so funny that even our boss was laughing with us. He just said, “As long as you finish your work by Friday” and he stepped out. This short film idea was at the bottom of other four ideas. I didn’t think it was a good one, but the Animation Mentor students kept voting for it. I was surprised to see that in the following weeks of refining the story pitches, “Bye-Bye” came all the way to the top having the highest number of votes. When the time came to choose just one, I was still in disbelief, I was aware that we animators have a huge deal of imagination and everything is funny for us! Mike Gasaway, my class five mentor, said: “If I were you I’ll go for this one, it’s the best one you have and the people reviewing it at a studio will be animators!” Animation Mentor: What important lessons did you learn from making your short film? Mario Pochat: The Ending On the animated version, things needed to get changed for entertaining purposes. The ending was the first thing to change, based again on Mike Gasaway comments. In the original ending, Bartolomeo (Skinny Character) was the one who notices the boss and saves himself – he was sharp and fast, much more than Marcelino (Big Character) whom gets caught by the boss. Mike made me think about the audience and how I would like them to feel when the film came to an end. He asked me to switch the characters at the end, having Marcelino safe and Bartolomeo getting caught by the boss. After this note was addressed, a lot of people liked it even more! The Establishing Shot Dilemma Another big improvement was to add an Establishing Shot. The initial idea had the opening shot with both characters already at the computer desk just about to start the game. I was trying to keep the entire shot around thirty seconds of a total duration. I was very stressed about being able to finish on time, so the less shots to animate the better. Soon enough this way of thinking was proved wrong. Somebody mentioned it needed an establishing shot later on, and then it was mentioned again and again, but I just couldn’t see it. It’s one of those situations where I had a creative block; I knew something wasn’t working and I tried different things again and again. Those things were making it different but not necessarily better. Chris Derochie, mentor at Animation Mentor, happened to start working at the same studio where I was. He brought clarity to that long debated Establishing Shot dilemma. He spotted the issue easily and in a few moments suggested how to implement it into the film. This added eight more seconds to animate, the Establishing Shot made it as a story, with a beginning, middle and end. Ah, that feels good! Chris kept on helping me refine the acting on the rest of the shots. Consistent Acting Knowing who the characters are and how they act takes time. Doug Dooley gave me a lot of advice. He mentioned that it was good to know what their feelings were, but even more relevant, to know what they want from the scene, and what they want from each other. This made it very clear for me – both characters wanted to win. Animation Mentor: How long did it take to complete your film? Mario Pochat: -3 months story development -3 months animating -2 months rendering The story and animation stages overlapped a little bit. Although the story was completely clear, the acting of the characters needed to be telling it. Their actions needed to be pointing to the end of the story. Animation Mentor: How much planning was put into your short film? Did planning help make the process easier? Mario Pochat: A lot of planning was needed. I’m glad the mentors stress this stage and every single grade reflects the amount of planning you have put into it. Planning is a difficult stage for me in the sense that I need to sit down and think. It’s not as easy as it looks. To visualize different options and to come up with new ideas is fun, but the trick is to bring them out of your mind for anybody to see and in particular to understand them. I am getting to appreciate and enjoy this stage better than before. Patrick Kriwanek’s lecture in class five literally changed my way of thinking and my way of seeing things. In just an hour he underlined the importance of the concept of a short film, and how you would like the world to see it. He kept asking questions such as: “What do you want?”, “What do you have to tell the world?”, “Tell me something I didn’t know thirty seconds ago,” and so on. After this day, I went back to the planning stage and re-planned as much as I could. Animation Mentor: Do you mind sharing some of the pre-production work with us with a little explanation of what we’re looking at. Mario Pochat: I don’t mind at all! Story Pitch Here we have the last pitch; at this point it came down to two stories only. “Bye-Bye” came all the way to the top, what you see here, it is the result of three weeks of refining the story. It has the new ending, where Bartolomeo (Skinny Character) gets caught by their boss. This pitch has the Animation Mentor’s short film guidelines. I tried to act it out as much as I could; and if I could explain the story in under two minutes, it would a good sign of clarity. Story thumbnails This is the very first time of seeing the story in paper and it is a translation of the story pitch into exploratory drawings. You can see the characters are in different positions – Bartolomeo (Skinny Character) is the closest to camera. The boss shows up through a window as the audience was never going to see the boss entirely, just his head and his hand at the end. Mainly I was trying find shortcuts and not to animate three characters at the same time. Also, I wanted to use a minimum number of camera cuts because I didn’t want to get the audience confused. 