DorkyDad Animated ShortFilm

Nice short jriggity. Really polished. I have to watch it again to give any indepth critique but there were only a couple of things that stood out to me. The dad felt alittle too rubbery and swimmy all the time. It would be nice to see him alittle more in control of his limbs sprinkled through out the short. The other thing is that it seemed really long just for that one punch line. Like I said, very nice work, and those critiques are almost more a long the lines of personal taste. Great work on the AM assignments too. Your work is looking nice and solid.

Aloha,
the Ape

I love LOVE the recoil on the guy riding the horse(?). Every time he hits his stride you see the shock whap 'em in the bum and then it moves up his whole body. You could study it.

The only thing that truly bothers me is in your dialogue work. You have the characters point very often either when it's not necessary (putting it in excess) or totally inappropriate in context. Think about this. If you say "I am NOT cold." and have the character clasp himself and fake-shiver, the body language reads as if he IS in fact cold and a mixed message is sent. Is the cold the important part? It's the denial itself that is the motivation, the sponsoring thought and the source of the action. I'm not saying arms swaying in front side to side with jazz hands is superior, but to me it's a lot clearer that he's trying to refute something. Think about how the story would tell itself silently. What does a hand accent tell you? It's almost like padding a sentence with wordiness; there's no meat.

The other thing is the timing. I was reading in Richard Williams' book (groan if ye must) and each time I read it I think about the part where he says that a good actor creates a delay, whether before or after, between when he says something and when he accents it with an action. I considered it and he's right, most of them do. I see it in films all the time now that I'm watching for it. Then I wanted to know why. It works because it's natural! Especially if you're TRYING to be broad. If you improv some lines or consciously respond to someone in this manner when you next speak to them, it's mostly body language, -then- the words. In your reel bits especially with the Dad character they are in total synch and it looks cheesy, like he's a bad actor. Even if it worked well to break the rule almost every student starts out doing that so you'll be associating yourself with newbies in the employer's mind possibly, even if just subconsciously, which is unfair since I saw you have a nice resume building up. Something to think about.

The other thing is the timing. I was reading in Richard Williams' book (groan if ye must) and each time I read it I think about the part where he says that a good actor creates a delay, whether before or after, between when he says something and when he accents it with an action. I considered it and he's right, most of them do. I see it in films all the time now that I'm watching for it. Then I wanted to know why. It works because it's natural! Especially if you're TRYING to be broad. If you improv some lines or consciously respond to someone in this manner when you next speak to them, it's mostly body language, -then- the words. In your reel bits especially with the Dad character they are in total synch and it looks cheesy, like he's a bad actor. Even if it worked well to break the rule almost every student starts out doing that so you'll be associating yourself with newbies in the employer's mind possibly, even if just subconsciously, which is unfair since I saw you have a nice resume building up. Something to think about.

Hi Scattered,

I read your summary and found the part about the delay of a response by a good actor a pretty interesting observation to think about. It's very technical to think about it if you're an actor, but for beginning actors, it's seems like a useful tip.

The part about gesturing with body language before speaking makes sense.

Good observations for an animator to consider.