EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Morgan Williams: Brazilian animator and director Henrique Barone has been creating a huge splash in the world of motion design through his work at Giant Ant, and we were very lucky to get the chance to talk to such an amazing [00:00:30] artist. His work is very informed by traditional hand-drawn classical character animation but it is equally informed by modern design and modern animation techniques, blending all kinds of styles and techniques together to create a really rich and varied look, something that Henrique really strives for in his work. You may be familiar with some of the pieces [00:01:00] that Henrique has created at Giant Ant like the amazing 2D, 3D hybrid The TOMS Story, which is about the Toms shoes company, and the kick plastic PSA they did for Costa Sunglasses with beautiful designs by Lucas Brooking, and The Closer, which is a really neat music video using baseball characters in a baseball diamond. [00:01:30] That's just naming a few of the brilliant pieces that Henrique has been a part of creating. Now in the course of the conversation, Henrique and I occasionally start using some sort of more old fashioned and more hand-drawn character animation terms that you might not be familiar with. We'll discuss those at the end of the interview, just to make sure you understood fully what it was we were talking about. So enjoy this terrific [00:02:00] conversation with the brilliant Henrique Barone. So Henrique thank you very much for talking to us and taking the time to talk to us today. I want to start by just talking about how you got into this. How did you fall in love with character animation? You obviously love it. How did you fall in love with it? How did you start on this path? Henrique Barone: So, my first course was, it wasn't actually character animation. I started doing graphic design. [00:02:30] It comes back to the thing that when you're a kid you don't really know what you want. I knew I liked to draw and that I needed to study something that has something to do with drawing, right? Morgan Williams: Right. Henrique Barone: The most obvious choice was design for me at the time. It was graphic design actually and then during the course, we had a little bit of character animation like some classes, [00:03:00] which kind of started to show me what I could do with animation. But what actually started pushing me in this direction was the first time we went to this animation festival in Brazil, it's called Anima Mundi. Morgan Williams: Yes. Henrique Barone: And that was amazing. There was so many different kinds of shorts and there was no defined style. Morgan Williams: Right. Henrique Barone: [inaudible 00:03:27] and it was like a cut out short [00:03:30] followed by a 3D, followed by a hand-drawn. Morgan Williams: Yeah. Henrique Barone: Like all these different techniques, and you can't help but leave the festival with the feeling that you can animate. You can do something. That was the spark that started me to think about animation as a career or at least something that I would like to explore at that time. Morgan Williams: Right, right. Henrique Barone: So I kind of started moving my graphic design course [00:04:00] more into animation, to the point that my graduation film ... My graduation was an animated film. Morgan Williams: Oh wow. Henrique Barone: From there I got my first job as an intern in an animation studio in Brazil. That is basically how it started. Morgan Williams: Oh that's great. That's great. So, did you have some kind of early animation heroes? You mentioned the festival. Were there some animators in particular that kind of really grabbed [00:04:30] your attention or even animation that you saw when you were a kid that you responded to? Henrique Barone: Not really specific. As a kid I would mention kind of like old Bugs Bunny cartoons and that kind of stuff. Morgan Williams: Sure. Henrique Barone: And then ... During the festival, they sell catalogs at the festival so I started looking up for names. Can't remember the name in specific now, cause [00:05:00] like I said, there's so many and sometimes it's just one short that you see. I like this short and then you go look on the Internet and there was nothing at the time. Morgan Williams: Right, right. Sure, sure. But you were definitely struck by all the different styles and all the different techniques- Henrique Barone: Absolutely, and then the second time, third time, you start noticing some names in the festival. Like I said, it's weird to think back now that Internet wasn't really around[inaudible 00:05:28], but not really. Morgan Williams: [00:05:30] Right, right. Not the way it is now. Henrique Barone: Cause I remember going to the festival for the second time and actually getting to know Gobelins and other studios because of the festival and not because of the Internet. Morgan Williams: Right, yes, right. And it was amazing back then too, cause you would go see an amazing short in the festival, and the festival would move on and you would never see or hear of it again. It will just kind of disappear right? It's wonderful that these things are being sort of preserved [00:06:00] in a way on the Internet, and some of those old ones are starting to be discovered again too, which is really great. Yeah it was a different time. Henrique Barone: There was this one short from ... What's his name? It's called like Love & Theft. Morgan Williams: Love & Death? I'm not sure I remember that one. Joey Korenman: We're all googling it at the same time. Henrique Barone: So it's like from this studio in Germany, it's called like Film Bilder. He's called like Andreas [00:06:30] Hykade.[inaudible 00:06:32] It's like just a bunch of faces being morphed. I remember seeing that on the festival. I was like "Wow, I love it". Super colorful, super like cool timing, just simple. Morgan Williams: Right, right. So that kind of got you in the things. How did you end up studying classical animation? What was your next step? Henrique Barone: So yeah, like [00:07:00] I said, my graduation was actually like a pilot for a TV series, which was the obvious way to go in a way, to work with TV series cause that's, in Brazil at least, that's a big field. Morgan Williams: Sure. Henrique Barone: Well, here it's even bigger, not just in Brazil. It's a big field anywhere. I was also doing Flash for my graduation film [00:07:30] and going for a TV series seemed like the right path. So I started to work as an intern on that animation studio and then I did some freelances and work for a while in São Paulo for 2 years. Then after 3 years, it kind of felt like stopping for a bit again, and actually going to study animation, cause like I said, I did graphic design and I was working with animation but I didn't actually have like [00:08:00] any background on character animation. At that point I had never learned like principles. And then we were also, me and my wife who was also a designer animator too, and we both ... The graduation film was actually me and her together and then we started working in the same studio. After 3 years in São Paulo, we kind of felt yeah that feels [00:08:30] like a good time to stop