Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1120864
n o t i n t i m i d a t i n g e n o u g h Invariably, a person will receive a note or a set of notes they disagree with. Depending on one's place in the production pecking order, a person can challenge a note, ignore it or— braver still—refuse to address it. The diplomatic artist chooses their battles, and rather than digging in one's heels and getting defiant, a couple of supervisors recommend using the "Yes, and" tactic—agreeing to the unwanted change and adding an element to the artist's preference or using the "and" to show an alternative (and perhaps better) solution. "Saying no could be interpreted as I am not skilled enough to accomplish that task, and I am!" says Michael Losure, a lead effects artist whose credits include Kung Fu Panda 2. "I'll chew on the requested change and say, 'Yes, I can do that, and it will take this long.' This [strategy] shows compliance without hiding the cost and lets them decide how badly they want/need the change." Not all notes take the form of calls for change. Early in his tenure with Big City Greens, storyboard artist Raj Brueggemann was told to make the staging of jokes as flat as possible. Simple backgrounds and nothing super- cinematic made for the best backdrop for comedy. "That was a great sort of universal note I could then apply to all of my jokes, all of my shots and all of my staging techniques for the rest of every episode," says Brueggemann. However, on a different show, Brueggemann was once told to redo an entire character design. A character who was the show's primary villain didn't look intimidating enough, but the note was given late rather than being addressed in the story outline. "I had to redo every scene to make that villain look more insect-like and creepier," says Brueggemann. "Just a single line in the outline stating what the design should look like could have saved maybe 200 drawings and a day of work. The better notes you give at the outline stage, the easier storyboarding, designing and editing will get." And, every now and then, you'll get an unforgettable note. In a fantasy sequence for the series All Hail King Julien, the titular lemur king needed to fire a laser out of his backside. "essentially a butt laser," recalls Mortensen. " When I originally drew it, I had the laser coming from between the butt cheeks," Mortensen said, "and the note was, 'The laser cannot come from between the butt cheeks because that implies that King Julien has an anus,' which made me very happy that an executive had to sit there and type that out in an email." Lemur kings are anus-free. Duly noted. F E AT U R E "The better notes you give at the outline stage, the easier storyboarding, designing and editing will get." n o t i n t i m i d a t i n g e n o u g h i n t i m i d a t i n g e n o u g h The laser can not come from between the butt cheeks... i n t i m i d a t i n g e n o u g h to make insect-like and out in an email." Lemur kings are anus-free. Duly noted. i n t i m i d a t i n g We We We nd We nd We a nd a nd difft difft difft be difft be difft 30 KEYFRAME