THE SIMPSONS NEWS – 3 Lessons Learned From my First Simpsons Director

Simpsons quote:

“Oh, everything looks bad if you remember it.” – Homer

Last week I wrote about learning a lot from my first Simpsons Director, Jeff Lynch.

I’m gonna quickly sum up three other lessons I learned working on my first official Simpsons show with him.

Lesson The First – Effects

Remember that little dark room I wrote about in the last post?

One of the many times I was sent there was to shoot an effect that was going to play during the Buzz Cola commercial that played on the television, during the episode.

I had no idea what I was doing but I gave it my best shot.

In order to give Jeff the best impression of the shot possible for the animatic, he had asked me to not only shoot the scene, but to actually cut out the shape of the explosion on each sheet of paper.

The reason for this? We shot animation over a lightbox. That way we could see through the paper and see multiple levels of artwork, like the background and other characters…stuff like that.

Well, if you cut our a shape into a piece of paper and put it on the lightbox, it gives a “glow” effect to the empty space.

I cut out, about, six or seven, jagged explosion shapes and shot them.

Jeff looked at the scene, adjusted the timing, told me to add more cut outs or take some out. BUT the most interesting thing he had me do, was to cover up the camera lens for a frame and  then, shoot the bright lightbox without a drawing, for a frame.

This gave a quick strobing black to white pop before the Buzz cola appeared.

Because I did this, it made the effect during the animatic really impactful and it sold the scene.

Lesson? I learned to do a cool explosion effect.

Lesson The Second – Antics and Overshoot

Anticipation drawings (Antics) and Overshoot drawings  are some of the first things you learn when y0u’re taught to animate.

Antics are drawing animators put in to help the watcher see the action that is going to happen. It’s basically there to telegraph the action, and by doing so, it makes the action look natural.  For example, if a character is going to reach for something, they would lift their hand up a little bit away, from the object before actually reaching for it.

Overshoots are drawings that are almost the opposite of Antics. An overshoot is used when a quick action come to a fast halt.  It’s a drawing that “overshoots” were the action ought to have stopped, before it settles into place. The effect in the final product makes the action feel natural.

Neither the Antics nor the Overshoots are really noticeable. They are FELT by the watcher, more than anything else.

When I did the scene were Lisa is yelling with the Malibu Stacy doll and shaking her at Bart’s face, I had Lisa Antic and Overshoot as she came closer to the camera. But I over did it.

What I learned from Jeff was how NOT to over do it. He gave me a quick rule of thumb: “Don’t antic, further than the final movement will be, don’t overshoot further than the movement was.

You’d think it would have been obvious to me, but I guess I got a bit too excited with the mechanics.

When I then did the scene where she almost hits Bart with the doll, I did a much better job.

Lesson The Third – The possibilities of animation

I was then asked to do the scene where Lisa throws the doll out the window. I did my best but it just wasn’t what Jeff was looking for.

He then sat me down next to him at his office and redid the scene for me.  And BOY was it epic. I had a front row seat.

I don’t know anyone besides Jeff who would do scenes like this. I’m not sure anyone even notices that he does this kind of thing on occasion.

What am I taking about?

Animated camera moves.

Jeff took that scene and animated the camera move. What I mean to say is, that he took the artwork, characters, backgrounds and all, and animated them as if the camera was moving. Then at some point during the scene, the camera DOES move and you don’t even realize what happened.

Take a look at that scene again. The whole ROOM, along with the characters, spins around, Antics and then animates away, BEFORE the actual camera begins to move. It was a phenomenal bit of animating and directing.

I remember inbetweening some drawing from that scene and tightened up two bits of rough drawings. The rest was all Jeff.

I haven’t worked with a Simpsons director since, that was willing to hand animate a camera move to make a shot work.

Jeff did this in a few of his episodes.  Now a days, we think it can only be done with computers.

My lesson from that experience? There are no boundaries in animation except for the ones you put up.

Get Fun E-mails

In this week’s e-mail, I went through the rest of this episode and gave my thoughts and small anecdotes on specific scene I worked on.

It was an experiment and it was fun because the readers got a sneak behind the scenes.

Don’t miss out. Opt in and join in the fun, next time.

WEBSITES – Working on a Drawing Equipment Post

I’m currently working on the next post for The Drawing Website.

In it, I will write about the mysterious drawing equipment you need in order to learn to draw.

Here’s the rough under drawing for the header picture, I will use on the post.

In the post, I compare drawing tools to Kung Fu weapons, so I thought I’d give my character, Brush Lee, a very unorthodox weapon.

Yes, that’s a pack of gum.

Why is he holding a pack of gum as a weapon? You’re gonna need to read the post when it goes live next week to find out.

For more comics and stories written by me: COMICS AND STORIES

If you like what you read, please consider signing up to my rss feed.

Comments are appreciated as well.

I also have a store. Click Here and check it out.

Writing this blog is almost a part time job for me. Tips are most welcome.