Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Q&A for "The North Sea Riviera" featured on CGWTF.com
Alan Warburton wrote a really nice review of "The North Sea Riviera" and featured it on his blog CGWTF.com. He also asked some great questions which made me rethink back to how I conceived the film, and to the lengthy and intense production process which saw it come to life. It's great to hear from people like Alan who enjoyed the film, and I hope my answers are in some way useful to anyone else out there trying to carve something a little bit different out of this medium we call CG. Head on over to CGWTF.com to read the full Q&A.
Monday, 2 June 2014
Making my MA Dissertation Available Online
There was such a huge volume of work involved in compiling this that it seems silly not to make it available to others who might be interested in reading about Film Narrative Construction. I've published my full MA Dissertation on scribd, a hefty book about how I think the writers, directors and editors involved in producing "Mirror", "Kings of the Road", "Alice in the Cities" and "Paris, Texas" went about concealing the narrative construction of the film. I was very much into Tarkovsky and Wenders at the time and some of the shot by shot breakdowns of their work are very meticulous and there probably isn't anything similar out there. Have a read, see what you think and by all means criticise away!
Sunday, 1 June 2014
The North Sea Riviera - Festival News
My graduation film from the RCA has been ticking along nicely, getting some views at festivals here and there. It's screening as part of Rooftop Films in New York City at some awesome venues in an amazing city, and last weekend it won the 'Jury Prize' at Kiev International Short Film Festival, which was a nice surprise! Big thanks to all the people who supported its production, and to those who have kindly screened the film and awarded it prizes. Here's the trailer, and a link to the film's minisite. If you want to run a screening of the film I'd love to hear from you so give me a shout!
The guys and girls in the year below me at the RCA are coming to the end of their two year saga, and will shortly be showing their graduation films in London. They've got a tumblr up with some great snapshots of what's to come. Make sure to check out their show if you're in town.
The guys and girls in the year below me at the RCA are coming to the end of their two year saga, and will shortly be showing their graduation films in London. They've got a tumblr up with some great snapshots of what's to come. Make sure to check out their show if you're in town.
Friday, 19 October 2012
Kickstarter Double Bill: Universal Air and Wrecked
A friend of mine, Henry Fletcher, has just launched a kickstarter for affordable quadcopters. Most of the sponsorship options get you parts or the complete copter. Though the kits he's currently selling are the bare bones versions, he's working on a version camera mounts with gimbal controls which will be ace for rebel low budget film making - keep an eye out for these in the near future...
As a small aside, I taught Henry AfterEffects and Premiere from scratch in 2 hours over the internet via TeamViewer... looks like I did a pretty good job from the video above!
It's definitely Kickstarter open season right now - another friend, Liz Ellis, who was as an EP on the Tube project back when I was an intern out at Hampshire College MA, is working on an independent CC-BY-SA licensed TV series called Wrecked:
Wrecked Season One has a beautiful animated title sequence by Lila Burns which in itself is worth checking out.
As a small aside, I taught Henry AfterEffects and Premiere from scratch in 2 hours over the internet via TeamViewer... looks like I did a pretty good job from the video above!
It's definitely Kickstarter open season right now - another friend, Liz Ellis, who was as an EP on the Tube project back when I was an intern out at Hampshire College MA, is working on an independent CC-BY-SA licensed TV series called Wrecked:
Wrecked Season One has a beautiful animated title sequence by Lila Burns which in itself is worth checking out.
Friday, 21 September 2012
Tarkovsky's Mirror, Beat by Beat, and in Chronological Order
I've spent the last three days reviewing Tarkovsky's "Mirror" (1975, Зеркало, Zerkalo) and trying to give a date to every scene in the film. "Mirror" is notoriously difficult to follow, and even with the help of multiple references, there are still some disputed details. It should be possible to edit the film back into chronological order using this list as a basis. If you need to cite this page, or have any corrections or comments, please email me josh DOT wedlake AT gmail [etc].
UPDATE: A slightly corrected and more in depth version of this is available on p.38 of my MA Dissertation, which is published online here.
1
Maria Nikolaevna [Mariya Ivanova Vishnyakova b.1907] (the stepdaughter of Matvey Ivanov)
Alexei's father / Maria's Ex-husband [Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky b.1907]
'Aunt' Dunya Gorchakov (Maria's sister(-in-law?))
'Uncle' Pasha Gorchakov [Possibly Vladimir Vishnyakova] (Maria's brother(-in-law?))
Yelizavet Pavlovna (Maria's colleague, Lisa)
Travelling Doctor
Nadezhda Petrovna (who Maria visits for the earring sale)
2
Alexei [Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky b.1932] (Maria's son)
Marina [Marina Tarkovsky b.1934] (Alexei's brother, Marina's daughter)
Asafyev (the boy at military training with Alexei)
Alexei's wife Natalia [Irma Ya. Rausch b.1960]
The Strange Woman (who asks Ignat to read, and discusses Alexei's health with the doctor)
3
The Stutterer (Yuri Zhary from Kharkov, Ukraine)
Ignat [Arseny Tarkovsky b.1962] (Alexei' son)
1.Ignat age 12, watches the treatment of the Stutterer on TV.
2.The Stutterer is put into a trance.
3.The Stutterer proves he is cured by saying the phrase "I can speak" loudly and clearly.
-Credits-
4.Opening Credits, with Bach's Das Orgelbüchlein No. 16, "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist"/"The Old Year has Passed".
-Scene 2, colour, prewar c1935, near the Dacha-
[Alexei's father has 'left' this year. Tarkovsky's father divorced when he was a child in 1937.]
5.Maria sits on wooden fence smoking, looking out at the road which goes from Ignatievo station (platforma Ignat'evo) to Tomshino.
6.Sound of train whistle in distance.
7.The Travelling Doctor walks across the field of buckwheat towards the bush (Tarkovsky was born in the house of his mother's mother's second husband, a doctor, possibly explaining the Doctor's role; Maria's mother's husband is formally referred to as Matvey Ivanov in the film).
8.A Narrator (an older Alexei) explains that if the Doctor turns at the bush, he is likely to be 'father' (Alexei's father) as he would be heading for the house (the Dacha, which is based on Tarkovsky's grandmother's house; in the film the narrator later explains that this house is his grandmother's house where he was born).
9.The Doctor walks up to Maria and asks the way to Tomshino.
10.Maria tells the Doctor that he "shouldn't" have taken a turn at the bush - ie. he has gone the wrong way, and it is also implied that he shouldn't be at Maria's house.
11.The Doctor seems overly friendly. He asks for a nail and a screwdriver to open his case of instruments for which he has forgotten the key.
12.Maria doesn't have any nails.
13.The Doctor asks Maria to give him her hand, and tells her that he is a doctor.
14.Maria threatens to fetch her husband (who she is in fact recently separated from).
15.The Doctor notices that Maria isn't wearing a ring, but remarks that not everyone wear rings now.
16.The Doctor asks for and receives a cigarette.
17.The Doctor looks over Maria's shoulder which prompts Maria to also look back to see Alexei (in a beige lace up light shirt and shorts) and his sister Marina (younger, shorter, wearing a light blue stiped dress) alseep in a hamock.
18.The Doctor sits on the fence next to Maria and it gives way. Both of them fall to the ground.
19.The Doctor contrasts the calmness of the plants and the trees to human activity.
20.Maria makes reference to Chekhov's "Ward Six", hinting the Doctor is mad. He claims he is immune to insanity.
21.The Doctor tells Maria to come to Tomshino as they have "good times" there.
22.Maria watches the Doctor leave and a gust of wind (or his own decision; this is left ambiguous) causes him to pause and turn back towards the house and Maria.
23.A different Narrator (Arseny Tarkovsky possibly as Alexei's Father) reads a poem about meeting someone (possibly Alexei's mother) and falling in love.
24.Maria moves towards the house. Something falls from the house's window. As Maria looks back to the camera the scene cuts.
-Scene 2B, colour, prewar c1935, near the Dacha-
[A possible time lapse since the last scene as Marina is now asleep on a pile of hay in a kennel.]
25.Two young children with shaved heads, Alexei, staring just below the camera, and his sister Marina, are outside. There are small fires out of focus behind.
26.A lady with dark hair, a dark dress and a dark top (probably Dounya) picks up the girl and follows Alexei towards the house.
27.Inside Alexei's sister Marina eats berries in cream/milk, a black cat licks spilt cream/milk, and Alexei pours a white powder, probably flour, on the black cat's head.
28.Maria is inside looking forlorn. She sits by a window, outside of which is her ironing and the perimeter fence.
29.Maria begins to cry, presumably over her broken marriage, while the poem reaches its climax.
30.Pasha shouts for Dounya offscreen.
31.Maria tells the two children at the table, Alexei and his sister Marina that there is a fire, but they must be quiet. A cut breaks the 180 rule, they come running.
32.Alexei and Marina watch the barn burn, shown in a reflection in a mirror hung on a door.
33.Dounya worries about Vitya (male) who she thinks might have burnt, and Klanya (named as Pasha and Dounya's six year old daughter in the script). Pasha calls for Klanya.
34.Klanya emerges from behind the mirrored door wearing a fur coat.
35.Dounya and Pasha watch the barn burn from outside, as does nearby Maria.
36.Maria walks over to a well and tips the bucket to take a drink and wash her face. She sits on edge of well while the man (Pasha) trots past her towards the barn.
-Scene 3, black and white dream, prewar before 1935, in the Dacha-
[Prior to Alexei's father's departure.]
37.A younger Alexei sits up in bed, walks towards the doorframe, then a dove flies past.
38.(slow motion) Maria is washing her hair with the help of her husband.
39.(slow motion) The ceiling collapses as it rains inside.
40.Maria walks past several mirrors in a shawl, then in the last of the series, she sees herself as an old woman.
-Scene 4, colour, contemporary after 1966 before 1974, 6pm in the evening, Alexei's apartment-
[Dated by the Andrei Rublev poster.]
41.Sound of a tram, a hand as if holding fire (Scene 4B), then a phone rings.
42.The camera passes a poster on the wall for Andrei Rublev.
43.Alexei answers the phone, it is his mother Maria. Alexei has a sore throat and hasn't spoke to anyone for 3 days. He thinks it is good to keep quiet as words can't express everything.
44.Alexei asks his mother which year his father left, the answer is 1935, the same year the barn burned down (dating Scene 2 & 2B).
45.Alexei's mother is calling to say that Lisa, who she worked with at the printers, died this morning at 7am.
46.Alexei has lost track of time and thinks it is now the morning. His mother says it is 6pm.
47.Alexei asks his mother if they can stop fighting. He apologises for anything he has done wrong. Maria hangs up the phone.
-Scene 5, black and white dream, prewar (date uncertain), Printing Press in Moscow-
[Tarkovsky's mother moved to Moscow where she worked at the press in 1935. In the script Maria is said to be in Moscow in 1943, though it is not necessarily implied that this is the period when Maria works for the press. The Printing Press is 60km from Ignatievo station, near the Dacha, so it is unlikely that Maria is meant to commute during the years of the film in which she lives in the Dacha. In Scene 17 Maria says that (up to) two years before she lived in Moscow, which places this scene prior to Scene 17 and after Scene 12.]
48.A tram bell rings, this is the stop for the Printing Press, and the next stop is Serpukhovskaya (in Moscow).
49.Maria is running through leaves, then it starts to rain.
50.A guard on the building who checks her entrance card/ID asks her what the rush is and she doesn't answer.
51.Maria demands the proofs from a girl who is at the desk next to hers.
52.The girl tells her to wait, and that "Yelizavet Pavlovna" (Lisa) is here.
53.(fast motion) Together the three of them walk to find the proofs.
54.The unnamed girl is crying; Lisa tells her to "shut up, you idiot".
55.(slow motion) Lisa runs ahead.
56.A man (Ivan Gavrilovic) tries to check the proofs for Lisa, but she wants to do it herself. He comments on everyone rushing and tells the unnamed girl to go back to work and let Maria worry.
57.Maria finds the page in question and there is no error.
58.Maria walks back to her desk with the Narrator (Arseny Tarkovsky) reading a poem. The narrator (presumably Alexei's father) was waiting for someone (presumably Maria) yesterday when there was "holiday weather"; now when they are here the weather is gloomy.
59.Back at her desk and lauging through tears she is joined by Lisa, who is smoking. Maria whispers the misprint she had imagined: "Shralin", excrement instead of Stalin.
60.Maria and Lisa laugh, then they are joined by Ivan Gavrilovic who brings them pure alcohol and tells Maria that she looks like a scarecrow.
61.Maria says she will take a shower and asks those around her where her comb is (twice).
62.Lisa tells Maria that she reminds her of Maria Timofeyevna (Captain Lebyadkin's sister in Dostoevsky's The Devils/Demons), a woman who was always demanding things.
63.Maria doesn't know who Maria Timofeyevna was.
64.Lisa tells Maria that in her case people do as she says, and that she is amazed at the patience of Maria's ex-husband.
65.Maria gets up and goes to have a shower. Lisa tries to follow her but Maria locks her out of the shower.
66.Lisa turns back down the corridor and utters the opening lines of Dante's Inferno, "Midway on our life's journey I found myself in a dark woods" as she skips from side to side.
