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00:10The challenge every animator faces when we work on a feature film is just how to bring that clay-like
00:16model and make that come to life.
00:18You have to breathe life into the character and it's the posture. It's how the eyes have subtle little shifts.
00:23Whenever you don't really hit the look, it just ends up to where you're not really enhancing the experience for
00:29the viewer.
00:30The consequence of that is I think people don't feel it as being emotionally true.
00:53The thing I'm most proud about Ice Age 2 is that it gives you that good sequel feeling.
00:59For me, going back into a theater with an audience and watching them re-engage with these characters, it's like,
01:06wow, those guys are still out there doing it.
01:12In this scene, Scrat is obviously trying to get an acorn and he sees that it's up on this hill
01:19and he comes up with this idea to slide down, fly through the air and grab it.
01:23But then as he comes off to the other side, he ends up in the water and is attacked by
01:27these piranha and he gets to land and, you know, they're attacking him and he fights them all off.
01:32And then a bird comes in and takes the acorn away.
01:36We always thought that this sequence as being concept-wise one of the fun, new, fresh ideas for the Scrat,
01:41him interacting with another character.
01:43Because usually we always had the Scrat by himself with the nut and all.
01:46And this time around, we added like an external peril to him, which was the fish.
01:52The Scrat is a little bit of an everyman.
01:54And the whole concept in my head is that he's just a poor little guy that's just constantly dealing with
02:01impossible odds and the pressures of life that keep him from the things he really wants.
02:06I think people like the Scrat because, well, for one thing, he never speaks.
02:09So everything he does is physical and I think a lot of people can just relate to the humor.
02:14He moves incredibly quickly.
02:17You have to make sure to just...
02:19Just really pop him and stop him.
02:21He always has these little, like, confused looks like...
02:25It's just a bunch of little twitches.
02:28That quick little ultra alert guy that's constantly trying to come up with a way to win the day never
02:35does.
02:35We always do temp voices. We always try to put, like, scratch voice for each actor until we get the
02:41real voice.
02:42And when it came time to make some noise for it, I was just in the editing studio with our
02:47editor, John Carnahan, one afternoon.
02:50I made those squeaks and those desperate sounds and cries. And that's what we ended up using in the movie.
02:57The biggest challenge in animation is, like, what I call a good animation.
03:00It's the animation that, like, emotes some sort of emotion.
03:03Like, conveys some sort of feeling to the audience.
03:05Makes you connect with the character.
03:07And that's the challenge every animator faces when we work on a feature film.
03:11Which is how to bring that clay-like model to the computer and make that come to life.
03:15You have to breathe life into the character and it's sort of an intangible type of thing.
03:20If you don't get that, you might have a scene that works okay, but I don't think it'll be one
03:24that people walk out of the theater and think about later.
03:27It just ends up to where you're not really enhancing the experience for the viewer.
03:31Anybody, like, even little kids, can really pick up on differences in quality.
03:35So the goal for every sequence is to A, just make sure it works, and then B, make sure it
03:39works better than it did before.
03:41The process of creating a sequence in an animated feature starts with an idea.
03:46And from that idea, we start to work with the artists to come up with the drawings and the sketches
03:51that will represent visually what the idea is all about.
03:54We edit the drawings together, giving you the idea of the sequence, how we would play.
03:59You know, we have our ideas about what he's supposed to do.
04:02We have our ideas about some timing for the sequence and where the camera's gonna be.
04:06But then you hand it to the animators, and the animators just really bring it to life.
04:11When a sequence works really well, or when the animation department is at its best,
04:15is when they take a sequence and plus it.
04:18They tell the story for the director that needs to be told, but they go over and above and add
04:21the little things that people remember.
04:23It's the posture, it's how the eyes have subtle little shifts.
04:26The pose, the animators, their whole job is breathing light into a character.
04:30We had a lot of new technology that all had to come together.
04:35And this was one of the first sequences we animated, so we didn't have the technology fully there, and we
04:41were really testing it on the shot.
04:43We work in Maya, it's a 3D animation and modeling package.
