 Yep, it's Friday and that means time for F&A Friday. Today's F&A is a little bit of a part two based on last week's F&A where I talked about having certain goals and certain aspirations for your shots to go kind of big in a way pushing yourself so that you're learning something new while not forgetting the foundations and doing something that is rock solid that you can build upon and to expand on that I really want to emphasize that you need to make sure that your main work your main character the main aspect of the shot is really really solid and well done and that you master those principles and then only then will you add extra work be it I won't say longer let me be added polish add a detail add a character so anything that gives it kind of that extra plus feel but you have to make sure that your main construct is there and solid there were two great comments for last week's F&A one was by 3D cowboy so if you look at that comment there was a really really great point about being realistic and I absolutely agree you have to make sure that you don't take on too much too soon otherwise it's going to be overwhelming you're going to disappoint it you will lose your motivation and you won't continue with your shot that is absolutely true but what I would add to that and that's something based on the years of teaching is that the part that unrealistic is usually the link so more often than not it's it's not the content that's too much overwhelming and too much too soon in a way for the students it's the length of it it's a 10 second shot 15 second shot sometimes even 20 to 30 based on the class assignment curriculum or whatever the students are being given in terms of assignments and that to me is the big killer I think you'd be more comfortable doing something that is three to five seconds long keep it short that way you can start and finish you can do high polish you can go through the whole process of getting your shot done without being massively overwhelming I think most of the time in class when I see student work I talked to them about keeping it short now it's their class they paying for it and I want to adjust my curriculum based on their skill set so I can adjust my notes so some students are okay with maybe a five to seven second shot some need something shorter on some occasions you can be okay with 10 depending on the content if a character is kind of silent just kind of sitting around could be okay to be longer but most of the time I look at the work and I go this is a bit too long to scale it down scale it down but to me scale it down in length and not in content it's rare to see someone that goes okay I'm gonna do a 10 second shot with five characters 10 creatures the swooping camera and blah blah blah blah it's usually something more contained but just way too long and when it's too long you won't have time to go all the way and finish it and polish it so I absolutely agree with this comment black to me the more unrealistic part is the length of the shot so I would say scale it down and you can do something for instance like this Maximus test for Tangled where you can see it's short it's maybe three to four seconds has a lot of character great timing great contrast in the performance and it tells you right away this person can animate really really well not just technically but also from a character point of view so instead of doing a shot that's 10 to 15 seconds you could do three five second shots and you can do something else in each shot could be human could be a creature could be a vehicle whatever you can do but you can showcase more skills in those 15 seconds if you do shorter clips so to me it's okay to push yourself do something that you haven't done before and that's why in the previous F&A I was also saying that I was very exaggerated in terms of this is an A it's not an A in terms of this is what you should be doing right away I think this should be something that you are looking forward to this could be your end goal you're starting small you're doing your it's say a bouncing ball and it's solid and you got the physics and the arcs everything is there but always in your mind think about what could I do to just plus it go a bit further and again this shouldn't be your first shot it shouldn't be your first try at a certain principle get there step by step but you have to also realize that you're gonna have to do more in order to stand out and have a real that is grabbing the attention of potential recruiters supervisors or whoever is gonna recruit you on that project so yes be realistic take on something that is not gonna overwhelm you but don't be unrealistic in terms of the time it's gonna take the length of the shot and you have to be aware that you have to be competitive in order to get to certain companies just depends on your goals and what you're trying to achieve now I say all this and I'm guilty as well when I did my get out of the chair assignments I remember the teacher Lisa Mullins who was fantastic she told me keep it five to seven seconds what did I do 45 seconds now I had a lot of fun doing it and I feel like I learned a lot but she was very clear that this is way too long you've been repetitive in the shop and so on and so on the critique was great it's probably the best critique I've ever gotten was very honest it was very straight to the point but it was very clear in terms of this is good this is a waste of time don't do this again expand on that but it was very clear that it was just way too much even though I got it done in this amount of time I also was able to do it because I knew exactly what I wanted to do so having a good plan and knowing what to do beforehand is so important but that's going to be a different FNA so to recap if you do something short you can get it done you can finish it you can put in all the polish you can go through the whole process that's gonna be very rewarding and you're gonna feel very confident when you attack your next shot when you add something a bit more complex you don't want to take on too much and get defeated and then just kind of stop go step by step but look at what's the ultimate goal how far do I need to push this shot in order to be competitive in order to kind of potentially learn more you learn through mistakes learn through failing so it's still to me a valid approach but yes absolutely be realistic but for me it's a tweak not realistic in terms of content be more realistic in terms of time and length if for whatever reason you have to do something longer which I know the circumstances think about breaking up the shot into separate shots separate cameras if you have a shot that's one camera for 20 seconds or 20 to 30 seconds that is borderline insane depending on the talent that in your speed but it's so long so if you can break this up into three four five cameras that to be will be a better approach you can learn about a sequence you can learn about editing how you can carry an animation or an action across the cut I think there's more that you can gain from breaking up a shot the flow with the edits could be more entertaining and you have a backup plan in case there is a sudden crazy deadline so if you have four to five shots there might be one that's really really really good for your demo reel maybe two and three are okay maybe one of them is just a filler that is important for the story for the edit but not really a good demo real piece but if you work on separate shots and suddenly someone goes hey we need your reel in a week can you show us something then instead of having one 20 second shot where you don't have time to finish the whole thing you can say oh yeah