for a bit and maybe learn animation for real and also as a personal move, give some time for ourselves a little bit. Morgan Williams: Oh that's great. So were you finding- Henrique Barone: And ... Sorry. Morgan Williams: Oh no, no. Go ahead. Henrique Barone: And then the one year course classical animation at VFS, it felt like a good fit. When you're in Canada, studying classical animation, [00:09:00] not in Brazil, is a different experience. It combined a professional and personal move in a way. Morgan Williams: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Henrique Barone: Yeah, it was a really, really great experience. Morgan Williams: Yeah, so can you talk just a little bit about the ... I know it's a complex program but it's an amazing program. Can you talk a little bit about the program and how it works, and kind of what you study in that intense year? Henrique Barone: Yeah. Well, that's the [00:09:30] thing I like the most. It is an intense year and you know it beforehand, so you kind of came prepared, well at least we came prepared. For the first 6 months it's basically like just assignments, like starting like bouncing ball, and then like a flour sack, then like a little bit of character. The final assignments are like acting assignments and throughout the 6 months you don't just [00:10:00] have animation assignments and that's a big plus for us about the course. You got character design classes, and composition classes, and color classes, and storyboards. So the first 6 months is really like building up the base, and with that base you go to the second semester, which is like to produce your film. Morgan Williams: Okay. Henrique Barone: And, I don't know. To produce your film, for me is one of the best ways [00:10:30] to learn not just how to animate but how to time manage and have an idea, which for me it's still the hardest part of any project. Morgan Williams: Yes. Henrique Barone: It's not just like a big assignment. It's your film, so you want to put effort on it and the story, and think about the characters and how they think, why are you doing this story, that kind of thing. Morgan Williams: Right, sure, sure. Henrique Barone: Yeah, [00:11:00] so that's the second semester. You do your film. So no, I'm wrong. You do your film in 5 months and then in the last month is your Flash film. You just have a month. Morgan Williams: Okay, okay. Oh, wow. Henrique Barone: And it's basically to teach you like the software. You don't actually need to do a short, although it's recommended of course, but if you just want to do like a short piece so you get to know cut out animation and a bit [00:11:30] of Flash. I actually like it. It's never about the software so you have the principles. You get a taste of the software and you can explore later. Morgan Williams: Right, right, for sure. That was Tough West, right, the Flash film? Henrique Barone: Yeah, yeah. Morgan Williams: Yeah, great. I love the design in that piece. It's just the design is so tasty. It's just great. Henrique Barone: Cool. Yeah. Thank you so much. Morgan Williams: Good stuff. Really, really good stuff. Henrique Barone: It's funny cause it was just a month and I [00:12:00] think that's my favorite one. I don't know why. I think is because it was just a month. There wasn't enough time for you to overthink stuff, and it just came out so well. And the voice, the guys who were doing the music, they added so much. Morgan Williams: Yeah, yeah. It's a really strong piece. It's a really, really great piece. It's a lot even for a month. Even for a month that's still a lot. [00:12:30] Pretty crazy. Henrique Barone: I had previous experience with Flash. Like I said, I worked in the animation studio back in Brazil, but yeah, one month is kind of a tight schedule. Morgan Williams: It's pretty intense. Henrique Barone: And it's like from scratch. You have your idea, yo do the storyboard, and then you animate, and then you- Morgan Williams: Wow, yeah[crosstalk 00:12:48] That's a tight turnaround. Henrique Barone: Yeah. Morgan Williams: I want to talk a little bit more about, you touched on it really briefly, about [00:13:00] the kind of acting approach to learning classical animation, that you're thinking about the performance of the character. Can you talk about how they approach that at VFS? Henrique Barone: Yeah. We worked on this mostly on our final films. Before the final films, we get some story classes and then we have, I don't know, we talk more about character and like [00:13:30] thinking process and acting and all that. We have like 3 assignments before the film as far as I remember. Yeah, 3. They are mostly acting. Morgan Williams: Do you mean like acting yourself, like you are acting, or you're doing animation exercises with a character performing? Henrique Barone: Oh, no, no. More like an animation exercise. Like a guy entering the room when he needs to do this. What does he have in mind and why is he acting this way? Then [00:14:00] from that you think about the poses, you might do a gag, you might do like leave the audience with a question mark. Morgan Williams: Sure, sure. Right. Henrique Barone: So yeah, it's more like an actual assignment. Then I further recommend for you to act it out and try to put yourself in the character's mind. But then the moments where you actually practice all the knowledge that [00:14:30] you got in these quick 3 assignments, is in your film. Morgan Williams: Right, right. Then you- Henrique Barone: Like I said, the first 6 months it's basically like gathering your knowledge and information and putting you on the mood to produce your piece. Morgan Williams: Sure, sure. Henrique Barone: Yeah. Morgan Williams: Well, after this intense year of studying classical character, where were you at after that? What were kind of the big ideas [00:15:00] that you didn't have going into the course that you did have coming out of the course? What did you walk away with that you didn't have coming in? Henrique Barone: You mean in terms of animation or in terms of like what's my next move kind of thing? Morgan Williams: No, no. I think more in terms of animation since the students with this class are really focusing on learning character animation specifically. What about character animation specifically? What were some of the big ideas or maybe the kind of important skills [00:15:30] that you picked up when you were at VFS? Henrique Barone: Well, like I said, I had no actual knowledge of principles before coming to VFS, even like basic stuff like easing in easing out, or antic. I knew about it but I had never actually studied it. And I don't know. After this one year at VFS, I look at [00:16:00] animation a completely different way. Basically because I learned the principles, which they weren't hard to learn and they weren't many actually. Morgan Williams: Right, right. That's true. Henrique Barone: You slow down when you need to slow down. You speed it up when you need to speed it up. Morgan Williams: Little overlap and follow through. Henrique Barone: Yeah, exactly. Basically like getting you to move, right? Morgan Williams: Right, sure, sure. Henrique Barone: Those principles weren't hard. What [00:16:30] is hard for