Tom Bancroft - Research

In this blog post I am going to look at the work and some advice from Tom Bancroft. Tom Bancroft is a very successful animator with over 25 years of experience in the industry; he has worked on Disney's feature films such as 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Aladdin' or 'The Lion King' (Bancroft, 2016). I like to research very successful animators because they are a huge inspiration for me. I would like to get as far as they all do and a way to do that is to listen to their advice and improve while learning from the best. 

I am going to start this research with a short youtube video I found where a fan is interviewing Bancroft and asks for an advice for young animators. I think what the artist says is very interesting and is a good jumping off point for this post. 

What I find very interesting in this interview is when Bancroft mentions how to get a good character that would be fresh and new to the audience. He says to base it off a person we know, not an already existing character. I can see why. When basing a character on a different character, what we create is nothing new. It is something that has already been done and there is nothing fresh about it. It is different when creating a character based on for example ourselves or a friend. The whole world does not know my friends and me observing the way they act and look and move can help me develop something that has not been yet created. I think that is the goal. Creating something new. This is why, for this project I was thinking of basing the character on myself. I can see it being a challenge and with the theme I came up with, I think the challenge is even bigger because it makes me put the most vulnerable part of myself, out there. Last term I was not sure as using myself as a jumping point for a character because I did not feel that connected to the given character, it is different this time. I think I should try doing that, if it does not work - it was an experiment, if it works - an experiment that has resulted in a great outcome. 

The actual advice that Bancroft gave was to learn how things work. I have already thought about that and knew that learning anatomy and understanding bone structure is important, however I can see how the characters I animate do not seem alive. They seem fake and definitely not real as I would want them to be. This is something I would like to work on this term. Making a character feel real even though it is not realistic. 

What has Tom Bancroft animated? He animated, for example young Simba in 'The Lion King' or Mushu in 'Mulan'. 

I am going to stop for a second with Mushu and look more into the creating process of Mushu. Here is a video I found on youtube where Bancroft explains the work he had to do when creating Mushu. 

I decided that I do not want to spend too much time this term on character design because that is what I did last term and what I worked on developing, but the truth is when creating an animation it is critical to actually develop characters as well. I am planning to develop the one main character quite quickly but I still think that a character is one of the most important if not the most important elements of a successful animation. 

In this video Bancroft shows how he had to connect other people's drawings to create one final version and how he had many many versions before establishing the final one. Last term to get ideas for my characters I have drawn a few completely different sketches for each of the character but I have not thought of creating different sketches for a similar idea. I think that will be good in this case, for instance like Bancroft mentioned that he knew Mushu had to be skinny and have a tail and horns. These are characteristics that he needed to incorporate. I think it is a good idea to write down the characteristics I want for my character and then do several sketches for the character and learn from each of the sketches to improve the next ones. This is a valuable lesson from me to take from this research. 

Mushu

Here is a image that shows the final version of Mushu. As seen in the video earlier, the first version of Mushu, he was green but he ended up being red which suits his personality very well and makes him warm and look more like a dragon. I like how he looks wobbly at a first sight but when looking closer into his arms, I can see his bone structure, it goes the same about his legs. I can see that he has a spine and generally his body has some sort of structure that is holding up the skin. I think it is important to remember when designing a character, that there needs to be something holding the character up so it is not completely wobbly because it would be falling down like liquid. When there are bones it is important to understand how they move so the character can walk or do any other sort of movement. Knowing that bones bend only one way is important so there are no unnatural movements that would make the character very unrealistic, unless that is the point. 

These are some important lessons I can take away from looking at just one of Bancroft's characters. 

Mushu Head Sheet 

Above there is a Mushu head sheet that is actually very useful to me. Last week we did some studies for something in our project and I have tried to show the character with different emotion, but it is still something I find difficult. Looking at this sheet I can only repeat to myself EXAGGERATE all the emotions and movements. When they are more then they would be in real life, they look better and have more character to it. I really need to work on exaggeration but I think looking at this sheet will really help me out. I also like how at the top Mushu is fitted into 3 straight lines to keep the proportions. I will need to create a head sheet like this one for my character for sure. 

'The crazy part of it is the fact that you are literally drawing every movement in slow motion, over and over again. It can be maddening to think about, which is why I never counted frames. I just started at the beginning and would keep going till I got to the end. (Bancroft, 2013).'

I think this is a really interesting quote by Bancroft, he mentions how tiring and crazy can working on a traditional animation be. I agree with what he said about it, I also like how he mentioned not counting frames because that can only make it worse and I think that is a psychological trick I can take away from this research. I tend to count all the frames to know how much I have already done but when the frames are reaching hundreds it is maddening to think about. I think I need to start looking at traditional animation differently - as he mentions 'drawing movement in slow motion'. I like this comparison, it makes it sound a lot more fun than it is and I think this will make it better on the animator's mind. 

Reference list:

Bancroft, T. (2013), 'Tom Bancroft Interview - Character Mentor Workshops', Interviewed by Lavalle Lee, Traditional Animation, 24 January. Available at: https://www.traditionalanimation.com/2013/tom-bancroft-interview-character-mentor-workshops/ (Accessed: 18/04/2021).

Bancroft, T. (2016), Bio. Available at: http://tombancroftstudio.com/bio (Accessed: 18/04/2021).