Thursday, third day of animation, 4 shots done. The shots are coming out nicely, due to the well-balanced mix of great puppets, well-timed/acted voice track, thoughtful calm direction, luck, and me trying to walk the line between mathematical control and improvisation. We’ve been using x-sheets (exposure sheets), to plot out the timing of certain actions, some actions entered by the director either as necessities or suggestions, and others (usually secondary details) added by myself. I haven’t been used to using x-sheets as much as we have been. The other jobs I’ve been on used them mostly to keep track of dialogue and the frame count, but action was more or less kept track of in the mind or thought up on the fly, except by some animators who had more organized and practised methods. I also didn’t learn too much about using x-sheets at school, pretty much only in character animation for 2-D.
At school, my stop-motion work was only based on the storyboard frames and dialogue track, and was done in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way, with the style looking naturalistic and on the slow side. So I started to think that this was just my personal “look”, but I now realize that I’ve got other possible “looks” within the grasp of my skills, and I’m craving a new variety of styles beyond that plodding style. I’m starting to divert from the original topic a bit, so I’ll bring back…. This use of x-sheets is basically a new step in organization of the shots, of the movement, even its subtle parts, which is very necessary for these two 15 second commercial spots, because the timing is set. There isn’t much flexibility for on the fly inspiration. That can still come into play in small subtle ways, and is still a necessary element to successful stop-motion, but I’m realizing there is a lot to be said for organization, premeditation of movement, and developing (eventually) a more ingrained understanding of the division of movement into parts, into frames (at varying rates), arcs, speeds, styles, etc. If I can truly have a mental grasp of action and expression in its mathematical form on paper, on an x-sheet, then I’ll have more control over it, and possibly be able to take my abilities to dimensions beyond my current reach.
I’m trying to push myself further towards organized thought and control, because when I depend too much on my ability to improvise on the spot, I can feel myself slipping out of the framework, losing my grasp on the bigger picture, and then suddenly focusing only on the movement at the edge of its creation - from one frame to the next, repetitively toggling to the live frame and back, replaying the shot over and over just to see how that new movement looks. Sometimes this is necessary, but when I get into this state, I know I have lost control, at some point I’ve become lax in my self-discipline and have ended up slogging through to the end of the shot.
I feel best about a shot if I have a clear picture of it from start to finish, a clear understanding of the main elements, the motivation of the characters, timing, and style… and then if I can add in improvised subtleties and tweaks, push things one way or another, make little changes and additions (the things that really bring it to life), then I feel satisfied, like I’ve done a proper job. If I fall into that sluggish mode and lose the clarity, but am able to pull of a successful shot base on my improvising skill and luck, then I don’t feel so hot, maybe because I can’t for certain say that I could replicate that success in any controlled way next time, without understanding the mathematics that went into it.