me is, like I said, it kind of comes back to drawing, when it's hand-drawn. Not just when it's hand-drawn, but also when it's After Effects or 3D. The hardest thing for me is to get the right pose. If you get the right pose, then the principles are easy. Cushing in in this pose comes out of this pose quick. I'm gonna be here first, light's gonna come here a little bit later. [00:17:00] But if you don't have the pose there, it al falls part, right? Morgan Williams: Yeah, absolutely. And it's that intersection of posing and timing, right? It's applying those principles, which are mostly about timing to those poses, and those two things together. You really kind of have to have both, I mean, you can have great poses, but if you don't have the timing there, it also kind of falls apart. Yeah, great. Henrique Barone: Like I said, when I was [00:17:30] in the animation fest, you see so many different stuff that it's almost like there's no way of going wrong. Specially if you're doing an independent piece or like a thing for yourself. That's what I love in animation too. Like I saw in the animation fest, but nothing like I see in Vimeo, like everyday you go to your feed and you just see different stuff and you can't say that that's wrong. Morgan Williams: Yeah, exactly. If it's interesting and [00:18:00] if it's clearly something that's made with passion and has a great idea or beautiful design. So much comes down to the big ideas like character and story. If that's there then, like you said, you almost can't do wrong. It's all kind of window dressing almost. Henrique Barone: Yeah, exactly. Morgan Williams: You kind of talked about one of the hardest things for you being coming up with the [00:18:30] big idea. Coming up with the ideas for your pieces, you said that was sort of the hardest things for you. Henrique Barone: Oh, that was the hardest thing yeah. Morgan Williams: And in animation you talked about getting the poses right, that that was maybe the most difficult thing. What did you learn about character animation specifically that you thought was the most important thing? What did you think specifically looking at animation, [00:19:00] what was the kind of most important thing you learnt studying classical. Henrique Barone: Like literally in terms of the technique? Morgan Williams: Sure. Or even a big idea, maybe we've already hit it. Is it the poses? Is that the most important thing that that classical training kind of taught you? Henrique Barone: Yeah. Not just the poses but [00:19:30] the whole process, in a way. One thing that I found me struggling with later a little bit after I finished classical, I had a little bit of a gap for actually starting to do classical or classically based animations again. I had this little bit of like a [inaudible 00:19:53], and I was doing more Flash cut out and then I noticed that I was actually forgetting [00:20:00] the process, not just the poses, but like to start with the poses and then to think like how this pose will communicate to this next pose, and then you think about the breakdown. Then also get the breakdown done, and start thinking about easing ins and easing outs. So the whole process, like it's a step by step thing, that's the thing that I would say was the most important thing that I've learned. Morgan Williams: Sure. Henrique Barone: And it's easy to [00:20:30] forget about that, specially in computer. If you're actually doing paper, you need to follow the process. On the computer you're kind of oh yeah, I'll just start doing here, and then you don't actually think about the process. Then one day, the day is over and you feel like you didn't actually produce anything. Nothing is working actually. At least for me it was like calm down and think back about the process. [00:21:00] Think your pose. Think your breakdown. Do your charts. That's a thing that helped me. I think that as you go, that process is more in your mind and it feels right to like not think about cause yeah I have it, I got it, but I always need to say to myself remember that there's a process behind it. Morgan Williams: [00:21:30] Absolutely. I agree 100%. Henrique Barone: As you go, you start kind of getting the feel more of the poses, and things start getting faster. But it's not that the process is not there. Morgan Williams: Exactly, it just becomes kind of internalized and just kind of comes naturally. Yeah, that's great. It's interesting talking about the translation to digital, which is kind of what I want to talk about next. I did that same thing. I started doing [00:22:00] classical hand-drawn animation, painted on [inaudible 00:22:04], shot on film, in the early 90's, and then literally saw everything shift to digital. I was able to kind if get on board with that, but I agree 100% that the process still has to be there even if you're apllying the tricks and techniques that the software gives you. You still have to have that foundation underneath there. Henrique Barone: Absolutely, oh yeah. Morgan Williams: Let's talk a little bit about your more recent work, [00:22:30] specially with Giant Ant and there's obviously incredibly strong hand-drawn either influence or actual hand-drawn animation in a lot of this work. You can se that if there's not actual hand-drawn, you're building off of hand-drawn as a base in a lot of the work. Maybe we could talk about a couple of this specifically and I'd love for you to [00:23:00] kind of talk about that process between the classical hand-drawn and how you work the digital animation and digital animators in the process with for example Kick Plastic, cause it's such a beautiful style. How did you work back and forth between the hand-draw elements and the digital elements? Henrique Barone: That's hard cause it's so different for each project. Morgan Williams: [00:23:30] Sure. Let's just focus on Kick Plastic for example. Henrique Barone: Yeah. So that one for example, on that one I did just like rough passes, like line passes and the only thing that I actually got to finish is the one that the bird flies and comes down to the bottom. For that one I did the line pass and then I cleaned up in Flash, just like retracing it- Morgan Williams: And you're [00:24:00] using ... I'm so sorry to interrupt but you're using Flash to do your frame by frame? Henrique Barone: Yeah. Morgan Williams: Yeah, okay. Henrique Barone: I basically use Flash for most of what I do. Morgan Williams: Okay, sure. Henrique Barone: The bird was like a line pass at first, and then it was like a cleanup pass, which I was actually cleaning up in Flash with vector, cause that piece has a super [00:24:30] vector look. It's like straight lines and all that. But for the other things, I was going back to Brazil when we were doing this project, to get married, so I didn't have time to work on other things, so I just did the rough passes and then the guys there would do like amazing after effects. They actually got this line [00:25:00] pass that I did and they were tracing After Effects, like using masks and shapes. Then it's a different process for each one I think, but mostly getting colors to the line pass and making it work. Morgan Williams: Yeah. And it looks like there's a few 3D