67.Maria laughs and cries in the shower.
-Scene 6, colour, prewar probably 1935, near the Dacha-
[Possibly connected to Scenes 2 & 7B due to the location, the palette the fire, and the time of day.]
68.In the middle distance a fire burns in a field of buckwheat. The camera is under telegraph poles and in the far background is the woods. Fade to black.
-Scene 7, colour, contemporary and post divorce of Natalia and Alexei, in Alexei's apartment-
[Location confirmed in 1985 interview (Illg&Neuger,1987), possibly follows Scene 4.]
69.Natalia and her husband Alexei are arguing. Natalia is looking in the mirror, moving her head around to examine her face.
70.Alexei says that Natalia resembles his mother, Natalia says that apparently this is why they are divorced
71.Natalia is concerned (she says "with horror") that Ignat is becomming like Alexei.
-Scene 7B, colour, prewar 1935, outside the Dacha-
[Probably immediately after Scenes 2B or 6.]
72.Dounya carries Marina inside, while Maria carries a bucket walking with the Pasha towards the house.
-Scene 7, continued-
73.Ignat appears, he has been listening in. He is told to put the glass down.
74.Natalia tells Alexei that he seems to think his presence will make everyone happy, and that he only knows how to demand (echoing Lisa's statement to his mother).
75.Alexei claims that this is because he was brought up by women (implying without a father). He tells Natalia to get married as soon as possible or give Ignat to him.
76.Natalia asks Alexei why he hasn't made up with his mother.
77.Alexei says it's because his mother thinks she knows how he should live best, and that he is becoming more distant from her.
[possible time lapse]
78.Ignat eats an apple and watches the Spanish tenants who live in his father's apartment.
79.Alexei asks Natalia to distract one of them who is talking about Spain again.
80.Natalia asks Alexei if Ignat can stay with him for a week as they are redecorating.
81.Natalia breathes onto the mirror and the shot cuts.
-Scene 7C, black and white archive footage, date unknown, Spain-
82.A bullfight. This footage seems too old to be of Palomo Linares, referred to soon after, as this would date it 1965 onwards.
-Scene 7, continued-
83.Natalia, who is amused by one of the tenants acting out Palomo Linares' (a bullfighter from 1965 onwards) moves, asks another tenant what is happening.
-Scene 7D, black and white archive footage, c1936-1939, Spain-
[this is losely interspersed with Scene 7 in several sections]
84.Spanish Civil War
-Scene 7, continued-
85.One of the tenants explains that the other tenant was most excited by the farewell he was given. He knew he may never see his mother again after he had left.
86.The daughters of the Spanish Tenants dance to flamenco music. One of the Tenants accuses them of mocking him as he taught them to dance.
87.A Spanish woman called Louisa explains to Natalia how she can't go back to Spain as she has a Russian husband and Russian children.
88.The Spanish woman runs from the room, Natalia follows and tells her husband that she will talk to her.
-Scene 7E, black and white archive footage, c1934-1939 (possibly including 1941), Spain/USSR-
89.To flamenco music people run for cover, bombs are dropped. Spanish civil war footage is mixed with footage of Russian children being evacuated during WWII (possibly the Moscow evacuation of 1941).
90.A stratospheric balloon journey shoing one of the "USSR-" series of balloons possibly the failed USSR-3 flight of 1937.
91.Cloudhopper balloonists attempt to untangle cables to the music Pergolesi, Stabat Mater, No 12: Quando corpus morietur fac ut animae donetur paradisi gloria / While my body here decays, may my soul Thy goodness praise, safe in Paradise with Thee!.
92.A ticker tape parade, either for May Day 1939 in Red Square (p.418,Robinson; p.34,Synessios; p.122,Johnson&Petrie), or for the aviator Valerii Chkalov’s return to Moscow after his 63-hour flight across the North Pole in 1937 (p.119,Skakov; p.46,Bird refers to 1936, the year Chkalov was made a "Hero of the Soviet Union") (sources disagree).
-Scene 8, colour, several years after 1935, location unknown-
[Alexei is now 12 years old (p.123,Martin, though evidence is not given to confirm the date), placing this scene during the war. The room he is in, and the window he walks up to, though out of focus, doesn't resemble the interior of the Dacha as we have seen it so far. It is possible that he is in Moscow now, prior to the evacuation mentioned in Scene 17, though the age of the book contradicts this, as in Scene 12, which is prior to the move to Moscow, when Alexei is also c12 years old.]
93.Alexei leafs through a book of Leonardo da Vinci reproductions. He walks up to a window wearing a fur coat.
-Scene 9, colour, contemporary presumably after Scene 7, Alexei's apartment-
94.Natalia tells Ignat she is leaving. Ignat is sat at a different windowsill to the one Alexei was at.
95.As Natalia drops her purse the music ceases.
96.Ignat helps Natalia put her posessions back in her purse, as Natalia comments how she is always in a rush.
97.Ignat says he felt a shock as if he had picked up coins before (possible reference to Stalker, or to the earrings in Scene 17).
98.Natalia leaves telling Ignat that if "Maria Nikolaevna" (Maria, Alexei's grandmother) comes, he should tell her to wait.
99.The apartment looks dilapidated in subsequent shots. There is no time jump here as we hear the door close after Natalia.
100.Ignat is running his hands over some books. He looks round and jumps as he sees two women, one dressed as a Maid serving a cup from a tray, the other, the Strange Woman, resembles a photograph of the poet Anna Akhmatova (1898-1966), a figure condemned and censored by the Stalinist Authorities (Tarkovsky has denied this resemblance in a 1985 interview (Illg&Neuger,1987) and instead pointed out that she is simply someone trying to tie the boy to certain cultural conditions).
101.The Strange Woman tells Ignat to come in and asks the maid for another cup.
102.The Strange Woman tells Ignat to fetch a notebook (which has handwritten pages) and read a passage aloud. He reads aloud, first a sentence in which Rousseau states that the arts and sciences have a negative effect on morals.
103.The Strange Woman then asks him to read only what is underlined. The passage is from Pushkin's letter to Chaadayev, Oct 19, 1836, which describes how Russia survived the Tatar invasion saving Christian civilization. Pushkin states that although he is not delighted with the present leaders of Russia, he would not wish to change his home country or have any other history. Sunlight levels in the room vary as the seated lady listens. Ignat leans against a wall on which hangs a photograph of Tarkovsky's real mother as a young woman.
104.The Strange Woman sends Ignat to open the door. Maria (in her old age, as seen in the dream in Scene 3) is at the door. She doesn't recognise Ignat and says that she has the wrong address. Ignat doesn't recognise his grandmother either.
105.When Ignat returns to the room, the Strange Woman is no longer there, but a circle of fast evaporating steam marks remains where her cup was.
106.The phone rings, and Ignat has a conversation with father, Alexei. Alexei asks Ignat if "Maria Niolaevna" (Maria, Alexei's mother) has arrived.
107.Ignat says no, but tells his father that an old lady came to the wrong address.
108.Alexei tells Ignat to find something to do and asks if he knows any girls.
109.Ignat says he doesn't and grins.
110.Alexei tells Ignat that during the war he was in love with a Redhead with chapped lips, a girl who was also chased by Alexei's Military Instructor, a man who suffered from shell-shock.
-Scene 10, colour, after the start of the Leningrad Blockade 1941-1944, Winter, probably near Moscow-
[Tarkovsky would have been 3 in 1935, though Alexei appears to be slightly older in Scene 2B, perhaps age 5-7 which would make him 12 in 1942-44]
111.The teenage Redhead walks away in the snow. She is a significantly different age to both Alexei and the Instructor. In the script she is referred to as Nina Petrovna.
112.In voiceover Alexei asks if Ignat is still listening.
113.12 year old Alexei (played by the same actor as 12 year old Ignat) watches the Redhead.
114.Rifle practice, with Purcell from The Indian Queen, Act IV, "They tell us that your mighty powers".
115.The military Instructor reprimands a boy for firing up, not at the target, risking hitting someone.
116.In the drill routine a boy called Asafyev consistently turns the wrong way in the about-turn.
117.The Instructor threatens to send the boy home to his parents.
118.Another boy reveals that Asafyev's parents died in the Leningrad Blockade.
119.Asafyev in tears removes a grenade from his bag.
120.In a confusing series of shots a hand picks up the grenade, another child pulls the pin, and another rolls down the slope and throws the grenade. A child yells "Asafyev, don't do it" suggesting that it is Asafyev who pulls the pin though this is not entirely clear.
121.The boys drop to the ground as the Instructor throws himself down in front of the grenade and we hear his heart beat.
122.The grenade fails to go off, Asafyev reveals it was a dummy.
123.The Instructor says to Asafyev "And you say you're from Leningrad and have been under siege...".
124.The Redhead wipes blood from her split lip and stares into the camera.
-Scene 10B, black and white archive footage, during WWII, location unknown-
125.A naked man carries a wooden box down a slope to a pier which partially clothed soldiers stand on carrying weapons.
126.Soldiers fall from the pier into the river as firing is heard.
-Scene 10, continued-
127.The echo of firing rings over into this shot. Asafyev leaves the firing range and the other boys stand up.
-Scene 10C, black and white archive footage, c1943, various WWII locations-
128.Soldiers push a canon along a track.
129.The Soviet crossing of Lake Sivash in Crimea, 1943.
130.A poem is read by Arseny Tarkovsky featuring the lines "There is no death. We're all immortal ... Fear not death at seventeen, Nor at seventy...".
-Scene 11, colour, probably consecutive to Scene 10, probably near Moscow-
131.Asafyev slips as he walks up a hill which resembles a Breugel painting.
132.As Asafyev reaches the camera we see that he is whistling but has tears on his cheeks. He stares as if he is watching the following Scene.
-Scene 11B, black and white archive footage circa, c1945-6, various locations-
133.Russian tanks in the liberation of Prague in 1945.
134.The dead 'Hitler' double is photographed (p.123,Martin).
135.Fireworks in Moscow 1945.
136.The Atomic Bomb dropping on Hiroshima (p.126,Johnson&Petrie), or possibly the explosion at Bikini Atoll in 1946.
-Scene 11, continued-
137.Asafyev stops staring and turns his back to us and walks towards the slope.
138.A bird comes to perch on his hat (after a hidden cut).
-Scene 11C, black and white archive footage, from possibly as early as c1945 to 1969, various locations-
139.Crowds carrying portraits of Mao. Shots of statues of Mao.
140.Russian soldiers try to hold back Chinese waving red books (published 1964) on Damansky Island (Zhenbao Island) a disputed Russian/Chinese territory, 1969. This echoes the Pushkin letter - keeping others out of Europe.
-Scene 12, colour, date unknown, in the Dacha-
[Probably after the war in 1945, certainly after Scene 9.]
141.Maria is on the floor of a dilapidated barn. She gathers scrap wood and starts to cut it.
142.Her husband appears in a military uniform and asks where the children are. Maria looks shocked.
143.Alexei's sister Marina threatens to tell everyone that Alexei stole the book. Alexei and Marina quarrel, Alexei pushes Marina away leaving her to quarrel.
144.Alexei and Marina's father calls for Marina. Marina hears but looks confused.
145.Alexei and Marina both start running towards the voice, Alexei pushing Marina out of the way.
146.Alexei has leaves his Leonardo da Vinci book behind. It now looks more tattered than in Scene 9.
147.Alexei falls and Marina overtakes him. They both keep running.
148.Marina watches on in tears, then turns away as Alexei and Marina are embraced by their father. Alexei's father wears two medals, one of which could be the "Order of the Red Star" for bravery, the other could be the "Order of the Red Banner" for heroism or long service. The insignia on his shoulder suggests that he could be a captain. All of these details are slightly out of focus or obscured.
149.Bach's "St Matthew Passion" plays. The bible passage is "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split".
150.The "Genevra de Benci" by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1474-1478) is shown. Tarkovsky compares this image to the actor playing Maria (p.108,Sculpting in Time). The portrait commemorates the wedding of a young woman who was a gifted intellectual. She was said to be unhappy approaching her wedding. Later in her life she went into exile because of illness and a love affair tragedy.
-Scene 13, black and white, contemporary, Alexei's apartment-
[Sometime after Scene 9, possibly later in the same day as Alexei is still waiting for Maria. More than several days after "Aunt Lisa" died in Scene 4.]
151.Natalia tells Alexei that he should have come to visit Ignat more often.
152.Alexei asks Natalia to let Ignat live with him. Natalia refuses, saying that this would be crazy.
153.Natalia asks Ignat if he's collected his books.
154.Alexei asks Ignat if he thinks it would be better if he lived with Alexei.
155.Ignat looks surprised, then answers negatively.
156.Natalia looks at various photographs of herself (wearing Maria's dress from her youth) with an older Maria (these were taken on set when both actors were present; the actor representing Natalia in the photographs is dressed to represent Maria). Natalia says that she and Maria look alike, confirming Alexei's earlier statement in Scene 7.
157.Natalia says that Maria needs Alexei to go back to being born, and that Maria just wants to be able to protect him again.
158.Alexei asks what Natalia is whimpering about. Natalia asks if she should marry "him" (an unknown Writer called Dostoyevsky).
159.Alexei says that the Writer hasn't written anything worthwhile, and at age 40 this shows he has no talent.
