Arthurnal interview - June 2011

Hello there,

One of my earliest interviews, showcases a beautiful workflow. Animator Arthurnal, won with his animation ''Toilet please'', exploring a beautiul Looney Toons style of animation.

 

Hope you all enjoy!

Arthurnal portfolio

Tell us about some of your hobbies in your free time. I understand you are a musician?
I always watch animation movies or clips from many different websites such as 11 secondclub and spungella.com. I prefer to watch comedy clips because I'm funny guy. Believe it or not I can laugh all day! If I have a free time I love to play both the piano and guitar. I also play the mouth organ. The piano I started playing about a year ago and I have played the the guitar for about 10 years. Those are my two favourite music instruments. 

When did you first realise you wanted to become an animator? 

Actually I graduated in Physics but I love animation so much. During my free time, I take every opportunity to practice animation further. I realised I wanted to become an animator when I saw Veerapatra Jinanavin's work. It inspired me to become an animator also. To view the first link I saw of his work, please click here 

You work at The Monk Studios in Thailand, what is your country's animation community like there? 

It's a growing community, with many young people wanting to become animators. Many are studying animation classes in university.

What is your typical day at the studio? 

I prefer to animate action or comedy shots rather than acting shots. My supervisor likes to assign the action shots to me. I always learn from my work and co-workers. If I have free time I like to walk around the studios to relax and take a look at another person's work. Its give me many good perspectives because we can share ideas all the time. 

What were your first thought's upon hearing Emmanuel's audio clip? 

At first I fell in love with his sound, it's a good and beautiful melody. When I first heard his music I pictured someone running around to find something in the funny way. A toilet idea come from my real life, I've experienced something like this. I believe the toilet story can make the people laugh easier because when you want to use a toilet everything in your life is a rush. 

Tell us about your animation process. 

At first I want to put a rough outline of the idea. I do it to find timing and ensuring that the story is what I want to do and that it flows with the music. When I have a simple polygon to animate, it's easy to fix and change everything. 

These are the other stages my animation went through. Between the third Blocking and the Blocking Plus movie clips, a little of the stage is changed and Joe goes from just knocking on doors to also pulling the door, which I found helped to add more force. This is a change recommended by my mentor. 

The style of the environment really adds to the story, creating a world the audience can believe in. It really is a beautiful render.What influenced the staging of Joe's story? 

I would like to show something simple in this movie because it's an easy way to understand what action is happening. Also the simple scene really pushes Joe's appeal. 8.Your animation has lots of really beautiful animation tricks. For instance on frame 52 the head pops off and on frame 367, Joe spouts a second pair of legs. When initially creating your story idea, was this something you wanted to include from an early stage? Yes, it was. However, I think that this is my first time to do animation in this style. When I started working on the piece, I didn't feel like the actions were really happening yet, so I found new inspiration by watching Tom and Jerry and Looney Tune movies. This really helped get that 2D cartoony classic style into my work. 

Would you like to talk a little bit about some of those tricks? 

On frame 52 the head pops off because Joe's head look like a ping-pong ball. When I finished animating that. I felt that it looked quite funny, so I added Joe's full body stretch. On frame 367 or some frame similar you can see Joe has 4 legs. I imported a second version of the rig to my scene and then I offset the keys, hiding the whole body except the legs. 

As Joe steps around the screen, he squashes and stretches through some beautifully-appealing arcs. Talk a bit about how you think about arcs in your animation. 

I like to play with clear and beautiful arcs as a means to entertain the audience. Inbetween frame 160-170 Joe steps with a big arc because I have so few frames to move Joe from the first door to the third door to fit the music. If I do not do it I would not have enough time make that action happen. 11.What are you most proud of in this shot? I think I'm proud most of the first shot where Joe runs into the scene. Its cartoony style really stands out and sets the scene. 

Talk about one or two parts of the e-Critique that enhanced/expanded on the ideas you had originally set out to animate.

Big thanks to Wayne Gilbert, I found his Critique really useful to me to improve my work. In particular, I found enjoyed his notes on storytelling 

On the 11 second club forum, you note Veerapatra Jinanavin as your mentor. Please share with the community two pieces of advice he gave to you. 

Veerapatra Jinanavin (or KEKO as everyone in Thailand knows him) He is my inspiration. Currently, Veerapatra is one the best animator in Thailand. He has a good attitude and very friendly. He hopes to drive the animation industry of Thailand to step up to international level, so he shares everything he knows with people who are interested. He taught me everything about animation and showed me how to become a good animator. 

The three big influences he had on this clip were 

1. He helped me with the staging, 

2. Including the camera movement to add make the shot look more dynamic 

3. Helped me to make a bigger action on Joe in certain parts. 

Do you have any advice of your own you would like to share with the community? 

Animation is something we need to learn all the time. Try to do the best as you can. Practice and learn from professional or from your own inspiration. The main thing you have is to remain optimistic and should have a positive attitude and then accept the opinions of others. It is an easy way to help you become a good animator.