2D animatic This was built from the approved storyboard. I created different layers such as: background, Bartolomeo, Marcelino, boss, computer desks, etc. I put them together and started playing with each scene’s timing. I animated the characters, something minimalist, and this really helped me to see and shape the timing, in particular when you have two characters and you need to guide the audience’s eye to a specific place on the screen. Casting the characters This was a lot of fun! I brought the whole family of Animation Mentor characters, except the dog. I lined them up and stared at them for a couple of days, visualizing them in their roles, asking myself questions like: Who’s the meanest? Who looks weak? Who could be the boss?, etc. Later I’d ask my wife and friends about their opinions. 3d Layout Once the 2D animatic was approved we moved on to the 3D layout. I built a basic set with relevant background elements, compared sizes of the characters versus the set, and evaluated the methods to animate them as they were sitting on the chairs. I was basically translating what the 2D animatic already had, while trying to keep their emotions by posing their bodies and including their facial expressions. In the last week for layout, I added music as a placeholder to help me recognize and build the momentum. Video Reference I shot video reference before starting a shot. This also guided me on how the body will behave anatomically. I found it tricky to shoot since I didn’t have chairs to slide from one end to the other. I ended up shooting specific moments or portions of the body, depending on what I was looking for. Sometimes it was an arm, other times it was my head, my face or my just my feet. This video reference is a montage of shots during the three months of animation; if you pay close attention you can see my pajamas! Blocking In this stage I try to have as much information as I can, meaning that I will add the key poses and breakdown poses and even find the timing. Very often I would find myself inbetweening the key poses. Some sections were pose to pose and others were straight ahead. I even had this mix of different parts of the body on the same character. To repeat myself, starting from general to particular, the main goal for me is to have as much information as I can, no matter what it takes, and the more the better. Story Curve I printed off the storyboard because I felt I needed a global view of the entire short. According to my initial idea and thoughts, I had pinpointed the moments where the audience would laugh and or feel something. As I kept showing the film progress to friends, they were laughing at different moments of the film, but not where I wanted them to laugh! So I put together all the frames from the storyboard and plotted the story arc and the intensity meter. Having this helped me to understand and see the film from a global view. At the end, they still laugh at moments I would never have anticipated. I understood that people identify themselves with the characters according to their own personal experiences. Polishing This is one of the stages that required a lot of work – massaging the animation curves, inbetweening the different parts of the body and sometimes doing small reblocking visits! Refining the key poses as Doug Sheppeck pointed out in class three, and finally frame by framing the entire short film following Bret Parker’s advice from the very first class. All this to stay away from the pose to pose feeling. I put a lot of hours into this stage and I’m glad Kenny Roy pushed me really hard on class six; he was all about production speed. “Did you finish your shot? No? How much longer? Keep up the character’s texture – come on you can do it!” This last push was a blast! This is the final version before it went off to be rendered. Final Render Here I followed Patrick Kriwanek’s recommendations: Outsourcing! What I was looking for for the look was very simple: an office from the sixties. This office had to convey that the boss is cheap – no fancy objects, or shiny reflections. For the characters I liked to add some textures better than the ones I have. That’s it! The Hero's Journey Animation Mentor introduced me to this concept used when writing stories, this is a very useful way of seeing how your hero feels and where he is at in different stages in relation to his journey. I put these images together to see where Marcelino is and how he gains confidence as his journey progresses, its amazing how much information this technique reveals. Animation Mentor: What obstacles, if any, did you experience during the creation of your short film? How did you work your way around them? Mario Pochat: A short film is not an easy goal to achieve. The pure fact of finishing the film could be considered quite an accomplishment! For a moment, things started to get chaotic. I have a full time job that was demanding overtime for months, I was on my way of planning my wedding – I was very stressed out. I remember posting a thread on the online campus called “How do you deal with stress while creating your short film?” The emotional support from all the students was absolutely fantastic; it was as if all of them were there for me. They had a lot of ideas and ways of managing school, work, wives, kids, etc. They were and are truly amazing! Animation Mentor: Tell how your Animation Mentor experience helped you in creating your short film. Mario Pochat: Animation Mentor mentors were unique to me – each class was building up into the next one, from class one to class six. They all taught me assertive lessons. Each week’s lecture is full of useful information, they are put together in a clever way that keeps you going, keeps you motivated, and contains a feeling that you are more than what you think. Looking at my finished short film is priceless; it’s such a gift. Even though I was the one doing this short film, every single person at Animation Mentor, staff, student or mentor, contributed to this short film. For me this has the Animation Mentor signature all over it! Thank you for reading. If you’d like to read more you can check out my blog at www.mariopochat.com/blog