160.Alexei points out that their precious flunk (Ignat, who is failing at school) has put something on the fire.
161.Natalia tells Alexei not to joke about Ignat's flunking.
162.Alexei warns that Ignat will end up being drafted, then Natalia will have to beg to have him exempted.
163.Alexei says that Ignat's behaviour is the result of Natalia indulging him, and that he thinks that the army would be good for Ignat.
164.Natalia tells Alexei to call his mother Maria, and reminds him that she stayed in bed for three days after "Aunt" Lisa died. Maria was meant to be "here" at 5.
165.Alexei tries to change the conversation back to Ignat. Alexei criticises how bourgeoise the family has become.
166.Ignat is shown to be burning a bush. Natalia asks who set the bush on fire in the Bible and suggests sending Ignat to a cadet school.
167.Alexei responds that an angel appeared to Moses as a flaming bush, who then lead his people out across the sea.
168.Natalia asks why nothing like that has ever happened to her.
-Scene 14, black and white dream, date unknown, near the Dacha-
[Probably a precursor to Scene 16.]
169.(slow motion) Cut-away to wind blowing the trees.
-Scene 15, colour, c1935, the Dacha-
[Possibly prior to Scene 2B/2.]
170.The edge of the woods outside the Grandmother's Dacha.
171.Inside Dounya, wearing a shawl, looks at her reflection in a mirror, the older boy takes a lamp from the ceiling and Alexei sits on the mat. The black cat is on the windowsill.
171.A Narrator (Alexei) describes a dream about the Dacha where he was born on the table 40 years ago. In the dream something prevents him from entering the Dacha each time he visits it.
172.The Narrator (Alexei) describes the log walls and dark pantry, and the sadness he feels when he realises it is only a dream.
173.The camera follows Maria around the house. Outside the Klanya fills a glass bottle with water from a much larger bottle.
174.The Narrator (Alexei) describes how, when his dream ends, he must wait for another dream that will make him a child again, so that he can be happy and know that "all still lies ahead... and nothing is impossible".
175.Maria walks outside to sit with the Dounya.
176.Inside, in near total darkness, Alexei lights a match.
-Scene 16, black and white dream, c1935, the Dacha-
[Contains recurring imagery from Scene 14. Alexei's age is as in Scene 2B.]
177.A vase on a table contains what looks like the inner workings of a clock. Next to the vase is a half-open knife. Cut lace curtains dangle next to it, though the table appears to be outside.
178.Alexei walks by and the camera follows him walking towards the house, past a table (which is familar from Scene 3, though possibly relocated).
179.The camera pans past Alexei and zooms in on the house. Alexei calls out "Mama".
180.Alexei stands next to an opening door, and a hand appears from offscreen to catch the door.
181.(slow motion) A hen smashes through a glass window pane.
182.(slow motion) The trees blow in the wind again (linking this to Scene 14). Wind blows a lamp off a table.
183.(slow motion) Back at the house a sheet flaps violently in the wind and Alexei runs towards the house looking back at the camera which shakes as if it is a point of view shot.
184.(slow motion) Alexei disappears behind the house and rain falls through the trees.
185.(slow motion) Alexei tries a door which will not open. He walks away. After some time the door falls open revealing Maria peeling potatoes and a brightly lit dog, which walks out the door and out of shot.
-Scene 17, colour, wartime, in the countryside 15 miles from Yurievets-
[Probably some time later than Scene 11 as Alexei is now 15 (acted by Philip Yankovsky), and two years after Maria and her children have been evacuated from Moscow.]
186.A farm with a charred log outside. It is evening and there is a low mist behind the house.
187.A woman walks out of the farm scaring Alexei who is outside. She throws out the contents of a large dish which look like milk.
188.Alexei runs to fetch his mother Maria.
189.Alexei and Maria meet Nadezhda Petrovna. A cut breaks the 180 degree rule as she doesn't recognise them.
190.Nadezhda's husband was friends with Matvey Ivanov, who is Maria's stepfather.
191.Maria states that they are from Moscow but have been living in a room in Yurievets since they were evacuated last fall. It starts to rain.
192.They move under shelter. Nadezhda says that her husband is not here.
193.Maria says that actually she came to see Nadezhda and that it is about "a little ladies secret". Nadezhda leads Maria and Alexei into a well lit room asking them to wipe their feet as Masha has just wiped the floor.
194.Maria drops her Earrings, (possibly due to embarassment as Nadezhda's family is significantly wealthier; Maria is presumably selling the earring for food) echoing Natalia dropping her coins. We see that Alexei is barefoot.
195.Nadezhda tells Alexei to wait in the room as they won't be long. Maria and Nadezhda proceed to another room.
196.Milk drips down from a table past half peeled potatoes.
197.Alexei adjusts his hair and shirt in a mirror on the wall. He then stares at his reflection for a considerable length of time while music plays.
-Scene 17B, colour dream, wartime, location unknown-
198.Cut-away to a mirror resting on charred wood in a fire. A face is staring into the mirror.
199.A hand closes a mirrored door revealing a man in a fur coat standing in front of the Redhead girl who Alexei was in love with.
200.The man leaves and the Redhead appears to look up at Alexei.
201.The Redhead appears to be holding the mirror in front of her towards the fire. She looks into the camera again.
202.The camera swings to one side and the wipe cuts to a hand with burning firewood behind.
-Scene 17, continued-
203.Alexei is awoken from this dream as the lamp flutters on and off several times, then goes out leaving him in the dark.
204.Nadezhda tries on Maria's turquoise Earrings in the room with Maria.
205.Nadezhda walks back into the room where Alexei is sitting and asks why he is in the dark.
206.Maria helps Nadezhda relight the lamp.
207.Nadezhda explains that she also has a son, and says that it's not easy having kids with the war on.
208.Nadezhda checks her new Earrings in the mirror, then invites Maria to come to see her sleeping baby boy.
209.A shot of the baby's cot with netting draped over it.
210.Nadezhda talks about the child's mental development. She says his father wanted a girl and they expected and prepared for a girl.
211.Maria smooths down Alexei's hair. She looks bored by Nadezhda's continual talking.
212.Nadezhda wakes up her child with her talking.
213.Maria runs from the room holding her throat looking sick.
214.Nadezhda follows and asks what's wrong, offering to make a hot drink.
215.Nadezhda says that they must stay for dinner.
216.Maria says they have already eaten.
217.Nadezhda says that they should stay so that her husband (a doctor) can examine Alexei, who has a cough which Nadezhda doesn't like.
218.Maria says that they can't wait as they have a 2 hour walk to make. Nadezhda says that her husband has the money for the Earrings so they will have to wait.
219.Nadezhda asks Maria to slaughter the cock as she (Nadezhda) is pregnant and having fits of sickness.
220.Maria tells Nadezhda that has never done this before.
221.Nadezhda says that tomorrow she will give Maria a chicken to take as well (charity). Nadezhda says that the slaughtering will happen in the room they are in.
222.Maria looks worried. In response Nadezhda suggests Alexei do it as he's a "man".
223.Maria holds the cock and the axe.
224.Nadezhda says that she feels unwell, then feathers burst in from out of shot as Maria slaughters the cock.
225.Maria looks strangely triumphant echoing a Da Vinci painting, then the expression changes to be sinister and angry.
-Scene 17C, black and white dream, probably before Maria's husband's departure, location unknown-
226.Maria's husband stares at the camera, as if looking back at Maria in Scene 17. He is topless.
227.Maria's husband turns round to stroke his hand which rests on a body, which is revealed to be a levitating Maria.
228.Maria (as a voice over) says to her husband that she wishes she could see him not only when she feels unwell.
229.Maria's tells her husband not to be worried and that she loves him.
-Scene 17, continued-
230.Maria and Alexei leave the house in a hurry.
231.Nadezhda asks about the Earring sale.
232.Maria says that they have changed their minds.
233.Nadezhda objects warning them that it is a 15 mile walk back into town.
234.Maria and Alexei leave anyway, and walk along the river as the Narrator (Arseny Tarkovsky) reads a poem about the embodiment of the soul.
-Scene 18, black and white dream, c1935, the Dacha-
[Thematically continuing Scene 16.]
235.(slow motion) The wind blows the trees in the wood surrounding the Dacha. The camera pans across the garden to a table where a lamp which has already fallen is rolling over edge (as in Scene 16). The poem continues.
236.(slow motion) Alexei enters into the house which is dark inside and full of hanging curtains and sheets.
237.(slow motion) Alexei looks into a mirror holding a large glass bottle of milk. He starts to drink from the bottle.
-Scene 19, colour, c1935, near the Dacha-
[In the original script carrying clothes back to the house happens before the barn fire, but the stepping stones and washing is the closing scene.]
238.Alexei swims across a river late one evening.
239.Maria is waching clothes in a tub as an undressed Marina hops over some stepping stones or logs.
-Scene 20, colour dream, c1935, the Dacha-
240.On a new day in the Dacha it is sunny. Outside Alexei walks towards Maria (as an old woman) and says to her, "Mom, the kerosene stove is smoking."
250.Maria asks "what?" as she glances round, quickly turning back and looking disinterested, staying seated and still smoking. In the script Tarkovsky states that this is a dream in which he wanted to apologise to his mother.
-Scene 21, colour, last of the postwar scenes, location unknown-
251.A Doctor walks up and down his room, which has one wall covered in mirrors, as Maria (in her old age) knits and a Strange Woman facing away from the camera sits and ask about "his" (Alexei's) condition.
252.The Strange Woman says that she didn't know a sore throat could have such a bad effect.
253.The Doctor says that this has nothing to do with the sore throat, and often when someone's mother dies this happens.
254.The Strange Woman says that noone has died in his family.
255.The Doctor replies that it could be due to his conscience or memory.
256.The Strange Woman turns to reveal herself to be the same woman who asked Ignat to read the Pushkin letter in Scene 9. She asks if the Doctor thinks Alexei is guilty of something.
257.Maria looks up and jumps in with the answer "he [the Doctor] thinks so".
258.Alexei's voice cuts in with "Leave me alone", then a cut reveals a man (presumably Alexei) lying in bed.
259.A voice asks Alexei what will happen to his mother (Maria) if he doesn't get up.
260.Alexei's hand picks up a tiny bird which is on his bedsheets. Alexei replies that it's nothing, and everything will be alright.
261.(slow motion) Alexei throws the tiny bird up into the air and it starts to fly.
-Scene 22, colour, pre-1935, near the Dacha-
[Before Maria's first child is born.]
262.A long pan across the buckwheat field reveals the dacha, then a tilt down shows Maria and her husband lying in the meadow. Her husband asks if she would rather have a boy or a girl.
263.Maria smiles, then she starts crying, as the music Bach's "St John Passion" fades in: "Lord, our Sovereign, whose glory in every land is magnificent!" She looks towards where her house would be.
-Scene 22B, colour dream, children c1935, Maria c1966-c1974, near the Dacha-
[Possibly Marina's vision of herself in the future, after Scene 20.]
264.To Bach's "St John Passion" Maria (as an old woman) walks back to the house with a basket of washing and Alexei and Marina nearby.
265.They stop when they get to where the house should be. There are only ruins and rotting wood.
266.Maria takes Marina by the hand and they walk off with Alexei.
-Scene 22, continued-
267.Maria looks back, as if she has just seen the vision of Scene 22. She smiles and cries at the same time.
-Scene 22B, continue-
268.Maria as an old woman leads Marina and Alexei across the field away from the house as Maria (as a young woman) stands in the middle of the field watching them leave.
-END-
Before the birth of Alexei and Marina, or possibly just Marina, c1930.
22 - Maria and her husband lie in the grass together.
Dreams of life before Maria's husband's departure. Alexei <c5 years old, c1934.
3 - Alexei's father helping his mother Maria to wash her hair.
17C - Maria wishing to see her husband not only when she felt unwell.
Life after Maria's husband's departure. Alexei c5 years old, 1935.
19 - Washing clothes in the river.
2 - The Travelling Doctor's visit.
2B - The barn fire.
6 - The burning field.
7B - Dounya carries Marina inside.
Dreams about life after Maria's husband's departure. Alexei c5 years old, c1935.
14 - Blowing trees, as in Scene 16.
15- Narration describing Alexei's bad dream about the Dacha. A sunny day in the Dacha without Alexei's father.
16 - Alexei's bad dream about the Dacha.
18 - Alexei's bad dream about the Dacha.
20 - The kerosene stove dream, with the older Marina.
22B - Marina's ruined house dream.
Wartime Archive Footage, c1934-1939/41.
7C - The Bullfight.
7D - The Spanish Civil War.
7E - Russian Evacuations.
Wartime, Alexei c12 years old, c1942.
8 - Alexei reads an undamaged Leonardo book.
10 - The Redhead, Alexei and Asafyev at the firing range.
11 - Asafyev walking up the hill.
12 - Alexei's father returns to the Dacha.
After moving to Moscow. Alexei c13 years old, c1943.
5 - Maria at the Printing Press.
Wartime Archive Footage.
10B - Soldiers and Pier.
10C - Lake Sivash c1943.
11B - WWII c1945-6.
After evacuating Moscow. Alexei c15 years old, c1945.
17 - Selling the Earrings.
