 Welcome back to another FNA for new animators and this is part eight of the animation blocking series. And today we're going to talk about notes and chunks. That's right, notes and chunks. That is the topic of today's series. I'm going to combine two of those elements from the list. So we've covered planning animation, test your rig, create your post library, act up your play blast and last time it was using sound as reference. But I'm going to take a list of notes and work in chunks into one element for today. And I'm going to skip pops and arcs, body mechanics and avoid repetition, not because they're not important. But after this, one of the series I'm going to do is most common animation mistakes since the semester ended for animation mentor and Academy of Art. I noticed something that really occurs in every semester. They're always the same mistakes pops and arcs are obviously one of them. But one friend direction changes one axis, all kinds of things that I bring up in every semester. And I think it will be hopefully very helpful to do a series that really outlines and shows with demos what I mean by the mistakes or how to fix them because it comes up in every semester and body mechanics pops and arcs and avoiding repetition. All that is part of that. So I want to skip this right now and package that into the next series. So today list of notes and work in chunks. That is the focus of today's FNA. And it's actually quite timely because I had a couple emails from students and also workshop people where they have problems kind of adjusting their schedule and getting their work done and putting in enough time where it's really important shot wise and schedule wise and classes. And there are many things that you can do to get your schedule in order. I mean, you got to know what you want to do. So planning out your animation is super important. We've covered that before having your tools ready. You can do your scripts and your body pickers, your library. There's all kinds of things that you can do to kind of prep properly with planning and reference and thumbnails and all that good stuff. But as you work, one of the things or two things right now that you can do to really get into a faster workflow is making a list of notes and working in chunks. Now the first one is a bit tricky because as you start animating your eye might not be critical enough or you might not see what's wrong. So you're going to rely on teachers or mentors or your co-workers or your co-animators, your friends and students. So something that I do at work when I have my shot is that I look at my shot and whatever really sticks out where I cringe or like, I got to address that first. That's the thing that is top on the list and then smaller things and into details and so on and so on and obviously things that the client wants to address. So hopefully when you get notes from someone, you're going to get them in a structured fashion. So by that I mean you're going to look at the overall impression of the shot first. If your shot tries to be funny, is it actually funny? Is the emotion clear or the acting choices clear? The main structure is that clear and coming across correctly. If not, you got to look at the broader points, your acting choices, your ideas, your staging, kind of the bigger things that you can address right away. Then on the more technical level, I will look at the bigger things first as in the root, then the chest, the head and then arms and legs or whatever you need to do first. But I would not spend a huge amount of time on fingers or specific facial points and pulling your corner here and adjusting your ear when your root is not working. If the general balance is not working, the weight is not working, then details are not going to matter because if you have your beautiful arc and you spend hours on that arm and then you move your root, well that is going to change your arm depending on the rig and then your arc is broken again. So I will look at a general tone and then overall body mechanics or root, chest, head and then arms and legs again depending on the priority. And once that is working, then you can get into hands and fingers and facial features and just more detailed stuff. And again, you're going to rely on other people at the beginning. So whoever you have that looks at your shot can give you those notes. But if you get multiple notes from multiple people, try to kind of group them into those aspects. So bigger picture first, is it sad if I want to do a sad shot? Is it actually sad or are people laughing at the shot? So once the emotion, the story points are clear and that is working, that's your top block. Then you're going to look at the bigger points. So if someone has a specific finger pose note, put that at the bottom and look at the bigger root, chest, head, arms and legs. Just the bigger, broader body mechanics notes for weight and weight shifts and balance and all that stuff. And then at the end you're going to put in your finger and facial and whatever detail notes. So hopefully you get those notes structured from a teacher or co-worker or your friend or whatever. Or if you get multiple notes from other people, it's up to you to then structure that into those bigger points towards the detailed points. So it is more structured. As time goes by, you will develop a better eye. You will be able to self critique your shots and then it's all about practice and repetition. And you'll be able to make those notes for yourself. For me, when I have my shots and I look at them at work, I look at, you know, that first play blast or whatever, you know, the name is in your software package. But for us it's an A blast actually. So I look at that and I go, ooh, that's, ah, and I have those cringe moments. So that to me is like, I got to fix this, this and this was, it stands out right away. So the shot just dies if I don't fix this. Once I have that, then I go into my other structure and I kind of fix what's needed. Obviously always thinking about what the client wants or whoever is in charge and that gives you the notes. So obviously address those notes first, but as a whole kind of keep an eye on those cringe worthy moments. So that to me is the notes section. Make a list and give you like a top three, a top five, a top 10, depending on how much time you have. So if you have only two more days, there's no need to do 50 notes and I'm going to address all of them. Like I got two days, I can maybe address three notes, three major points and maybe five smaller ones. So be very strategic in terms of what you're looking at, what needs to get fixed. And again, if you need help and ask other people to look at your shots and go, what stands out to you