I can pick this one shot out of the sequence polish this and present this for a demo reel and a potential opportunity for a job and then there was another comment by Jason where he says I think students like to bite off more than it can chew and at the end is a great section where he writes I think each level should be done at least twice wants to be familiar with the basics twice to explore what the basics plus extra might be able to produce that is such an important point and those are the two things that I want to mention is FNA one is length don't go too long be manageable in the amount of work you're taking on that again to me is more realistic the other part is you have to do the shots more than once and again I'm absolutely guilty of this and that's the common structure at school with curriculum you do a bouncing ball you do a flower sack you do a gear change you do a weight lift but I did all those exercises once I did the second weight lift once I graduated when I practiced up at home but it's important at least to me subjectively that you do things over and over and over practice makes perfect and it's kind of a weird old saying but the thing is repetition is key at work we do things over and over and over and if you do this every day for years on end you're gonna get faster at this your workflow is going to be better you're learning how to bypass certain steps instead of doing one pass of basic blocking and then the other past is for offsets you can start doing your first pass that includes offsets imagine an athlete training for an event or the Olympics or whatever it is right it's not going to be I'm gonna sprint once and I'm ready and I can compete no you have to practice and get a muscle memory in there's just constant repetition in there and to me you should do the same thing with your assignments and that's why shorter assignments to me are key so don't just do one bouncing ball do a couple with different weight one with a tail no tail small big you know fluffy or more bouncy bouncing off walls going through an obstacle course just try things and even I would say attempt bouncing balls outside of class meaning you have your class assignments but then on the weekend do another bouncing ball that just maybe a couple bounces but change again the the properties of the ball or whatever it interacts with but I would say practice and do your exercises multiple times I know this is easy to say because time is money you paying for school it's probably not cheap and you're running out of time and you're concerned that each shot has to be great because you got to put something on your demo real you're running out of time because you're graduating and so on and I told you understand I understand that this might be an unrealistic piece of advice but if you can try to repeat the assignments and this might not be possible in class so you might have to do it at home but I would say practice certain things but then keep it short practice head turns gesture a sit down and get up but again manageable not with extra flair because you just want to go through the basics and practice those movements it's not about plusing out a shot for your demo real this is purely through practicing for repetition and getting familiar with the moves and what the curves look like in graph editor so you start identifying and recognizing I ever this move the curve has to be like this there are a lot of a lot of benefits of repetition and redoing certain assignments and let's say you have one longer shot let's say seven to ten seconds even though you should probably stop at seven seconds but you have this long shot and realize this is section here that is really hard to do you can also just take that little section and that might be just two to three seconds and practice that over and over this might be while you animate the shop for class or you're done with the shop and you got your final grade and everything is done but you go you know what this little section such a that's a pain in the butt I gotta practice more just take that little section out edit that out and then redo that assignment at home for practice over and over and if you take on a shot and you're not sure if you can do the whole thing is that too long for me am I going to be able to finish this or is this too complicated too many characters or too complex of a camera whatever it is it's also the teacher and the mentors job to let the students know now it's sometimes difficult because you don't know how the student works it might be the first time you're working with an animator sometimes a piece of advice in terms of content or length might not be accurate but it's important that the students communicate that and let the teachers know and it's important that I do the same thing where I check in with the students so when I say do this shot you know for an A or whatever I'm not just saying this to every student I look at their reels I look at their previous work and then I give certain recommendations and say listen try this this might be great this is going to push you you might not get great results but this is going to be something very complicated where you gonna learn a lot from it so there is a back and forth and again if you're unsure then ask ask your teacher ask your mentor I want to do this is that too much am I taking on too much and hopefully your teacher mentor will say yes this is too much scale it down or no this is great this is a great idea you can do even more so whatever the situation is or whatever your skill set is and how much you can achieve again this is all very situational and very specific it's very personal so I don't know this is not something that I can tell you now through the lens you like oh can you do this I would have to talk to you and we would have to have a discussion about the content and how you're comfortable with that amount of work and so on and so on so the recap keep it short you can take on more push yourself I'm totally for that but what I take the most out of those comments they're great comments thanks for leaving comments keep it short so it's manageable so you can finish it and you can gain confidence because you finish something and hopefully well and then you can take on another shot that's potentially a bit longer and a bit more complex don't go too big too soon so again with those examples that I showed don't go for the crazy 50 second shot with all kinds of actions and different cameras as you very first assignment no way start small get the basics right then take on more but in the back of your head always think about what could I do to plus out the shot what would be something that I can add that adds to the story that adds to the character that adds to the entertainment value that's gonna make the shop better and help me be more competitive in this industry because ultimately still you're probably doing all this work to build the demo reel to get work at a company now if you're just doing this at home and you've got your job and this is just practicing for fun again that's that's a whole different discussion so if you have any questions about that if you have other comments again leave comments let me know those comments were great I want to get a discussion going in terms of what did you experience what would help you if you have any specific questions to your shot let me know and if this was helpful in any way I would love a like and if you want to see more and be notified of more clips that I'm doing subscribe and hit that bell that's going to notify you of all the uploads that I'm doing and if you watch until the very end thank you very much and see you next time