 Welcome back. It is yet another FNA Friday and today we're going to talk about are you doing a shop for a demo reel or is it just an exercise? So in the previous FNAs we have covered the trajectory of you starting out as an animator. So first topic was should you actually do this? There's a lot of work involved, a lot of pitfalls. Yes or no, if you're still with us then of course you have to drive, you want to do this. The second topic was that you should have pretty lofty goals. You should have a dream company you want to work for, you want to have ambition, you want to do something really really cool, a shot that's going to blow people away. But then next topic talked about, yeah but first you got to have your foundation ready. It has to be rock solid. You have to master the basics and then on top of that you can start layering extra work and plus-ing out your shots to get that special something in your work that will draw the attention of recruiters or whoever is going to decide your fate as an animator but basically your main shot, your main work, your main structure has to be really really good before you just go and take on something that is not realistic, too ambitious, you're going to lose focus and motivation and then you're going to give up. So pick something that is doable but still challenging enough and then as you practice and become more confident you're going to add more stuff to it and push your limits, think outside the box, do something new and grow. So now that we have covered all of this and you potentially have thought about it like okay I'm going to do this, I'm going to start a new shot. The next question to me is well are you going to do an exercise or are you going to do a shot for a demo reel? Now if you're starting out as a student you might not want to jump straight into demo reel work because that's not really realistic. The pressure of a student is that when you get to school and you have your assignments is that every shot has to be super cool. You're paying probably a lot of money for school and there's only a certain amount of time during the semester. You're going to work really hard for your shot and you're thinking this has to be the shot. This has to be the work that's going to stand out and I'm going to put on my reel and then get a job. But to me that's the wrong approach. It's kind of productive because there's so much pressure. You're going to potentially feel locked up and not really be able to explore ideas and just do something for fun and practice and then move on. Because the current structure is that you get to class, you get an exercise and you do the exercise once. You do a bouncing ball once. You might do a flower sack, a weight assignment, a what's in the box, a gear chain. Every exercise that is featured in the curriculum you're going to go through once and move on, next class and so on and so on and so on. But that to me is super weird because let's pretend you're an athlete. You're not going to run or sprint once and then go, that's it, I can go to the Olympics. That's not going to work. You're going to have to practice and practice muscle memory and train and condition yourself and then you work up to the big event. Or you do sketches. You sketch all the time. You practice freehand, whatever it is that you want to do in your sketching studies and then you do your actual drawing. You're not going to go full in there and do your perfect drawing or your perfect painting. You have to work and study and exercise and practice. So for me in animation, that's the same thing. You're going to go through a bouncing ball and it's potentially not going to be good. You're going to do it again. And you might add a ball with more squash and stress. So not just the ball, there may be a tail and maybe it's a ball through an obstacle course or bouncing off objects or two balls bouncing and then one deflating. It's a heavy ball, a bowling ball, a beach ball. You mean there's so much you can add, but you have to go through all the different variations and practice. So you can't expect the perfect shot when you do a bouncing ball or when you start your first weight assignment or your first acting shot. That's just not realistic. You have to practice and get your muscle memory, your animation muscle memory so to speak and try things over and over to get better at it. Learn new things so that your workflow speeds up and then eventually attack an actual shot for your real. Now that being said, I totally understand that you might go, that's not realistic. I got to class. I got my assignments. I got the semester. I got the schedule. I have to do this shot and then move on. The next class comes. I totally understand that you don't have the time. So what do you do? Kind of hard to say. It depends on your situation, your time, how many classes. You try to do the shots for the class, but then at home you might just do another practice shot, which goes back to keep it short. So maybe if you do bouncing balls, just do certain bounces or a heavy ball, like a bowling ball over the lip and then bam and then just hits and then that's it. Or just bouncing off something or a specific squash and stretch or just that moment of tail overlap. So you can pick small elements of a shot that you have a hard time with and just practice that over and over in addition to your actual shots for class. Now I know that sounds like a lot of work, but animation is a lot of work. At the same time, I also understand that you might start a shot purely as an exercise and then as you continue, you're having more ideas and you're having fun with it and you're adding things and it gets better and better and then that shot turns into a demo real shot and you end up liking the end product, you put it on your reel and that's great. That can happen too. It's going to be different for every animator and your situation. But for my students in class, I do ask them, do you want to do an exercise or a reel? Now of course also look at their previous work and their reels and I kind of kindly suggest maybe you shouldn't do this shot, this might be too much or go only this far and practice that. Some of my think I'm ready for an acting shot and you might go back to bouncing balls and just practice that timing. It's harsh to hear, but it's really important that your foundation is really rock solid and bouncing balls, there's so much you can do with that exercise so do not underestimate those. But once you get to that point where, okay I'm going to make a choice, exercise or demo reel, you might wonder what's the difference. If it's an exercise, I as a teacher, I don't care about the look of the rig, the camera really, I mean there's a specific angle you want to do, just present the work, but I'm not going to really focus on a specific composition or a camera move, the lighting, modifying your rig so it looks a certain way, all those extra things, I don't really care. I care about the body mechanics, the technical aspects, the ease ends and outs and dissipation, just the general application of principles, your arcs, is there anything poppy in your movement, stuff like that to me is more important because you want to go and just practice motion and movement. That shot you finished is never going to be on your reel and that's why I don't really care what it looks like because no one's ever going to see it. So you're going to focus on what is important, practice the movement, practice the body mechanics, learn from it, throw it