Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/612975
n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 5 c g w 1 3 filmed in a zoo, to understand how those heavy animals trans- ferred weight as they moved. Once the rules for transfer- ring weight were set, animators could adjust the gait for age and species. Arlo moved more quickly than his parents; the carnivores had a more aggres- sive gait. Special rigs gave animators controls for Arlo's long neck and his tail. And, a new ability in Presto to see textures helped them place Spot's hand when the "dog" touched the "boy." Aer the animators completed a performance, the simulation team dialed in a volume simu- lation to move Arlo's skin and muscles. As for Spot, quadrupeds always provide animators with complex problems, but turning a biped into a quadruped raised the difficulty a notch. "When we first built Spot, he was standing upright like a boy," says Animator Mark Harris. "We have a particular setup for rig- ging humans. But when he was bipedal, he felt human. So, most of the time he is on all fours. We tried to not make him look like a little caveman boy." Slightly changing the orientation of Spot's legs helped the animators, but they accomplished most of the transition from human boy to dog through acting. Because Spot doesn't talk – he hasn't seen another animal that talks – the animators relied on facial expressions and body move- ment to perform the character. The imaginative idea in the film is that the child had learned to survive without human parents; he had learned from other ani- mals – dogs, wolves, raccoons, squirrels, even frogs. "As the animation came together, Pete landed on dogs because they express compan- ionship and emotion while still being animalistic," Harris says. Even though Spot doesn't speak words, the animators sometimes had to work with a dialog track. In one pivotal scene, for example, Spot's "di- alog" is a sniff. The scene takes place on a sandy beach near the river. Arlo has drawn in the sand and created figures with sticks to represent his family. Spot does the same. "He pushes some sand, looks at his [stick figures], and buries the effigies," Harris says. "Right aer that he does this little sniff. That sniff was a half-animal, half-human, self-conscious, sad sniff. It was a tricky balance between having him being too much a boy or too animalistic." At first, Harris tried to play the scene with Spot sniffing only with his face. Then Sohn suggest using a hand. "I tried using his fingers, and then settled on a mix of his fingers and the back of his hand," Harris explains. "We had a lot of reference from different animals, and the raccoon fit well in the way they use their hands." Oen, animators want to cre- ate the feeling that a character is thinking. The Spot animators tried to do the opposite. "We simplified emotions, especially in his face, to stay away from expressions that made him look like he was thinking internally," Harris says. "There are no complex brow shapes. We kept his pupils in the center of his eyes and let his head direct his attention. He's the kind of character who doesn't think about himself. All his attention is on the outside. If something grabs his eye, his whole attention goes to it. We took things people understand from dogs. A little tilt of the head. Open mouth with tongue hanging down." To contrast Arlo and Spot, the team diagrammed the differences between the two. (TOP TO BOTTOM) THE STORYBOARD, A PAINTING BY DP SHARON CALAHAN, THE PAINTERLY FINAL CG IMAGE. ANIMATORS REFERENCED DOGS AND WILD ANIMALS FOR SPOT'S PERFORMANCE.