By: Shawn Kelly

Holy moly, I just realized that this is article numero 23, which means that I'm one month shy of our two year anniversary!  Crazy, huh?  I know a few of you have been reading these from the beginning and probably share my amazement at how much time has gone by already... 
Wow!  I guess you better tune in next time for our two year blow-out extravaganza, wherein I will make good on three promises:   First, I promise some amount of brevity as a special anniversary gift to y'all.  Second, I'll make sure to say *something* about animation, but I won't promise it'll be very insightful or intelligible - partly because there'd be way too much pressure if I promised that, and partly because of my third promise:  to be trying out some of the cocktail concoctions you guys have emailed me as I write it!

So, if you have a special topic request for next time, or just want to get your favorite cocktail tried out, then be sure to email me at:  tipsandtricks@animationmentor.com right away!  Something else I'm toying with is a "lightning-round" of question-answering for questions that I've received that don't need a giant article-long answer, so if you have even a tiny topic suggestion or quickie question, send it along!

Ok, and now back to our regularly-scheduled newsletter article...

Today's topic was suggested by Avner Engel, who emailed to ask a really great question.  Basically, he's wondering how you know when you stop working on a shot, call it done, and move on to the next one.  It's a tough question, and one I've heard pretty often when talking to students, so I figured it'd be a good one to tackle!

I mean, it *is* something that we all have to wrestle with, to one degree or other.  Obviously all of us have our own particular situations and set of circumstances.  Some of us have directors to contend with, some have teachers to follow, some are just animating at home, or working on a piece for their demo reel.  But no matter the circumstances of where we're at in our career (or hobby), we all at some point have found ourselves leaning back in our chair, watching our animation looping over and over, and wondering, "So...am I done?"

That's such a HUGE question, isn't it?  How many times have you asked yourself that?  If you're an animator, I guarantee it's in the thousands.  Every time you render your work to take a look at where you're at, you're asking that question.  Am I done?  Is this good enough?  Does it work?  What do I have to change?

In a way, this is the most basic primal question that an animator constantly wrestles with.  When are these characters finally, truly, alive?  When can I set this aside and move on with my life!?

There's really no easy answer to this, but I'll give it the ol' college try...

*TIP 23:  It Ain't Over Till the Characters Live*

In my mind, it seems like there are three times that you know when you're finished with a shot:

1)  When there is nothing mechanically wrong with the movement and the performances truly LIVE
2)  When you're out of time
3)  When the director says so

Obviously, the first one is the one that we should all strive for with every single shot we do.  This is the ideal in animation. A believable performance in every way - physically *and* emotionally.  But then again - the question is still hanging there as to how we know EXACTLY WHEN the performance IS believable.  I mean, we've seen this stupid shot ten gajillion times by now, and we're so used to it we can't possibly see it through fresh eyes, right?  Of course the emotional performance reads perfectly to us, we CREATED it!  We could tell you the exact frame that she flips from content to worried!

If we're so intimately familiar with our shot after spending so many hours tangled up in it, how can we pull back and figure out if it's really working?

Well, guess what?  We can't.

Ok, well - sometimes we can, it depends on the shot.  Especially shots that are primarily physical - these we can usually more accurately judge, but even with these, we still need to try to find a way to figure out if the sucker is actually FINISHED or not.

Some people use the mirror method, which I think I've mentioned here before – basically, you hold a mirror up to your screen and watch your animation in the mirror. This tricks your brain into seeing the shot "fresh" and can be a huge help in determining where you are at with the shot.  I do this myself sometimes and find it very helpful.

However, the most accurate and helpful way to determine your shot's true level of completion is to (buckle up for this one!) SHOW IT TO SOMEONE!

I know you all know that, but it bears repeating.  We're too close to the shot, and once it comes close to being done, you absolutely *must* show it to someone who hasn't seen it 10,000 times already.  Ideally, you'll show it to a few different people to get a better cross-section of your potential "audience."

Keep in mind, these people do NOT have to be animators.  You can show your parents, your friends, your siblings, the neighbor, a janitor - ANYONE.  They all have a valid point of view, since they all are potentially the audience for the work you are doing, and at this point, you aren't necessarily looking for a real animation critique – if you think you're finished, you're more just looking for people to validate that suspicion.

You just need to see if regular people know what the character is doing, feeling, and why.  That's it.  Ask a few people.  If they do, and you think the physical movements are feeling right, then ta-daaa!  You're done!  Time to pack up and move on down the road to the next shot.

The second way that you know you're done with your shot (and sadly, this can sometimes be more often than actually scaling the mountain of animation perfection and planting your flag in Perfect Shot Peak) is when you're out of time.

