Animated conversation
Karen, Richard, and Matt are professional relations: business partners who are also family members. This issue, Matt interviews his mum Karen about animation, with editing by his dad Richard.
Matt – How did you become an animator?
Karen – It was of necessity. We were all set up to go to a client to do some live action filming and then lockdown happened, and we had to rethink. Settle Business Hub had run a workshop to do with animation, showcasing software called Vyond. We were given access to free training, and it was like a light bulb moment.
We said, “let’s do an animated version where we can use real people’s voices with those people in animated form”. We started slowly, and the client liked it, so we carried on. That training course was fully animated!
Matt – How big a learning curve was it?
Karen – It was hugely steep, but we just went with it. The client was very accommodating. We did screen sharing with them to show what we were doing. It was a good way of learning what the animation can do and, working in a way that stretched me.
Matt – Is Vyond easy to use?
Karen – I don’t have experience of different types of [animation] software. It does what we want it to do, and I’ve learned its limitations. The Vyond staff are really responsive. [As an example,] I had to go to them and say, this [character] has a tattoo on her arm and the tattoo was very specific.
Matt – Was that a specific client request?
Karen – Yes, it was your father!
Vyond were really helpful. There’s a grouping feature so you can create something that will move with the character. It’s a bit fiddly but it was possible.
Matt – What part of the process do you enjoy the most?
Karen – I like the challenge of a new script, to see what the scene’s going to be like and try out different backgrounds and options to work out what I can do. I don’t really want to [keep having] the same character on the same background. I’d rather viewers were, “Oh, this is different. What might happen next?”
In Vyond you can do character creation, using outline shapes and working out what the character’s hair’s going to look like, are they going to have glasses, what colour and shape are their eyes. When I was a little girl, we used to get books of cardboard cutout dolls, and they had dresses and different outfits with little paper tabs on that you hung over their shoulders so you could change what they looked like. I think it’s a bit like that!
Matt – People enjoy that kind of play in video games now as well.
What’s your process for animation? A client gives you a script, what do you do next?
Karen – Get as much information [as I can] about what’s in their head.
We have a planning sheet that asks questions about what’s happening on the screen. Have they got images they want to incorporate? Do they want their corporate colours; do they want the characters to look like members of their staff? I then send a couple of mock ups of potential screens, saying, “what do you like, what don’t you like, what shall I change?”
Matt – We’ve got the remastered version of [our course] “What Do We Mean by Climate Breakdown” coming out. What sort of differences might people who did that course the first time round see?
Karen – To give credit to the software, they’ve developed. When I first started, I got a request for [a character] throwing a paper cup into a bin and that took about 30 screens! It was almost like stop-motion because it had to move a little bit in each screen. Now, in Vyond, they’ve got various motion paths so you can make it spin in the air, go up, down, sideways and in a loop.
But I think I’ve learned as well, how to time things better and, perhaps, that less is more. When I first started, perhaps [the animations were] a bit busy? So, make them calmer and focus on the information rather than someone doing loop the loop in the background!
Matt – I remember from learning science about distractions in the learning environment. Does the textbook have unnecessary illustrations or headings that draw the eye from the learning material?
Karen – It’s a similar thing. There’s a climate lab scene where the main character is talking but, in the background, you had the lab assistant and someone [who’d watched it] said, “I was wondering what he was going to do next…” He’s still there in the update but he’s not moving around so much.
Matt – Looking beyond our blurry borders, are there animations or styles of animation that you like or admire?
Karen – The one that comes to mind is Aardman. I have so much respect for them, in the patience it’s taken to create those characters and to make those movements as clean as they are.
But now, whenever I see an animation, I’m asking, “how did they do that, what use can I make of that?” I’m looking at it with a different eye, seeing what I could do better next time I get a chance to start something.
There’s more to this interview. Buy us a cuppa on Ko-fi to support our work, and we’ll let you read the extended version.
🌏 Our remaster of What Do We Mean By Climate Breakdown? is rolling out on Udemy right now.
🧀 Check out Aardman’s climate-related animations.
🚙 Richard published a blog confessing he used to be a bit of a petrolhead.
👩⚖️ Matt published Don’t go anywhere – the final chapter of A Net Too Wide To Break His Fall (at least for now … a more polished version of this story is on the to-do list).
🌳 Richard wrote about Countryside Pollution, our animation about plastic tree guards, in the Friends of the Dales quarterly members’ magazine, Yorkshire Dales Review.
🎲 On Merely Roleplayers, the podcast where theatrical people play roleplaying games, the Main House is open for the latest instalment in Vigil: a series that’s like if Buffy was set in the small town from Hot Fuzz.