4B - The Burning Hand.
17B - Alexei's dream of the Redhead.
1966 or later. Ignat c12 years old.
1 - Ignat watching the Stutterer.
4 - Alexei on the phone to Maria; Lisa has died.
At least 4 days later.
7 - Alexei and Natalia arguing. The Spanish Tenants.
9 - Alexei and Natalia arguing. Ignat and the Strange Woman.
13 - Alexei and Natalia arguing. Ignat burning the bush.
21 - The Doctor and Alexei's death.
UPDATE: A slightly corrected and more in depth version of this is available on p.38 of my MA Dissertation, which is published online here.
Characters by Generation
The family name used in the film Nikolaevna is similar to the town where Tarkovsky's father, Arseny, was sent for execution, Nikolayev.1
Maria Nikolaevna [Mariya Ivanova Vishnyakova b.1907] (the stepdaughter of Matvey Ivanov)
Alexei's father / Maria's Ex-husband [Arseny Aleksandrovich Tarkovsky b.1907]
'Aunt' Dunya Gorchakov (Maria's sister(-in-law?))
'Uncle' Pasha Gorchakov [Possibly Vladimir Vishnyakova] (Maria's brother(-in-law?))
Yelizavet Pavlovna (Maria's colleague, Lisa)
Travelling Doctor
Nadezhda Petrovna (who Maria visits for the earring sale)
2
Alexei [Andrei Arsenevich Tarkovsky b.1932] (Maria's son)
Marina [Marina Tarkovsky b.1934] (Alexei's brother, Marina's daughter)
Asafyev (the boy at military training with Alexei)
Alexei's wife Natalia [Irma Ya. Rausch b.1960]
The Strange Woman (who asks Ignat to read, and discusses Alexei's health with the doctor)
3
The Stutterer (Yuri Zhary from Kharkov, Ukraine)
Ignat [Arseny Tarkovsky b.1962] (Alexei' son)
Events in Film Order
-Scene 1, colour-1.Ignat age 12, watches the treatment of the Stutterer on TV.
2.The Stutterer is put into a trance.
3.The Stutterer proves he is cured by saying the phrase "I can speak" loudly and clearly.
-Credits-
4.Opening Credits, with Bach's Das Orgelbüchlein No. 16, "Das alte Jahr vergangen ist"/"The Old Year has Passed".
-Scene 2, colour, prewar c1935, near the Dacha-
[Alexei's father has 'left' this year. Tarkovsky's father divorced when he was a child in 1937.]
5.Maria sits on wooden fence smoking, looking out at the road which goes from Ignatievo station (platforma Ignat'evo) to Tomshino.
6.Sound of train whistle in distance.
7.The Travelling Doctor walks across the field of buckwheat towards the bush (Tarkovsky was born in the house of his mother's mother's second husband, a doctor, possibly explaining the Doctor's role; Maria's mother's husband is formally referred to as Matvey Ivanov in the film).
8.A Narrator (an older Alexei) explains that if the Doctor turns at the bush, he is likely to be 'father' (Alexei's father) as he would be heading for the house (the Dacha, which is based on Tarkovsky's grandmother's house; in the film the narrator later explains that this house is his grandmother's house where he was born).
9.The Doctor walks up to Maria and asks the way to Tomshino.
10.Maria tells the Doctor that he "shouldn't" have taken a turn at the bush - ie. he has gone the wrong way, and it is also implied that he shouldn't be at Maria's house.
11.The Doctor seems overly friendly. He asks for a nail and a screwdriver to open his case of instruments for which he has forgotten the key.
12.Maria doesn't have any nails.
13.The Doctor asks Maria to give him her hand, and tells her that he is a doctor.
14.Maria threatens to fetch her husband (who she is in fact recently separated from).
15.The Doctor notices that Maria isn't wearing a ring, but remarks that not everyone wear rings now.
16.The Doctor asks for and receives a cigarette.
17.The Doctor looks over Maria's shoulder which prompts Maria to also look back to see Alexei (in a beige lace up light shirt and shorts) and his sister Marina (younger, shorter, wearing a light blue stiped dress) alseep in a hamock.
18.The Doctor sits on the fence next to Maria and it gives way. Both of them fall to the ground.
19.The Doctor contrasts the calmness of the plants and the trees to human activity.
20.Maria makes reference to Chekhov's "Ward Six", hinting the Doctor is mad. He claims he is immune to insanity.
21.The Doctor tells Maria to come to Tomshino as they have "good times" there.
22.Maria watches the Doctor leave and a gust of wind (or his own decision; this is left ambiguous) causes him to pause and turn back towards the house and Maria.
23.A different Narrator (Arseny Tarkovsky possibly as Alexei's Father) reads a poem about meeting someone (possibly Alexei's mother) and falling in love.
24.Maria moves towards the house. Something falls from the house's window. As Maria looks back to the camera the scene cuts.
-Scene 2B, colour, prewar c1935, near the Dacha-
[A possible time lapse since the last scene as Marina is now asleep on a pile of hay in a kennel.]
25.Two young children with shaved heads, Alexei, staring just below the camera, and his sister Marina, are outside. There are small fires out of focus behind.
26.A lady with dark hair, a dark dress and a dark top (probably Dounya) picks up the girl and follows Alexei towards the house.
27.Inside Alexei's sister Marina eats berries in cream/milk, a black cat licks spilt cream/milk, and Alexei pours a white powder, probably flour, on the black cat's head.
28.Maria is inside looking forlorn. She sits by a window, outside of which is her ironing and the perimeter fence.
29.Maria begins to cry, presumably over her broken marriage, while the poem reaches its climax.
30.Pasha shouts for Dounya offscreen.
31.Maria tells the two children at the table, Alexei and his sister Marina that there is a fire, but they must be quiet. A cut breaks the 180 rule, they come running.
32.Alexei and Marina watch the barn burn, shown in a reflection in a mirror hung on a door.
33.Dounya worries about Vitya (male) who she thinks might have burnt, and Klanya (named as Pasha and Dounya's six year old daughter in the script). Pasha calls for Klanya.
34.Klanya emerges from behind the mirrored door wearing a fur coat.
35.Dounya and Pasha watch the barn burn from outside, as does nearby Maria.
36.Maria walks over to a well and tips the bucket to take a drink and wash her face. She sits on edge of well while the man (Pasha) trots past her towards the barn.
-Scene 3, black and white dream, prewar before 1935, in the Dacha-
[Prior to Alexei's father's departure.]
37.A younger Alexei sits up in bed, walks towards the doorframe, then a dove flies past.
38.(slow motion) Maria is washing her hair with the help of her husband.
39.(slow motion) The ceiling collapses as it rains inside.
40.Maria walks past several mirrors in a shawl, then in the last of the series, she sees herself as an old woman.
-Scene 4, colour, contemporary after 1966 before 1974, 6pm in the evening, Alexei's apartment-
[Dated by the Andrei Rublev poster.]
41.Sound of a tram, a hand as if holding fire (Scene 4B), then a phone rings.
42.The camera passes a poster on the wall for Andrei Rublev.
43.Alexei answers the phone, it is his mother Maria. Alexei has a sore throat and hasn't spoke to anyone for 3 days. He thinks it is good to keep quiet as words can't express everything.
44.Alexei asks his mother which year his father left, the answer is 1935, the same year the barn burned down (dating Scene 2 & 2B).
45.Alexei's mother is calling to say that Lisa, who she worked with at the printers, died this morning at 7am.
46.Alexei has lost track of time and thinks it is now the morning. His mother says it is 6pm.
47.Alexei asks his mother if they can stop fighting. He apologises for anything he has done wrong. Maria hangs up the phone.
-Scene 5, black and white dream, prewar (date uncertain), Printing Press in Moscow-
[Tarkovsky's mother moved to Moscow where she worked at the press in 1935. In the script Maria is said to be in Moscow in 1943, though it is not necessarily implied that this is the period when Maria works for the press. The Printing Press is 60km from Ignatievo station, near the Dacha, so it is unlikely that Maria is meant to commute during the years of the film in which she lives in the Dacha. In Scene 17 Maria says that (up to) two years before she lived in Moscow, which places this scene prior to Scene 17 and after Scene 12.]
48.A tram bell rings, this is the stop for the Printing Press, and the next stop is Serpukhovskaya (in Moscow).
49.Maria is running through leaves, then it starts to rain.
50.A guard on the building who checks her entrance card/ID asks her what the rush is and she doesn't answer.
51.Maria demands the proofs from a girl who is at the desk next to hers.
52.The girl tells her to wait, and that "Yelizavet Pavlovna" (Lisa) is here.
53.(fast motion) Together the three of them walk to find the proofs.
54.The unnamed girl is crying; Lisa tells her to "shut up, you idiot".
55.(slow motion) Lisa runs ahead.
56.A man (Ivan Gavrilovic) tries to check the proofs for Lisa, but she wants to do it herself. He comments on everyone rushing and tells the unnamed girl to go back to work and let Maria worry.
57.Maria finds the page in question and there is no error.
58.Maria walks back to her desk with the Narrator (Arseny Tarkovsky) reading a poem. The narrator (presumably Alexei's father) was waiting for someone (presumably Maria) yesterday when there was "holiday weather"; now when they are here the weather is gloomy.
59.Back at her desk and lauging through tears she is joined by Lisa, who is smoking. Maria whispers the misprint she had imagined: "Shralin", excrement instead of Stalin.
60.Maria and Lisa laugh, then they are joined by Ivan Gavrilovic who brings them pure alcohol and tells Maria that she looks like a scarecrow.
61.Maria says she will take a shower and asks those around her where her comb is (twice).
62.Lisa tells Maria that she reminds her of Maria Timofeyevna (Captain Lebyadkin's sister in Dostoevsky's The Devils/Demons), a woman who was always demanding things.
63.Maria doesn't know who Maria Timofeyevna was.
64.Lisa tells Maria that in her case people do as she says, and that she is amazed at the patience of Maria's ex-husband.
65.Maria gets up and goes to have a shower. Lisa tries to follow her but Maria locks her out of the shower.
66.Lisa turns back down the corridor and utters the opening lines of Dante's Inferno, "Midway on our life's journey I found myself in a dark woods" as she skips from side to side.
67.Maria laughs and cries in the shower.
-Scene 6, colour, prewar probably 1935, near the Dacha-
[Possibly connected to Scenes 2 & 7B due to the location, the palette the fire, and the time of day.]
68.In the middle distance a fire burns in a field of buckwheat. The camera is under telegraph poles and in the far background is the woods. Fade to black.
-Scene 7, colour, contemporary and post divorce of Natalia and Alexei, in Alexei's apartment-
[Location confirmed in 1985 interview (Illg&Neuger,1987), possibly follows Scene 4.]
69.Natalia and her husband Alexei are arguing. Natalia is looking in the mirror, moving her head around to examine her face.
70.Alexei says that Natalia resembles his mother, Natalia says that apparently this is why they are divorced
71.Natalia is concerned (she says "with horror") that Ignat is becomming like Alexei.
-Scene 7B, colour, prewar 1935, outside the Dacha-
[Probably immediately after Scenes 2B or 6.]
72.Dounya carries Marina inside, while Maria carries a bucket walking with the Pasha towards the house.
-Scene 7, continued-
73.Ignat appears, he has been listening in. He is told to put the glass down.
74.Natalia tells Alexei that he seems to think his presence will make everyone happy, and that he only knows how to demand (echoing Lisa's statement to his mother).
75.Alexei claims that this is because he was brought up by women (implying without a father). He tells Natalia to get married as soon as possible or give Ignat to him.
76.Natalia asks Alexei why he hasn't made up with his mother.
77.Alexei says it's because his mother thinks she knows how he should live best, and that he is becoming more distant from her.
[possible time lapse]
78.Ignat eats an apple and watches the Spanish tenants who live in his father's apartment.
79.Alexei asks Natalia to distract one of them who is talking about Spain again.
80.Natalia asks Alexei if Ignat can stay with him for a week as they are redecorating.
81.Natalia breathes onto the mirror and the shot cuts.
-Scene 7C, black and white archive footage, date unknown, Spain-
82.A bullfight. This footage seems too old to be of Palomo Linares, referred to soon after, as this would date it 1965 onwards.
-Scene 7, continued-
83.Natalia, who is amused by one of the tenants acting out Palomo Linares' (a bullfighter from 1965 onwards) moves, asks another tenant what is happening.
-Scene 7D, black and white archive footage, c1936-1939, Spain-
[this is losely interspersed with Scene 7 in several sections]
84.Spanish Civil War
-Scene 7, continued-
85.One of the tenants explains that the other tenant was most excited by the farewell he was given. He knew he may never see his mother again after he had left.
86.The daughters of the Spanish Tenants dance to flamenco music. One of the Tenants accuses them of mocking him as he taught them to dance.
87.A Spanish woman called Louisa explains to Natalia how she can't go back to Spain as she has a Russian husband and Russian children.
88.The Spanish woman runs from the room, Natalia follows and tells her husband that she will talk to her.
-Scene 7E, black and white archive footage, c1934-1939 (possibly including 1941), Spain/USSR-
89.To flamenco music people run for cover, bombs are dropped. Spanish civil war footage is mixed with footage of Russian children being evacuated during WWII (possibly the Moscow evacuation of 1941).