04:47It's a wireframe model that we can rotate around, look at it from various angles.
04:52Then from there, it's then going to get texture mapped, and then animated.
04:56And it's sort of just like working with a three-dimensional puppet.
04:59Once you have that character in the computer, the next step is to prepare the character to be animated.
05:03We put little bones inside the character, like a skeleton structure that we call the rigs.
05:08So the animator can move it around and start to do the animation.
05:11And it comes with a lot of details, like you have like every finger has a little skeleton there.
05:16The eyes can blink, and the eyes can move around, the pupil can change.
05:20So we have every bit of control of the character to bring up the best emotion and character out of
05:25it.
05:27From Ice Age 1 to Ice Age 2, we rebuilt the characters completely in the computer.
05:31So we had to take the original and convert it, and then rebuild him.
05:36We used a brand new fur technology on this movie.
05:38On this film, we draw every single hair in 3D space.
05:42We can animate all the hairs independently, so they have a follow-through.
05:45We want the fur to be a character on itself, which would react depending on the situation.
05:50For example, we can have the wind blowing, and you can see the fur being reacted to the wind,
05:54and that's really cool.
05:56And also, in the sequence of the piranhas, this guy goes on the water.
05:59So when he's on the water, you can see the fur moving with the water as if he was feeling
06:03it.
06:03So it helps the animator selling the feel of the character depending on the environment that he's put in.
06:10One actually really large challenge we had was the water.
06:14Because now the water has to not only behave as water, but it has to interact with the character.
06:19So the character creates splashes and ripples and things of that nature.
06:23Plus, there's the wet fur.
06:24In this sequence, especially, the scrat is dry at the beginning and wet at the end.
06:30So it's not as easy as, in real life, taking something, dipping it in water and taking it out and,
06:36oh, it's wet.
06:36We actually have to design two different versions of the material.
06:40As the scrat realized that he's surrounded by the piranhas and he freaks out,
06:45even the bubbles that come out of his mouth, it's an effect that was created.
06:49And that took a little bit of a while just to get the perfect timing, you know,
06:51because we wanted the bubbles to be like the little, like, when he reacts to the fish.
06:56We just wanted the tiny little bubbles just to come up.
07:00With the piranha as a character, I always loved the character.
07:02As soon as I saw the drawing of it, I said, this is it. This is a great character.
07:05We have to come up with a sequence, have to work, you know.
07:07So the sequence came out of that idea of getting that fish against the scrat would be funny.
07:12All the elements are difficult, like the camera, timing, for the pullback to reveal the fish.
07:17The fish opened its mouth, like the amount of fish that we put there so it doesn't, that feels right.
07:22Everything presents, as we go through the process, little challenges here and there.
07:25And I think it was like a continual tightening of stuff.
07:28It's like, okay, they're not fast enough, they're not scary enough.
07:31Because at first I think they kind of came out slow, there wasn't enough of them, and it didn't feel
07:35dangerous.
07:35And so it was continually testing, like, how fast could we make those piranhas?
07:40How many do we need to see on screen?
07:41How many moves can the scrat make to dodge the piranhas and still read?
07:45And so it was more or less, you know, trial and error every day.
07:48I'll try!
07:52I'm not sure you'll get in here!
07:52Let's wait!
07:53Uh-oh-oh!
07:53If we were to do everything, we can do everything.
08:01Let's wait!
08:02Oh, baby!
08:03Oh, baby!
08:05Oh, baby!
08:06Oh, baby!
08:07Look, oh, baby!
08:07Oh, baby!
08:10Oh, baby!
08:11Oh!
08:11Oh, baby!
08:12Watch the pineapple!
08:12Oh, baby!
08:14Oh, baby!
08:18Take it!
08:21Aah!
08:26Aah!
08:28Aah!
08:31From the beginning to end, we always loved the sequence,
08:33and we wanted it to be one of the best sequences in the movie.
08:36And I can see in every step of the way, every shot that we have there,
08:39I could see a magic touch from one of our artists making it the best it could be.
08:43And that's the essence of our movie, you know?
08:46It's work from the heart, you know?
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