Baskin Robbins "Sheep" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.
Baskin Robbins "Ostrich" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.
Baskin Robbins "Porcupine" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.
Baskin Robbins "Turtle" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.
Baskin Robbins "Dog" from Nathan Love on Vimeo.
I agree with the notes from the Lead animator - Ryan Moran below, on how important previz is to a commercial's success. Especially a "15 spot. It also sounds like Nathan Love has created a bit of a "think tank" for animation - a safe environment where everyone shares ideas and there is a trust between artists. We had that for a few years at DD commercials when I was there, but all of those people have flown the coup now. It is sad, but we all tend to do that freelance dance around one another. I miss having a rigger who gets what an animator needs and why and wants to make something even better than what the animator had imagined. John Riggs (yes, that is really his name) was that rigger, for me. Anyways, from one animator to another, read on... and hear what the artists at Nathan Love have to say!
Ryan Moran – Lead Animator at Nathan Love:
I’ve been very fortunate to work at a place like Nathan Love. Majority of the work I've done here has been character animation. When we were awarded Baskin Robbins there was a buzz throughout the office. Everybody was really excited to work on this campaign. Baskin Robbins is a dream job for a character animator. Single character, telling a story through his or her acting and actions. It may sound simple on the surface but like any job, going from script to final picture is always very challenging. Each spot is only 15 seconds long. Take away 4 seconds for the end tag and were left with 11 seconds to tell the story. 11 seconds goes by in the blink of an eye. The animation had to be strong, to the point and entertaining to make a convincing and enjoyable experience for the viewer.
First we needed to lock down an edit so we had a clear blue print going into animation. I have to admit this is the part I usually am not most excited about. As an animator you want to jump right in and start animating. But you cant do that. You MUST have a clear plan. There is very little time during production to make any large changes or completely redo an idea. The previz stage is where you experiment, try out all your ideas, find out what works and what doesn't so its a smooth journey to the end. This was the part I ended up enjoying the most and learned the most from. It was really awesome to see script come to life. I learned a lot about camera and editing. I was constantly learning and all the new knowledge I picked up I'll be able to incorporate it into future projects.
I love that everyone here has a chance to share their ideas and thoughts. Because we have a relatively small group here at Nathan, everyone can get involved in the edit making process, not just the directors and animators. Its a super friendly environment so its never a surprise to see an animator getting feedback from a rigger or a modeler getting feedback from a lighter. Its awesome to see a spot evolve based off everyone’s creative input. Even if you didn't work directly on one spot you may have had some input or idea that made it in the cut. It really makes everyone feel apart the process.
Once we had the final previz edit I was psyched to start on animation. You can see how the story is going to play out. I had nothing left to worry about and I could focus all my attention on my animation.
I think staying inspired is really important for any artist. A lot of mine comes from the artists I work with. Seeing all the animation come together really keeps me inspired. I'd come in in the morning check out the latest cut and get excited about something someone else did. Id be like, "man i have to do more stuff like that, how can I incorporate that into my work?" And i feel like that's when you start to see the level of work really take off. Everyone pushes themselves to do better work. Nobody wants to let anyone down and we fight to the finish as a team and end up with a piece were all really proud about.
Kyle Mohr - Freelance Animator:
Baskin Robbins will be one of those projects that I won't forget, and that has truly contributed to my professional growth as an artist, and my life experiences. Our team had been working together on other projects for a few months prior, so by the time we got to Baskin Robbins I really felt that we trusted each other's skills and opinions. This was essential to the quality that was attained on these spots. As was the drive to create something that we all were proud of. The other animators, Joe, and I were able to previz these spots out as a group, openly and freely, without fear of voicing our own opinions or instincts, and without the fear to admit when we're wrong. It's not really a secret, you hear of these things happening, but you can't artificially create a group like that. It happens naturally, and through trust. When we'd get feedback from the agency or client, we'd group together again and figure out what changes we needed to make. This open participation really helped us feel ownership over the project, and in the end helped us create something everyone from client to artist was happy with.
The great thing about working with a small team is that everyone, modeling, rigging, animating, lighting, compositing, knew each other, and worked together to create the end product. Character rigging is a part of production that is too often overlooked in animation for commercials, but Frank Naranjo's rigs gave the animators so much control that we would not have achieved the level of sophistication that was accomplished without it. Of course all of this depended on the great character designs and models that allowed for expressive animation in the first place. The communication between all disciplines was so easy, people's attitudes were in the right place, and the production benefited from it.
