 Welcome back to an act analysis and tips finding me interesting today. I'm going to talk about the show called castle rocks. It's going to be season one. I'm going to cover things like character staging and their relationships, character reactions and it's patients and a lot more. So let's go. I haven't seen season two yet, but I really want to. Season one was actually pretty cool and I only had a few notes about this one. I have a whole list of act analysis clips I want to get to. And every now and then I have one where it's just like one or two notes. I thought, eh, let's do it anyway. Bring something up. And as I was going through and picking episodes, there's then a sequence that I saw, I thought that's actually really cool. And this goes back into if you are a student or not, there's always so much you can find in live action reference, either for something you film for yourself or you find somewhere. If you go through a movie or a TV show, just pick a sequence. There's always something that's going to give you, as I say, a springboard of ideas, how you could take your shot in a different direction using character, you know, reaction shots or acting choices or prop interactions and so on. I love that stuff. And this is why I'm going to continue with that series. Now, before I do continue and you've been listening, wondering who is this guy? Hi, my name is JD and I do acting analysis tips like these. I do animation analysis tips. I do animation lectures. I do review reviews, product reviews. I do a bunch of stuff on the channel. That is the pitch at the beginning. Check it out. Look at it. And if you like it, subscribe. So you're not missing any of those uploads. And if you don't like it, then subscribe. But maybe you'll watch this and go, you know what? At the end, I don't want to miss what else he's going to upload. But that's going to be up to you. That's the beginning pitch. As always, let's get to the sequences. First stop is, of course, props. I love it. And what is this? It's basically not spoiling too much, but she has a special gift. And they're carrying this props. She's really nicely built and she really cares about this. And it's it's not really what's happening here. I want to just take this idea and go further. So she's really careful about it. Now, as we scrub forward, she tells her to drive safely. And that's the pleading here. Please don't drive more than, you know, faster than 40. I love this here, though. Her OK. I think that it's really nicely staged. Coupine animation shot where it goes right there into this frame. The silhouette is nice, and it doesn't have to be something where she makes it. It is acting out words. It's going to be OK. I'll be OK. Don't worry about it. But it's not the don't worry. I know it's to me. It's like a fun little thing that could be an animated movie where you have a nice silhouette there and it prolongs as she sits down and continues. So just as an aside, again, goes into whatever you're watching. This is always going to be something interesting to look at. Like, why does she look at her for so long? She's slightly worried. Then she does that anyway, and so on and so on. But then it's this. She looks at the model and tells the model, bye, and then looks at the driver and then goes away. So why am I picking this? And the springboard for the idea is that it could be interesting that if you have a character in your scene that could be holding anything. I mean, the pen here, as I'm using this, you got, I don't know. I have a remote control. I got my phone. There's a bunch of stuff there. Imagine your character is holding something and they really care about this. And this could be a kid building a model and then displaying it somewhere or an adult carrying on something else. It could be, you know, a fellow animation nerd having something nerdy like that. Like whatever, a bunch of stuff here. But imagine your character is putting it away or it's being taken away or something. And then instead of just leaving it as a prop, there's a special relationship where they go and then maybe readjust it when they put it down and they kind of pet it or they say goodbye to it. Something interesting where to me, if you have such a strong bond or reaction or overreaction to a non-living object, that's potentially interesting, concerning, funny. I think the way your character will react and interact with that piece will tell us something more. And as always to me, it's just it adds an extra layer of getting to know your characters. It's not just a character in an empty scene doing something, but their interaction, their reaction, their relationship with something could add extra weirdness, comedy or whatever to your shot. That thing could be really cool. The second one is this one I thought was really cool where she can hear things. I don't go too far into details, but she is lost in thoughts, but she does hear the character, as you can see here, coming in. And then with this, you got that as an aside again. He wasn't probably not expecting that loud bell here. This goes into is a character familiar, unfamiliar with the environment. He has never been in here and reacts to this. It's just a little detail, which I love. Again, if you have a character and you put them anywhere, their reactions to how they walk, how they close something, how they see something will be dependent on if