Hellboy Animated

Retakes

If  you're an animator on a Pixar film or a Disney 2D feature, you generally have enough time to get your scene done right.  Oh sure, there are animators that would obsess over the drag and overlap on a nose hair if they had the time, but generally the schedules are long enough to turn out the best animation in the world.  That includes showing your scene to your animator buddies, getting their input, getting notes from the director who may actually act out the exact movement or change he wants.

I might have said it before but animated TV shows and most direct to video productions are produced by remote control.  I've posted backgrounds, character designs and storyboard panels which indicate what we send overseas but that's nowhere near as effective as acting out a scene to the guy who's actually going to animate it.  So you find a studio filled with great animators, send them your stuff and cross you fingers.

And then you call retakes.

When animated scenes return they are called "take ones."  If they need adjustment, the director gives notes and the corrected scene returns as a "take two."  This continues until the director is satisfied or you hit the contracted limit of retakes on any one scene.  It's unfair to the overseas studios if you keep sending scenes back over and over to get that nose hair right (unless they're the major characters in your series.  In which case, you need to find other employment).   It's also detrimental to your production because tying animator with a retake shrinks the time he has on the next sequence of your movie.  So you try to call only the stuff that will really make a difference.

I've called some retakes on the trailer material but most of those will be held off until the rest of their sequences come in.  You don't want to adjust the action in a stand alone scene and then find that it doesn't hook up with the rest of the sequence.

So here's the process: footage comes in as separate scenes.  The first thing that's done is to edit it.  Why call a retake on the part of the scene that is going to be trimmed from the picture?  Animation can be corrected or adjusted by pulling out frames. Sometimes the flow of the sequence can be improved by dropping a scene from the picture.   By editing first, you reduce the number of retakes you need to call and animators can spend more time on their new scenes.  Of course, you can only edit so much before your movie is shorter than it needs to be.  What to do at that point will be part of a post about editing.

Retakes can be technical - the wrong background is used, "color pops" (when something is miscolored for part of a scene like a badge being colored the same as the shirt it's pinned upon for a few frames), or dialogue out of sync.  This is stuff that was just overlooked.  Easy calls.

Animation retakes - animation is a relationship between location and time, the location of an image on a piece of paper and the number of frames used to move it to a new spot on the page.  Imagine a character throwing a ball.  Too boring?  Okay, imagine Hellboy slugging the jaw of a giant, drooling monster.  With me now?  He pulls back his huge right fist in anticipation, then connects with the jaw.  Our timing director indicates on an exposure sheet that the punch should take 8 frames.

What could go wrong?  If the animator draws the starting position of the fist pulled way back behind Hellboy's head it should be fine; the fist will travel the distance to the jaw in 8 frames, hopefully favoring the start and end positions so the punch gains velocity and creams that monster, sending drool flying.  But what if the animator just pulled Hellboy hand back a couple of inches from the jaw?  Now the fist has a shorter distance to travel in 8 frames and it may look like a love tap...and the monster will eat Hellboy's head.  Ideally, the storyboard shows a start and end pose to guide the animator but usually it looks like a comic panel: the monster's head reeling back and a speed line showing the trajectory of Hellboy's punch.   The timing even affects the drool - the greater the distance the drool stretches as it drips from the mouth, the more watery it will appear.  If the start and end positions of dripping drool are close together, it will seem more gelatinous or gooey.   So we can call for the timing but the animator has to apply common sense to his poses to get the required action.  When this doesn't happen, it's a retake. 

There's a lot of punching in our movie.  If the start and end positions aren't "favored" the punch will have an even movement and be dull.  Throw a punch in the air.  Your fist moves slower at the start than in the middle of the punch, then slows down as your arm stretches to its limit.  In animation, you would cluster the drawings of your fist at the beginning and the end of the action.  When this isn't done, it's a retake.

Creative retakes - that's when we've made a huge mistake by either calling for the wrong stuff or realizing that a different kind of scene is needed to make the sequence work.  You have to pay for these.  Literally.  It's not the fault of the overseas studio that the sequence would be more dynamic if Hellboy leaped off a rooftop instead of using a ladder.  They did exactly as they were requested.  If the scene is important enough, you talk to the keepers of the budget and plead your case.  You try to avoid these.

Okay, not the most exciting stuff.  Just something about animation that you might not have known about.  See ya -- Tad

A Hellacious Tease

Okay, got through prom, graduations, out of town visitors and the complications of real life that prevent me from blogging.  If this was a personal blog, I suppose all of that would be grist for the mill.  As it is, my blogging tends to diminish when exciting stuff is happening...THAT I CAN'T SHOW YOU.