Concerning the animation itself, we had many different inspirations for the direction we took each spot. For "Baseball Nut", the first spot, we really just wanted to make sure we pushed the animation to be of polished quality, with natural dog movement and dog character, and some squash and stretch. Once we accomplished that and moved onto Polly Porcupine, we had recently seen the trailer for Disney's "Tangled", frame by framed it to death, which really opened our eyes to the clarity of pose-to-pose traditional Disney animation, in the 2D sense but represented in 3D. On "Sheep", [animator] Tony Travieso and I were inspired by the simple shape and design of the character to push the animation more towards the Warner Brothers sensibility of staged presentation and timing. We watched a lot of Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf cartoons, as well as others, which opened our eyes to the clarity of communicating only one piece of information at a time. (For example, Sam catches Ralph in the act of stealing a sheep: Ralph sees him...Ralph's ear drops, then he smiles, then he presents the rope he's holding in his hand that's tied to the sheep he's stealing, then he drops that rope.) The limited time of the spot made it difficult to create that slow, clear, one-thing-at-a-time presentation like Chuck Jones liked to do, but in spite of that I think the attempt to do so allowed us to communicate the information of the spot more clearly. In the end, I'm proud that each spot has it's own style of animation, which naturally came from just wanting to learn more and push ourselves in different directions.
First we needed to lock down an edit so we had a clear blue print going into animation. I have to admit this is the part I usually am not most excited about. As an animator you want to jump right in and start animating. But you cant do that. You MUST have a clear plan. There is very little time during production to make any large changes or completely redo an idea. The previz stage is where you experiment, try out all your ideas, find out what works and what doesn't so its a smooth journey to the end. This was the part I ended up enjoying the most and learned the most from. It was really awesome to see script come to life. I learned a lot about camera and editing. I was constantly learning and all the new knowledge I picked up I'll be able to incorporate it into future projects.
I love that everyone here has a chance to share their ideas and thoughts. Because we have a relatively small group here at Nathan, everyone can get involved in the edit making process, not just the directors and animators. Its a super friendly environment so its never a surprise to see an animator getting feedback from a rigger or a modeler getting feedback from a lighter. Its awesome to see a spot evolve based off everyone’s creative input. Even if you didn't work directly on one spot you may have had some input or idea that made it in the cut. It really makes everyone feel apart the process.
Once we had the final previz edit I was psyched to start on animation. You can see how the story is going to play out. I had nothing left to worry about and I could focus all my attention on my animation.
I think staying inspired is really important for any artist. A lot of mine comes from the artists I work with. Seeing all the animation come together really keeps me inspired. I'd come in in the morning check out the latest cut and get excited about something someone else did. Id be like, "man i have to do more stuff like that, how can I incorporate that into my work?" And i feel like that's when you start to see the level of work really take off. Everyone pushes themselves to do better work. Nobody wants to let anyone down and we fight to the finish as a team and end up with a piece were all really proud about.
Kyle Mohr - Freelance Animator:
Baskin Robbins will be one of those projects that I won't forget, and that has truly contributed to my professional growth as an artist, and my life experiences. Our team had been working together on other projects for a few months prior, so by the time we got to Baskin Robbins I really felt that we trusted each other's skills and opinions. This was essential to the quality that was attained on these spots. As was the drive to create something that we all were proud of. The other animators, Joe, and I were able to previz these spots out as a group, openly and freely, without fear of voicing our own opinions or instincts, and without the fear to admit when we're wrong. It's not really a secret, you hear of these things happening, but you can't artificially create a group like that. It happens naturally, and through trust. When we'd get feedback from the agency or client, we'd group together again and figure out what changes we needed to make. This open participation really helped us feel ownership over the project, and in the end helped us create something everyone from client to artist was happy with.
The great thing about working with a small team is that everyone, modeling, rigging, animating, lighting, compositing, knew each other, and worked together to create the end product. Character rigging is a part of production that is too often overlooked in animation for commercials, but Frank Naranjo's rigs gave the animators so much control that we would not have achieved the level of sophistication that was accomplished without it. Of course all of this depended on the great character designs and models that allowed for expressive animation in the first place. The communication between all disciplines was so easy, people's attitudes were in the right place, and the production benefited from it.
Concerning the animation itself, we had many different inspirations for the direction we took each spot. For "Baseball Nut", the first spot, we really just wanted to make sure we pushed the animation to be of polished quality, with natural dog movement and dog character, and some squash and stretch. Once we accomplished that and moved onto Polly Porcupine, we had recently seen the trailer for Disney's "Tangled", frame by framed it to death, which really opened our eyes to the clarity of pose-to-pose traditional Disney animation, in the 2D sense but represented in 3D. On "Sheep", [animator] Tony Travieso and I were inspired by the simple shape and design of the character to push the animation more towards the Warner Brothers sensibility of staged presentation and timing. We watched a lot of Sam Sheepdog and Ralph Wolf cartoons, as well as others, which opened our eyes to the clarity of communicating only one piece of information at a time. (For example, Sam catches Ralph in the act of stealing a sheep: Ralph sees him...Ralph's ear drops, then he smiles, then he presents the rope he's holding in his hand that's tied to the sheep he's stealing, then he drops that rope.) The limited time of the spot made it difficult to create that slow, clear, one-thing-at-a-time presentation like Chuck Jones liked to do, but in spite of that I think the attempt to do so allowed us to communicate the information of the spot more clearly. In the end, I'm proud that each spot has it's own style of animation, which naturally came from just wanting to learn more and push ourselves in different directions.