Anticipation: Week 3

Anticipation:

Telling the audience what your about to do/ anticipating the action. in the diagram bellow taken form 'The Animators Survival Kit' shows three images:

1. The first is like an establishing shot; the items which will be involved in the action.
2. The second is the anticipation. the arrow will travel to the right but it can't move from a stationary position. It first moves back telling the audience that it's about to move.
3. The third position is the reaction to the action. The arrow shoots off leaving the bow reacting to it's movement. This is telling the audience that the action has happened.

Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner:

One of the best places to see anticipation are the Loony Tunes with their very rubbery characters. The road runner and the coyote are very good examples as they have very fast and exaggerated actions and without anticipation it is possible the audience might miss the action altogether.

The objects position/shape in the anticipation stages is always the opposite of the action stage. The road runner in the image bellow his body arcs back completely before shooting his head forward to eat the bird feed. This gives his movements more force making it a much more aggressive action then if he had just bent this head down to eat.

Ball and Tail Character moving around environment:

Using the same rig as before I am trying to give the ball and tail character as it moves around an environment (a pyramid of stairs). Character can be created through pauses as much as action. Pauses indicate that the character is thinking and the pose/ body language tells the audience the nature of the though.

The pixar logo is a good example of this as it takes an ordinary inanimate object and gives it a character as it interacts with the letters of the Pixar Logo. The anticipation of the lap before it jumps is particularly important in giving the lamp character and appeal.

• It squashes showing it's intent that it wants to jump and it takes it's time to do so, so the audience can engage with the characters thoughts that it wants to jump.
• It wiggles side to side as it squashes, a bit like a dog wagging it's tail. this gives the lamp childish quality/ personality which the audience finds appealing. 

Story Boarding:

These story boards are a rough sketch of how I want the animation to unfurl and what I want to happen to the character as well as how the action is going to be framed (shot composition). I want to show first the curiosity and then desire to climb the stairs and after a failed attempt the character making it to the top.

This short animation are the first 4 frames of the story board animated. It still needs some work in regard to timing, some pauses longer to stress that the ball is really thinking. I really liked the stretch when the ball re enters shot. I didn't storyboard this in coming up with it as I was animating.  I think it really helps showing the characters thoughts especially as he doesn't have any face expressions to animate.