Fact of production life:  it's not enough to get fans excited, you have to get them excited at the right time.  Definition of right time - right before San Diego Comicon, our big public launch, right before the Fall premiere on Cartoon Network and right before the DVD goes on sale - repeat that for as many movies as we make.  So let's say that I have on my desktop jpegs of ... oh, a second sculpture from Dark Horse, a sculpted scene from the first movie, the rough clay model of an action figure, a diamond engagement/wedding ring set that forms the BPRD symbol, full color scenes from the movie, T-shirt images, an apparent tintype of Mike Mignola with President Lincoln,  an exclusive poster to be given out exclusively at somewhere exclusive, the pencil roughs of the DVD  covers, a picture of Hellboy in a tutu, a "sizzle" piece and the new website address...I'm not saying I have all that stuff but if I did... I couldn't post it here.  At least not yet.

You'll see all sorts of stuff after San Diego on our soon-to-be-launched official website.  Even if you can't make it to San Diego that site will keep you up to date with all sorts of news and goodies.  Also check Dark Horse Comics around that time because they'll have some big announcements.  Plus I'll be shooting my mouth off at various podcasts that will have reps at the convention.  Toyfare magazine will have an article soon that will feature some character art and merchandise plans.

Meanwhile, what's going on here?  I've seen actual color animated footage  from Madhouse and it looks awesome.  Sure there's tweaking to do but I'm absolutely astounded at the level of work their animators have done.

I'm constantly working with the marketing and publicity people and continue to be impressed with the level of support they're giving these releases.  You'd think they were planning a theatrical film release.  I try to give them as much help as I can to keep things true to the spirit of Hellboy.  Most of the art stuff gets run by Mike Mignola too.  I think he takes pleasure in having input but being able to direct irate fans to me.  I'm hoping there aren't too many of you.  Irate ones, that is.

The last of the art crew departed Friday.  There's only four of us left and I'm the only one who's fulltime on Hellboy.  Post production will start with a vengeance even before San Diego so I'm going to squeeze in a quick vacation.

I'll try to blog once more before I go. -- Tad

Music to Chew Flesh By

As I mentioned the other day, we're coming up on a music and sound effects spotting session.  Usually we'd wait until we had final footage but we're doing it at the animatic stage for two reasons.  The first is the fact that our two movies have overlapping productions so that while the first is being finalized the second one has to be well underway, so getting a jump on things is the only way to get a quality job.

Audio Circus is the sound studio that will be handling effects and final dialogue editing.  An early start means they can start pulling effects.  Let's say we have a waterfall in a sewer.  They can pull a combination of sounds to cover it but they won't know how to blend them or whether additional drips or bubble pops will be needed until they see full animation.  On top of that, they really want to create some new effects for the Hellboy movies becaue in animation there are always things that don't exist in the real world.   It can be eyeballs extending out of their sockets toward a pretty girl or a creepy ghost sliding through a shot in the foreground.  Of course there are off the shelve sounds to cover those - the eyeballs get an old fashioned, "aooogah" car horn, the ghosts might get a surge of wind and there's nothing wrong with those.  But if you have the time you can experiment with different combinations.  Maybe you add a car screech leading up to the "aooogah" and blend in a cowbell.  Maybe the ghost has a bed of wind noise but you ease in several echoing cat screeches and a whale call in reverse.  If the ghosts appear several times the blend of that combination is changed - short, high pitched cat squeals for shock, whale calls, wind and unintelligible whispers for growing dread.

This is different from Foley work which you've probably seen on any number of DVD extras.  That's when Foley artists watch the footage and punch cabbages and break crates to fit the action of a fight.  What I'm talking about mostly happens inside a computer with some possible new recording for spice. 

Meanwhile, the early spotting lets Chris Drake compose character and action themes, knowing he will be tweaking them after final edit.  The slowest stuff is often the conceptual work.  What is the Hellboy sound?  Should each movie have it's own style or feel like part of a greater story.  How much of the SWORD OF STORMS soundtrack should be done with Japanese instruments?  Should the music focus on character or plot?

So that's why we "spot" music and effects.  It's not "Oo, look!  There's some music over there!" but more "X marks the spot where I want to go angry or mellow."  I've often done the spotting separately but this time we'll do music and effects together.  This lets the composer get an idea of how big the effects will be and where "clear some room on the track."

That doesn't  mean stopping the music for a big explosion, although he might use the explosion as an instrument, providing the end sting to a crescendo.  Clearing space is a necessity; there's only so much your speakers can communicate at any one pitch.  So if Chris knows that Otis and the gang at Audio Circus will be cutting in low, rumbling and grinding earthquake sounds, he doesn't want a score with Jaws-type cellos.  Your speakers will already be vibrating with low explosions so adding low notes will just cause distortion or disappear altogether.  The sound mixers will go crazy trying to make both sounds clear.  Instead, he'll avoid that part of the track and orchestrate with Psycho violins in a high register.  That way the music cuts through and even uses different speakers than the bass earthquake.