Bummer, I know.  But I also know that a LOT of you have banged your head up against this very often in your animation career.  We've all come up against this one at one time or another.

Deadlines are a fact of life in this industry, and sometimes that deadline rolls along and your shot is only halfway up that mountain, and you have to set it aside.  While this isn't ideal for your demo reel, it *is* potentially ideal for your project's schedule, not to mention for your continuing success in your current job.  Deadlines are paramount, and if you are animating for a living, there is little that is more important than hitting your deadlines.

I know that's no fun to hear as an artist, but it's simply the way the world works.  If we want someone to pay us for creating this art, then we have to understand that the trade off is that they will need that art to be finished by a certain time.  That's it.

But what happens when we run out of time and the shot doesn't look quite right yet?

Well, it doesn't matter.  You're out of time, so that's that.  You put it away and move on.

HOWEVER, that's not to say that you can't go back to that shot someday, heave it back up onto its feet, and like Sam carrying Frodo up Mount Doom, drag it the rest of the way up the mountain to Perfect Shot Peak.

Remember, these animation files aren't going to magically disappear if you can save them somewhere!  My advice if you are on a project where the deadlines are too tight to create anything you'd be truly proud of on a demo reel, would be to create a special folder for shots that you think have real potential.  When you run out of time, put those special shots into that folder.  Then, after the project is over, or in your spare time, or on a weekend or whatever, open up one of those shots and polish it up into the gem you know it could be!

The important thing is to truly set it aside during work-time if working on it is going to steal time away from working on the next shot.  If you keep hanging onto your shots for an extra hour here, one more day there, you'll really find yourself in a pickle by the end of the project, and the production staff on the project aren't going to like you very much.  If it makes it easier to let them go if you know that you aren't throwing them away forever, then keep that special folder of unpolished gems around!

Lastly, you know when your shot is done if the director of your project says it's done.

Like many of you, I've been in a situation where I know for a fact that my shot is not done yet.  It's barely past blocking, for crying out loud, and low and behold, the guy in charge of the project sees it and proclaims it to be "Perfect!  Just what I need.  Final!"

If you're like me, you reacted in horror to this news, and probably lost some respect for the person heaping praise on your half-baked- still-in-progress animation.  But guess what?  It's done.  It's his project.  If he likes it, and says it's what he wants, then who are we to argue?  (See the "You're A Tool" article from a few months ago...)

I think your response to this situation has to depend a little bit on exactly who this person is.  Do they know animation?  Probably not, if they're happy with your unfinished animation even though the deadline hasn't hit yet.  If that's the case, you can sometimes get away with polishing the shot up on your own time and then turning it in, but my advice would be to be very honest about this and not try to sneak it in.  There's a chance that he really liked some specific thing about your shot, and regardless of whether or not it was "wrong," he may be very upset to suddenly discover it missing, even though the animation is technically "better."

However, if you have time, or even in your off-hours, if you do create a better version of the shot, most people are pretty happy to be presented with a newer "upgraded" version of the work as long as they still have the option of choosing to go with your earlier version.

So, I guess when you really boil it down, knowing when your shot is finished really depends on who you are animating for.  If you're animating for yourself, and doing a cool new piece for your demo reel, then striving to reach the top of Mount Animation Perfection should be your goal every single time.  Many of you, however, aren't only animating for yourself, and are lucky enough to have found someone to actually PAY you to do what you love.  In these cases, you're more often than not going to be striving to climb that mountain in SPITE of the situation you are in (up against deadlines, less-knowledgeable "superiors", and producers who care - or are often forced to care - more about short-term gains in productivity than long-term profitability due to increased quality), but that's still no excuse to not strive with every shot to get it as high up those mountain cliffs as you possibly can.

It's often said that no animator actually "finishes" a shot, they just have it taken away from them.  To some degree that's true, but it isn't always true, that's for sure.  Sometimes – not all the time, but every once in a while – the stars align and everything comes together just perfectly, and the shot is well and truly DONE.  It's magic, and you watch it over and over and marvel that you actually created that, and you might not even be quite sure how you pulled it off, but wow - look at that!

Those are the shots that become the center-piece of your demo reel, and those are the shots that make this whole crazy career truly worth it.

Because SOMEONE is going to see that shot someday, and SOMEONE is going to be moved by it, and they're going to be inspired by it, and they're going to be amazed that SOMEONE out there managed to create something so entertaining or moving or scary or funny or heartfelt...

...and guess what?  That someone is you!

How cool is THAT?

Ok, I'm outta here.  Don't forget to send me your lightning-round questions for next time, and any last-minute favorite cocktails that you think should be tried during the writing of the 24th article! 
tipsandtricks@animationmentor.com

Keep animating!  And as always, have FUN!