In my previous post I talked a little about the challenge we all face when trying to decide whether to spend our energy on quantity of animation or quality. The conventional wisdom says that you can’t have both. Given a set time period, you can either get a few shots great, or a great number of shots good.I mentioned a few techniques I used once I became a supervising animator to help me focus and get more quality animation done in a shorter amount of time. I wanted to get a little bit more into the details of this technique.
在上篇文章中我提到一些關於在製作動畫時該注重品質還是數量上的難題，傳統經驗告訴我們：魚與熊掌不可兼得。在一定時間內，你要不是把少量的shot做得超好，不然就是把很多的shot做得普普通通。然後我提到了一些小秘訣，幫助我作為動畫總監時集中焦點，在短時間內完成更多品質好的動畫，我想要更深入分享這些小秘訣。
Think about the very next task I want to complete before I leave my desk.
在離開座位前，找出下一個重要你想完成的重要任務
Before getting up to go to a meeting, to lunch, to a tea break, or to the bathroom I would take a moment to think about the very next thing I wanted to do with my shot when I sat back down. I would try and make sure it was something that I could complete in 20 minutes or less like a really nice face pose, or a quick arm move, or map out the rhythm of the next 15 frames, or draw some thumbnails for the brow movement. Then I’d think about that thing and work out my plan while away from my desk so that when I sat back down I could jump right back into the swing of things.
在離開座位去開會、吃午餐、吃下午茶或是去洗澡前，我會仔細去想當我下次回到座位時要接著做什麼，而且我會確保那是能在20分鐘內完成的事情，像是：擺一個很棒的臉部表情、一段手臂動作、找出後續15個frames的節奏、或是畫下一些眉毛變化的小草圖，這麼一來我就可以利用離開位子的這段時間去想想該怎麼做，所以當我一旦回到位子上，我可以馬上進入狀況。
The key to this is making sure that the task I’m thinking about is small. There are a few reasons for this. First, it’s easier to focus on something if it’s contained. Second, because I was forcing myself to think of a quick task, it would essentially be a simple task. This means I could sit down, complete it quickly, and then by the time I was ready to tackle a more complicated animation task I would already be in the flow of working on the shot.
關鍵就是要確保你的預先規劃是「小」的。有幾個理由：首先，人比較容易集中注意力在可以控制的事物上；再來，設法找出可以馬上完成的事，因為這通常也是比較容易做的事，因此我可以坐下來很快地完成它，然後趁著這段時間準備好應付更複雜的工作，繼續回到我shot上的工作流程裡。
Finally, the most important reason to do this was a psychological one. Knowing that I didn’t have a lot of time to work on my shots, I was already stressed out about getting them done on time. This stress, combined with the short time period to do the work and the knowledge that I wanted to produce work at the quality I did when I had double the time caused a mini mental crisis. I would look at all the work I had in front of me and freeze. Where could I start? By choosing a small and simple thing to do that I could check off I was giving myself a little mental “attaboy, shhlife! you did it!”. Simply marking one thing off my list made me feel less overwhelmed and I could tell that I was making progress.
最後也是最重要的理由是跟心理學有關的。要知道我沒有太多時間去研究我的shots，光是要在期限內完成就充滿壓力。這種壓力包含了期限很短，而且還是我必須花我兩倍時間才能達到的品質，這會帶給我一點信心危機，我會被我眼前龐大工作量給嚇傻，不知該從何下手。所以找簡單容易的事先做，快速把它解決可以讓我在心裡壓力上得到不小的紓解，很容易的把一件待辦事項從清單中剔除可以讓我不會感到快被工作吞沒，然後我可以幫自己信心喊話，我行的！
This feeling was incredibly addictive. Every time I completed one task I felt more confident and more sure that I could actually get this shot done.
這種感覺很容易令人上癮，每次我完成某項工作，我就感到更有信心，更確信我能把這個shot做好。
It was stupidly simple, but it really worked!
道理簡單的近乎愚蠢，可是卻非常管用！
If you think about it from a GTD perspective, every task we have to do in life is like a little agreement you’re making with yourself. If you break that agreement, then you feel guilty and it pulls you down a little bit. It adds a bit of stress. Stress sucks.
假如你從把事情「搞定」(GTP: Getting Things Done)的觀點來看，每一件我們想做的事其實就是我們對自己的自我承諾，假如你跳票的話，你會有罪惡感，並且對自己感到失望，這會帶來一點壓力，而我很討厭壓力！
For example, if you make an agreement with your friend that you’re going to meet them at the coffee shop and you’re on time, you feel good. If you’re 5 minutes late.. maybe you feel embarrassed. 30 minutes late and you start to feel bad. You forget to show up.. and oh man, do YOU feel crappy. You are a horrible friend. You don’t deserve nice people in your life. You feel like you totally let your friend down, and you wouldn’t be surprised if she never wanted to talk to you again.