90.A stratospheric balloon journey shoing one of the "USSR-" series of balloons possibly the failed USSR-3 flight of 1937.
91.Cloudhopper balloonists attempt to untangle cables to the music Pergolesi, Stabat Mater, No 12: Quando corpus morietur fac ut animae donetur paradisi gloria / While my body here decays, may my soul Thy goodness praise, safe in Paradise with Thee!.
92.A ticker tape parade, either for May Day 1939 in Red Square (p.418,Robinson; p.34,Synessios; p.122,Johnson&Petrie), or for the aviator Valerii Chkalov’s return to Moscow after his 63-hour flight across the North Pole in 1937 (p.119,Skakov; p.46,Bird refers to 1936, the year Chkalov was made a "Hero of the Soviet Union") (sources disagree).
-Scene 8, colour, several years after 1935, location unknown-
[Alexei is now 12 years old (p.123,Martin, though evidence is not given to confirm the date), placing this scene during the war. The room he is in, and the window he walks up to, though out of focus, doesn't resemble the interior of the Dacha as we have seen it so far. It is possible that he is in Moscow now, prior to the evacuation mentioned in Scene 17, though the age of the book contradicts this, as in Scene 12, which is prior to the move to Moscow, when Alexei is also c12 years old.]
93.Alexei leafs through a book of Leonardo da Vinci reproductions. He walks up to a window wearing a fur coat.
-Scene 9, colour, contemporary presumably after Scene 7, Alexei's apartment-
94.Natalia tells Ignat she is leaving. Ignat is sat at a different windowsill to the one Alexei was at.
95.As Natalia drops her purse the music ceases.
96.Ignat helps Natalia put her posessions back in her purse, as Natalia comments how she is always in a rush.
97.Ignat says he felt a shock as if he had picked up coins before (possible reference to Stalker, or to the earrings in Scene 17).
98.Natalia leaves telling Ignat that if "Maria Nikolaevna" (Maria, Alexei's grandmother) comes, he should tell her to wait.
99.The apartment looks dilapidated in subsequent shots. There is no time jump here as we hear the door close after Natalia.
100.Ignat is running his hands over some books. He looks round and jumps as he sees two women, one dressed as a Maid serving a cup from a tray, the other, the Strange Woman, resembles a photograph of the poet Anna Akhmatova (1898-1966), a figure condemned and censored by the Stalinist Authorities (Tarkovsky has denied this resemblance in a 1985 interview (Illg&Neuger,1987) and instead pointed out that she is simply someone trying to tie the boy to certain cultural conditions).
101.The Strange Woman tells Ignat to come in and asks the maid for another cup.
102.The Strange Woman tells Ignat to fetch a notebook (which has handwritten pages) and read a passage aloud. He reads aloud, first a sentence in which Rousseau states that the arts and sciences have a negative effect on morals.
103.The Strange Woman then asks him to read only what is underlined. The passage is from Pushkin's letter to Chaadayev, Oct 19, 1836, which describes how Russia survived the Tatar invasion saving Christian civilization. Pushkin states that although he is not delighted with the present leaders of Russia, he would not wish to change his home country or have any other history. Sunlight levels in the room vary as the seated lady listens. Ignat leans against a wall on which hangs a photograph of Tarkovsky's real mother as a young woman.
104.The Strange Woman sends Ignat to open the door. Maria (in her old age, as seen in the dream in Scene 3) is at the door. She doesn't recognise Ignat and says that she has the wrong address. Ignat doesn't recognise his grandmother either.
105.When Ignat returns to the room, the Strange Woman is no longer there, but a circle of fast evaporating steam marks remains where her cup was.
106.The phone rings, and Ignat has a conversation with father, Alexei. Alexei asks Ignat if "Maria Niolaevna" (Maria, Alexei's mother) has arrived.
107.Ignat says no, but tells his father that an old lady came to the wrong address.
108.Alexei tells Ignat to find something to do and asks if he knows any girls.
109.Ignat says he doesn't and grins.
110.Alexei tells Ignat that during the war he was in love with a Redhead with chapped lips, a girl who was also chased by Alexei's Military Instructor, a man who suffered from shell-shock.
-Scene 10, colour, after the start of the Leningrad Blockade 1941-1944, Winter, probably near Moscow-
[Tarkovsky would have been 3 in 1935, though Alexei appears to be slightly older in Scene 2B, perhaps age 5-7 which would make him 12 in 1942-44]
111.The teenage Redhead walks away in the snow. She is a significantly different age to both Alexei and the Instructor. In the script she is referred to as Nina Petrovna.
112.In voiceover Alexei asks if Ignat is still listening.
113.12 year old Alexei (played by the same actor as 12 year old Ignat) watches the Redhead.
114.Rifle practice, with Purcell from The Indian Queen, Act IV, "They tell us that your mighty powers".
115.The military Instructor reprimands a boy for firing up, not at the target, risking hitting someone.
116.In the drill routine a boy called Asafyev consistently turns the wrong way in the about-turn.
117.The Instructor threatens to send the boy home to his parents.
118.Another boy reveals that Asafyev's parents died in the Leningrad Blockade.
119.Asafyev in tears removes a grenade from his bag.
120.In a confusing series of shots a hand picks up the grenade, another child pulls the pin, and another rolls down the slope and throws the grenade. A child yells "Asafyev, don't do it" suggesting that it is Asafyev who pulls the pin though this is not entirely clear.
121.The boys drop to the ground as the Instructor throws himself down in front of the grenade and we hear his heart beat.
122.The grenade fails to go off, Asafyev reveals it was a dummy.
123.The Instructor says to Asafyev "And you say you're from Leningrad and have been under siege...".
124.The Redhead wipes blood from her split lip and stares into the camera.
-Scene 10B, black and white archive footage, during WWII, location unknown-
125.A naked man carries a wooden box down a slope to a pier which partially clothed soldiers stand on carrying weapons.
126.Soldiers fall from the pier into the river as firing is heard.
-Scene 10, continued-
127.The echo of firing rings over into this shot. Asafyev leaves the firing range and the other boys stand up.
-Scene 10C, black and white archive footage, c1943, various WWII locations-
128.Soldiers push a canon along a track.
129.The Soviet crossing of Lake Sivash in Crimea, 1943.
130.A poem is read by Arseny Tarkovsky featuring the lines "There is no death. We're all immortal ... Fear not death at seventeen, Nor at seventy...".
-Scene 11, colour, probably consecutive to Scene 10, probably near Moscow-
131.Asafyev slips as he walks up a hill which resembles a Breugel painting.
132.As Asafyev reaches the camera we see that he is whistling but has tears on his cheeks. He stares as if he is watching the following Scene.
-Scene 11B, black and white archive footage circa, c1945-6, various locations-
133.Russian tanks in the liberation of Prague in 1945.
134.The dead 'Hitler' double is photographed (p.123,Martin).
135.Fireworks in Moscow 1945.
136.The Atomic Bomb dropping on Hiroshima (p.126,Johnson&Petrie), or possibly the explosion at Bikini Atoll in 1946.
-Scene 11, continued-
137.Asafyev stops staring and turns his back to us and walks towards the slope.
138.A bird comes to perch on his hat (after a hidden cut).
-Scene 11C, black and white archive footage, from possibly as early as c1945 to 1969, various locations-
139.Crowds carrying portraits of Mao. Shots of statues of Mao.
140.Russian soldiers try to hold back Chinese waving red books (published 1964) on Damansky Island (Zhenbao Island) a disputed Russian/Chinese territory, 1969. This echoes the Pushkin letter - keeping others out of Europe.
-Scene 12, colour, date unknown, in the Dacha-
[Probably after the war in 1945, certainly after Scene 9.]
141.Maria is on the floor of a dilapidated barn. She gathers scrap wood and starts to cut it.
142.Her husband appears in a military uniform and asks where the children are. Maria looks shocked.
143.Alexei's sister Marina threatens to tell everyone that Alexei stole the book. Alexei and Marina quarrel, Alexei pushes Marina away leaving her to quarrel.
144.Alexei and Marina's father calls for Marina. Marina hears but looks confused.
145.Alexei and Marina both start running towards the voice, Alexei pushing Marina out of the way.
146.Alexei has leaves his Leonardo da Vinci book behind. It now looks more tattered than in Scene 9.
147.Alexei falls and Marina overtakes him. They both keep running.
148.Marina watches on in tears, then turns away as Alexei and Marina are embraced by their father. Alexei's father wears two medals, one of which could be the "Order of the Red Star" for bravery, the other could be the "Order of the Red Banner" for heroism or long service. The insignia on his shoulder suggests that he could be a captain. All of these details are slightly out of focus or obscured.
149.Bach's "St Matthew Passion" plays. The bible passage is "At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split".
150.The "Genevra de Benci" by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1474-1478) is shown. Tarkovsky compares this image to the actor playing Maria (p.108,Sculpting in Time). The portrait commemorates the wedding of a young woman who was a gifted intellectual. She was said to be unhappy approaching her wedding. Later in her life she went into exile because of illness and a love affair tragedy.
-Scene 13, black and white, contemporary, Alexei's apartment-
[Sometime after Scene 9, possibly later in the same day as Alexei is still waiting for Maria. More than several days after "Aunt Lisa" died in Scene 4.]
151.Natalia tells Alexei that he should have come to visit Ignat more often.
152.Alexei asks Natalia to let Ignat live with him. Natalia refuses, saying that this would be crazy.
153.Natalia asks Ignat if he's collected his books.
154.Alexei asks Ignat if he thinks it would be better if he lived with Alexei.
155.Ignat looks surprised, then answers negatively.
156.Natalia looks at various photographs of herself (wearing Maria's dress from her youth) with an older Maria (these were taken on set when both actors were present; the actor representing Natalia in the photographs is dressed to represent Maria). Natalia says that she and Maria look alike, confirming Alexei's earlier statement in Scene 7.
157.Natalia says that Maria needs Alexei to go back to being born, and that Maria just wants to be able to protect him again.
158.Alexei asks what Natalia is whimpering about. Natalia asks if she should marry "him" (an unknown Writer called Dostoyevsky).
159.Alexei says that the Writer hasn't written anything worthwhile, and at age 40 this shows he has no talent.
160.Alexei points out that their precious flunk (Ignat, who is failing at school) has put something on the fire.
161.Natalia tells Alexei not to joke about Ignat's flunking.
162.Alexei warns that Ignat will end up being drafted, then Natalia will have to beg to have him exempted.
163.Alexei says that Ignat's behaviour is the result of Natalia indulging him, and that he thinks that the army would be good for Ignat.
164.Natalia tells Alexei to call his mother Maria, and reminds him that she stayed in bed for three days after "Aunt" Lisa died. Maria was meant to be "here" at 5.
165.Alexei tries to change the conversation back to Ignat. Alexei criticises how bourgeoise the family has become.
166.Ignat is shown to be burning a bush. Natalia asks who set the bush on fire in the Bible and suggests sending Ignat to a cadet school.
167.Alexei responds that an angel appeared to Moses as a flaming bush, who then lead his people out across the sea.
168.Natalia asks why nothing like that has ever happened to her.
-Scene 14, black and white dream, date unknown, near the Dacha-
[Probably a precursor to Scene 16.]
169.(slow motion) Cut-away to wind blowing the trees.
-Scene 15, colour, c1935, the Dacha-
[Possibly prior to Scene 2B/2.]
170.The edge of the woods outside the Grandmother's Dacha.
171.Inside Dounya, wearing a shawl, looks at her reflection in a mirror, the older boy takes a lamp from the ceiling and Alexei sits on the mat. The black cat is on the windowsill.
171.A Narrator (Alexei) describes a dream about the Dacha where he was born on the table 40 years ago. In the dream something prevents him from entering the Dacha each time he visits it.
172.The Narrator (Alexei) describes the log walls and dark pantry, and the sadness he feels when he realises it is only a dream.
173.The camera follows Maria around the house. Outside the Klanya fills a glass bottle with water from a much larger bottle.
174.The Narrator (Alexei) describes how, when his dream ends, he must wait for another dream that will make him a child again, so that he can be happy and know that "all still lies ahead... and nothing is impossible".
175.Maria walks outside to sit with the Dounya.
176.Inside, in near total darkness, Alexei lights a match.
-Scene 16, black and white dream, c1935, the Dacha-
[Contains recurring imagery from Scene 14. Alexei's age is as in Scene 2B.]
177.A vase on a table contains what looks like the inner workings of a clock. Next to the vase is a half-open knife. Cut lace curtains dangle next to it, though the table appears to be outside.
178.Alexei walks by and the camera follows him walking towards the house, past a table (which is familar from Scene 3, though possibly relocated).
179.The camera pans past Alexei and zooms in on the house. Alexei calls out "Mama".
180.Alexei stands next to an opening door, and a hand appears from offscreen to catch the door.
181.(slow motion) A hen smashes through a glass window pane.
182.(slow motion) The trees blow in the wind again (linking this to Scene 14). Wind blows a lamp off a table.
183.(slow motion) Back at the house a sheet flaps violently in the wind and Alexei runs towards the house looking back at the camera which shakes as if it is a point of view shot.
184.(slow motion) Alexei disappears behind the house and rain falls through the trees.
