Sunday, January 21, 2007

Tarzan test

I thought that for a change I would post some animation.

And talk a bit of history too.

This is a test I did almost 10 years ago at (now closed)
"Walt Disney Feature Animation France "studio.
After hunchback, all clean-up guys who wanted to become
animator had to do a test. So I did it and passed it succesfully...
but as it was unexepected :) production asked me to stay
at clean-up one more year...I accepted and never regreted
it because after a year doing clean-up on the Hercules dude
I finaly started my animation training at the begening
of Tarzan. The production was slow to start, so animators
where doing testing on the character. As a trainy I choosed
to animate on a piece of CG background used for what was
called back then, the spectacular, incredible and amazing
"Glen Keane's surfing test" It still makes me chill when I see it.

So here I am with my poor anatomy knowledge and 1 animation
done since I had left Gobelin school 4 years before ... my
knee were shaking but I jumped into it with the ferm intention
to improve. So day after day I worked on it like a machine and back
home in the evening I went on and on sketching up to a level of saturation.

Finaly after 2 crazy month and with The help of my Mentor (P :)
I was approaching something I was happy with, so we decided
to show it to Glen Keane ... knee shaking once again...
He watched the scene 2 or 3 times and stopped the test, pressing
the space bar of the computer keyboard, on the 1 and only drawing
I didn't do..."I like this drawing he said", a pearle of sweat
slided on the side of my face... "how did he do that" I whispered"
then he said " Tarzan is using the same arm to do
everything" ...."oh nooooooo that's true" I thought :)
He asked me to adjust the hair and change the last movement
(he had the feeling that Tarzan would die after jumping like this)
I did adjust the hair but I did'nt touch the last movement,
I was too tired and I liked this last movement ...
Tarzan will not die, he's made of drawing.

I never had the chance to tie it down the way I wanted,
I could have learn more from it I guess, but a few days
later, I was told that my training had to go on ...
but on production scenes this time... knee shacking faster...

So holidays were over and I started to work on
Tarzan character for real....Thanks to Glen Keane.

Marco


(little cross you see on the test are the markers to repeg
xerox of every BG frame ... generaly you work with 1 Bg here
there's 100 ...At first you use them all, then you realize
its a nightmare, so you take 1 every 8 or 16 frame :)

this material is © Disney

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Et bim, prend toi ça dans la face le jeune!
C'est sympa d'avoir posté une de tes animations :)

Anonymous said...

wouais! une anim', très chouette, merci d'avoir posté ca...bonne continuation

Anonymous said...

hey dude,
happy new year blablabla! :)
wouldn't be so cool if you started posting speeddrawings strips on your blog like you used to in Angouleme ?

haaaw come on :)

Anonymous said...

A s'en taper le cul par terre.

BoK said...

Cher Marco...
Heu...

voila c'est tout.

(J'vais ramasser ma machoire et je reviens...)

Marco said...

Bon voilà :)
merci d'être passé

Bobby Pontillas said...

Wow! Thanks for sharing this Marco. The animation in this movie is one of the biggest reasons I decided to pursue animation as a profession.

I'd love to hear more stories about working with Glen and his team!

Cheers!

Unknown said...

WOW!! THis is BEAUTIFUL!! Great animation, love seeing pencil test, much more life to it then the clean up!

Matt Jones said...

GREATBSTORY Marco, but I can't see the animation test-merde!

Marco said...

Tx Alina and Bobby.

Hi Matt,
you need to instal quick time 7 to see the test.
clic on quick time logo under the animation or go to QT download page :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html
Choose the "without itune" version :)

Unknown said...

Ouuuuuuuh comme c'est bon!

Anonymous said...

c'est toujours aussi bon de voir cette anim, et on fait en sorte de pouvoir un jour avoir le niveau !!

ah oui ...
bonne nénée

Polyminthe said...

waaouh!le raccourci du dernier mouvement est dingue!

Unknown said...

Wow Thanks for sharing your experience with us. The test is really great and the added background info is really great. Thanks again.

Crammik said...

Je vais mourir, c'est trop beau !!!
La classe mister ^^

Nawell S said...

Bonsoir Marco,
Tu es donc directement passé du clean-up à l'anim? Est-ce que ça n'a pas été trop dur d'avoir à se remettre à animer comme ça de but-en-blanc? Surtout avec un personnage comme Tarzan, en tout cas bravo c'est une très bonne idée de mettre des tests d'anim sur ton blog, j'epsère qu'il y en aura d'autres.

Marco said...

Maab,
le passage d'assistant à animateur est une période houleuse, c'est un peu comme quand on t'enlève les petites roues d'appoint de ton vélo quand tu es enfant :)
Le fait d'avoir fait une école d'animation avant d'être assistant ça m'a permis de dégrossir... Apprendre les principes de bases de l'animation c'est le plus important ... faire de l'assistanat ça apporte de la pratique et de la confiance en soit ... c'est comme une rampe de lancement... faut juste pas rester coincé dessus.