Back in the early 1980s, Women were just beginning to enter the animation industry and Lee Crowe was one of them. She graduated with a BA in Art from a college near her home in Georgia, before moving to Canada to be enrolled into the Sheridan College Animation program.
After graduating, moved to Los Angeles, where she job her first job in animation at a smaller animation studio called Carter Mendez. She met Floyd Norman and worked there on several animation projects before it was discovered that the studio was a front for a money laundering scheme.
Take a look at the interview below and learn about more animation stories that Lee Crowe experienced during the early part of her career in animation.
My first interview with Sergio Pablos was back in 2016, just before Klaus was pitched to Netflix. You can see the posted interview by clicking here.
Klaus was nominated for an Academy Award in 2020 and during the Covid-19 situation, I was able to set up a Zoom interview with Sergio from his SPA Studios in Madrid, Spain. Enjoy the interview below and please share it with a friend!
If you enjoyed this interview, please leave a comment below or subscribe to see past and future interviews on YouTube channel Animateducated!
And one more thing!
Do you have any questions for the next interview with Don Hahn? Leave your questions in the comment section below!
For years I have been teaching Animation classes during the Fall and Spring semesters, but I've always wanted to have an Animation Summer class.
And so, this June, I'm offer an online animation class teaching the hidden secrets of 2D animation and how to use Toon Boom Harmony to anyone interested in signing up. Click here to receive more infomation. Any questions? Please leave a comment below!
Here's the most recent interview with Amber Aviles who explains how she became a voice actor and gives a lot of advice to anyone interested in becoming one. https://youtu.be/paV2lBN86fM While we have all been staying at home these days, I have had to learn how to teach a few online animation classes which has required me to create various tutorials for the students. These include: Animating a Head Turn using Toon Boom Harmony. https://youtu.be/SoBRf72Dk8c
Its
been an interesting year for animation with the return of a more
traditional hand drawn look with films like Klaus and shorts films as
well. Two animated shorts, which are in competition for this year's Oscars Short Film(animated) catagory are "Hair Love" and "Kitbull". Both
are in color and are traditionally animated. Both films are sponsored
by movie studios; "Hair Love" with Sony Picture Animation and "Kitbull"
with Pixar SparkShorts program.
I had seen Hair Love and was sure it would win, however after seeing Kitbull, Hair Love has found its competition.
I'm
going out on a limb here to make a prediction that "Hair Love" will
win the Oscar! Hair Love is a human story about love, hair and the black community, but its more of a
universal story with appeal. Its has a lot of strong storytelling inside
it, as well as a message of hope.
If it does, please take a look/listen to this recent interview with the directors of the film. https://youtu.be/7CPvoVOooPk
Now,
don't get me wrong, I like Kitbull too. The story is about a small
abandoned kitten who meets an abandoned Pitbull. We learn that the
Pitbull just wants to play, but is chained up and used in a bad way by his
owner. The
animation of the kitten is great and like Hair Love its colorful,
traditionally animated and told with music. Kitbull also is a story of
hope, where the two different animals become friends and help each other. I
know there is not much time before the Oscars begin on this wet and
rainy Sunday, but please leave a comment below. Which film did you like
like the most?
Matthew
A. Cherry was an NFL foot player and after he retired, moved to LA to
become a producer. In 2017, he started a successful Kickstarter campaign
which helped fund "Hair Love", a children's book written by Cherry and
illustrated by Vashti Harrison, as well as an animated short film based
on the book.
I attempted to do a live streaming broadcast on my Animateducated YouTube channel. And there were problems with the live streaming which even made an IT person swear a few times because he couldn't figure out what was not working. Luckily the phone recording was fine and below is the final interview with the directors of the film, Bruce Smith and Everett Downing Jr. Both discuss the animation process and their involvement with the film.
A big thank you to Matthew A. Cherry for his help in setting up the above interview as well as Ryan Murphy and Garth Burkhard of Sony Pictures Animation. If you liked this film, the children's book or the above interview, please leave a comment below.
Now that you have added your final Rig to the Harmony Premium Library, you can now bring that rig into another new Harmony scene file. This is how to set up and animate a Walk Cycle. You will be animating everything as key poses and creating Key frames. This is known as pose to pose animation. The rig set up allows you to select the body part, say the Right Arm and then click on Deformation chain button to yurn on the bone controls for the right arm. Rotate the bones, Harmony automatically creates the key frames. DO NOT ROTATE THE BODY PART AND THEN THE BONES. Doing this throws the bone chain outside and away from the body part it is controlling. See the photos below and remember Harmony will be creating the inbetweens for you, but its up to you to set the key poses and make sure the animation working correctly. To do a walk cycle, you need these key positions for each step. Below shows only one leg stepping forward as the other foot is going back. This is only the first step of a complete stride. (examples from Richard Williams Animator's Survival Kit (go buy your own)
Below is a timing chart showing the same animation with different timing, giving a cartoony tempo or a more realistic pace.