185.(slow motion) Alexei tries a door which will not open. He walks away. After some time the door falls open revealing Maria peeling potatoes and a brightly lit dog, which walks out the door and out of shot.
-Scene 17, colour, wartime, in the countryside 15 miles from Yurievets-
[Probably some time later than Scene 11 as Alexei is now 15 (acted by Philip Yankovsky), and two years after Maria and her children have been evacuated from Moscow.]
186.A farm with a charred log outside. It is evening and there is a low mist behind the house.
187.A woman walks out of the farm scaring Alexei who is outside. She throws out the contents of a large dish which look like milk.
188.Alexei runs to fetch his mother Maria.
189.Alexei and Maria meet Nadezhda Petrovna. A cut breaks the 180 degree rule as she doesn't recognise them.
190.Nadezhda's husband was friends with Matvey Ivanov, who is Maria's stepfather.
191.Maria states that they are from Moscow but have been living in a room in Yurievets since they were evacuated last fall. It starts to rain.
192.They move under shelter. Nadezhda says that her husband is not here.
193.Maria says that actually she came to see Nadezhda and that it is about "a little ladies secret". Nadezhda leads Maria and Alexei into a well lit room asking them to wipe their feet as Masha has just wiped the floor.
194.Maria drops her Earrings, (possibly due to embarassment as Nadezhda's family is significantly wealthier; Maria is presumably selling the earring for food) echoing Natalia dropping her coins. We see that Alexei is barefoot.
195.Nadezhda tells Alexei to wait in the room as they won't be long. Maria and Nadezhda proceed to another room.
196.Milk drips down from a table past half peeled potatoes.
197.Alexei adjusts his hair and shirt in a mirror on the wall. He then stares at his reflection for a considerable length of time while music plays.
-Scene 17B, colour dream, wartime, location unknown-
198.Cut-away to a mirror resting on charred wood in a fire. A face is staring into the mirror.
199.A hand closes a mirrored door revealing a man in a fur coat standing in front of the Redhead girl who Alexei was in love with.
200.The man leaves and the Redhead appears to look up at Alexei.
201.The Redhead appears to be holding the mirror in front of her towards the fire. She looks into the camera again.
202.The camera swings to one side and the wipe cuts to a hand with burning firewood behind.
-Scene 17, continued-
203.Alexei is awoken from this dream as the lamp flutters on and off several times, then goes out leaving him in the dark.
204.Nadezhda tries on Maria's turquoise Earrings in the room with Maria.
205.Nadezhda walks back into the room where Alexei is sitting and asks why he is in the dark.
206.Maria helps Nadezhda relight the lamp.
207.Nadezhda explains that she also has a son, and says that it's not easy having kids with the war on.
208.Nadezhda checks her new Earrings in the mirror, then invites Maria to come to see her sleeping baby boy.
209.A shot of the baby's cot with netting draped over it.
210.Nadezhda talks about the child's mental development. She says his father wanted a girl and they expected and prepared for a girl.
211.Maria smooths down Alexei's hair. She looks bored by Nadezhda's continual talking.
212.Nadezhda wakes up her child with her talking.
213.Maria runs from the room holding her throat looking sick.
214.Nadezhda follows and asks what's wrong, offering to make a hot drink.
215.Nadezhda says that they must stay for dinner.
216.Maria says they have already eaten.
217.Nadezhda says that they should stay so that her husband (a doctor) can examine Alexei, who has a cough which Nadezhda doesn't like.
218.Maria says that they can't wait as they have a 2 hour walk to make. Nadezhda says that her husband has the money for the Earrings so they will have to wait.
219.Nadezhda asks Maria to slaughter the cock as she (Nadezhda) is pregnant and having fits of sickness.
220.Maria tells Nadezhda that has never done this before.
221.Nadezhda says that tomorrow she will give Maria a chicken to take as well (charity). Nadezhda says that the slaughtering will happen in the room they are in.
222.Maria looks worried. In response Nadezhda suggests Alexei do it as he's a "man".
223.Maria holds the cock and the axe.
224.Nadezhda says that she feels unwell, then feathers burst in from out of shot as Maria slaughters the cock.
225.Maria looks strangely triumphant echoing a Da Vinci painting, then the expression changes to be sinister and angry.
-Scene 17C, black and white dream, probably before Maria's husband's departure, location unknown-
226.Maria's husband stares at the camera, as if looking back at Maria in Scene 17. He is topless.
227.Maria's husband turns round to stroke his hand which rests on a body, which is revealed to be a levitating Maria.
228.Maria (as a voice over) says to her husband that she wishes she could see him not only when she feels unwell.
229.Maria's tells her husband not to be worried and that she loves him.
-Scene 17, continued-
230.Maria and Alexei leave the house in a hurry.
231.Nadezhda asks about the Earring sale.
232.Maria says that they have changed their minds.
233.Nadezhda objects warning them that it is a 15 mile walk back into town.
234.Maria and Alexei leave anyway, and walk along the river as the Narrator (Arseny Tarkovsky) reads a poem about the embodiment of the soul.
-Scene 18, black and white dream, c1935, the Dacha-
[Thematically continuing Scene 16.]
235.(slow motion) The wind blows the trees in the wood surrounding the Dacha. The camera pans across the garden to a table where a lamp which has already fallen is rolling over edge (as in Scene 16). The poem continues.
236.(slow motion) Alexei enters into the house which is dark inside and full of hanging curtains and sheets.
237.(slow motion) Alexei looks into a mirror holding a large glass bottle of milk. He starts to drink from the bottle.
-Scene 19, colour, c1935, near the Dacha-
[In the original script carrying clothes back to the house happens before the barn fire, but the stepping stones and washing is the closing scene.]
238.Alexei swims across a river late one evening.
239.Maria is waching clothes in a tub as an undressed Marina hops over some stepping stones or logs.
-Scene 20, colour dream, c1935, the Dacha-
240.On a new day in the Dacha it is sunny. Outside Alexei walks towards Maria (as an old woman) and says to her, "Mom, the kerosene stove is smoking."
250.Maria asks "what?" as she glances round, quickly turning back and looking disinterested, staying seated and still smoking. In the script Tarkovsky states that this is a dream in which he wanted to apologise to his mother.
-Scene 21, colour, last of the postwar scenes, location unknown-
251.A Doctor walks up and down his room, which has one wall covered in mirrors, as Maria (in her old age) knits and a Strange Woman facing away from the camera sits and ask about "his" (Alexei's) condition.
252.The Strange Woman says that she didn't know a sore throat could have such a bad effect.
253.The Doctor says that this has nothing to do with the sore throat, and often when someone's mother dies this happens.
254.The Strange Woman says that noone has died in his family.
255.The Doctor replies that it could be due to his conscience or memory.
256.The Strange Woman turns to reveal herself to be the same woman who asked Ignat to read the Pushkin letter in Scene 9. She asks if the Doctor thinks Alexei is guilty of something.
257.Maria looks up and jumps in with the answer "he [the Doctor] thinks so".
258.Alexei's voice cuts in with "Leave me alone", then a cut reveals a man (presumably Alexei) lying in bed.
259.A voice asks Alexei what will happen to his mother (Maria) if he doesn't get up.
260.Alexei's hand picks up a tiny bird which is on his bedsheets. Alexei replies that it's nothing, and everything will be alright.
261.(slow motion) Alexei throws the tiny bird up into the air and it starts to fly.
-Scene 22, colour, pre-1935, near the Dacha-
[Before Maria's first child is born.]
262.A long pan across the buckwheat field reveals the dacha, then a tilt down shows Maria and her husband lying in the meadow. Her husband asks if she would rather have a boy or a girl.
263.Maria smiles, then she starts crying, as the music Bach's "St John Passion" fades in: "Lord, our Sovereign, whose glory in every land is magnificent!" She looks towards where her house would be.
-Scene 22B, colour dream, children c1935, Maria c1966-c1974, near the Dacha-
[Possibly Marina's vision of herself in the future, after Scene 20.]
264.To Bach's "St John Passion" Maria (as an old woman) walks back to the house with a basket of washing and Alexei and Marina nearby.
265.They stop when they get to where the house should be. There are only ruins and rotting wood.
266.Maria takes Marina by the hand and they walk off with Alexei.
-Scene 22, continued-
267.Maria looks back, as if she has just seen the vision of Scene 22. She smiles and cries at the same time.
-Scene 22B, continue-
268.Maria as an old woman leads Marina and Alexei across the field away from the house as Maria (as a young woman) stands in the middle of the field watching them leave.
-END-
Tarkovsky's Life
- 1932 Andrei was born in the Ivanov district of Russia.
- 1934 Andrei's sister Marina was born.
- 1935 The Tarkovsky family to Moscow. Andrei's Mother joined the press (in Mirror's script the family is said to live in Moscow in 1943).
- 1937 Andrei's father Arseny left the family (in Mirror this happens in 1935).
- 1939 Andrei started school.
- 1941 Andrei was evacuated from Moscow.
Possible Chronological Order of Scenes in Mirror
Scene numbers refer to those given above.Before the birth of Alexei and Marina, or possibly just Marina, c1930.
22 - Maria and her husband lie in the grass together.
Dreams of life before Maria's husband's departure. Alexei <c5 years old, c1934.
3 - Alexei's father helping his mother Maria to wash her hair.
17C - Maria wishing to see her husband not only when she felt unwell.
Life after Maria's husband's departure. Alexei c5 years old, 1935.
19 - Washing clothes in the river.
2 - The Travelling Doctor's visit.
2B - The barn fire.
6 - The burning field.
7B - Dounya carries Marina inside.
Dreams about life after Maria's husband's departure. Alexei c5 years old, c1935.
14 - Blowing trees, as in Scene 16.
15- Narration describing Alexei's bad dream about the Dacha. A sunny day in the Dacha without Alexei's father.
16 - Alexei's bad dream about the Dacha.
18 - Alexei's bad dream about the Dacha.
20 - The kerosene stove dream, with the older Marina.
22B - Marina's ruined house dream.
Wartime Archive Footage, c1934-1939/41.
7C - The Bullfight.
7D - The Spanish Civil War.
7E - Russian Evacuations.
Wartime, Alexei c12 years old, c1942.
8 - Alexei reads an undamaged Leonardo book.
10 - The Redhead, Alexei and Asafyev at the firing range.
11 - Asafyev walking up the hill.
12 - Alexei's father returns to the Dacha.
After moving to Moscow. Alexei c13 years old, c1943.
5 - Maria at the Printing Press.
Wartime Archive Footage.
10B - Soldiers and Pier.
10C - Lake Sivash c1943.
11B - WWII c1945-6.
After evacuating Moscow. Alexei c15 years old, c1945.
17 - Selling the Earrings.
4B - The Burning Hand.
17B - Alexei's dream of the Redhead.
1966 or later. Ignat c12 years old.
1 - Ignat watching the Stutterer.
4 - Alexei on the phone to Maria; Lisa has died.
At least 4 days later.
7 - Alexei and Natalia arguing. The Spanish Tenants.
9 - Alexei and Natalia arguing. Ignat and the Strange Woman.
13 - Alexei and Natalia arguing. Ignat burning the bush.
21 - The Doctor and Alexei's death.
References
Inconsistencies found between sources have been corrected or noted.- Martin, Sean. Andrei Tarkovsky. Pocket Essentials, 2005.
- Johnson, Vida T., and Graham Petrie. The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue. Indiana University Press, 1994.
- Robinson, Jeremy Mark. The Sacred Cinema of Andrei Tarkovski. Crescent Moon Publishing, 2007.
- Skakov, Nariman. The Cinema of Tarkovsky: Labyrinths of Space and Time. I.B.Tauris, 2011.
- Synessios, Natasha. Mirror. I.B.Tauris, 2001.
- Bird, Robert. Andrei Tarkovsky: Elements of Cinema. Reaktion Books, 2007.
- Tarkovsky, Andrey. Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema. Translated by Kitty Hunter Blair. New ed. University of Texas Press, 1989.
- 1985 interview: Jerzy Illg, Leonard Neuger. “Z Andriejem Tarkowskim Rozmawiaj.” Res Publica, no. I (Warsaw 1987): 137 –160.
