 Welcome back or hello to all the new viewers if there are any new viewers today today is Friday and that means it's f&a Friday This is the last part in the series of how to take your Animation to the next level how to escalate your shot using Normal exercises or exercise that are used to in class and how to build on top of that and make them just a bit more Shot like a bit more complex or just a bit more challenging We talked about weight talked about in keepers the movie as a good example for weight and today I'm going to talk about more general shots or exercises that you can technically escalate and again at any point you can say stop I'm going to just use this part and that's enough in terms of Complexities or you can go further further for that's totally up to you But here are some more examples of how I would approach a shot to make it a bit more complex a bit more interesting and a bit More challenging for you and since I was talking about in keepers Let's take that as an example So you have a weight lift but in this example that I showed there was conflict So the character had to put the garbage back into a container, but it didn't work So that's the conflict and now as an audience you're interested in seeing how the character is going to solve that So how could you take that example and switch it up? So how about you want to do a creature shot? So let's take a creature that wants to eat. That's all that's your objective of the character of the creature I want to eat this could be a simple exercise, but what could you do to go a bit further? Let's say that the creature which could be anything could be mythical fantasy type of thing could be a cat whatever Whatever you want to think about whatever is interesting to you to animate So let's say that creature is at the edge of a river and the whole surface is snowy And the river water is frozen except the little section where you have to walk out and the ice is kind of broken You got a lot of heavy flow of the water and you can see some fish in there So now you have a lot of different surface changes which can make it interesting for your animation and for the creature to kind of navigate that So first you go from a snowy surface So you can take a step and it might take a step and slip a bit or kind of sink in depending on how high the snow is Then you go from that surface onto the ice which is very slippery So that change is already interesting to animate interesting to watch So think about the surface properties and how if there is a change how interesting that could be for instance in Monster sink where Mike and Sully they run and slide and then keep running and that was makes me think of when I was a kid I used to love to run and slide on hardwood floor and then when you would hit the edge of the carpet It would do that and you kind of fall forward if you've done that You kind of know that feeling of your socks or whatever slippery shoes on that surface and how they hit the carpet How it suddenly stops and how it kind of changes and how you either fall It kind of propels you forward and that to me is already interesting to animate as well because this is all up to you There's nothing in your animation software beat my or whatever that when you take your character knew it from a to b That's going to change how that character moves or slides Depending on the property the properties you decide that and you have to animate that that's always a very interesting and cool challenge How do you show through your spacing and timing how it's a soft smooth surface? And then going into carpet that makes the foot stop and then the character tumble and so on and so on So going from snow to ice is interesting to see But the big conflict is that the character has to go through those two properties So snow and ice to that crack where the fish are so the creature has an objective It needs to eat and then you go from snow to ice change your properties at the change of behavior change of movement Interesting to see and as the creature hits the edge of the ice where the hole is where the fish are Maybe the ice breaks so that gives you also a change in timing So you have kind of slowish on the snow kind of different timing and then fast as fast on the ice until the character or the creature Whatever regains balance and confidence and then it's slow on the ice and then the ice breaks And that's fast and then creature has to get out of the ice scrambles out Maybe in the process maybe happens when the creature bites the fish and then it cracks So the whole thing is happening while the fish is in the mouth Creature stumbles out and slides and slips and gets out onto the ice and onto the snowy surface Can then relax and then eat the fish So you have a lot of contrast in timing where you go from slowish to fast to slow to super fast scramble Back to the ice where it's slow and then relax as it eats So you want to have contrast in movement contrast in timing and having all those changes in surfaces from the snow to the ice So the sudden crack all that helps make the shot more about this is the struggle of a creature Trying to eat versus I'm showing a locomotion exercise of a four legged creature And speaking of creature again, you can go back to weight assignment And this is actually something that Mike has done I suggested something and he has taken that and created his own shot around it But imagine the character has to lift a box why that's your classic assignment But what if the box is actually a fish a heavy fish? So not only is the surface uneven So it's not like a clean box that where you lift it like this But it has to maybe hold the character has to maybe hold the head and then the tail So that change helps you with asymmetry already imposing It's more interesting and it's helpful to it kind of forces you to do that But imagine the fish is slippery So then you have that plus a lot of re grabs because the fish is slippery and the character can hold it But then imagine that the fish is actually alive or wakes up So the character