they're familiar or not with it. But going forward, she turns around and he says hi, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she has that who are you? I can't quite remember you. She doesn't walk closer to him. She doesn't open her arms. She doesn't say hi or anything. She stays put and goes, I'm not sure who you are. And then the reaction for him is to stop and actually put his hands into the pockets and leave it there. And I love this idea. This continues on. And she goes, finally, oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah, but they kind of stay put where they are. And I love about that is that if you have two characters meeting for the first time, potentially, you can decide as you animate what their relationship is. Are they going to be friendly or not? Is someone suspicious or not? Is someone confused or not? So if you have two characters coming in and they're friendly, they might go, oh, hey, I remember you. And then they get closer or they get somewhere. And that person acts really weird. The other character might take a step away from it. It was like, you're acting weird. I don't want to be too close to you. So as always, if you have multiple characters in your scene, two or more, think about their relationship to space. How close are they? Should they stay like that throughout your shot? Should they get closer or further away, depending on what they think, how they feel, what their reactions are and so on. It's a simple thing in the scene, but I love it. I love that he stops with his hands in there. There's nothing to threatening, be it intentional or not. Again, I'm usually reading way too much into this, but I like this idea and I like that construction of the scene and how he acts the way I interpret it. And how the relationships in terms of the spatial distance, I love that. And that's something I always would include into your shots. This one is another one that is just purely from in terms of the idea of it. She has a knife, she's concerned, she's afraid, she's conscious, all the things you want to read into this and she walks away from here. And in the scene, there's an interesting thing of it's very dark, but basically she hears something, a couple looks here, steps to the side and the camera has a slight move, but it reveals someone standing there. And as she turns around, sees the character, freaks out and so on. You know, the scene continues. And what I want to take from this is I love this idea that you have a shot and this could be whatever character you have, adult, kid, a creature, whatever it is. And then as they take a step and maybe they look somewhere else, maybe they're distracted, it will reveal something else. And this could be something funny, something cute. This could be a birthday party surprise. This could be anything. The idea that I love behind this is that as an audience, at this point, we know more than the character. So it creates a huge anticipation as it aren't going to turn around, look at it, or I wonder how she's going to react. So you're going to be a bit more invested into the shot. And then as your character reacts after the turnaround, then that's your chance to do whatever reaction you have. pantomime and lip sync and like funny or sour, whatever it is. But I like the idea of introducing something in the scene where then because usually, not usually, but you can have something where in your shot, you as an audience, you're always with the character. You know as much as the character and then you follow along. But sometimes it's interesting to know more than the character so that you just kind of wait like, what's going to happen next? Because I know what's supposed to happen. And now you wait and maybe you think your character is going to react in a certain way, but then the character reacts in a different way and that creates surprise and so on. So just think about that element of showing something to the audience that your main character doesn't know so that your audience gets a bit more invested and interested and builds up the anticipation in terms of what's going to happen next. And this sequence is something that I was scrubbing through and I thought it's not that important, but I thought it's kind of interesting. So he asked a bunch of questions to this guy and this guy acts in a specific way, played it a little bit, scrub it forward here, right? He shows him like he bends the fingers. He talks about someone lost his fingers. You just kind of casual acting which kind of stands, looks around, arms out and so on. Like there's nothing dramatic. That's just the way he is. Now he hears something and tells him, wait, he asked him a question and he goes, okay, what is this about? So the first thing I like already is that he is confrontational. He goes, all right, what is this about? So imagine you have your scene. Here's your character, another character. So you can always decide, am I going to invade? Imagine this is the personal space. Am I going to get closer here and invade this person's space? That could be confrontational. Am I careful and am I taking a step back? So even this, just like before, we talked about it actually in a previous shot, is you have a character, he's a second character. What's their distance and why would you change that distance and what would the audience think about that and feel about that in terms of this