elements too in the piece. Are there some 3D elements? Henrique Barone: Yeah. That's a good point. There's this bottle shot, [00:25:30] it's all 3D, so yeah I also had a line pass, which was then brought to 3D as a guide. Morgan Williams: Right, right. It's a great blend of [crosstalk 00:25:43] Henrique Barone: That was actually the first one that I, which is something that we're actually exploring more, me doing more line passes and like we do in one piece now that I'm doing line passes and then there's a Photoshop pass, so [00:26:00] the line pass is in Flash and then it goes to Photoshop to actually like paint frame by frame. It's basically the same process as doing a line pass in Flash and then a different software. It can be After Effects. It can be 3D. It can also be Photoshop. Morgan Williams: Yeah, absolutely. Are you using AnimDessin in Photoshop? Henrique Barone: Yeah, we are. Such a good plugin. Morgan Williams: Yeah, isn't it awesome? Joey Korenman: Hey Morgan, just as a [00:26:30] newb, as the least experienced character animator on the car right now, can you define what a line pass is? I think I might know what you're talking about but some of the students and myself included probably have no idea what it is. Morgan Williams: Yeah well- Henrique Barone: Yeah, it's- Morgan Williams: Yeah go ahead. Henrique Barone: Go ahead. Morgan Williams: No, no. Henrique you should definitely answer that. Henrique Barone: Yeah. It's actually the animation pass. When you see the making of for movies, [00:27:00] and you see just like for old movies you see the pencil pass. That's a line pass. Joey Korenman: Oh yeah. So there's no color, no shading yet. It's just the drawing basically. Henrique Barone: Yeah, exactly. You got it. Morgan Williams: And the drawings can be loser or tighter depending on the production and depending on the style of the artist. Sometimes you start real rough. Henrique Barone: That's a good point. Morgan Williams: In the old days we used to call them pencil tests. You'd just do the pencil drawings and then shoot them [00:27:30] and test them. That's great. Henrique Barone: But that's a good point. You can do like a rough line pass or like a rough pencil pass, and then you go and you do like a cleanup pencil pass, and then that cleanup can be super like actually cleaned up, so whoever is repainting or retracing, you have a really good base. Or it can also be more like a rough line pass, more like a guide. It's more super, [00:28:00] super precise and then it depends on the style, on the schedule, different things come to play. It's always better to try to get it super tight. Morgan Williams: Right, absolutely. You know, we should mention that on your awesome website you have a lot of this kind of breakdowns where you show some of those rough guide line passes, so you can actually go and see some of that work. It's really cool to see those [00:28:30] early passes and stuff, and see that hand-drawn look. Henrique Barone: That's where I have the most fun. It's like a wide stage, and then I usually get a style frame from whoever is directing the piece and go from there. The first pass, the rough pass, that's where I have more fun. Morgan Williams: Yeah. How [00:29:00] about The Closer? What was the process on The Closer? Henrique Barone: Yeah, similar to that one. It was like a rough line pass and then I start cleaning up with Flash pieces. That's a thing that I like to do. It's weird, cause I came from Flash before doing classical animation, [00:29:30] so I kind of have both backgrounds in a way. I find interesting to mix them, and I know Flash has this that looks flashy or that's too cut out. I really don't think that that's the case. I think it's a super good software to do both frame by frame and cut out. You do a really good cut out in Flash that can look amazing. I like to do both [00:30:00] and mix both also. Specially mix both. So for The Closer, for example, I did a line pass and then I started cleaning up the key frames with Flash pieces. Morgan Williams: Right, right. So you get all the advantages of the cut out but you get the fluidity of the hand-drawn. Henrique Barone: Exactly, yeah. And then say like once the poses are there, and it's not the exact same piece, so say I did a rough pass and the hand is to the same, so I'm [00:30:30] placing a symbol in Flash. It's just the same symbol but it's not the same hand-drawing, and then you can actually in between, inside the symbol you just redraw the hand inside the symbol or like in between the hand inside the symbol. Then I start building up from these key frames. There's some points that you can actually use twin, like say for the arm you can just twin there. But then the face, you can [00:31:00] do a symbol in between nose and eyes. If there's a frame that is more of smear frame, you can actually go and just draw this frame. You don't need to use the pieces for that frame. So the final Flash file is kind of a mix of drawings and symbols. Morgan Williams: Yeah, right. Interesting. Henrique Barone: They're not following the initial rough pass. Morgan Williams: That's great. It's really a unique look and [00:31:30] it definitely pushes the boundaries of what you think of as Flash animation, which is great. Really fun to see. How about TOMS Story? That's one with a lof of 3D in it, yes? Henrique Barone: Yeah. Which shots you're thinking? Morgan Williams: Well, yeah, there's so many. It's a long piece. Is this a situation where you guys were just kind of throwing in terms of [00:32:00] technique, everything on the table, whatever works for whatever shot? Is that kind of the approach? Cause there's 2D and 3D. Henrique Barone: Yeah. I think TOMS is actually the first project I did as a Giant Ant employee. Morgan Williams: Oh, okay. So this is your first one. Amazing piece. Such a cool piece. Henrique Barone: Well, I did some others before as a freelance, [00:32:30] and then that was TOMS, yeah. I remember like starting then, yeah we have this super long piece here, there's this choice of characters and we thought it would be a good one to try to make then. And they kind of gave me room to explore and play with the characters. Then they [00:33:00] would compose in After Effects later. That was basically it. There's a lot of freedom actually to explore. Like one thing that I say about drawing is that there is a crazy amount of trust going on between everyone. It's like "Jorge designed this frame and I think Henrique can animate". Yeah, I think I can, and then I animate and "I don't know if you can [inaudible 00:33:30] [00:33:30] that, can you?". Yeah I think I can. It seems that there's all planned, but there's a lot of trust. It' amazing. You just see the thing building up from an idea. Yeah, there is planning of course, but there's also these surprises that come along. It's just so cool. Morgan Williams: It's neat because one of the things that I think marks Giant [00:34:00] Ant and certainly your work with Giant Ant, is this blending of styles and techniques, and different looks and things. It's interesting when you talked about kind of where you first got your first spark of inspiration at this festival where you saw all these different