 Welcome back! Today is Thursday and that means acting analysis for animators and today I'm going to take a look at one of my favorite scenes from Take Shelter. There are many many awesome scenes in this movie, I'm a massive fan of that movie, but I like this sequence especially because there's so many things in terms of animation that you could take out of it that I think will be helpful and of course there's something at the end that I love but I'm not going to spoil it and it's an awesome movie, you should watch it. But this sequence has many aspects in terms of acting, reacting, use of space, progression of a character, there's just so much in there so let's go and I'll show you. This is a fairly long sequence, I'm gonna scrub through so you can see what's going on. I will have a link in the description if you want to watch and listen to the whole thing, I'm not going to post this just because of copyright issues. The gist is that he, again if you haven't seen the movie, he sees in Here Storms but he's the only one, no one believes in it and he's taken out the money to build a shelter. She has found out and is obviously upset and rightly so because it takes up the savings for the kids and everything and it's a confrontation of why did you do this, what would help me, let me help you and he decides well you can't help me and so on. That is the sequence. Now why do I like this? There are a couple things, as you know if you watch my channel you know I'm a massive fan of eye contact and eye line and holding the gaze or not and blinking and you can see that he tries to have eye contact but you can see there's a lot of processing and nervousness, there's a lot of blinking so as always think about when do you blink, how long do you blink but he's trying to explain kind of well I know you, I'm sorry and I did this and look at her contrast. She is absolutely confrontational and this goes back into gestures or poses that are off-screen so she has her arms crossed and you might argue this might be a potentially a cliche pose in animation but I mean it's something you do naturally do as a defense mechanism or protection whatever it is so she has that and look at her eyes full contact here and she doesn't blink it's just I'm confronting you like what's going on and that you got your point there I saw you built this why explain to me why did you do this and he can't he's nervous he's embarrassed he doesn't know what to say he's trying to look at her he got the little micro expressions and ticks there but he's like okay well you know this is what I did I'm sorry and he has that moment of looking but he can't hold he can't hold that eye contact he has to look away again and she realizes wait you did what and now it's again full contact with her eyes there's no blinking and she is really really upset so now what you did what and it's this you know imagine everybody has this personal bubble or you know the personal space she goes in that and confronts him and I mean in a way violates that space but also in her I mean from her point of view rightly so like what did you do and you can see that she uses space so this is something else that I talk about in my classes that you should use space and not have a static character you go forward go back go left and right because that's what depending on the acting choice and you know the character situation what you would do but I love this I love that she comes up to him and challenges him like what did you do you spent all that money for a stupid tornado shelter and he can't look he just can't look at her it's like what did you do why did you do this and then once she did that once she told him what she believes like what did you do this she takes again a step back and now she's in this process and by the way I'm massively projecting my own interpretations I could be completely wrong but I like what I'm seeing and I'm going to use this for future shots so if as always comments comment if you disagree you got ideas but anyway wanted to throw that out there let's go back so now that she's done this she realized why did you do this and he says I know you don't understand and this is one of my favorite reactions so the whole thing is that as they say I'm paraphrasing is that acting is reacting and it's super important that if you are with another actor if you're in your scene and one is talking make sure that the other character is listening and reacting to the things that that the character is saying and not in a way of well now that person said the line now I'm gonna say my line or animation wise you know okay I'm gonna do my gesture whatever it is if someone says something outrageous or sad or upsetting whatever it is that's gonna go into someone's brain you're gonna process and you go and have a reaction I mean that reaction might be verbal or it might be a body like in here it might trigger a certain physical reaction it might have something a bit more mental so whatever it is but make sure that it feels like a character is listening processing and reacting so in her case you can see how as she turns her back towards him because she doesn't want to engage anymore she's trying to figure out what's going on then he says this and you can see how before she says anything shoulders go up she cringes it was oh yes I don't understand she's she says so shakes her head walks around circles a complex animation in terms of steps and everything but now she's just completely lost like what is going on what did you do and now look at this amp after all of this all the going around and being lost she stands firm and the way I see it she's trying to regain control the situation okay hold on hold on you did this you did this so now she's counting down like wait you did this this and that and it's stupid you're stupid why look at this stare no more blinking solid confrontation like why did you do this tell me and she says it here tell me and now it's awesome so now again because she's back in control and she's challenging him saying tell me