away, start a new shot, and so on and so on. Now it's totally different if you do a demo reel shot. So someone goes, okay JD, I want to do something for my demo reel. I say, all right, now you have to think about what is the character, what happened to the character before and after, what is the character's objective, what's the goal, is there a conflict, is the character environment for the first time, or is it a familiar environment because that's going to change your acting choices. What's kind of the look that you want for the character, is it a specific posture, hair or a prop hat or something. All of that is going to help you make specific acting choices to make your character stand out as a character and not just something that moves. Because for me, what's important when you do a shot for your demo reel is that A, it shows off your skills for sure, but if you apply for a company, you have to research what kind of company it is and the type of work they do, and you do want to tailor your shots towards that company. I know it's tricky if you're just starting out, you just have a general demo reel that kind of plays towards a broader audience. You might not go, this is super tuning, and that's it. You might just go a bit more in the middle, in terms of style, but ultimately, your shots on your reel have to sell their fin skill set. So each shot should be different. Each shot shows the potential recruiter, I can do this, now I can do that. In this shot, I can do this. I can repeat yourself. So you have to think about, what is on my reel? What am I not showing yet? Then maybe my weight assignment is not good enough yet. I'll work on that next. But when you do this, you don't want to just do a person lifting a box. You might want to put this character into a situation where he or she happens to lift something heavy, but that's not the focus. The focus is the character has to go through something. There's some conflict that the character has to overcome, and it happens to involve something heavy. So to me, you want to mask in a way a shot. So it looks more like a shot from a movie or a shot from a TV show, or whatever your target demo reel should look like. That way, you can showcase that you are thinking cinematically if you're doing it for movies, right? So you're looking at composition. What if you do three shots? You're looking at the motion and movement across a cut. Are you good at editing? Maybe potentially moving the camera. Depending on the company, you might do no camera movement at all ever, or you might be more involved in camera movement. So all those aspects, to me, are really important in terms of selling your shot and selling you as an animator in your skill set and showing to the company, hey, I am valuable to you. I'm an asset to your company. That sounds very corporate, but you are showcasing your value, and the company goes, that is good. We like this. We like this new acting choice. Might not be that specific, but you're bringing something new to the company that we can use, and it will enhance our storytelling, and you are going to be a great addition to our team. So the focus is totally different. If it's an exercise, you don't care about the background, you don't care about the rig, you just go through the motion and practice. Practice, did you learn it? Don't delete the scene, but put it aside, start something new. Or maybe you're 80% there, and you're like, that was pretty good, but this one weight shift, I'm not sure about that one. Your next shot might just be three seconds, just that weight shift, or a specific head turn, an arm gesture, or a blink, you want to show off like a creepy head turn, or whatever it is. You can practice those short little moments, ultimately when you're ready. It's like an Avengers thing. You put all those teams together into one big thing. Whereas if it's for your demo reel, then I got to polish this up. It has to look professional. It has to look like you put more thought into it in terms of what are the character choices, because ultimately it is character animation. And it has to be something that is of value to the company where they go, yeah, this is what we do. You are doing something that we do as well. We like your work, we want to work with you, and then potentially hopefully you get hired. It's very simplistic, but think about that when you start your shot. And it's okay to just practice. Try to let go if you feel like that's your pressure, that everything has to be fantastic every time. Be relaxed and go, I'm just going to do a specific move, and that's it. A couple seconds, I might not even finish it. I might just go through the specific motions, and that's it. Maybe something else you are keeping to three to five seconds, and you're actually going to fully finish it and practice polish. So it's okay. You potentially might have to ask your teacher or mentor, is that a valid approach for this class? Are you okay with me just doing this and I can focus on this specifically to practice that? And can you help me focus on that and teach me how to get better at this specifically? And maybe that will relieve some pressure and just the anxiety of, I got to get this done. It has to be my damn real shot where you can just say, I'm just going to practice this, and it's going to be okay. And I'm just going through the motion, muscle memory, improving my workflow, the speed, however you animate this. Practice those things and try to enhance those areas that you feel like or someone tells you that you need practice that you need to get better at. Because what you shouldn't do is just start. You can't just start a shot. You need a plan. You need to research. You need to look at your character. If it's just movement for practice, you still have to look at reference, act it out. There's still a lot of work involved before you start a shot. If you just start a shot, you're just going to fumble around. It's going to take you so much longer. Planning is super important. That's a topic for another FNA. And how to take a shot and make it more than just an exercise or basically escalating or transforming your shot into something that is movie-like or TV-like. That's going to be a topic of the next FNA as well. And I'm going to show examples of work that I see that I like, stuff that I've started, as kind of reference points so you know what I'm looking for or what someone else might be looking for or just as visual reference of what I'm talking about. As always, leave comments if there are any questions. If you feel like, I didn't quite get that or you want me to elaborate on something and if you have any questions about your current shot and I'll get back to you and reply to comments or you're going to send me an email for something more elaborate. There's no problem at all. And I am going to cover all those topics in the next coming week. So there's a lot more to cover. The planning, the approach of the shot. And then if it's an exercise, what type of exercises could you do to get better at certain things? If it's a demoral shot, how to prepare the character, how to think about the character, what environment to choose for a specific acting choice, goal or conflict resolution. There's so much more to cover. So there are a lot more FNAs coming. So if you want to get all the updates, I highly recommend you subscribe and hit that bell button. And if you watched the whole thing till the very end, thank you for watching it all the way through and see you next week. Bye.