Telling Tales// Referencing for animation

Today I attended a seminar that focused intensely on using referencing and in particular using body language references to help portray emotion and character when animating. This seminar was presented hand in hand with a small task; to demonstrate an understanding of body language within Maya when animating the Maya puppet we'd been given, using our own photo referencing.

Before completing the 5 poses within Maya, I briefly looked again at the examples of exaggerated portrayal of characters and emotions using body language that we'd been presented with as part of the seminar. These examples included Charlie Chaplin, Jack Tati and a test animation from Big Hero 6. Both Charlie Chaplin and Jack Tati are excellent examples of actors who over exaggerate their body language in order to portray a character or emotion without a narrative. Charlie Chaplins facial expressions and hand gestures in particular are completely over the top, but as a silent comedian his body language needs to be as such. His body language is comically exaggerated; hence why he's a wonderful actor to use for animation referencing. Jack Tati does much the same, but his acting is far more slight compared to Charlie Chaplins. Actors take on board a character fully when portraying them, not necessarily needing to rely narrative but rather using their own body language to bring their character across to the viewer. As an animator, I should be able to re-imagine how a character would behave with my own body language to later use my own acting as a reference for myself when animating.

Below is a short YouTube video of a character animation test developed within Disneys 2015 'Big Hero 6' post-production stage. Most (if not all) animation projects involve some sort of animation test similar to this one...

This test involved an animator experimenting with different characters movements and body languages. Each character enters the environment in a way that is unique to them, from the sway of their arms to the way they sit down at the table. For instances when Hiro enters the environment he's rather energetic and eager to sit down, throwing his bag onto the table putting his feet up; He's clearly very comfortable to the point of being slightly smug, to be there. However with Tadashi he moves in a far more respectful manner compared to his little brother Hiro. Tadashi raises his hand to gesture a hello when he first enters the environment, before carefully pulling his chair up to the table and removing his hat politely as he does so. Body language defines a character. As an animator it's never a good idea when animating characters to rely only on their dialogue to define them. Define your characters with movement, which is what animation is all about.