You should go with the On 16's chart. The first Contact pose is Key .#1, Key # 17 is the opposite of Key #1. Key # 9 is the Pass Position, showing how the back leg comes forward. Key #1 + Key #9 = Key #5 The leg bends to take the weight making this the Lowest position of your step. Key # 9 + Key # 17 = Key #13 The leg and body's highest position of the step. You create these 5 poses and then do the same for the other leg stepping forward and you should have the following Keys on the same frames numbers. inbs First Step K1 - - - K5 - - - K9 - - - K13 - - - K17 2nd Step k17 - - - k21 - - - k25 - - - k29 - - - (k33)K1 link up
Turn on the Transform tool and the Animate button first and then select the body part you want to change first. Then turn on the Deformation change button to see the bone chain and rotate the bone. As you do this, Harmony places a key frame on each bone you move. You can also select KF+ to add a keyframe down the entire frame. You can start with the body and legs, position Key #1 on frame #1. Keep All the Keys on the same Key frames
inbs inbs inbs inbs By selecting the Master layer, this selects the entire rig. You can use this to create the up and down motion throughout the 2 steps. Once the body is working, move onto keying the legs, then the arms, then hands.
Always click on the time line in the Master rig layer and then click on the body part you want to select,
then click on the Deformation change button next to the Deformation tools.
The bone chain appears. Click on the bone then rotate it into position.
Make sure you pose all the parts on the same key frame. Harmony automatically sets keys frames on the bones you rotate, but you have to key the Master rig layer yourself. The Master Rig will move the entire rig, this will help when making Key #5 & #21: the down positions and Key # 13 & #29: the up positions. When you move the Master Rig, use the arrows keys to move it up or down and then adjust the legs and feet. If you click on the Master rig, moving it up or down using the mouse, you will add more side to side motion as well. Always remember to use your Onion Skin tool to see how the spacing for arms or legs is working. Any motion where the leg's foot moves and then slows down or pauses for several frames and then speeds up.This shows bad spacing and you will need to adjust your leg so its always moving. Motion and Stop Motion Keys. Stop Motion Keys: Are useful for setting up a pose to pose test. Just showing the key poses without the inbetweens added. Motion Keys: Show the inbetween frames in between the two key poses. Here is a good example of what both Motion keys look like in action. The back leg, the one away from us is set on Stop Motion keys.
To change the Stop Motion to Motion keys, go to Animation tab on the top in Harmony and click off Stop-Motion Keys and click Animate on top. To learn about blocking out your scene, click this link.
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Drawing Substitutions are useful for setting up a series of drawings for eye blinks, mouth positions for lip sync, hand positions and even extra body parts like hair,feathers or extra parts.
Here's a brief tutorial from Tony Ross explaining the process.
Rigging a Cut Out takes a lot of work to set it up before you can animate it. I've tried to go through this process step by step. I have also included some helpful tutorials explaining this process and will add my own soon.
The goal is to design a biped human character in a 3/4 pose, making sure the feet are both facing the same direction. Similar to the posed characters below. Simple is Better.
Use the Pencil tool to outline your cleanup drawings of each part of the character. Use the erase tool or cutter tool to clean up the lines before adding color.
CutterTool Options
When you select the Cuttertool, its properties and options appear in the Tool Properties view.
Paint the color into your body part shapes by using paint bucket. If a drawing does not fill, there may be a space in your drawing, you can use the Gap tool to fill in the gap.
Once everything is cleaned up and painted, turn on the Transform dotted square and the Rotate tool at the top,near the display all window, next to Translate icon.
Your selected body part is highlighted and you should see a blue pivot point with a yellow arrow sticking out of it. Click on the pivot with mouse, holding it down and moving the pivot point to the correct place.
Pivot Placement
To save time, when you select the drawing layer name it the body part name. Here's a sample list of naming the parts. Short and Simple, please do not get clever naming these parts like: My_Mans_FunkyHead.
If you do this just to get a laugh, you will have to rename all the layers again.
All layers need to have the same naming convention so all animators are using the same thing. Its a group effort, get use to it.
Here are our naming conventions for this rig.
Head **
Eyes (white eyeballs) Separate drawings for blinks
Pupils
Mouth Separate drawings for mouth poses for lip sync
Hair If your Character has hair, this will be placed behind the head.
