Hi there,

Would “camera shake” help the interviewer to know better about the candidate's animation skill or not? I constantly see people put some camera shake on the showreel trying to add more weight on the character but adding camera shake also distract a bit the viewers eye. I would like to see how the character animation interviewer see this issue? because I am going to create a dinosaur walk and i am thinking of whether I should add some camera shaking for each of its step or not.

Please help! thanks!

Camera shake is like lens flares, it's being overused. Use it where it is appropriate and no more. I would put the “hand-held” camera action that we see so much of now in the same category, especially on things like music videos as hugely over done as well.
You aren't fooling anybody with a camera shake if your character hasn't got good weight. The person who does fall for it, you don't want to work for.

You should though have some ambient movement to the camera, to keep the scene alive, but this generally very subtle.
Keep in mind that everything in a scene is deliberately constructed, whether discussing live action or cg. This means everything has ( is supposed to) mean something. If you haven't consciously reasoned out why something is in a scene then it shouldn't be there. That includes movement.

I agree absolutely, and yet I would temper that with keeping your target in mind. We have a competitor in town that loves to do absolutely *meaningless* tests that have nothing whatsoever to do with the task at hand, and the clients fall all over themselves pointing at it when they end up coming here anyway ( ) saying ‘can you guys do *that*??’. Why? Because it's got a stupid overdone shakey cam in it. It's idiotic, and it sometimes sells. It's like back in the day when you could do the ugliest morph in the world and clients would start hopping up and down in ecstasy. They need to be educated, is all. That takes time, unfortunately. We sigh, roll our eyes, and try to talk them out of it.

But yes, to those in the biz, and directors, and cinematographers, it's overdone. Keep it smart, spare and minimal.

Cheers,

J.C.

dear character animation interviewers,
thanks for your comments and suggestions! They are very helpful! I have got one more question.
What thing (or maybe skill set) do you find a lot of animators are lacking when you are reviewing their showreels?
Please help!

Besides talent? :twisted:


Generally, confidence is what is missing. Those without confidence add all sorts of extraneous crap in an animation sequence to jazz it up.
A person confident in their ability will show animation and that's all.

I'm not a character animator but I definitely see a lack of, or lack of attention to good camera angles. Just because it's easier to set up a CG camera than a real camera doesn't mean less attention should be paid to it. It's amazing how much the camera can effect the intent of the work (both good and bad), even if the focus is on the character animation.