Staircase - Ed Hooks' Feedback

Yesterday I received Ed's feedback on my staircase animation and it was as follows:

Nice stuff, Remi. Two suggestions:

(1) Do not have him stop and think about things at the bottom of the stairs. It looks like maybe he is considering not taking his (wife?) breakfast in bed after all. Instead of that, have... him come out of the kitchen and head directly up the stairs. Not rushing, not running, just let his decision to go upstairs be made when he is still in the kitchen. We don’t need to see it.

(2) You have WAY too many little things blocking the stairs! That is a true obstacle course. With that many items on the stairs, it would make more sense that he put down the tray and clear the steps before heading up. Consider maybe having one fairly large object, like a big stuffed teddy bear or something like that, on the steps.

Removing some of the obstacles is of course no problem as all the boxes are just placeholders and I was thinking of adding some larger things instead as I get them modeled.

When it comes to the opening however, I'm not so sure that's what I will want to do as the opening with him reacting to the mess is a key moment in the scene, at least for me.
I know about the term "Kill your darlings" but this one is hard to completely kill. After all, it seems like Ed must have misunderstood what I'm trying to convey with that part of the scene. It's not a matter of the character deciding to go up the stairs or not. He is simply disappointed and irritated at his kids for not cleaning up their mess.

We have been told by Ed to think of the scene as one scene in a longer film and with this in mind, I believe the audience would understand that the character is irritated as I have written in the script that he has already told his kids to clean up the mess (which would have been an earlier scene if it was a film)

I could of course do what Ed suggests and make the character just walk straight to the staircase but then it really doesn't seem like he is reacting to the mess (considering he is expecting the staircase to be empty)

So through the day that has been, I have been emailing with my tutor, Siobhan Fenton and asked her what she thinks herself. The first email I got, she replied that she also likes what I've done with the beginning of the scene but would look more at it later and get back to me.

Today I received her email and she wrote the following:

Hi Remi

Just been watching your film a few times in relation to Eds notes and been looking at the camera for the lecture today. Here are some thoughts:

1. I think the initial fed up expression at the beginning works well [as you do] but your animations would benefit from us seeing that then getting on quicker - just to make it a little snappier and don't let us spend too much time .....
Have him walking through the door, looking at the tray smiling, but that have his eyes see the mess much sooner AS he is walking in, REACT then step forward and CUT.

2. The timing on the negotiating over the obstacles works v well and yes you could take some of the obstacles away for him to get through, maybe that was too many!

3. I am going to mention this in the session this afternoon but it relates to [1]. You need to cut on the action in your first edit. He isn't moving in the first shot but he is in the second. Get him moving / stepping forward in the first shot THEN cut as he is moving. The edit will be smoother then AND it means we are not spending too much time with him at the beginning.

4. Finally - if you get time, consider having the camera reveal what he is fed up with sooner maybe having that first cut a little sooner [again this is related to point 3.

This is much stronger work by the way, I am just trying to get you to improve even more and there are times when you spend too much time on the poses so it appears quite slow. There are times when you need to do this but just look at that beginning and end sequence and think about making it a bit tighter.


To me it all seems like a good idea about the start and I will definitely tweak that. The stuff about the camera however is correct already. The camera DOES cut on action but since this is such a rough block, one can't see the character is moving.