Saturday, July 7, 2012

Arthurnal - Cockroach - Critique



Alrighty!

So first off (again), the shot looks great, a lot of fun to watch!

Here my impressions:

- watch out on x6, the eye line suggests that he's already looking at the cockroach



Make it clear that he's looking at the phone; you can bring his head up for that:



That way you can have a clear head move, where he looks down, to show the audience that he's looking down and noticing the cockroach.

The stretch on the head is massive:








I would reduce those by 70%. With squash and stretch you want to feel it, but not see it. Right now, during all those moments, I can clearly see the head being stretched.

The only time it worked better, was around x165:



I would reduce the head by 30% and then it will work.

There's a moment that acting wise doesn't work for me that well. When he's on the chair, you have him almost look at the cockroach around x46, but then he slowly rotates around:



until he quickly snaps his head back SL (screen left) to look at the cockroach. What's confusing about this is that you're establishing how afraid of the cockroach he is, yet during that time he is turning his back towards his feared enemy and doesn't look at him for a long time. With that move and the quick head turn, which looks like "HA! I see you!", he come across as more confident and less scared. Yet once he gets up, he's still hesitant and scared. So you're breaking character here and it feels more like an animation moment that you had fun with, but didn't stay within character.

Another moment in that vein is around x185:



After he fumbles for the phone he lands has the cockroach right in front of him, and then doesn't move. If he's so afraid, I would have him take a quick step SL right after the landing. Or lift his left foot away from the cockroach. Anything that shows that he doesn't want to be near it.

Hope this makes sense!
JD

2 comments: