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Animation and Dance: Studying Motion.

22 July 2010, 12:21 | Art, Video

While animating The Son
my girlfriend saw me working out the character runs. Often when I am working out animations, I’ll get up and look at myself in a mirror and try to perform whatever motion I’m trying to capture. In this case it was the secondary motion of the girl’s hair and arms bobbing up and down while being carried by the dad.

She asked what I was doing, and I explained it to her. She looked at me with surprise.

“Oh my god, you ARE a dancer! Well, more like a choreographer, but you study movement just like a dancer.”

I thought about this. As a dancer, her job is to use motion of the body to express an story, idea or feeling. When animating, my job is to use the appearance of motion to do the same thing.

A couple months ago, I helped out my girlfriend record adjudicator comments at the Provincial Dance Festival. I’ve sat through hours of Modern, Hip-hop, and Lyrical Jazz dancing. I’ve learned more about ballet technique than I ever wanted to. However, this is great for my anatomy and character animation study. Seeing how the body moves under very rigid and precise control. I hope that this experience will allow me to excel come fall, when I start my 3D animation program at Red River.