舉例來說好了，你和朋友約好在咖啡店喝咖啡，赴約前你感覺好極了，但是假如你發現自己遲到5分鐘，你會有點不好意思；遲到30分鐘，你會感覺很糟；忘了赴約，你會覺得自己爛透了，原來自己是個損友，生命中不值得有好朋友的存在。你覺得你讓所有人都失望透頂，你不會意外他們不再跟你說話。
All of these feelings are because you just reneged on your agreement.
這些感覺都是因為你讓自己跳票了
When you’re animating a shot, in the back of your mind you’re making a little agreement with yourself that you’re going to get this shot done on time. If you look at the whole shot as a “I have to get this done!!” it can be quite stressful. However, if you break the shot down into small little tasks.. spend 5 minutes thumbnailing ideas, create 3 key storytelling poses, make a great hand pose, pose the start and end frame of this segment, then think about how the body movement should feel… these tasks are all small and can take only a few minutes. Finish them, and you’ve successfully completed an agreement with yourself.
當你開始在做一個shot的動畫時，你其實已經下意識的自我承諾要在某個期限內完成它。假如你從整個shot來看，告訴自己：「天哪！我必須把這一個shot給完成。」這樣可能就會感到壓力很大。但是，假如你把工作拆成很多小部分：花5分鐘畫小草圖、擺3個劇情關鍵的pose、擺一個很漂亮的手勢、擺出頭尾的兩個pose、或是想想身體該如何動作，這些工作很小而且只要很短的時間，一旦完成，你就是兌現自我承諾！
It’s a very satisfying feeling knowing that you’re meeting your own agreements and promisses.
這種說到做到的感覺會令你感到很滿足。
The important thing here is not the time that I had to work on the shots.. it’s the planning I was doing before I started working so I knew exactly what my task was. By making this plan, I always felt like I was making progress.. and feeling like I was making progress caused me to make even more progress.
When I had more than 20 minutes to work, I felt like I could really get a TON of work done. I mean, if I could complete one task in 20 minutes.. imagine what I could do in an hour! What if I had 2 hours to animate?
祕訣在於我是有計畫才開始工作，所以我知道自己在做什麼，花了多少時間反而不是重點。藉著這樣事先計畫的動作，我會持續感到案子的推進，而因為這樣的良性循環我會覺得，當我擁有超過20分鐘可以工作，我感覺到自己可以解決一大堆的事，我的意思是，如果你能在20分鐘內解決一項工作，那試想一下，一小時內你能完成多少工作！假如你還有更多時間呢？
Holy crap, imagine all the meetings in a day are canceled and I can work all day.. I could FLY through my shots!
廢話！想像一整天都不用開會只做動畫，我一定能把我的shots做好！
I know what some of you are thinking.. you’re thinking “that’s great if you know what to do, but what if you’re exploring? I don’t KNOW what kind of pose I want to do, or what my shot is supposed to be! ”
我知道你們一定開始在懷疑：你形容的那麼美好，是假設你都知道接下來要怎麼做了，但假如我還在研究呢？我還不知道該擺怎樣的pose呢？不知道接下來該做什麼咧？
And that’s totally fine! Here’s the agreement you can make with yourself that will reduce your stress 10-fold. Agree that you will give yourself 3 hours at the start of every shot to explore ideas. Give yourself 10 minutes to write down the emotion that you want the character and the audience to feel. Give yourself 20 minutes to talk to another animator about it. Give yourself 1 hour to thumbnail (do you know how many thumbnails you can do in an hour?) . Give yourself 20 minutes to look at other shots of the character that other animators have done.
這也沒關係！你可以和自己約定比較寬鬆的條件，讓自己在每一個shot開始前都有3小時可以發想，給自己10分鐘去寫下這一個shot想讓觀眾感受的情緒，再花20分鐘告訴另一個animator，花一個小時畫小草圖(但是你要先知道自己1小時內究竟能畫多少個小草圖？)，再花個20分鐘去看看其他做完的shot，你的同事用什麼方式詮釋你將要表演的角色。
Those are incredibly small tasks that will really improve the quality of your shot because they will help you focus on what’s important.. and that is something I’ll get to in my next post.
這些都是可以提升你動畫品質的小步驟，因為它會幫助你專注在重要的事物上。而這正是我下篇文章要繼續深入討論的。
原文出處
原文作者：Jason Schleifer
Banner設計：Ray Lin
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