Acting Out Poses (Video Reference)

Posing Assignment: Video Reference from randolfd on Vimeo.

This exercise is one of the first pieces of footage recorded by the student to be used for their animation. I begin by writing simple emotions on the board such as happy, sad, surprised, worried, thinking and flirty. I then have each student come to the front of the class, after which they are fed the emotions mentioned above one by one. The student responds to each word, by getting in a pose that expresses that emotion. This exercise focuses on body language, exaggeration, reverse curves, and with a simple digital camera that can record movies, discuss proper framing of the subject in the camera as well. After the footage is recorded, the student then uses it as reference and creates the poses in a CG model. This is an important key assignment that introduces students to the concept of animating emotion through the proper use of posing.

Below is an example of the moving holds assignment. As you can see here, the student used the above video as reference so that she is able to animate not only the pose correctly, but the accompanying moving holds as well.


Posing Assignment II: Moving Holds from randolfd on Vimeo.