- http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~dmiall/Mirror/Mirror.htm
- http://afronord.tripod.com/tarkovsky.html
- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072443/synopsis
Tuesday, 18 September 2012
Pulp Fiction: In Chronological Order
Part of the research I'm doing for my dissertation involves looking at the structure of well-known narrative based films. Here's one bit of data I processed today - Pulp Fiction in chronological order:
Acts from the Film
1. Prologue—The Diner (i)
2. Prelude to "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
3. "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
4a. Prelude to "The Gold Watch" flashback
4b. Prelude to "The Gold Watch" present
5. "The Gold Watch"
6. "The Bonnie Situation"
7. Epilogue—The Diner (ii)
(from wikipedia)
Chronological Event Order
-Act 4a-
1.Butch's great grandfather bought the gold watch and wore it in WWI
2.Butch's grandfather wore the watch in in WWII
3.Winocki delivered the watch to Butch's father
4.Butch's father hid the watch in Vietnam
5.Koons hid the watch in Vietnam
6.20-30 years before the start of the film: Koons delivered the watch to Butch
-Act 2-
[7.Recently before the start of the film: Vincent visits Europe]
8.Morning: Vincent tells Jules about Europe
9.Vincent tells Jules he will be escorting Marsellus Wallace's wife
10.Jules executes Brett
11.A man bursts out of the bathroom at Brett's house shooting at Vincent and Jules but misses
12.Jules and Vincent return fire surviving
13.Jules decides that not being killed was a miracle
-Act 6-
14.Vincent accidentally kills his informant Marvin
15.Jules calls Jimmie for help and heads to his house
16.Jimmie calls Winston Wolf who helps dispose of the car
17.Jules and Vincent head to breakfast
-Act 1/Act 7-
18.Jules and Vincent eat breakfast in a coffee shop as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny plot to rob the diner and its customers
19.Vincent goes to the bathroom
20.Pumpkin and Honey Bunny hold up the diner
21.Pumpkin and Honey Bunny demand Jules' briefcase
22.Jules points his gun at Pumpkin, Honey Bunny points hers at Jules
23.Vincent emerges and points his gun at Honey Bunny
24.Jules delivers his sermon and Honey Bunny and Pumpkin leave
25.Jules and Vincent leave
-Act 3-
26.Butch accepts money from Marsellus to lose a fight. Later Butch bets his payoff on him winning
27.Vincent and Jules deliver the briefcase
28.Later: Vincent buys heroin
29.Vincent shoots up and travels to Mia's house
30.Vincent and Mia go to Jack Rabbit Slim's
31.Mia overdoses
32.Lance and Vincent revive Mia
33.Mia and Vincent agree not to tell Marsellus about the event
-Act 4b-
34.Butch begins the fight he has been paid to lose
-Act 5-
35.Butch flees the arena after winning
36.Esmarelda tells Butch that he killed his opponent
37.Butch and Fabienne lie low
38.The next day: Butch discovers he has forgotten his Gold Watch
39.Butch returns to retrieve his Gold Watch
40.Butch kills Vincent Vega (who is waiting to kill Butch) as he exits the bathroom
41.Butch drives away but encounters Marsellus Wallace
42.A foot chase ensues and both end up in a pawnshop and are held at gunpoint by Maynard
43.Maynard takes Marsellus to be raped, and the gimp watches Butch
44.Butch breaks free killing Maynard and shooting Zed in the groin freeing Marsellus
45.Marsellus informs Butch that they are even, given some conditions
46.Butch returns to pick up Fabienne
Acts from the Film
1. Prologue—The Diner (i)
2. Prelude to "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
3. "Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife"
4a. Prelude to "The Gold Watch" flashback
4b. Prelude to "The Gold Watch" present
5. "The Gold Watch"
6. "The Bonnie Situation"
7. Epilogue—The Diner (ii)
(from wikipedia)
Chronological Event Order
-Act 4a-
1.Butch's great grandfather bought the gold watch and wore it in WWI
2.Butch's grandfather wore the watch in in WWII
3.Winocki delivered the watch to Butch's father
4.Butch's father hid the watch in Vietnam
5.Koons hid the watch in Vietnam
6.20-30 years before the start of the film: Koons delivered the watch to Butch
-Act 2-
[7.Recently before the start of the film: Vincent visits Europe]
8.Morning: Vincent tells Jules about Europe
9.Vincent tells Jules he will be escorting Marsellus Wallace's wife
10.Jules executes Brett
11.A man bursts out of the bathroom at Brett's house shooting at Vincent and Jules but misses
12.Jules and Vincent return fire surviving
13.Jules decides that not being killed was a miracle
-Act 6-
14.Vincent accidentally kills his informant Marvin
15.Jules calls Jimmie for help and heads to his house
16.Jimmie calls Winston Wolf who helps dispose of the car
17.Jules and Vincent head to breakfast
-Act 1/Act 7-
18.Jules and Vincent eat breakfast in a coffee shop as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny plot to rob the diner and its customers
19.Vincent goes to the bathroom
20.Pumpkin and Honey Bunny hold up the diner
21.Pumpkin and Honey Bunny demand Jules' briefcase
22.Jules points his gun at Pumpkin, Honey Bunny points hers at Jules
23.Vincent emerges and points his gun at Honey Bunny
24.Jules delivers his sermon and Honey Bunny and Pumpkin leave
25.Jules and Vincent leave
-Act 3-
26.Butch accepts money from Marsellus to lose a fight. Later Butch bets his payoff on him winning
27.Vincent and Jules deliver the briefcase
28.Later: Vincent buys heroin
29.Vincent shoots up and travels to Mia's house
30.Vincent and Mia go to Jack Rabbit Slim's
31.Mia overdoses
32.Lance and Vincent revive Mia
33.Mia and Vincent agree not to tell Marsellus about the event
-Act 4b-
34.Butch begins the fight he has been paid to lose
-Act 5-
35.Butch flees the arena after winning
36.Esmarelda tells Butch that he killed his opponent
37.Butch and Fabienne lie low
38.The next day: Butch discovers he has forgotten his Gold Watch
39.Butch returns to retrieve his Gold Watch
40.Butch kills Vincent Vega (who is waiting to kill Butch) as he exits the bathroom
41.Butch drives away but encounters Marsellus Wallace
42.A foot chase ensues and both end up in a pawnshop and are held at gunpoint by Maynard
43.Maynard takes Marsellus to be raped, and the gimp watches Butch
44.Butch breaks free killing Maynard and shooting Zed in the groin freeing Marsellus
45.Marsellus informs Butch that they are even, given some conditions
46.Butch returns to pick up Fabienne
Monday, 17 September 2012
How to Get Data from LibreOffice Base to MySQL on Windows
This is a slightly off topic post but I spent most of yesterday wrestling with LibreOffice Base (like OpenOffice) trying to get my research data out of it into a format I could generate reports from. The Report Builder for which comes with LibreOffice isn't really much good unless you fancy learning LibreOffice BASIC, and I needed to be able to customise how my data looked. The database is a collection of shot by shot comments and analysis for a few films I'm studying for my dissertation - notably the two Wim Wenders classics, "Paris, Texas" and "Kings of the Road".
I used Base because I could easily design a simple form and flick between records. In retrospect I should have used MySQL and PHP from the start and coded all my forms in PHP. After several failed attempt the way which I found which worked was.
Now on with the research!
I used Base because I could easily design a simple form and flick between records. In retrospect I should have used MySQL and PHP from the start and coded all my forms in PHP. After several failed attempt the way which I found which worked was.
- Download WAMP server. Make sure you get a version which has MySQL 5.1, not the latest 5.5. You can simply download the latest WAMP if you wish, then click the icon in the system tray, choose 'MySQL' then 'Version', then get more.
- Check the WAMP is fired up and running the right version: click the icon in the system tray, choose 'MySQL' then 'Version', then 5.1.xx.
- Install a MySQL to ODBC connector which speaks to version 5.1 (here).
- Add a database to MySQL (however you wish, but the easy way is with phpMyAdmin from the WAMP system tray icon. Make sure you set up the access permissions for a user name.
- Add a connection to the database in the Data Sources list in the Windows Control Panel > Administrative Tools (more instructions here). The port number is probably 3306 if you haven't touched anything.
- Create a new database in LibreOffice Base which connects to the ODBC source by clicking File > New > Connect to an Existing Database > choose MySQL from the dropdown, then click Next. Choose 'Connect using ODBC' click Next, then browse for the data source you just added in Data Sources in step 5.
- Finally you can copy your table from your original LibreOffice Base file and paste it into the new file which is linked to MySQL via ODBC. You'll probably have to convert some data types along the way and rename some fields if the names are too long or use forbidden characters. LibreOffice will ask you about this if you need to do it.
Now on with the research!
Monday, 2 July 2012
Drawings and Paintings
...and three fast oil paintings from easter (on the back of cereal packets)....
Sunday, 3 June 2012
Lip Sync Project from the First Term
This has been sitting on my hard drive for months waiting for me to finish the sound effects. I didn't really enjoy this project at all concept wise, but it was nice to work with plasticine and stop-motion for the first time. It was my first project at the RCA and I guess I was still finding my feet...
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
Drawing in Space and Her Favourite Positions
'Drawing in Space' is an experiment I've wanted to try for a while: using OpenCV and a webcam to draw in 3D. Essentially you wave a coloured square of card around in front of the webcam and my code converts the path your hand takes into a 3D Drawing. First it filters the image based on a colour you have chosen, selecting all pixels within a colour range determined by the mean and standard deviation of the patch chosen in the calibration phase. It then finds contours in the filtered image, simplifies these reducing the number of edges, checks if any contours are square (concave, under a certain contained area, and with all internal angles within a given tolerance). From all the squares found it then chooses which is the most likely square to follow on from the last based on the sum of the square of the magnitude of the delta in each point's position between frames (trying different permutations of the order of corners to account for rotations and mirroring). If it can't find the square it motion tracks the corners from the last frame. If any of these are missing it interpolates the data, and if all of them are missing it tracks strong features in the last image (in full colour, unfiltered) and uses a simple nearest neighbour algorithm to associate each corner of the last square with a nearby tracking point (if it was clever it would use some kind of error detection here to eliminate anomalies and then a delaunay triangularisation to interpolate points, but it needs to be lean to run at all). If all of this fails, the script uses a third order differential on the last few points to extrapolate the next position, filling in the gaps for a few frames until data resumes. The script also adjusts the colour it is searching for frame by frame to account for changes in light conditions. Optionally you can also use the chessboard tracking instead of a coloured square.
The drawings are displayed in anaglyph as you draw, and can be exported as OBJ files. I need some options to adjust the convergence point and so on, but its mostly there now. A beta version of the code is online here (right click, save target as). You need matching python 2.7, numpy 1.6.1, and opencv-python 2.4.0 compiled against each other. If you're running Windows you can get numpy and opencv packages here.
'Her Favourite Positions' is an animation of 186 Portraits and 37 Full Body Poses from my Life Drawing classes at the RCA. I matched them up frame by frame in AfterFX, and did a little warp correction here and there to get the proportions generally accurate. I'm quite amazed that this even worked at all and that you can see a ghostly generic photofit face through the mess of lines.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
'Tube' Lauches its Kickstarter
The summer before last I moved to Northampton, MA for three months to work on Bassam Kurdali's next open movie, 'Tube'. I think its fair to say that in those three months I learnt more about CG animation, coding, model making and film making than I have in such a short space of time before or since, as well as having an amazing time living with the other interns Henri and Becky, cooking, cycling, swimming in the river, running up mountains etc. I managed to do some work remotely for the project last year, but this year my own work has completely taken over. 'Tube' has recently launched its kickstarter project. I really hope they manage to collect enough funding to finish the film and release the tremendous mountains of assets to the crowd: models, rigs, textures, scripts. If you've got a spare dime, nickel, quarter or dollar, I'm sure they'd appreciate it...
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Drawings
I spent yesterday photographing some of the several hundred or so drawings from my half a year at the RCA (not including the first 500 frames I drew last week for the film I'm currently working on). Here's a very quick look at them, and below is, my updated drawing portfolio.
Or view it full size on scribd.
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Specially Commissioned Banners
Hey, I'm sorting out this blog slowly starting with the advertising, which never made me any money anyway. I'm installing custom banners which my best friend Julz drew for me. They'll both link through to her comic, which is rad.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
For Your Spare Time...
Since I'm currently writing this on a laptop that was manufactured no more recently than 2001, I'm unable to tidy up the films I made this term into an uploadable state, and won't be able to until I get in front of a computer that's less than 6 years old, which might be not for a week or so. In the meantime if you need some alternative programming, which leaves you asking 'good God, what program did she use to make those?', and 'where can I find a tutorial on how to produce something with that kind of cutting edge graphic quality?', I can strongly recommend Stuff & Nonsense, by my sometime housemate and collaborator Julz. Its rad. Interrobang using the ask box.
Thursday, 22 December 2011
RCA Term 1 Experiments
I'd been on 4 hours sleep per night for many weeks in a row including weekends, up until last Friday when the 'holidays' started. The RCA is rad. I barely have a moment to write about it now, but at some point I'll photograph some of my scribbles from the 60 hours or so of life drawing classes I've been to. If I get a moment between watching films, catching up on reading, and scriptwriting for next term's film I'll tidy up the proper work from this term and post it too. In the meantime here are some tests.
30 minutes at the lightbox
Rhythmanalysis tests
30 minutes at the lightbox
Rhythmanalysis tests
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Stop Motion and Memory Drawings
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| Thursday, 11:30pm. Two deer caught in my torchlight on my cycle home. |
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| Wednesday, 12am. Occupied bus shelter. |
And some work in progress building stop motion ball joints (with drilled out brass flats and some ball headed bolts), and a twisted wire, foam and latex fox. Used a blowtorch and a thread tap for the first time this weekend. Exciting stuff.
Animation Process Workflow Recap
I was recently asked to crit a piece of work by someone starting out in animation. I took the time to type up my workflow notes, not only for sharing, but also as a way of recapping what I've learnt in my whirlwind first year in animation (my Pg Dip at Central St Martins). These are a mish-mash of different peoples' advice that I've received and noted down over the last year, and come with no particular warranty!
