 Today is Thursday and that means acting analysis for animators and today I'm gonna take a look at the TV show season one of altered carbon All right alter carbon is a show on Netflix and if you have Netflix you can watch season one right now And it's actually been out for quite some time. This is episode eight I want to talk about character interaction looks and eye lines and kind of villainous type of behavior all that stuff That I love so let's get right into it. I'll show you what I mean So throughout season one you had this character kind of chasing This character who is the main character and I won't say too much and spoil too much about character changes and swaps and things I thought it was kind of interesting show actually So if you've seen it, let me know in the comments what your thoughts are not everything was great But there's some cool stuff towards it. But anyway, so these guys are constantly Chasing and fighting each other and now they're trapped in this elevator where at this point They're not allowed to fight so there's a lot of No blinking stairs. It's kind of a power struggle and you can see they are just they're not liking each other There's a lot of confrontations and I love this moment here. This is such a cool moment of Him doing this and you can read in this as much as you want to this could be your you know symbol of a gun He's telling him he could potentially be telling him I'm about to kill you don't come between me and my objective, but I love how he is not wavering He's not blinking. He's absolutely steady in his resolve. They're both just ready To kill each other, but they can't do anything at this point again. I don't want to spoil it But at this point, it's just they have to be together in this elevator They got to get to a certain place certain person That's how it is and I love that for them That's their conflict besides their personal conflict and fighting each other and wanting to kill each other at this point They're not allowed to so they have to go back and forth and kind of demean each other via with words and just say Thanks. It's just a great moment in the in this season but going back again This is just such a cool moment of that that little interaction. You can see how much the head moves I'm talking about specifically in your animation terms the contact You can see the movement in the skin here, you know depending on how you your style is going to be how How realistic your animation is going to be but that type of thing you'd have to do all the crazy You know skin deformation, but it can still kind of move your eyebrow shape there But it's important to have and you can see this over one frame This would be a linear key as that head moves over just to get that really harsh impact and to me that Damn makes it more interesting because he is not blinking if you have someone or if you tap someone like this You probably expect that person to blink especially because it's so close to the eye But the fact that they're not doing that goes back into all the stuff that I love about Eyeline and eyesight and how long is someone looking and blinking or not and what does that mean like the intensity of it? So after all this the other part that I love is as they go back They continue to insult each other and say whatever they say he smokes a lot in the show and cigarettes are Maybe not that much anymore, but it used to be kind of a common Prop in animation. There's just some things that people do like if someone picks something up You know this little thing or that or looking at the watch or tapping their feet or doing these type of gestures There's a couple of overused things and I think cigarette props used to be the thing I don't really see it that much anymore, but if you use this you can use this to your advantage in a way that kind of Tells us something about their relationship and this could be positive or negative and in this case It's negative So as he lights the cigarette what I love about this scene as he keeps talking to him and and you know as they Have their standoff. I love Moment it's so good. He blows the smoke on purpose his way He leans away because he hates that and it's just such a great usage of prop So if you have a cigarette if you want to use this or whatever other prop you have How could you use this in terms of a relationship between the two if even if you don't know anything if you just start Here right let's pretend here. So we know okay that person has a cigarette and they just watch this I Think it's pretty clear that this person does not like this person There's something going on and then they they continue We know with their banter and all that good stuff where they have to stay somewhat civilized and they continue with with our Transaction and all that good stuff, but This moment love it. So what could you do? What could you do with a prop? I can one of the classic things if someone has a cigarette and doesn't like kids They will kind of pop the balloon of a kid But if you have any other prop anything that one character likes and knows that the other character doesn't like What could you do with that prop so we get to know more about the character? So again for me, it's not just well, I have a prop I want to use it or I don't know what to do with my hands and fingers and I got to use a prop It's well if you use a prop Then what could you use it for is it something that will tell us something about that character just by itself or a Relationship with another character and there's more in the season I thought there's some cool especially cool action stuff But in terms of again character things that I like to pick out that you might be able to use your animation I think this moment really really stood out again There's some other stuff a lot of visual cool visual stuff So watch it watch it if you're into that type of sci-fi Let me know if you've seen it let me know what you think and if you've seen any other things But that was kind of it that's kind of just that that contact point is very important that when you have Even if it's short and it's not prolonged contact of holding and pulling or you know Like longer fighting and interaction with creatures and pulling stuff Even if it's something small like this that you make sure that the contact is really visible and with your linear key Showing how harsh you're gonna do this or you're gonna do something soft Then the person just has that and then pushes the character off all that stuff again that timing is up to you It's up to you to really decide on the frame by frame basis the impact and if it's something That's kind of just like that if it's that or if it's that Again tells us something about the character, but it's always different right so everything every move every every single frame That you decide on will tell us something different about the character So you have to be fully in control about your keys your ins and ins and outs your your contact points I'm super picky about that because it's so cool because it gives you so many tools in terms of well This is what the character feels this is how they feel towards each other and this is how I'm gonna show it So if you have contacts like that and this could be all kind of thing This could be I just watched Princess Bride recently where the grandfather takes the cheek and does that you know with the kid who doesn't like it Or you could do something where someone is kind of maybe they talk too much And then the other person puts the head on the chin goes, okay, and it pushes them away It's kind of like I'm done with you. I don't want to hear you anymore Just all those contact points are really interesting to animate. They're technically potentially also very difficult But I think it's worth exploring so again if you have two characters and it could be also with one character And the other characters potentially off-screen with so you blow the smoke to someone off-screen But if you have another character and you have props think about that Think about how you could use the prop so it's not just there because you want a prop But it's something that will enhance a the shot be will tell us something about the character And also will give you opportunity to show off your your humor your sense of entertainment or like I always say It's okay to animate villains in this case villainous behavior or interaction where the characters are not good They're not friendly and I think that's just it's something worth exploring because there's so many shots out there and reels with characters There are nice. I'm not saying that you should be always mean I'm saying in terms of character development and stuff you could animate There's always a villain that most of the time there's a villain in the movie So why not explore that character state of mind and then animate that to have variety in your real and with variety Of course, not just humans but also creatures So again think about how you could humanize Creature animation and then maybe that prop interaction or whatever. Maybe it's not a prop Maybe it's a specific animal thing where maybe your animal has a really long tongue Like a lizard taffing or snake type of thing and maybe the other person doesn't like to be touched So you got two creatures talking at one point the lizard or snake or whatever looks over That tongue goes over just enough to touch the cheek of the other character Because don't stop touching me to this could be a moment where they interact like that where maybe it's not a proper say But it's part of a creature feature, you know, I mean so you can take in creature behavior Still have them act like humans But then use the creature observation stuff that you studied to again add something to the shot So they're more mean to each other more of a villain or a good character or a positive character If you will whatever you want to do, but that's it and if this was helpful as always I would appreciate a like if you want to subscribe to this channel subscribe and hit that bell button So you get the notifications about all my uploads and if you've watched these whole thing again till the very end as always I appreciate it and I will see you tomorrow for part three of my Q&A and potentially the last part Depending on how many questions are left. Thank you