54 days left!

A couple weeks ago, I took some of the gazelle silhouettes and developed them a little further. Not yet final, still have some work to be done on this set. It's all I can post right now, I'm knee-deep in film animation, classes are going strong, and my animation homework isn't quite ready yet---having a marathon work-day on that project tomorrow.

On Friday, John Kahrs visited school and gave an "animator's look at Peter Pan" lecture. He discussed why Disney's Peter Pan is a film worth looking at--it's a time when the animators were well-practiced in the techniques, but still finding innovative ways for the characters to move about. This was the big scene where a lot of great gems can be found:


We started watching the segment from 40 seconds until the 7 minute mark.

Paying attention to the different creative ways Peter flies(happens throughout the rest of the movie), where the animators "break the 2D feeling of characters on screen" by having diagonal moves to give that sense of depth(at 2:30 with Pan coming down the rocks), how brilliantly clear everything is--even though the characters are baffled by the series of events(changing voices, frantic actions, etc.)--as the audience, we have no problem following along. We know where everyone is, everything is planned and laid out very well before the action really kicks up. John Kahrs shared some of the storyboards for this scene(when Peter is flying around taunting Hook/Smee) and it's all right there. The designs of the characters are also distinct--everybody has a different shape, but still fit within the same world. Each character stands apart and is easily identified. Smee's reaction after he believes he shot Captain Hook(4:35ish). That expression completely encompasses that feeling of "OH GOD! I screwed up big time!" And scrambles---this film is the perfect study of character scrambles...when Hook is in mid-air and frantically runs back to the cliff(5:20)--so amazing. Really a fun clip to study and a good thing to keep in the back of my head as I continue battling on with my film---with a measly 54 days left.