character, right? Once he has done that, he has this reaction of, all right, well, I'm going to tell you what happened here and now it's interesting framing too where there's really not much space there. And he has a complete change because he remembered something. And you can see even see this, he's like, wait, what's with this guy? Just non-verbal. Like it's in animation why it's not that complicated, right? Just a rotation up and then that's it. But the speed of it and the fact that he keeps looking at and really staring, just, I love all these little details in terms of, oh, the mood has changed. He gets up straighter, puts this down and now he has that, oh, it's you, it's you. And I love this too, again, non-verbal. What? What are you talking about? It's a simple thing in terms of animation but little fur of brows, rotation, bit in Y, bit of a roll and down. It's a simple thing, but you don't have to overact in terms of bringing your arms up of what are you talking about? It could just be a slight squint here. I love those things here. And then the bigger thing is that as he realizes, oh, it's you, he does that. Eh, yeah, it's super weird. Then it's more the familiar touching. It's not aggression. Like, yeah, come on, follow. I want to show you some things. Why am I showing you this? Besides all those little things, it's always that the classic assignment for a studio is the gear change. So you have a character, it could be multiple, but imagine it's just one. And that character is in a specific headspace, emotional space, has an attitude, blah, blah, blah. Something happens, they hear something, they see something, they do something, which affects the character. Now they have an emotional change. They change into something else. And it's a classic assignment. You can see this all the time in movies and TV shows. But I like seeing this where his thing of, hey, it's you, it's so strange and almost creepy. And this gives me, it's just kind of the thing of, when you have an idea for your gear change, think beyond your first idea. Go third, for fifth idea, maybe brainstorm. Ask other people, and maybe it's your 10th idea where you go like, you know what? That's what I'm going to go with. It might be weird, but it might be also really original and different and more creative. So for me, what I'm taking out of this is that I did not expect a reaction. It was kind of funny to watch. Sometimes things like these in the creepier shows, it's more creepy to watch. Like, what's this guy doing now? But it's a reminder to just not go with idea one. It could just be, oh, I know you, come with me. Or like, oh, yeah, I know you, come with me. Or it could be, hey, I know you, come with me. Super weird. I just like that as a, you know, like it's an exaggeration. It's almost like a escalation of ideas where you go. Let's go a step further and further and further. So that would be my piece of advice for this. Just whatever shot you're starting. Pantomime, lip sync, anything. You have an idea. There's a good chance that someone else had the same idea. So deconstruct that idea. Think about why is my character gonna do this? What's the environment like? Well, this is my character's personality and the attitude at that point. What happened before and after? Now take all of this and maybe where are they? What are they, how did they dress? You know, is their lip sync? Like, how long is the shot? Take all of this and then start adding all this to your idea and then brainstorm more and more and more to get the most original and creative idea out of your shot. Which I know is super easy for me to say, like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's really hard to do. But at least I'm getting to the habit of don't just go with your first idea. You have an assignment, you have your rig, and then the seminar is, oh, okay, I'm gonna go with this. Think longer, ask other people, brainstorm, just take the time to really create something a bit more original. If possible, again, something easy to say. Now, speaking of easy to say, if you feel like, how could I segue into this? It sounds easy, but you need more help to get you in that direction and then get more brainstorming ideas so you can sign up for my workshop, you know what the pitch is. I have a workshop you can sign up at any time, you can start whenever you want. It's super flexible, it's all tailored towards you and that's what we're gonna do. At the beginning, if you're just planning things around, these are not kind of the submissions, these are free. We can chat forever and plan and brainstorm and talk about thumbnails and bunch of stuff. So if you wanna work with me and if you want me to help you and make your shots even more awesome, you can sign up at any time, link in the description with all the information and speaking of time, what is this? 15-ish something minutes. Thank you for watching until the very end. I appreciate your patience. I'll let you go until the end of the clip and maybe by now you like things and you think, maybe I will stick with this guy and maybe I don't wanna miss any of his uploads, then hit that subscribe button. It's the typical YouTube page. It helps the channel grow, algorithm hit like, all that stuff. You know the drill if you're new to what I'll ask you anyway and that is it. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in my next upload.