Planning out a shot

Carlos Baena:

Planning out a shot:(Reference: CGChar)

I try to get and find the key poses, the key moments that I need in the shot to say what I wanna say. Those key poses are huge. After that, I try to get into finding the "breakdowns", or the poses inbetween the main key poses. Now, keys and breakdowns will give me about 60-70% of what I want to communicate. You can have these poses on stepped key (2D traditional style) or in linear curve mode...in flat mode. Doesn't matter. Whatever works best for you. Now...I spend a bunch of time dealing with these, and dealing with the timing between them. I can spend hours on that itself, trying to get the energy on the timing that I'm looking for. Then, depending on the action, I focus on one area, generally, the hips. And I try to get that part working as much as I can along with the spine/head. These last two (spine/head) I'll keep them still rough. The more rough the better, because the truth is, I'm still figuring out the timing and the hips. It's all about what's more important, and what comes from what. Whatever the spine/head ends up doing, it will always start on the hips (unless the character is hanging from somewhere, in which case, it would be a complete opposite situation). But for the most part in most cases, if the timing of the hips changes, it's always going to affect what the spine and the head does. Then, I start working on them, while I start working on the arms. Now, again, working on the arms means, I have to start thinking about the shoulders here. So, if I'm going to polish an arm, I figure out what the key poses of the arm are (including the shoulders), and figure out the breakdowns. Once I have these figured out with their timing (even if at this point the arcs and the overlap aren't there), I can start smothing things out, and adding those. So, I work in passes overall. But definitely figure out the foundation first, because without the base, you don't have shit. Little details like fingers, wrists, ears, bla blu bla...unless the acting is calling or them, you can animate them and polish them later. But make sure you have the important stuff working in the shot.

And don't worry about everyone having different approaches. I've changed my approach like 57,000,000 times in the last few years. We are learning here man. You'll know when something starts working for you...and things will start rolling.