techniques and all these different styles. It's kind of neat that you've ended up in a place that embraces that same diverse approach to animation. Henrique Barone: Yeah, that's crazy. I never thought about it. That's such a nice point, yeah. Morgan Williams: Yeah. I think you [00:34:30] certainly got yourself in the right spot I think. That's great. That's super great. Henrique Barone: Yeah, I know. I love it. I never actually aiming to be on motion graphics. I was like the path that I would take, it would be either ... Like when I came here it was like Okay, I'm gonna do like TV series or like feature film. Say like my goal was to be on Pixar or this big name movies. [00:35:00] Then I ended up going for motion graphics and I think nowadays I fit so much better in this field. It's actually because of this variety that I never thought that it came from being on a festival. That's a good point. It's like one month, two months projects, and then it's another style, and then you got to explore different styles. I love [00:35:30] it. Morgan Williams: I think it's interesting because I've kind of had the same experience coming from more of a traditional animation background, but I've ended up in the world of motion graphics and I teach in a motion design department at Ringling, and it's kind of interesting that this world seem to be kind of coming together, stepping outside of the Pixar standard or Saturday-morning [00:36:00] cartoons, but into this more experimental hybrid styles that are really embraces in motion design. I think that's exactly why we're doing this course. It's because there's a lot of motion design people that are now really, really keen on getting involved with character and sort of vice versa. It's really an interesting time, I think. Henrique Barone: Oh no, yeah. For me it's like I don't know. When you do a classical film, everybody loves classical stuff, so [00:36:30] every time there's like a news that says there will be some[inaudible 00:36:34] stuff coming out, everybody got so excited. Recently Brad Bird said that he wanted to do a new 2D feature, and it's like wow, that would be so cool. Then you see like in The Peanuts Movie, it's gonna be 3D but the designs are 2D. It's really good revisiting to this stuff, but with the new technology [00:37:00] that is around. We passed through a phase that it was, say the [inaudible 00:37:04], let's redo the character all in 3D and it need to look like ... I don't know. The 2D has so much to offer, specially combined with 3D. It's like the trailers for Peanuts just look amazing, or like the Popeye. Although I think they canceled it, right? Morgan Williams: I think so yeah. The trailer was so cool. Henrique Barone: It was the same thing, like 2D designs, 2D timing, [00:37:30] cartoon in snap but 3D looking. It's a really cool mix and it's happening in feature films and it's happening in motion graphics too. You see more pieces, like strong 2D or like character. At least I see because I follow that stuff. Morgan Williams: I think, absolutely. I feel like when going to motionographer daily, I feel like we've seen more and more character all the time, and lots [00:38:00] of 2D and hybrids, which I'm really interested in too. That's awesome. Joey Korenman: So, one of the things that I think will be interesting, well I know what will be interesting to the students and interesting to me too actually, is you've got this piece on your website, The Man Who Saw A Boat, and it's a 3D character piece. When you were describing the process of how you use Flash, kind of is this Hybrid tool where you can hand-draw certain things but then you can [00:38:30] also twin or you can just duplicate a symbol and then move it here, and then move it here. But with a 3D character rig, and in the case of this class that we're teaching a 2D character rig, you don't have all those same options. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the approach you take when you're using a rigged character versus when you have the freedom to just draw whatever it is you need. Henrique Barone: That's the biggest difference between 2D and 3D. You [00:39:00] feel more in a cage when you do 3D. The rig is actually like a cage, right? Joey Korenman: Yeah. Henrique Barone: And one thing I try to do when I do 3D, is to actually try to push the pose to the point that it works for the rig but it is still an interesting pose. Joey Korenman: So is that the biggest challenge, just getting poses that are exaggerated enough, given the base of the limitations [00:39:30] of this thing that only does what it can do. Henrique Barone: Yeah, it's not just being like exaggerated for the sake of being exaggerated. There's possibilities in the rig that you might want to explore even though they are not obvious. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Does that answer your question? Joey Korenman: Yes, I think I'm understanding. What I'm trying to figure out is, you know a good example is the [00:40:00] pitcher throwing the baseball in The Closer, and I'm looking at that and you have a great breakdown of that on your side. It's really interesting to look at, but it looks like so custom, like there's no way using a simple 3D rig or 2D rig you could ever do anything like that because you just don't have the [inaudible 00:40:29]. So how do you get [00:40:30] around that limitation when you're using a rig? Are there any tricks that you've kind of figured out over the years that can help make rigged animation still feel really good? Henrique Barone: Well, the better the rig, the better poses you get. That's why riggers are super important in 3D pieces, but as far as animation goes, one advice that I would have is like that you are always animating for the camera [00:41:00] and if it's working for the camera, that's it. Your hand might be broken but it's not showing, that's fine. The camera is reading it so the audience will read it, so you don't really need to- Joey Korenman: That's really good advice actually. That's like a universal principle I think, with any sort of animation, is that one frame may loof funky but when it plays it looks okay, that's fine. Henrique Barone: The funky frames [00:41:30] are the best. Morgan Williams: So true. Joey Korenman: It's funny, you know, cause going through character animation bootcamp, I'm basically a student. I don't have a background in this and it's amazing to see how that one frame where the arms go from in front of the character to behind the character, that one frame is what makes the whole thing funny. It's little thing like that. It's funny because I would assume [00:42:00] as kind of a novice at this, that using a rig would be easier than having to draw the frames, but it almost sounds like you'd prefer to have the freedom to draw. Henrique Barone: Oh yeah, absolutely. We were doing a 3D piece at Giant Ant and we were actually considering for some frames to just deleting some parts and just [00:42:30] redrawing them in Photoshop. So you'd get like a weird looking arm. Morgan Williams: Just to break in Joey, I think if you have Henrique's drawing skills, then drawing is probably a more comfortable place to work and more freedom than working with a rig. But