The Pigeon: Impossible Blog

I’m at Siggraph through Thursday so hopefully I’ll see some of you there! You can follow @LucasMartell for twitter updates throughout the week.

The hardest part about shorts is usually keeping them short. Its so easy for things to get longer and stretch out, so I thought I’d do a series of posts about one of the greatest tools short filmmakers have at their disposal: 3 act structure. Most of the time people talk about act structure in relation to features, but it’s just as applicable to shorts. Basically…

• Act 1 is the setup, and takes 25% of the running time.
• Act 2 is the confrontation, and takes 50% of the running time.
• Act 3 is the resolution, and takes the remaining 25% of the running time.

So today lets talk about Act 1. In shorts, this is hands down the hardest part to get right because there is a LOT that needs to happen in a very short amount of time. You need to establish the world/genre, the characters, what they want, the conflict and the tone. By the end of act 1, the audience needs to know everything that’s crucial to the rest of the story. After I get through these posts I’ll do a breakdown of several shorts, but for now I’ll just use PI as an example.

Since PI is roughly 6 minutes long (usually you don’t include credits in the act breakdowns) the first 25% is 1:30. If you watch the film, you’ll notice that right around 1:30, the pigeon gets inside the briefcase. Everything up until that point encompasses the setup…

The genre/world is established in several ways. First, the music is reminiscent of early spy-fi music. Its set in Washington DC, the largest hub for spies in the world. The graphic design uses a circle following the main character walking, an homage to James Bond. Also, Once we go into the title sequence, the images shift to a high-tech motif, showing that there is some sort of technology angle to the spy genre.

The characters in shorts tend to be very simple and not too deep, but its still important to establish their personality before things get going. Walter starts off looking cool, then immediately reveals that he’s a bit incompetent because instead of the James Bond “turning to shoot” moment, he turns at the honk of a car to realize that he’s standing in the middle of oncoming traffic. This klutziness carries through the rest of the establishing shot, until he receives the briefcase which confirms that he’s some sort of spy.

The pigeon’s personality is set up when he begs for the bagel. Walter gives him a piece, but he wants the whole bagel. That shows that he’s more aggressive than most pigeons, a little greedy, and possibly a bit smarter as well. This moment actually pulls triple duty, because in addition to setting up the character, it also shows what he wants (the bagel.)

The “what the characters want” beat is often the most difficult to nail. Sometimes filmmakers are a bit worried about being too “on the nose” and spelling things out to clearly, but in my experience, this is the one case where you can never be too on the nose. If the audience doesn’t know what the character wants, then their actions for the rest of the movie aren’t going to make sense.

The third thing that the pigeon/bagel moment does is establish the tone. After all, the movie is a comedy, so if you don’t have at least one good joke in the first act, the audience isn’t going to be on board. If you were doing a thriller, you’d probably set it up with suspenseful music and eerie cinematography. Whatever it is, the tone needs to be established up front.

Another important thing that needs to go into the first act is what Walter wants. We know that he’s on some sort of a mission, but it needs to be something specific that we can clearly follow. In this case, the briefcase takes on that role. We also have to establish that the briefcase is capable of some pretty cool stuff, so the interior was designed to have some superfluous movement of the control surfaces, just to give it that high-tech gadget feel. We don’t have to know everything it can do, just an idea of what its capable of, and that Walter is in big trouble if he loses it.

And then of course the last thing to set up is the conflict. There’s all sorts of structures for this, but the two crucial pieces are an antagonist, and an obstacle standing in the way of what the character wants. If this were a kung fu movie, the antagonist and the obstacle might be the same, but in PI, the conflict comes from the pigeon being in control of what Walter needs, and Walter being in control of what the pigeon needs.

Phew, that’s a lot to fit into 90 seconds of screen time, especially if you’re trying to make it feel smooth and natural, but that’s why making a short is so hard. A good way to think of it is like loading a cannon. The setups… who the characters are, what they want, etc. are all the individual pieces that go into the cannon… wadding, gunpowder, ball and fuse. The conflict is like lighting the fuse. Without conflict, that cannon isn’t going to fire, but without any of the pieces, its not going to work either. If you do it right, everything will be clear and the audience will be on board, then the rest of the film can focus on the interesting stuff: what happens after the cannon fires.

The final 3 podcasts have just been released!

Podcast #021: Loose Ends includes several tips and tricks that didn’t fit into the other podcasts.

Podcast #022: Music is an audio-only interview with composer Christopher Reyman.

Podcast #023: Sound Design is an audio-only interview with sound designer David Bewley.

The commentary tracks and story featurette are all-new and can only be found on this special edition DVD. If you’ve enjoyed the film and the podcasts, buying one is a great way to show your support!

Buy the Pigeon: Impossible DVD here!

