Saved by the Arc

It's raining again.

I recently heard Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park talking about his experience of directing live action for the first time. "I don't know how people do it," he said, "it must take a lot of patience."

You see; with video-assist technology and instant playback and that 'holl grail' combination of well fabbed puppets and good rigging, stop-motion in production is more instantly gratifying even than Google with it's 59,900 results in 0.15 seconds.

This brilliant video by Tom's Thumb animator Tom Grainger has been making me chuckle.  In it, he struggles with the petulant George.

Last night I stopped chuckling.  I was having an artistic disagreement with my leading man (puppet) about the way his character would move. It was my turn to flounce off the set to make a cup of tea and wish that I still smoked.

Image: RMIT Centre for Animation and Interactive Media

What's worse: he proved to be right - in animation there are no bad actors, only bad directors - it was his other foot that should have moved first.

Getting technical, most movement in nature happens in arcs.  No, not two by two; you're thinking of Noah. These arcs form the basis of all animation.  Once you realise this, once you come to absorb and assimilate that fundamental; then patience can be flung out the fourth floor window because most of the time, you're just following a prescribed arc of movement with the arm or head or eyeball or whatever part of the body you're working with until you reach the end of the arc and either come to rest or move into a new arc.

Sounds pretty simple, really.  Of course you're never just moving one thing through one arc but maybe up to twenty or thirty different parts could be contra-rotating simultaneously and the camera might be moving in it's own set of arcs and that's why I only shot ten frames yesterday guvnor!

The puppet knows he's right

However, because his feet are out of shot, only he and I (and now you) will ever know of our argument because I finally got my gnashing jaw around the bitter chestnut that is follow-through and, with seven and a half seconds already shot, we negotiated our way round to putting the wrong foot right, found the correct curves and bounces and saved the take.  I'd show you but I think I've said too much.  Also, the shot is STILL not finished.

We may love or hate the months of labour that it takes to fabricate a working puppet, but when they pull off a trick like that, you could just kiss their rubbery little faces! 

....would that be a bit weird?