if you're coming into character animation without those fully developed [00:43:00] drawing skills, then working with a rigged puppet is actually sort of perversely gonna be more freeing because you don't have to struggle with the problems of drawing. Henrique Barone: That's absolutely true. Morgan Williams: Yeah, cause in hand-drawn animation, you don't have time to figure out how to draw something. You just have to be able to draw it cause you have to spend the time figuring out how to make it move and emote, and have personality. [00:43:30] So the drawing skills have to be at your command, basically, which is why good hand-drawn animation is rare and good hand-drawn animators are rare, cause you really have to have two big skills, the really robust drawing skills and then all the character animation skills. Joey Korenman: That makes a lot of sense. Coming back a little bit to the 3D stuff, you talked about the Popeye CG [00:44:00] movie, that I think you're right, I think it did get killed, but I remember seeing the trailer for that and it's amazing. Henrique Barone: That's all the rig. I mean, the riggers there are almost or maybe more important than the animator. Joey Korenman: Yeah, they're like magicians and I'm assuming for the piece that's on your site, you rigged that yourself? Henrique Barone: Yeah. That's part of the course, to learn to rig and to model, and all that. Joey Korenman: Yeah. You were a little bit limited by [00:44:30] your knowledge of rigging, so would you recommend, cause a lot of motion designers sort of just do it all themselves. That's very much part of the culture of an After Effects artist, "I'm just gonna design it myself". Would you recommend, if you're an animator animate, let the riggers rig? Henrique Barone: Yeah, I think I would. Before I used to be more like this too. I start [inaudible 00:45:00] [00:45:00] , then you see like independent charts, and then it's like Henrique Barone's chart, and then if you did everything and if it was good [crosstalk 00:45:08]. But then as you go, it's also important to learn how to collaborate. If you have people putting their strong skills in one project, that will make the project greater, right? So yeah, I would definitely recommend to collaborate. Let's say for example I don't [00:45:30] really do After Effects and I know what it can be done, and I know how the software works, and I can do some stuff, but I'm not even close to what the guy in Giant Ant do. So we collaborate. I do more character, they do more After Effects or 3D, and then the piece is a group piece that has everybody's personality and it looks unique. I would recommend collaborating. Joey Korenman: [00:46:00] Yeah, I'd agree with all that. It makes a lot of sense. I think that you kind of hinted at it, that all you need to know is enough to be able to collaborate with the After Effects guy. You don't need to know After Effects. You just need to know After Effects likes this kind of file or I know After Effects can't do this so I'm not gonna ask Jorge to do that. Henrique Barone: Let's just say that you don't need to explore After Effects or like explore [00:46:30] rigging, but I think you will, as a career path, you will probably clash at some point if you try to be an amazing rigger or an amazing animator. That short there, The Man Who Saw A Boat, I got to rig a character and that was cool. I actually enjoyed it very much, but I wouldn't take that path. Some people would. I think it's better for a project if we [00:47:00] say, me and the rigger, we'll meet and do something together. Joey Korenman: Let me ask you this, cause this is probably an interesting question. Do you think that someone who makes character rigs need to understand how to animate? Do you think that's important? Henrique Barone: Oh, very important yeah. It's the same thing we were talking about, knowing that After Effects can do this or that. I'm a better character animator [00:47:30] as a professional, not as an animator, if I know what comes down the pipeline and how the pipeline works, and what comes before my job comes to the pipeline. So yeah, I think that riggers, I'm almost 100% sure that the best riggers know what's going on with animation. Oh yeah. Morgan Williams: Yeah, I agree. Henrique Barone: [00:48:00] Or at least they talk with the animators and they collaborate. They give input to each other. Morgan Williams: Right. Joey Korenman: Cool. All right, that kind of covered it, yeah. Morgan Williams: Let's just touch really quick on kind of we were talking about the process a little bit and I think we covered a little, but I think it would be good for our students to hear just a little more about getting down to the nuts and bolts of "Okay, [00:48:30] I'm sitting down and I've got a sequence of animation to create. I've got a character that's gotta do X, Y and Z". What's the first thing you do? Do you start with thumbnails? Do you do research? Do you act it out? What do you do just to kind of start on your process? Henrique Barone: Yeah, I kind of do thumbnails. It varies. For some stuff I do thumbnails but I usually do big [00:49:00] thumbnails, so I don't really do small joints. I kind of use the timeline already. It's one step before rough animation. It's just like sketching poses, which it would be thumbnails, but I think I do them big. Morgan Williams: Okay, sure. Big thumbnails. Henrique Barone: I kind of have the timelines. Morgan Williams: But you've already [00:49:30] got the timeline in play. You're already starting to time the [inaudible 00:49:33]. Henrique Barone: Yeah. I kind of have the timeline there and then I can flip a little bit. Just like go to one frame to the other, and then forth and back. That's how I kind of start to have a sense of like where it can go, and then I start tweaking. Maybe like acting it out, checking references, [00:50:00] tweaking the pose specially like a lot. Morgan Williams: Can you talk about that a little bit? What are you thinking about when you're tweaking a pose? What's going through your mind when you're looking at a pose trying to make it better or stronger? Henrique Barone: I don't usually act out the action, but I act out a lot the pose. I do that to get the force, cause say my body weight is like in this leg, or [00:50:30] I;m shifting my weight form here to here, that's what makes the pose like shift to that side a little bit. So it's not that I'm acting out the action but I'm acting out the pose to get the forces. Then I got an idea of how the pose feels, and then I tweak the pose. When I'm tweaking the pose, I also think about silhouette [00:51:00] and if it's reading well, if I can push this hand a little more there. I think those are the things I think the most. Morgan Williams: You said you're kind of working on timing as you go. Do you feel that's one of the advantages of working in Flash, that you can kind of instantly begin your timing even in those early stages? Henrique Barone: Yeah, I'd say so, yeah. [00:51:30] I find that I do that quite a lot. Like I said, I do thumbnails in the timeline and then it's just already there. But I don't want to sound like I'm stepping up the process, but- Morgan Williams: So you continue to