Podcast #020: Animation Techniques is online and talks about the two different approaches to CG animation: Pose-to-Pose and Layered

One of the 3D artists who worked on PI is currently looking for a job. He’s been in Germany for the last two years and is willing to relocate anywhere within Deutschland. My website statistics show that there’s a good number of visitors from Germany so hopefully this will find its way to someone looking for a good generalist.

3d Demonstration Reel from eburke on Vimeo.

I just have to say I’m so proud of Eric. When he worked on PI (mostly helping out with the cars) he only had a couple months of 3D experience, but he’s come a very long way in a short amount of time. If he’s got a reel like that after less than 2 years in the industry, I can’t wait to see what his next reel looks like!

Joaquin Baldwin just posted his new animated short online. If you’ve followed the blog for a while, he’s also the director of Sebastian’s Voodoo which has played with PI at several festivals. I got a chance to see this film while it was still a work in progress, so its great to see it finally finished and out in the world for all to enjoy!

For more information, go to Joaquin’s website.

I got a great question from James Smith via e-mail and thought it would be worth posting on the blog: “How do you make a six minute short so epic? Is it just the script?”

I’m in the process of working on another script that needs to have that “epic” quality to it, so this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. As always, it does indeed start with the script. I think the common mistake is that people think epic means huge. Obviously that’s a part of it, but there’s an equally critical factor: a small hero.

What makes an epic feel huge is the contrast between the small hero and the huge world/scope of events they are caught up in. BTW, the “small hero” doesn’t necessarily mean physically small, although if that happens too, more power to you. Take the hobbits in Lord of the Rings. Trusting the fate of the world to a 3-foot hobbit who’s never left his hometown is about as big of a contrast as you can get. Another one is Gone With the Wind. Its set in the civil war, but doesn’t follow a soldier. Instead it follows a stuck up rich girl on the edge of the fighting: a perfect example of a heroine with little power over her situation. That leads perfectly to the next quality of an epic…

If you’ve ever been surfing or boogie boarding, you know the “washing machine” sensation you get when you’re pulled under a big wave and knocked about a bit. If you’ve never been, just trust me… no matter how good of a swimmer you are, that wave has you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just let it pass and try to figure out which way is up. That’s the next quality of an epic: the hero is swept up by the events of the story and BARELY in control of their situation. They’re teetering on the edge of oblivion and holding on by their fingertips. Its all about putting the character in a precarious situation, then allowing them a small victory before knocking them back down to an even worse place. In fact, most of the time, the hero takes quite a few beatings (physical and emotional) at the hand of whatever the larger than life opponent is.

So those are the two crucial story components to an epic. Make the opponent bigger, the hero smaller, and then beat up on them until the little guy finally pulls off a desperate, last chance effort to save the day. The next part of an epic is in the execution. Obviously music is a key factor. Its not about volume, its about scale. An 80 piece orchestra sounds bigger than even the coolest piece of techno-trance you can come up with. Its also important to remember the big opponent vs. small hero from a visual standpoint.

Try to keep the camera on the ground because things look larger and more ominous from the hero’s perspective. However, if you do want to pull the camera up and let it breathe, nothing says “epic” like showing how small your character is compared to the colossal forces he’s faced against.

This is big:

This is epic:

Two more awesome shorts from the festival circuit have just gone online!

The first is Jim Capobianco’s “Leonardo.” From what I understand it will only be online until April 26, 2010. You have to register to watch and vote, but its well worth it and you’ll get that warm fuzzy feeling of helping out a fellow animator.       (Click the image to watch)

The next is Mike Dacko’s “Lightheaded” which shared the 1st place animation award with PI at Rhode Island IFF.

Right after I posted my thoughts on HTTYD, the publicity image I included really caught my eye, specifically how the animator used the pose to lead the audiences’ eyes through the frame.

Here’s the untouched version:

And here’s a version where I’ve highlighted several of the key lines.

I’ll talk more about this concept in an upcoming podcast, but this still is just so perfect in many ways that I had to share. First off, if you’re not familiar with this idea, the basic rule of thumb is that you want the lines of your pose to lead the audiences eye towards the most important part of the image. Usually this is the eyes of the main character.

I’d argue that the most prominent line is the one I highlighted in red, and the reason that its so great is that it not only shows off a perfect use of this technique, but a perfect example of how you can break the rule to achieve a certain effect. Notice how Hiccup’s right hand isn’t pointing towards Toothless’s eye? You’d think that would be such an easy way to make that red line even better right? Well, in the context of this shot, its clear that Hiccup is protecting toothless. And guess what happens if we pull out all of those extra “pretty lines” to highlight the two most important ones in the shot?

Boom. Hiccup is now forming a perfect triangle with his body that encompasses Toothless’s head. Its a very protective gesture that uses this concept to enhance and re-enforce what the pose is trying to convey.

A huge congrats to whoever did this shot. If anyone knows who it was, I’d be very curious to hear if that really was their intent, or if I’m just intellectualizing. Something tells me that you don’t just get something that beautiful and simple without a whole lot of planning.