The Switch

At Southbank we invented these things called EAPs this year. An EAP is a scene containing an Essential Animation Principle, or at least the main principles that a potential employer is likely to want to see in a reel. We divided these up into three main categories, physical actions (body mechanics stuff), walks and runs, and scenes that use sound (dialogue, moving to music, reacting to sound fx). Every students major project must contain at least 5 EAPS with at least one from each of the three categories.

This film is a testament to how well a narrative can be tailored to demonstrate these kinds of things. The Switch is one of the best animated films I've seen from the Vancouver Film School, if you cut the credits off its about 1 minute and 45 seconds long and it is absolutely overflowing with EAPs.

3 comments:

Mr. Saeton said...

Wow. abasic storyline with an amusing twist and so many EAPS. i was impressed with the first part where the dude was eating something, but we never saw it. The allusion was incredible and all the aniamtor did was use the right psychological gestures and sound effects, coupled with some decent placement.

On the whole, very nicely done. a good example of what we students should be able to do.

frank said...

I liked it. Nice work.

The music loop didn't get monotonous until I went back to look at a few things.

Great narrative. I like a "curiosity licked the cat" story.

I think the build up (drawing the kicking leg back and twisting the body) before he kicks the box (@ 35s) could have been bigger to balance the kick follow through and landing.

I don't think that the character needed the loud "Hmmm" when he was thinking (@49s) as the acting was enough, for me.

Nice pushing against an non moving object with the cartoony foot slides. i like that it is so hard to move but at the same time the box object is levitating.

I really like the timing hold in the air at the top of his jump of the boxes and then the fast bounce and overlap when he lands.

For once the heavy object didn't fall on the character (I wonder if Matt is reading this?).

It was a quirky ending.

Lots to study and think about.

Is there a storyboard or other rough planning work anywhere on the wobbly?

VFS looks like it provides an interesting and effective animation course.

Ian said...

Not all the body mechanics id perfect so be carefull what you study. I was mostly impressed by the simple well staged story that covered so many principles in such a short time.

I think the kick was a bit rushed, seemed out of step with the characters state of mind at that time. Also I thought the bounce when he landed on his back after jumping on the box was a bit floaty, or maybe the timeing was too evenly spaced out.

On the whole though there is a lot more to like than dislike. A cracker of a student film.