Author: Aayushi Adhir Barai

This week I focused on polishing the final details of my acting shot. One of the first changes I made was adding slight shoulder movement during the middle part of the dialogue to make the performance feel more grounded and realistic.

In the beginning of the shot, I adjusted the mouth — especially the corners — to settle into a more annoyed shape, as George pointed out that the character feels slightly offended at first. That small shift made her reaction read more clearly.

Toward the end, I added a subtle eyebrow switch — raising one brow and then flipping to the other — to reflect the character’s clever, playful energy. George suggested that this kind of quick, unexpected change adds charm and personality if timed well.

After a few final tweaks and clean-up passes, the shot was ready for submission.

I moved my acting shot into spline and focused on cleaning up the facial animation this week. As expected, some parts felt mushy at first — but with time in the Graph Editor, I started tightening the curves and clarifying the emotion.

One issue George flagged was the eye direction — my character wasn’t locking onto the invisible listener enough, which weakened the performance. I adjusted the eyes to track with more intent and added subtle darts for personality.

I also fixed a technical issue that George pointed out where the iris was clipping through the eyelid during an eye roll. He also told me to smoothen out the eyebrow poses to make them feel natural.

After polishing the lips, pushing the smirk at the end, and sharpening the timing on each movement, the shot started to come together.

This week I refined my acting block based on feedback. The character was moving too much during the line, which distracted from the performance. George advised that characters don’t need excessive movement and I needed to hold some poses to avoid shaky animation.

I reduced the body movement and focused more on facial expressions, subtle head movements and added shoulder movement. Following George’s advice, I exaggerated the eyebrow movement and let it lead the head tilt during the “modesty” part of the line. This added rhythm and attitude to the performance.

In Class:

This week’s class focused on blocking the acting performance in stepped mode. George emphasized that animation should show how the character feels, not just match the words. Instead of trying to hit every syllable perfectly, we should find the main emotional beats—usually 2 to 4 key expressions—and build the blocking around those.

We also learned about the importance of vowels and phrasing. When we speak, it’s not word-by-word but in natural rhythms with inflections and pauses. George told us to listen carefully to the audio and reflect those ups and downs in the facial expressions and body movement.

Clear staging and silhouette were also stressed. The poses need to be easy to read so the audience understands the emotion and intention in a single frame. Strong, clear poses, readable facial expressions, and a clear line of action are essential.

My Progress:

This week I imported the Gina Linetti audio into Maya and started blocking the lip sync and main poses. I started off with posing the body according to my reference where the character comes towards the camera as she starts speaking. Then after a moving hold in the front, she moves back she the mood of the shot changes.

My camera position was also wrong and different from my reference and George told me to fix that.

I then started to focus on the lips and finding out the main vowels in the dialogue and looked at how the mouth shapes are and started to key them. It gave me a rough idea of the execution of the words and how I can add more shapes in between the vowels to tie the word together.

In Class:

This week we moved from body mechanics into acting animation. George explained that acting in animation isn’t just about matching lip sync or movements, but about showing what the character is thinking and feeling behind the words. He stressed the importance of emotional transitions—small changes that happen as a character goes from one feeling to another, like from defensive to confident or sarcastic to playful.

We studied examples where animators used subtle facial movements—like eyebrow lifts leading a head tilts—to communicate personality and attitude. George emphasized that these small details often say more than big gestures and make the performance feel more real.

He also encouraged us to deeply understand the character and the line before animating: act it out ourselves, sketch thumbnails of poses and expressions, write down personality notes, and identify key emotional beats in the dialogue. This planning helps create a strong foundation for the animation.

My Progress:

I started planning my acting animation with a line from Gina Linetti (Brooklyn Nine-Nine):
“The only thing I’m not good at is modesty, because I’m great at it.”

I wanted to show the character’s sarcasm and confidence, starting with a fake offended look that quickly changes to a smug smirk. I recorded myself acting it out with different expressions and movements, then analyzed which felt closest to the character.

This week, I focused on improving the realism of my sofa push animation. After moving into spline last week, I saw that while the motion was smooth, it lacked impact and weight—especially during the fall onto the sofa. It felt too slow and controlled, almost like the character was floating.

Following George’s feedback, I went into the Graph Editor and adjusted the hip and spine curves to make the drop heavier and quicker, with a clear stop. I added follow-through in the head and arms to avoid stiffness. I also fixed the timing so the hands release the sofa a bit after the torso, which helped show exhaustion more clearly.

The hand contact during the push wasn’t strong enough, so I cleaned up the IK curves, added moving holds, and even added finger movement to show pressure.

This week, I moved my animation into spline. I noticed immediately that the push and fall became too smooth — it started looking floaty and lost the weight it had in blocking. To fix this, I began adjusting the timing curves, mainly focusing on the hips and spine to control how the weight transfers.

I worked on making the transitions in and out of poses sharper, so the character felt grounded. I also added small follow-through movements on the hands and head to support the idea of the character being tired.

There were areas during the push that felt like they were stopping mid-motion, so I adjusted those to make sure the body kept moving smoothly through the action. I got feedback to push the poses further into a reverse C-shape after the push to create stronger contrast and show the shift in energy more clearly.

In Class:

This week, George introduced us to the concept of Blocking Plus. It builds on basic blocking by adding breakdowns, overshoots, anticipations, and better transitions between poses. This stage helps make the animation feel more like real movement, even before it goes into spline.

He explained that basic blocking gives us the main storytelling poses, but Blocking Plus is where we check how the motion flows. Even simple scenes — like a character sitting down or shifting weight — can be improved with small details like drag on the limbs, overshoot, and subtle adjustments in timing.

George reminded us that if the spacing and energy stay the same throughout, the shot can feel flat. He encouraged us to vary things — for example, fast pushes followed by slower movements, or sharp actions followed by soft holds.

We also learned more about moving holds. George pointed out that even when the character isn’t actively moving, they shouldn’t freeze. Small motions like a chest bounce, a head shift, or hand movement can help the character feel alive. This was especially useful in my shot, where the character falls back into a sofa — adding a moving hold made the ending feel more natural and believable.

George also suggested testing parts of the shot in spline mode early, just to preview how the timing and arcs will look. That way we can fix issues earlier instead of waiting until the end.

My Progress:

My Progress:
This week, I refined the blocking of my body mechanics shot by adding breakdowns to show how the weight shifts from the push into the fall. I focused on keeping the body moving throughout, avoiding stiffness or freezing between actions.

George gave feedback that the head needed to have drag both while going into the push and during the fall onto the sofa, to make the motion feel more believable. He also mentioned that in the first few frames, the character shouldn’t just be standing still, but should already be leaning into the push and starting the action. I updated the initial pose to reflect that.

I also adjusted the arc of the push and made the fall faster to show contrast in timing.