COP 3: Adding Finishing Touches to the Animated Robin Williams Animation

Now I feel like with my animation process I basically went from attempting to animate one great actor to another, maybe I should have gone with animating someone lesser known. But there is a reason both these actors are so notable, in particular with Robin Williams. Not only does he bring so much comedy and charisma to all of his performances, but he is also able to bring so much emotion. On the making of Aladdin Rom Clements and John Musker said 'the great thing about Robin, aside from his improv, was that he could really come up with some sincere emotion and I think it was important in this character and with all the characters to really get the audience invested in his plight'.

I needed to not neglect this emotional connection Williams would have with not just the character, but the audience too. He starts off relaxed in the clip, then excites the viewer and Maron with a riff, brings them up, then lets them down gently, it is in these quiet moments that I feel most emotion lies.

Upon showing my animation thus far to people for feedback, I was told positive things, although a few finishing touches needed to be made. I had finished the movements of going from one pose to another. But what was missing was what should occur in-between that. There was still a lot of static shots where Williams, a man known to not sit still would be exactly that, still. It only needed a slight tweaking. For example, I went back and added in secondary movements. Where he holds his arm up, instead of keeping it hanging perfectly still there until the next shot, I altered it so it would lower slightly, like how a real arm would act.

Furthermore Eleanor gave me feedback that a lot of the animation could do with being more exaggerated, if only slightly. One of my weaknesses as an animator is often being a tad timid to really push how far you can take exaggeration with animation. A lot of the time I am more concerned with creating realistic movements that I forget the medium I am working in. I went back and altered this slightly. For example, in a shot where he leans back to dive forward, I leaned him slightly further backwards so when he does jump forwards it's that bit more impacting on top of dialogue where we hear him shouting.