Some creative producer/directors take pains to create a full temp track with existing music.  It helps sell the movie moments.  I didn't on these movies mostly because of time, plus I didn't have a dedicated music editor.  There's hardly any music in SWORD OF STORMS but more in BLOOD AND IRON.  The only music I feel strongly about is the sequence Chris scored in the first film and a sequence where I cut in a composer's demo track that fit the action.  Even then, the demo track was one of Christopher's.

The danger of temp tracks is that producers, directors and studio execs  fall in love with them because they've lived with them for so long.  Some composers take the tracks as an indication of what the director wants but don't feel constrained by them.  George Lucas wanted Darth Vader to enter STAR WARS to the music of MARS from Holst's The Planets.  John Williams convinced George to let him take a shot at some original music which I think worked out okay.  Some composers refuse to listen to temp tracks because it limits their thinking.

Sound Effects is a whole different animal but can also help tell the story.  But that's a rant for another day.  -- Tad

Horrors!

My daughter and I attended Fangoria's Weekend of Horror which was held about three blocks from where I'm sitting right now.  It was sponsored by Anchor Bay video, the IDT company that will be releasing our videos so I should have put more effort into scamming free tickets.  That's not like me for I am a swag whore.  Anchor Bay puts  out all sorts of horror movies which you can't tell from the lovely sailing ship logo on the right. 

We attended so my daughter could fill the holes in her Nightmare on Elm Street comic collection and for me to check in with Guillermo del Toro who was there to speak about Pan's Labyrinth.

Well, she got the comics she needed, signed by Brian Pulido, but Guillermo was whisked into an autograph area before I could get close.  I supposed I could have called and arranged an actual meeting but that would be so... professional and it was the weekend.  I waved to Doug - nicest guy in the world and Abe Sapien - Jones who saw me as I took a picture of the panel and if I had actually bothered to upload the picture last night would have a picture of Doug waving back. 

But as I stood there, not getting into the mile long autograph line, I saw Christopher Drake who was with Paul Prischman and Simeon Wilkins who both worked on the Hellboy movie.  Paul teased me about looking at Batman Begins for DVD extras - to be clear, it was a present and I looked at the extras for ideas - I did not buy the DVD because I thought the extras were fantastic.  Paul said he'd send me Spiderman 2 which has great extras that he worked on.  I'm holding you to that, Paul, because I am a, see above, swag whore.

Christopher will be our composer on the Hellboy movies.  He was recommended by Guillermo who was very enthusiastic  ( Guillermo?  Enthusiastic?  How odd. ;) )  Some of you will hear a rough track by Chris at San Diego because he scored a sequence of our animatic as an audition.  He nailed not only the action but the emotion of the sequence.  I'll be sending him the full animatic because we'll be doing a spotting session in a week or two.  Spotting session?  I'll make that the subject of the next post.  -- Tad

Animating the Paranormal

You can do ANYTHING in animation!

How many times have you heard that?  Sure, you can draw on paper or generate in a computer all sorts of things that are too expensive or impossible to shoot in reality.  That's certainly been the tradition in 2D animation.   From Dave Fleischer's brilliant MECHANICAL MONSTERS in his 1941 Superman cartoon to any number of Scooby Doo's ghostly adversaries, American animation has put the fantastic on the screen with varying degrees of effectiveness.  There's been so much of it that  it sometimes feels ordinary.  I think I spoke about it on an earlier blog.

So we try not to go with the "normal" way.  Many times a writer or storyboard artist calls for an entity to dissolve, just fade away, and there are times when that's exactly what we do.  But we'd rather be more clever.  There are several ghosts in SWORD OF STORMS; that's one of them in the picture above.  Instead of just dissolve off the ghost, we let it be gently blown to pieces by a breeze.  I'm sure we're not the first to do it but the animation looks great.  It takes a nothing moment and makes it magical again.   There's a place for dissolves too but they should never be taken for granted.

In the first movie, Hellboy is transported to a world of Japanese folklore.  In the original script scene was a dissolve from the normal world to the new background with Hellboy standing in the center, unchanged.  That would've worked and music would give it more impact but we decided to do it on a surprise cut.  And that idea came right out of the Mike's comics.

Comics always reveal in a cut.  Okay, not always.  Usually, surprise reveals in a comic are put on even numbered pages so the reader has to turn the page to see the illustrated surprise.  But this page from The Corpse shows the impact that panels can have on a single page.

Movies have more control.  We force your eye to look at what we want you to look at by only showing you one thing at a time.

Another trick in portraying the supernatural, making a monster's eyes brighter than they should be so that you see them in darkness, also comes from Mike's work.  On top of that we may add glow effects and most importantly, eerie sound effects.

Sound effects are such a neat part of production and it's a process that  should begin next week.