As an animator, I like to people-watch to pick up on the little nuances and quirks that make each individual unique. When I'm animating characters, I also try to integrate those little things and quirks into the acting choices for my animation.
SOFTWARE
Autodesk Maya
Pixar's Renderman
Adobe Photoshop
The Foundry - Nuke
I wanted a simple and clean reply from the character to show contrast to her earlier self in the film, where she puts her mom off rather rudely.
The idea of this sequence was to show the reaction and change in mood of the little girl from upset to ecstatic when noticing her mom. To make the shot more realistic and emotional, I made sure to include a little "thought process time" for the little girl when she first notices her mom before she finally smiles and runs towards her.
A run cycle with a little skip at the end to show how excited the little girl, Boo is with her long awaited ice cream in hand.
At the beginning of the film, Holly the protagonist consistently puts off her mom. So the idea of this shot is that when her Mom opens the door, she is slightly bashful and embarrassed for the way she was treating her mom. A lot of eye darts as well as lots of shifting movements in her body were included to suggest her slightly awkward embarassment. Special attention were also paid to Holly's facial animation. Shifting one lip corner from another is used to also try suggest her bashfulness. But I also wanted the scene to end with Holly over coming those feelings and thus, the shot ends with Holly giving her mom an overdue apologetic smile.
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