the most? And then you get all those points and then you package that into your top three, top five, top 10, whatever you want to do, depending on the time. Now, the second part is work in chunks. And I feel that's something that's slightly underused by students. I think it's kind of my observation. A lot of times I get notes or just feedback from students saying they're overwhelmed. They're overwhelmed with have so many notes or just the shot is too long. It's just too much to do and then I know where to start and what to do. So to explain that, I'm actually going to take a look at a shot that I saw online. So this is a shot that I saw a couple of days ago online on Twitter by Kristen Miller. Kristen Miller from Germany. And she works at Sony and did this awesome test with those new rigs that just came out. And you can see her work here on Vimeo. There's a really, really cool acting shot here. I'm going to post all that information in the description below. But let's take a look at her sit down test. So let's take a look at the shot here. She looks at the letter sits down and has that reaction at the end. So let's pretend that this is your shot. It's also an awesome shot out of it. So if you're looking at the shot, you can see that this could be a section. She walks up till here. This could be the section of sitting down. This could be the section of getting more comfortable. And then you have your last section of your acting. Even then you can go into thought process and reaction. So you can break this up into many other steps. So if I bring up my counter here, you can see that from frame one here till maybe around here. Let's say frame 40. That is your chunk number one, my European one or your American one here. Then you can say from here to the sit down, maybe till like the impact until she gets back. So from here to here, that's your second chunk. Then it's till here until she has kind of that thought process here. This is your chunk number three. And then you can argue this whole ending can be number four. Or you can break this up into this whole section until here potentially where you have that thought process. And then that your end reaction. So this technically could be four and this could be five. So to me, this is something that is manageable. So I know that the next couple of days I'm only working on those steps, the way shifts and everything she has here. Then the next couple of days or however long it will take you. You can just concentrate on the sit down here and so on and so on. Now that's one way to do it. I kind of prefer those chunks where you can kind of look at your shot and divide them into beats or chunks again. What do you want to call? If you're comfortable with just cutting a section just working from whatever to whatever, you can go into 50 frame chunks or 100 frame chunks or 20 frame chunks. And depending on the complexity of the action. So it doesn't have to be beats. You can also just chunk it up into 50 or 100 or whatever frame blocks if that's easier for you. Now that's for something where the whole shot is important. So you want to attack everything. Then you're going to break that shot up into those beats and chunks or whatever sections that you have. Well, let's pretend this is an assignment for school and your assignment is a sit down. Let's go back to the shop. Technically your actual assignment is here. You want to show the weight shift, the sit down, the timing of the plop down and the settle. So when it comes down to schedule and you have that much time, then I would say concentrate just on this section. This is what you want to do because that is the assignment. That is the most important thing. Now if you have more time, then you can go backwards and animate the beginning. So now I have done this. This is fine. I'm going to work on this chunk now and this is just that beginning with the steps transitioning into the sit down. And then let's say you're really fast and still have time, then you can still do this as an ending that has more acting to it. So if you are at school and you have a specific assignment like a weight assignment or a sit down or a gear change or whatever you have, I would focus on that element first because that is the actual assignment. Anything that you have before and after that can plus the shot, which is cool is technically not as important as nailing the actual assignment. So for me in terms of schedule, I'll look at what is really important and look at that chunk first. Now within that element, you can break it up again into beats or specific notes that you got from teachers or coworkers or friends. And once that is done, then you can fan out into the beginning and the end. So depending on if you have time to get to everything. So have a list of notes. Either you make that list yourself or you rely on other people for notes. If those notes are scattered, make sure that you then group the list into the bigger story points, the bigger body mechanic points and then detailed points in terms of fingers and details and stuff like that. Once you have that, you can always eliminate some notes depending on the schedule that you have. So what are the most important points in that list? And or you look at those points and you look at the chunks of the shot. So again, if you have a walk-in, a sit-down and then a reaction, look at, hmm, the sit-down is the actual assignment. What kind of notes did I get for that chunk? Okay, let me prioritize those three points just for that chunk. Once that is done, you look at, hmm, but I like that beginning. I have time. Let me add that beginning. What notes do I have for that beginning? Okay, put that in and so on and so on. So making lists and working in chunks to me is a huge time saver at work. I can imagine or hopefully it is also a time saver for you. So if that's something that you've done already and you feel like, yeah, that actually really helps me and you have more tips as always. Comments are super appreciated so that you can let other people know other animators that struggle. What is your method or you've done this and it works. Maybe you've done this and tweaked it. As always, replies, comments, concerns, anything you have regarding this topic will be super appreciated by other animators. And that's it for now. So as always, thank you for watching until the very end. Like and subscribe. You know the deal. It helps me in those vanity metrics, but it helps me to catch the interest and actually I've seen a lot of subscribers. They're probably coming from Sir Wait's clip with the recommendation. Thank you Sir Wait. That is super, super appreciated. So welcome to all the new subscribers and that's it from me. I will see you next week.