has to grab the fish and then the fish comes alive and starts to wiggle around But then instead of just grabbing the fish and lifting it up Imagine that the character has to take the fish and put it from the loading dock onto a truck Or maybe it's I don't know. Maybe it's inside an aquarium. It's already alive It's totally up to you But imagine it's not just straight up but a character has to pick it up and move it somewhere So that change in your body has to change be the little bit or 180 is already more interesting and more complex to anime So and I imagine during that process as the character lifts the fish The fish is still alive and then starts to flap around and the character has to re grab So that conflict adds more complexities and more interest also to the viewer Because you're going oh wow that fish is actually alive. What's going to happen next? It's like clickbait But then you can do something comedic where the fish turns around and at the end He holds the fish upside down the tail is here and hits the character in the face And ultimately the character can throw the fish into the next piece of you know Loading dock or an aquarium or another character or whatever it is But now you've gone from a character just lifting an object to maybe this is the person's daily struggle in his or her job And it's not about a weight assignment. It's a moment of the character doing his or her job And it happens to involve weight now. It doesn't always have to be just pantomime You can also start mixing and matching other things So you take a weight assignment, but then you can take pantomime then you can take audio You can mix and match different characters multiple characters small and big and creature So how would you take this whole thing and create a shot? So for instance, let's take the idea of lifting a creature and the creature is struggling So let's go with that. So this time it's not a fish. Let's say it's a pig And it's a character that has to take a little pig has to lift it up and the pig is struggling So that's already more interesting and has to put the pig into a truck Because the pig has to go to a different owner or get slaughtered I know this could be very dark, but you could let's let's say let's go dark Let's make it sad So you have a character lifting the pig putting it into a truck on top of that you have a little kid Maybe it was the kid's pets or just the kid was just really really fond of that little piggy So then you have bigger character lifting smaller character And then you have a second character the kid that runs around So that's your complexity of not just standing in place but running around And maybe then you can add audio where the kid goes, please that don't do this. Please. Please. Please It's turning very sad But you know it could be something like that. So you show weight It's a character lifting a pig you add the complexity because the pig is wiggling You have pantomime where the adult is struggling with the pigs You have to like whatever fake expressions you have But you can show some more acting and struggle through that character You have contrast in acting So you have an adult character doing things pantomime lifting stuff plus a little kid How the little kid runs around and looks up and says things totally different So you have two different things you can showcase through your animation skills You have variety in rigs and visuals again It's an adult and it's a kid and the pigs you have a creature and humans You have a lot of body mechanics you can show You have a weight lift You have a stumble holding on to weight Plus you have a little kid running around or just running from you know left to right Kind of going around it up whatever you want to do But those are all different things that you can show and they're very complex Plus lip sync then you have the kid maybe saying no no don't take him away or no dad please don't Or oh, I don't know. I mean it's getting very very sad But if you take all those elements you went from Norman or Hogan or Malcolm Or whatever the common rig is nowadays that just lifts a box Which again a valid exercise But if you want to go further what could you do? Well, you can take all those elements that I mentioned And now it becomes a tragic shot that happens to involve weight But that becomes more about maybe a strange relationship between father and son Or mother and daughter picking something else out You can change the characters you can change the environment And still add conflict in all those elements of pantomime Body mechanics and lip sync and it becomes a character piece And you can make it funny you can make it sad But all of that is beyond just the exercise And again it's subjective but to me that's more interesting to watch Where you're wondering what are the characters doing What are their relationships And it's to me at least more interesting to animate than just a simple exercise But again don't skip the exercise You have to go through all those exercises And build confidence and build up your skill sets And then you can attack a shot that's more complex There's more you can do using sets and environments But that is going to be part of a different FNA That's going to be an FNA about how the environment can change the acting But that's a separate piece a separate series So I'm going to stop it right there I think I've beaten the horse to death Again it's so sad This FNA is very tragic and sad But I think I've shown a lot of ways of how to take an exercise And make it more complex Take it to the next level Little buzz words there And maybe that was enough for you as an inspiration to go on and do your own thing If you have your own ideas Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about any of this Let me know in the comments Like it if you like this Subscribe and hit the bell button If you want to get all the updates to all my daily uploads And as always if you watch the whole thing till the very end Thank you for your time And I will see you next week for more uploads