2018/19 Demo reel/Please give Critiques!
Hello, I am currently a third year animation student and new to the website. I feel like my teachers and peers go really easy on me when it comes to a lot of my work. If you have the time to critique what I have, I would like you to be as nit picky, harsh and straight to the point with me as possible. If my reel is bad, tell me straight up. I'm always looking to improve so anything that you guys can do would be of tremendous help to me. Here's my link below! Thanks!
https://vimeo.com/320884990
https://vimeo.com/320884990
Replies
Thanks!
*Disclaimers, I'm just going to spitball a ton of stuff, and leave it up to you to decide what, if any, you want to actually act on. If you want any clarification, or to challenge ideas, let me know and I'll be happy to keep chatting about it. Also, I'm going to be giving mostly critique because you seem hungry for it. That doesn't mean there's not lots of good stuff in here, but it sounds like you get enough praise already
Shot 1: Before getting into details, the point of this shot is really to be a setup for the next shot. It's here to provide contrast to the over the top performance in shot 2. Therefor, this guy should be on the other end of the spectrum, so super chill. You could take longer to pull his legs up, and then settle into a pose like in 145. Then as he finishes talking, lazily turn his head toward camera and end in a pose something like 148. that's how little movement I'd include here. A trend I saw in your work was overacting. I'd urge you to explore the power of non-motion, and not feel the need to do big crazy gestures all the time. I think most animators start off this way, and then work more subtle beats into their animations. High status/low status acting concepts would be helpful to look into for these shots in case you haven't before. Here's a simple example, but you can learn find plenty of info online.
As for body mechanics, it looks like his body slides around on the chair (the COG should barely be translating here, unless it's while he's shifting his weight in order to not have his butt slide on the chair.) Also his torso seems to kind of flair around. I can tell that you're using the COG for most of that rotation and not involving his torso. The torso looks stiff and mechanics wise it's impossible to move around like that without offsetting your balance somehow.
He looks at the clipboard for half a second and it's unconvincing. if you're going to put a beat in, make sure to do it right. Take the time it needs, or don't do it at all. This goes back tot he overacting thing. I'd rather see a single simple idea done well, than a hodgepodge of ideas that's confusing.
The moving hold for the last few frames kind of looks like a dance move, more than something I'd see in real life
Shot 2: The size of the actions in the beginning feels right, but then the dialogue relaxes a little bit and the large actions start to feel like too much. Also, the size of the actions are mostly all on one note which means there's no contrast which means less interest. I might have it go something like this.
I can't eat! (Large action like you have, he's just angry and lashing out), I'm Broke! (Large action like yo have) I'm broke (Medium action, loosing steam) And you (get into a pose where he's directly confronting Kev. He's now changing from angry to desperate) got the power to change that Kev, Nobody (same general pose but do a small action for emphasis) else.
Here we would see him act more of a range, all still in character but it would tell more of a story.
Shot 3: If I had to guess I'd say this is a recent piece inspired by the Spiderman Movie. If you want to keep this shot I think you need to keep working on perfecting the poses so it still reads as smooth.
Shot 4 (All the 2D shots): I'm guessing by this point you have an idea of what you want to do in the industry (movies/vfx/games/2D/3D) I'm assuming the answer is 3D, in which case this piece is cool for animator street cred and to show friends, but it won't help you get a job so I'd take it off.
(It's getting late so these critiques are getting shorter and shorter.)
Shot 5 Orange guy: Less is more. take this one out. It's not your best piece and it pulls your whole reel down. Judging by the quality difference between some of your other shots and this one, I'm guessing/hoping you know this already.
Shot 6: Probably take this one out unless you want to make significant changes. The shadows compete with the silhouette of the characters and make the poses/scene confusing. The guy that gets hit is the best part for me because he's already so cartoony. The guy on the left looks like this was before you started using reference. The poses and weight don't hold up to some of your other works.
Last few shots: With a little more work these could be pretty cute. Same theme of overacting here. I like the crazy action of the tall skinny guy, but the action is hard to read. I'd find the big poses in each of his shots and ditch one of them. That should clear up some room for a little bit a beat of non-crazy-action, so that the crazy action part can be impactful and we aren't visually overloaded so we can tell what's going on. Same thing with the pig, Example, the head motion on "mistake" feels like it's mean to be a smooth snake like motion, but it happens like he's shaking water off his head. Again, simplify the amount of actions and take the time to do it right.
Lastly you cut the tall guys line short on his second shot which feels weird. I'd finish that out and keep the cuts simple, right on their dialogue changes.
That's all for now. Overall you're working towards some good appeal in your characters. Make sure to use reference, and if you're going to do acting shots, spend a loong time in the blockout phase to get the beats right. I'd shoot reference and compile it, retime it, etc, in a video editing software to get the acting choices all figured out before animating. There's plenty of side by side comparisons of Disney/Pixar/Dreeamworks/etc animators showing their reference next to their final shot. They look almost the same which is a testament to how much they figured out EXACTLY what they needed to do in their shot before they ever opened maya. As for mechanics, I think once you aren't trying to do so much in the scene, you'll be able to take more time for weight changes, etc, which will increase your quality a lot.