what did you do I am step closer getting closer into his face but she's an awesome character and they're both great in the movie and the way they're challenging each other but need each other and love each other so now she does this and then she goes please and it de-escalates and then you can see once again a gesture that's off-screen I love that she holds his shoulders he is trying to look right actually he's actually looking without blinking that's pretty cool so now she's going into this like come on tell me let me help you and it gets softer and softer and now she's actually embracing like come on I want to help you and I look at the thumb right so you got that little move of more compassion and love like let me help you and then she waits and he just says okay well there's nothing I can do I can't tell you what's going on I can help you and then you can see her breakdown going oh crap that's just horrible looks down again you can't hold the gaze okay let me put Anna to bed or I think that's her name it's the daughter now this for the longest time I because I've watched this sequence so many times I at one point forgot what was going on I always interpreted this as well he opens the door to go to the daughter to put the daughter to bed she doesn't want to cry and be upset in a loud fashion not to upset the child right I mean as parents sometimes you just want to do that and then she has that if you listen to this she has this breakdown here the breakdown why but she's like oh man this is so horrible but the girl is deaf she she can't hear anything so my dad interpretation is obviously massively wrong but what I like about that thought process is that maybe in your animation your character has and by the way the scene is done maybe your character is doing something and it could be a dispute and they don't want to do something in front of the kids so you could have any gear change as that's an assignment the character could open a door to the children and now your character will act differently they might have you know tears that might go and go okay hi good night right and then you might change and that might be an interesting change of character change of behavior and acting that could be interesting to animate but you can do this in a totally different way you can have something where someone is nervous and does like a thing of okay I can do this I can do this and then the moment this might be with sound or with visuals where someone goes now welcome blah blah blah to the stage of blah blah blah they might go and then they go out be a speaker a comedian a politician and then you can go further this could be relaxing confidence or let's go cliche politician who then is a liar who then goes and then has that evil look before they go out to then have a more of a smile like oh wait he was nervous but he's actually really mean and now he's pretending to be nice like you can have multiple layers of how a character reacts and changes depending like knowing that the character is going to go somewhere else so be it the door opens to a party like maybe you're okay and then the door opens and you can see there's so many people at this party and you just get nervous and awkward around people and then the whole body language changes right so I think that that is an interesting aspect of something you can do through a set and as if if you've watched my stuff you know I'm a massive fan of adding a character uh putting a character into a set or adding a set of characters but that is that is as a whole I love the the usage of space that she walks around right back and forth in circles but also it's almost visually showing how she's grappling without information it's so much is going on in her brain that she has to walk around and find herself that she is using that space and then she goes okay hold on you did this you did that why did she do this and then the body can calm down and then you get also contrast of visuals so it's quiet confrontation craziness what's going on walk walk walk so visually there's a lot of movement and energy and then I'll get back to so tell me why and then you go back into something quiet imagine she would be moving around all the time it's kind of boring there's a little contrast is kind of or she would be constantly still and just looking my argument would be nice and threatening but after a while that can also get kind of boring especially if that's on your reel and there's not enough contrast and you know line of action and changes in your poses that could be potentially a problem but I like this and I like the back and forth with him where he blinks doesn't blink looks away so again contrast of the people's confidence and nervousness and how they interact and the biggest thing to me is her shoulder reaction meaning that she hears something and goes oh like why would you say that and it's cool because and it's something that I think is not done enough not that you have to do it but it's usually in animation play to camera and it's cool when someone turns and you just see the back because then it's all body language and pantomime and but you can still show reactions and thought process and changes through just the body so and it's cool contrast so why not have a character talk to camera doing off camera right doing to to the other character that might be off screen but then turn and then maybe maybe with you know upshoulders and then they hear something disappointing and go and you can show this just in that post change but anyway that's it I love this movie go watch it if you haven't yet I would love a like and a subscribe why not hit that bell button if you want to get all notifications you know the spiel on youtube also if you watch this till the very end you're still here thank you so much I really appreciate the time that you put into watching all of this any concerns questions or whatever comments are there and again the sequence with the full audio and everything in the description and that's it and I will see you in my next clip