** (Ears and Nose) can be included on the head, this all depends on your design)
Body (includes neck stub)
** Butt: (More realistic designs will need this to cover the legs as they rotate.)
Also depending on which way you character will be facing, you can use Lt = Left or Rt = Right
When you have more rigs like front and flipped 3/5, etc. you will want to Change Left or Right to Front and Back. This refers to what Arm or Leg is facing in front of your character and which is in Back.
Lt_Arm
Lt_Hand
Rt_Arm
Lt_Hand
The hand can have many more hand positions which you can change during your animation. Neutral hand, Fist hand, Pointing hand, cupped shaped hand, hand with fingers splayed out, thumbs up hand, etc.
Each hand has the same amount of separate hand choices.
Legs
Lt_Leg
Rt_Leg
Make sure feet or shoes and sitting flat on the ground and pointing in same direction. Take a look at the drawing below.
Once all the pivot points are moved to the right place, its time to Parent the Parts!
Parent the Head first.
Click on Harmony Premium and click on Preferences
Under General, click on the button: Focus on Mouse Enter.
If you are set up correctly, your head should rotate as if its on top of the neck. Rotate it to check the motion, you will notice that the face parts do not move with the Head. They need to be Parented to the Head. When the Parent moves, the children (Face Features) move with it. Here's how to parent the face parts to the head.
Make sure you have all the face parts ready to go, you can't add new drawings later. Add an eye blink and different mouth positions for lip sync.
Turn on the Transform dotted box on tool bar. Select all Face/Head parts in the Layers list, click and move the selected group to land onto the Head layer. Unclick and group is pasted below the Head layer.
Harmony pops the group under the Head layer and all the parts should be listed there, but the drawing is behind the head itself. You must use "Nudging" to bring the Face parts to the front of the Head. Here's where the "Focus on Mouse Enter" comes into play.
To bring the Face features forward, you need to use something called "Nudging".
Select the face feature layers as a group, make sure the Transform dotted square tool is on. Move the cursor into yjr Camera (Stage) view. On a Mac hold down the Option button as you click the arrow down button on keyboard once. This should send all the face parts to the front. Use the Alt button and arrow key when using a PC.
Here's a video going over "Nudging" and how to deal with the arms.
If Nudging does not work, you have to place the cursor in the Camera view, then hold down the Option button and press the arrow down V on keyboard.
If it still doesn't work, you can do this instead. You will need to click on the + on each Face layer to open the position control. All the positions will be at 0. You will need to enter 0.001 on the Position: Pos z layer. Doing this will bring the face part forward in front of the Head.
Once the Head is in control of the Face Features, you need to select the Head in the Layers list on timeline and add a peg to the Head.
Remember, if you haven't added a peg before, Harmony will ask you to change your Display option to Display All. Go to the Scene tab at the top, click and change Default Display to Display All. Then go back to adding a peg to the Head Layer.
Everything will be animated using the Peg Layer. DO NOT SET KEYS ON THE DRAWING LAYERS. THE PEGS CONTROL THE DRAWINGS, KEY THE PEGS.
Now the Head rotates above the Body/Neck. You can parent the Arms to the Body and the Hands to the Arms. And then we will Bone Deformers into the arms and legs in the next lesson.
Here is a bunch of several workarounds in Harmony in case you are having trouble working in the software. Here's a good example how you can do different things to get the same results...
While setting up a Cut Out puppet and rigging it, I discovered that adding the colour-card pops the layer above the other layers below it, making those layer go behind the colour-card and making them disappeared. Clicking on Colour card and moving it down to the bottom didn't work, it only popped it somewhere else more annoying.
I attempted to add a peg to the Colour-Card to move it back in Z, to reveal other layers. Even though I did this, went to layer properties to move card layer pegs in Z, a completely different layer was moved back in Z when I was controlling the Z on the colour card.
I really like Harmony, but sometimes I have to find work arounds for problems like this.
I remembered before I even knew what a Colour card was or its function or how to spell the words, I would make my own colour card layer by creating a drawing layer, adding a giant rectangle shape and filling it in with white paint. As it dried, I made a peg layer for my white bg and pushed it back in the Z axis and everything now can be seen.
When you select a layer in your timeline list, you can open the Top display in the function window on the upper right. Click the big + next to the X to open a list of functions like, Colour, Tool Properites and click on Top. This shows you where your camera is looking at the layers. To move about the window, hold down spacebar and move your mouse, you should see the hand tool.
When move the selected layer, you can use the up and down arrows on keyboard to move white bg back and forth.
If you have any trouble with this or find other problems of weirdness, please let me know...