adjust timing as you go. Henrique Barone: Well, more at the beginning, but yeah, I also do adjustments towards the end. I'll put this frame on [00:52:00] once. I can probably cut this frame or that kind of stuff. Morgan Williams: Sure. Now maybe stepping back to sort of the slightly bigger picture, how do you think about the performance of the character? How do you get the character to actually express emotions, or attitudes, or personalities? Henrique Barone: Well, that's the part where it starts to get a ... You can't be technical there. There's no [00:52:30] easy out to that expression. That kind of comes back to drawing, right? And not just drawing but also I try to put myself in the mind of the character. I try to think of what the character's thinking, and why is he moving this way. So say if he's like going from one point to the other, it's cool to think if he keeps looking back for a while, so that kind of little things. If he keeps looking back for a while, it kind of shows [00:53:00] that he is still interested in what he was looking at, so he's making a decision but he still has his mind a little bit there. The head looks back there for like 6, 7 frames. That's the kind of stuff that shows acting choices, instead of just[inaudible 00:53:23] "Oh, I'm going to that way. I know I'm doing it". Or you can go like "I need [00:53:30] to go that way but I don't really want." So you kind of start moving your body first and your head stays there. It's the action controlling the animations in a way, so in that example, the character is not sure that he wants to go to point B, but he needs to go anyway. You can start moving the body first, and you can leave the head behind. [00:54:00] That's a breakdown right there. Your body's moving first but your head stays. It's like technique meets performance. Morgan Williams: Exactly. That's a terrific example. Henrique Barone: I'm glad I could do that. Morgan Williams: It's a tricky thing. Henrique Barone: It's so tricky to talk about acting. Morgan Williams: I tell my students all the time, animation is a performing [00:54:30] art. When you're an animator you are an actor, or a dancer, or a pantomime, or whatever, and you have to get into that mindset. That was partly why I wanted to pick your brain about that. I wanted to see how you get there. We all have to, to really make those character to come alive. Henrique Barone: Totally, yeah. Morgan Williams: So just a couple last questions kind of focused on people who are just getting into [00:55:00] the world of character animation. When you're seeing kind of young animators or people just starting out, what's the biggest mistake or bad habit that you see kind of beginner animators make? Henrique Barone: I don't know, I think I would come down to the process thing. You can see when something was like rushed or that the person [00:55:30] tried to cut corners in a bad way. That's actually what makes Flash be flashy. The bad thing that people say about Flash is that it's so easy. Just do a hand here and twin that all over, right? I think that's the thing that strikes me the most. That's the most obvious thing, but [00:56:00] one thing that I try to look at and also when I do is to not twin stuff, so never have your two hands or two feet touching something at the same time. Those little offsets that add so much the character and to how natural it feels. I like to see that. [00:56:30] It's not a thing that I've learned. It wasn't the first thing that I've learned, so I probably have that even in my films. That's one thing that I also think about. We're talking about the process, so I go and I think about the pose and where the force is, and then I tweak the pose. Then, later on the process, I think about this hand is touching first and then the other hand [00:57:00] is touching a little bit later. Morgan Williams: Do you think it's hard to find good character animators? Do you guys see a lot of good work coming in the door? Henrique Barone: Oh yeah. I think there's lots of good stuff. Like I said, there's no actually going wrong, so if you're doing a piece that the art direction requires that kind of weird looking animation, there's this guy [00:57:30] there, or like if you need something that is more precise and all that, there's people that can do it. It depends on the project, right? Morgan Williams: Right, absolutely, sure. Henrique Barone: Of course, you can tell if it's lacking something or if the timing could be better but I wouldn't say that that's right or wrong. There's definitely people [00:58:00] to do everything. Morgan Williams: Right. What do you look for in a junior animator that you want to bring on board a project? What would you look for in their reel or in their work? Henrique Barone: I like to see good timing in animation. Like I said, easing ins and easing outs, that kind of offset, like little details, [00:58:30] but I also like to see variety. I think if you can do one animation that is like super choppy and say like it's on force or the character is super weird, and then you can also do a superb moved animation that is more precise looking, and you can [00:59:00] be okay with both, I think that's a really good thing for an animator to have. It might come back to the festival thing, that it's like variety what makes it cool. Morgan Williams: Yeah, for sure. If we're talking to a motion design person, for example, who wants to add character [inaudible 00:59:25], kind of wants to get into them, what advice would you give them? Where would you tell them to start? [00:59:30] Where would you tell them to go? Would you tell them to go to school? Would you tell them to get a book? What would you say to someone who's kind of getting started on this path? Henrique Barone: Well, it's easy to say for me to go to a school cause that's how my path went. I enjoyed it very much. My personality, I kind of need to be on a class. I don't think I would be able [01:00:00] to like self-taught myself. I like to be in the class and have an assignment. I learn better that way, but there's people that they can self-taught. Not that you need to be in a class, but like a course, like an online course like you guys, yeah. Morgan Williams: But some kind of structure. Henrique Barone: Yeah, some kind of structure. If you can structure that yourself, put yourself some assignments and try to keep track on them, and [01:00:30] maybe try to find a mentor online. I would say it's good to have a structure, like a class. I learn that way. Specially the progression of assignments, I think that's really important, to start the bouncing ball, and then okay, that's timing. Then you can add like a tail to the bouncing ball and be "Oh, I'm kind of getting overlapped here". That's how it works. I see a lot of people start with character and to do a character walk, [01:01:00] that's still for me one of the hardest things. I don't know, people start with walk cycle. Morgan Williams: I think that's crazy too. I 100% agree. I've always thought why start with something so subtle and so complex. It's also something that isn't really very much like a lot of other character animation, cause it's sort of all these just repeating cycles, whereas most of