flux

A: Very carefully.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts after watching Wall-E yesterday. While it didn’t take my gut on as big a thrill ride as most Pixar movies do, it tickled my brain more than any of their movies to date. That’s because it has quite a few “firsts” for a Pixar movie. I won’t get into the details here, as enough has been written about Wall-E on the net already, and also because it’s too big for my little brain to dissect after one viewing (I’ll wait for the DVD).

What I do want to talk about here is Presto, the short that played before it. It has the same bold rule-breaking spirit that Wall-E does, and it’s short enough for a breakdown.

In short, Presto is Pixar doing a Looney Tunes/Tom & Jerry style cartoon. But with a Pixar touch. Which means there’s this strong story arc told through zany gags, wild exaggeration, and snappy timing punctuated by static holds (gasp!). Yes, static holds in CG. That’s the rule-breaking part.

I highly recommend buying it off iTunes (here’s the link, courtesy Cartoon Brew). It’s just $1.99, the quality’s great, and you can pause and step through frame by frame for a really good look. Which is exactly what I did last evening.

So, what did I find? How did they do it?
To answer that, here’s the 30-second sneak preview on Youtube:

Though this clip doesn’t exactly do justice to the short, there are two great examples of a static hold and how they made it work.

When Presto (the magician) puts his hand in front of Alec (the bunny) to make him stop, the latter does. After he looks up at Presto and settles into his hold, i.e. once the follow-through in his foot and hat ends, Alec freezes for 6 frames. A 6-frame static hold. It works because (and here’s the trick): As soon as Alec’s hat stops moving, Presto’s eyes start moving. By this time, we’re already kinda looking at his eyes, because Alec’s last action was to look up at Presto. Eyelines are a very powerful tool in animation. By leading our eye up to Presto, the animators can freeze Alec completely and get away with it, by carefully timing the actions of the two characters.

Then, when Presto lets go of Alec’s tail, the tail springs back and settles down after a few frames. This is where we begin an even longer static hold for Alec. This one’s a full 22 frames after his tail stops, and before his hat starts to move! But during this time, Presto is keeping our eyes busy with a superbly animated flourish of moves.

Keep in mind that during this entire set of actions, Alec’s body is mostly frozen. There’s no breathing, no weight shifts, none of that “moving hold” cra– er, wisdom that we keep hearing about CG. And this is just one shot. The entire 5-minute short is filled with such cheeky but carefully orchestrated tricks. It’s befitting that the subject here is a magic show; as they’re using the same techniques magicians use in their acts:

Cleverly leading our eyes to pull off the unbelievable.

This entry was posted Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 12:26 pm and is filed under CG, animation. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.