the time you're kind of doing more sequential, [01:01:30] more storytelling. I've always thought it's a weird place to start. Henrique Barone: I think it's super easy to get frustrated cause to get a personality in a walk cycle, is not that easy. You might your character walking, but then it looks robotic and like "Ah, animation's too hard. I don't really like it". Then you kind of give up, right? Morgan Williams: Yeah, exactly. Henrique Barone: Walk cycles are, yeah. Morgan Williams: They're tough. Henrique Barone: It's actually hard to get like a nice personality in walk cycle. Morgan Williams: [01:02:00] Absolutely. We're doing one in this class, but we're doing it a little later on after doing some more basic stuff. Joey also has this wonderful course called Animation Bootcamp, which is all the fundamentals that you're talking about, the bouncing balls and the basics of timing. It makes kind of a good 1/2 if you do those basics, and then you start looking at character and getting involved with doing character stuff. Maybe [01:02:30] a final question- Henrique Barone: The one thing that I remember learning that makes a lot of sense for me is I think it's a good way if you try to see everything in animation like being a bouncing ball. When you're doing a walk cycle, your hips is just like a bouncing ball going up and down. Morgan Williams: Right, right. Henrique Barone: And so is your hand, so is your head. And then if you have the bouncing ball principle, if you're understanding [01:03:00] it, you're just applying that to other stuff, right? Morgan Williams: Right, exactly. A jump is basically a bouncing ball with arms and legs. Henrique Barone: Yeah, exactly. Morgan Williams: Absolutely, that's great. Henrique Barone: It sounds easy that that's just is, but yeah, it comes down to that. Morgan Williams: It's true. What you said before is really true. The principles themselves are relatively simple. It gets complicated when you start to layer [01:03:30] them on top of one another and you got a figure with all these different moving parts. Those fundamental principles are not that complex. That's great. The very last question I had, and maybe we've kind of already touched on it, but if you could grab your young self when you were just starting out and whisper [01:04:00] something in your ear, what is it about character animation that you wish you had know, or you wished somebody had told you way back when you were starting out? Henrique Barone: That's hard ... I don't know ... I might sound a bit too depressing here, but I would say like to just have fun. Morgan Williams: Yeah, that's actually great advice. Henrique Barone: Yeah, I don't know, I was thinking about some techniques and stuff that I should [01:04:30] have learned before. I don't know, I think if you're having fun doing it, it will happen sooner or later. Morgan Williams: Right. If you love it and you enjoy it, you're gonna get good at it, right? Henrique Barone: Yeah, kind of, yeah. Morgan Williams: Yeah, absolutely. Great. Henrique Barone: We can end on a positive note. Morgan Williams: Yeah, that sounds great. Well, Henrique, thank you so much for talking to us. This has been fantastic. Good luck with all your work in the future. Really [01:05:00] fun to hear from an artist with such a unique perspective on both the worlds of character animation and motion design. Some of the terms that you heard that you may not have been familiar with, include antique. You may have heard Henrique talk about antic. Antic is simply the mispronounced abbreviation of anticipation. The classical character animators would [01:05:30] write on their exposure sheets where they would plot out the timing of their animation, they would write anticipation and the would abbreviate it by just writing A-N-T-I-C, antic. In the world of classical animation, that became the term. Is just to say antic. He starts here antic, and then moves forward. It was essentially just a [01:06:00] kind of a shorthand from that abbreviation, and nobody was saying antice, which I guess sounds kind of gross. So antic. That was that term. Then you may have also heard him say cush into a pose. That's again an old fashioned abbreviation. Cushing was many of the kind of traditional animators would call easing in, [01:06:30] instead of saying ease into a pose, or slow into a pose, they would say cushing, cushing into the pose or cushing out. And cush would be the abbreviation on the exposure sheet, C-U-S-H, cush. Some animators trained in the classical style, and Henrique went to the Vancouver Film School, which is a very traditionally based, very classical program, so he was learning all of those terms. So antic, [01:07:00] cush to pose, that's classic old fashioned animator shorthand for anticipation, ease into the next pose. Antic, cush to pose. Okay? Just some fun little terms there. One of the other ones he mentioned was breakdown. He talked about getting your poses and then doing your breakdowns. You might've wondered what he meant by that. In hand-drawn animation, there's [01:07:30] a subtle distinction made between the actual extreme key poses that the animator creates. The very critical first inbetweens, in between those key poses. Those inbetweens in-between the main key poses for an assistant animator or an inbetweener would often become key drawings because the animator would often do [01:08:00] those drawings. Those first inbetweens are critical for shaping how a movement is going to look and behave, and because that particular drawing was so important, it was called the breakdown. So you do your keys, and then many times, the actual lead animator would do the breakdown or would maybe [01:08:30] do a sketch of the breakdown. So the "breakdown", is really just the first inbetween. In the process that I'm teaching you, we're not using drawings. We're using key frames and After Effects, and we're letting After Effects do the inbetweening. But we can't let After Effects do the breakdown. Ir, if we let after effects do that breakdown, that inbetweening in between right in the middle [01:09:00] of the movement, we're gonna shape it. We're gonna finesse it. We're gonna tweak it. But it most cases, we're simply gonna turn it into a key pose. A perfect example of this would be the jump that we are creating with squash and stretch. The jumps include poses where he pushes off the ground and where he catches himself, that [01:09:30] technically are the breakdowns between the pose where he's floating up in the air, and where he squished back on the ground. Now again, in our process, since we can't rely on the intelligence of After Effects to give us the right pose, we usually have to make that breakdown pose and it allows us to give the movement the kind of flow and shape we want it to. There will be more on this as we continue through the course, but [01:10:00] just to make sure you guys understand, we won't be using the term "breakdown" because we're not using drawings but we will be paying very close attention to how we get from one extreme pose to another, and we will be finessing the movement in between, the same way a hand-drawn animator would finesse the breakdowns in between the key drawings.