Style
Aside from concerns of how the style relates to the narrative or the function of the piece (form follows function, or a house style), style can partly be dictated by the quality of the animation you're aiming for. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to move away from cutout animation and try drawing. Cutout animation is realistically only efficient for making limited animation on a fast turnaround - its a real struggle to make 'full' character animation in cutout. In cutout animation poses typically end up being very weak as you don't have to engage with creating the pose as much as you do in drawing (by default the assembly of the cutout pieces resembles a pose, so people tend to do the minimum posing work necessary, whereas every drawn pose must be created from scratch), and the restriction of the media prevents you from working with proper three dimensional poses, in perspective and so on - you might find it hard to progress your character animation skills if you limit yourself to cutout. Compositions also often end up being very flat and dull, and thinking spatially, its hard to bring the audience into the scene - the flat look resembles a long lens, and gives a voyeur's viewpoint in contrast to a POV which might be obtained with a wider lens (less flat composition). Unless you've storyboarded or thumb-nailed strongly its likely you'll make compromises in the animation stage due to the awkward workflow that cutout has.
Limited animation is fine for a certain type of work, but the work might have to rely heavily on dialogue (as for example Hanna Barbera cartoons do - see "Limited Animation Unlimited Imagination" in this set of essays) or on a fast paced story line (for example, "The Simpsons" is an example of animation where story is prioritised over animation), and unless these are really great, you'll have people turning off very quickly. Try sitting through the whole of the Beatles film, the Yellow Submarine and you'll see what I mean about limited animation failing to hold attention.
Drawing
Drawing is so important, not necessarily for image making, but as proof that you can observe correctly. People often say they can't draw, but really the problem is that they can't observe, and if you can't observe, then you stand no chance at all of being able to critique your own work and will constantly be relying on others for advice. If you can hold a pencil and draw a straight line, a circle and a square, and you are capable of tracing, then there is no problem with your drawing facility, but rather with your observations. The word animation literally means breathing life into something, and so, no matter how far away from realism your style might be, its still essential to reference back to real life. Draw lots of poses from life to practice (if you can't find anywhere to go life drawing, get out on the street and draw people who are moving as fast as you can, or try posemaniacs if you want a way of checking how accurate your sketches are). Crit each drawing you do yourself, draw corrections over the top in a different colour (see John K's advice). Pick a scene of your favourite film and break it down into key drawings as if you were rewriting the storyboard. Draw from music to help capture a mood, literally draw everything you want to capture in your animations as it will be a way to proving to yourself that you've processed and understood what you want to capture. Also physically get into the poses that will be in your animation - feel where the weight is, what aches when you hold the pose for too long, if you're off balance, which way will you fall? Is the pose natural, would moving a limb make it more natural. How does the pose make you feel - commanding? subservient? confident? vulnerable? open? and so on. Draw with both hands, one after the other, and at the same time. Try to make drawing automatic if it feels unnatural, so you don't have to think or worry about moving your hand over the paper. Sit a real person next to a life-size doll and draw the scene trying to capture the life in the person and the stillness in the doll.
Acting
Act out the scene a few times trying different things, then record it when you're confident you know the scene so well you can act it as if it was real (ie without any trace of your 'acting' showing through). The director Bresson used to get actors to repeat scenes hundreds of times until he felt they weren't showing any acting - he referred to his actors simply as 'models' who had to follow instructions rather than invent on the spot every time (See Notes on the Cinematographer for more). You should know the action inside out before you even begin to animate. Make sure the action is natural - would you do it that way? Ask someone else to do it without showing them how, without them acting, and without them knowing your watching or recording their movement - you'll have to set it up somehow eg "hey could you pass me that X over there".
Referencing
Working from the video draw thumbnails of every single frame. (see Rainplace for a great workflow idea). These can be very rough to start with, but by drawing every single frame, not just the keys, you start to learn how long each action needs to be in terms of frames, and also you feel the flow from one key to the next if you're drawing fast enough (Shamus Culhane used to work frame by frame drawing very fast so as not to loose track of the flow). If you can't imagine the movement or draw it out from memory without looking back to notes, it will really slow down your animation. I find that making a neat summary of what I've learned really helps afterwards - here are some examples from my own notes: 1 2 3.
Once I've finished going through stop frame, I'll play the reference back on loop at real time speed and try to tap the rhythm of where I think the keyframes should be (footsteps, head turns, etc) as if I was learning the beat of a song. If its lipsync, rather than working with a dope sheet with phonemes, I personally prefer to speak the dialogue with my finger on my top lip and my thumb on my bottom lip, feeling when my mouth is most open and closed (the most important part visually), and then on a second pass, where it is widest or narrowest. For 3D animators Stop Staring has some great advice.
Principles
Once I've internalised my reference and planned out my keys either as thumbs, or ideally as full size sketches (I tend to block in 2d, even though I'm animating in 3D as it gives me a much better grasp of how the poses work and really helps to record it in my mind, which I don't think I get in the same way if I do my blocking in 3D), then I start to animate. Even if you hate disney style animation, you can't ignore the 12 Principles of Animation which are present pretty much in any movement. Disney chose certain aspects of them to exaggerate (notably squash and stretch and appeal), and certain aspects to underplay (personally I always feel that their staging is sometimes dull and straightforward - I would guess for efficiency and clarity over drama), but if you pay a fairly even amount of attention to all of them, you'll be heading for life-like animation. The summary on wikipedia is really no replacement for the full version in the The Illusion of Life which is definitely worth a read if you haven't already. You should really know these principles off by heart and be applying them all at once without having to think about them. Its not good enough just to be able to list them, they have to be happening automatically in your work without thinking about them. Its easy to find examples of them all in animation, and the disney book has great illustrations which go through each principle, showing it visually - try copying a few sequences out if you don't get what the text means.
Pop-through
I wouldn't start to animate a scene before I know whats going to happen in it, and have planned it out, at least in terms of major poses and keys, in thumbnails at minimum, but ideally on layouts at full scale. I know some people like to feel their way through without thumbnailing first or without doing a rough blocking pass, but usually I find this costs a lot more work, and makes the edit much harder. At the very least you need to know how one shot connects to the next, so you have to have a sort of target pose to reach by the end of the shot. If you choose to go straight ahead (as I do for most shots - I work in 3D as if its stop motion, animating frame by frame, and completely ignoring the graph editor), then I'd strongly recommend using a type of "pop-through" technique, where you work out the timing on a separate rough pass (either with live action stills or quick sketches), then start again animating straight ahead, but aim to hit the poses on the times you planned out. You could go the whole hog and film live action and rotoscope to it (even in stop motion or 3D), but ideally I'd recommend reducing a live action shoot to a selection of keys and then sketching over the keys to exaggerate them. In Bresson's Notes on the Cinematographer he discusses how a photograph of a sculpture has none of the artistic (or monetary!) worth of the original, and as such a video of an actors brilliant performance has none of the brilliance of that performance (in the way it does live in a theatre). The video needs to be resuscitated - Bresson does this in the edit - as animators we have a second chance to do it with exaggeration.
To take an example of the pop-through method:. if you know you have to hit a contact position on frame 9, and its a fast walk, then you're going to need to be around the up position on frame 7... ie you work backwards from the key you need to hit to work out how close to it you need to be on the frame you're currently drawing or posing. That way you get the nice flow of straight ahead, but none of the unpredictability. If you're working in 3D straight ahead you might benefit from some tools to smooth over glitches - tracking motion paths as well as the Push & Relax tools found in blender are very useful.
Troubleshooting
Once I'm done, if I'm not happy with the result I have a big troubleshooting checklist to go through. There are tonnes of books out there for learning animation methods, but nobody really tells you what to do when it doesn't work. Start with the big questions first...
Staging - Are the characters in the places on the screen which would both ease the cut (if that's your aim), and communicate the situation as best as possible? Is the character above or below the camera's "eye" level if they are dominant or suppressed respectively? Can you see a facial expression if you need to? Have you needlessly close-framed to try to get "added drama" (point 3 in Bordwell's list)? Is the camera obeying the 180 degree rule (and the 30 degree rule - alternating angles and shot sizes to avoid jump cuts)? If not are you breaking the rules for good reason, or establishing your own set of editing rules? Is the shot size and location supposed to convey information about a POV or not? Does the shot clarify or obscure the geography of the scene? Is there a continuity error in the staging? Is the camera moving? Why (If you're Ken Burns-ing/Hitchcock Zooming every shot how will you hike up the tension when you really need it - see point 4 in Bordwell's list)? If its moving check the animation with it still if possible to minimise the number of things distracting you in your error checking process. If you're not sure which shots to use check out David Mamet's On Directing Film, (sometimes more cheaply available in the compilation book A Whore's Profession which includes some other essays on screen-writing which I haven't got around to reading yet).
The staging can have a big effect on the length of a shot - ie. do the characters spend ages walking around before we see any relevant action? Is it OK to cheat the position of characters within the shot to avoid lots of unecessary locomotion? (for a great example of cheating staging see from 2m30-2m40 in Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood: Ivan walks about 500 metres in the space of half a second but the audience accepts it because it has been done for emotional effect). Is it OK to cheat physical space across a cut? - see Edward Dmytryk's seven rules of cutting (in On Film Editing) for when its acceptable to do this. If your staging is wrong you might have to reanimate the shot - get it right in the thumbnail stage if you can, then block at layout scale to check the poses still work when timed up.
Composition - Much like staging, but in 2D screen space (whereas I consider staging to be primarily concerned with the 3D set or world space). Hit the key actions on the third guides, use leading lines in the set to focus the eye to points where action occur. Are limbs cut off awkwardly by the cropping of the shot in a distracting manner? Do the visual shapes the characters make communicate well and integrate into the background well (not just silhouettes - consider complimentary colours and brightnesses)? Check your title safe area - make sure nothing important happens outside it? Eyes will be drawn towards areas of high levels contrast - check the animation most thoroughly there - also consider if the composition causes strobing problems - movements which are too fast and in high contrast colours (for example I had a black wing sweeping across the screen over a white background very fast, and it just flashed/flickered due to the extremes of brightness).
Readability - Can the audience tell whats going on - show the shot to someone who hasn't seen it and isn't an animator and ask what they just saw. Closely linked to this is silhouettes. If you're working in an overly graphic or cartoony style which lacks clear definition of volumes, check that the shot works in silhouette and that you can tell whats happening from the silhouette. Be careful though that working in silhouette doesn't cause you to choose a dull flat Disney-esque composition every time. Use it more if you're communicating something crucial. In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky argues that as a director you must leave things ambiguous rather than emphatic, and not spoon feed the audience as if they were stupid. Stories are more interesting and exciting if the ambiguity that you create is not so much random, but adds to the plot development emotionally (deliberate confusion or disorientation) or logically (an alternative plot line). You should also expect a degree of competance from your audience - I think its in Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe where Herzog talks about the problem of visual illiteracy in audiences today.
Line of Action - As well as planning poses starting with a line of action, assess animation by working backwards from your finished animation into sketched lines of action with a grease pencil - are the lines what you were aiming for? can you reinforce the line in the pose? Does the line show either (1) where the force is - if the character is static and/or (2) where the character is moving to/from if its in motion and (3) what the emotional state/mood of the character is? is it possible to get all three of these elements into your line of action without compromise, or would you be better to focus on just one of these for this scene? For example, if the plot point is being conveyed using acting within a shot (or an inflected cut to an emotively emphatic pose), rather than locomotion, then it might be better to use the character's line of action to show depression/elation rather than using the line to show where the force propelling the character is. Has the timing of the animation given enough time for the pose to read? Eric Goldberg talks about 'attitude walks' in his Crash Course book - where he adds eases around the contacts - the keys- which most express the attitude of the walk through the pose. If the line of action is right, check the pose - if I'm working in 3d and I have trouble with a pose I'll draw a copy of it by hand. If I have trouble drawing it, then I know its probably an unnatural/uncommon pose (one I'm not used to seeing in life drawing!) - I try to draw something else then put that in. Remember even if you're working in 3D, every frame is ultimately a drawing - the audience sees every frame for an equal amount of time - its no good getting just the keys right!
Pacing - Essentially timing, but on the scale of the edit. Is the story moving too fast or too slow? If you're working with a three act structure have you spent enough time on each part: the setup, the conflict, and the resolution? Have you given the audience time to adjust to the shot (half a second of wasted screen time per cut). Digital editing encouraged whats known as frame f*cking (see Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film, a paper by David Bordwell) which is when the editor replays a sequence of shots over and over, each time removing a frame at a time from one shot until the shot is as short as it possibly can be (contrary to Edward Dmytryk's rule 2: cut long rather than short). The short cuts problem originated with action movies, but the disease has spread so that average shot lengths for feature films are now in the region of 2-4s rather than the 6-20s common in the Steenbeck editing machine days; obviously when manually splicing film, frame f*cking was a much more laborious process.
Timing - This is where you really need to go back to your reference to check, or start tapping out beats on the desk. Unfortunately the timing from live action and from blocking doesn't necessarily always translate across to animation. If the timing's wrong, then why is it wrong? Don't just start shuffling keyframes randomly (see the update to Keith Lango's shuffle key method, or jump to the non-shuffle method), try to quantify where your mistake was so you don't make it again. Push the timing from real life - there are many examples in live action films where timing has been deliberately contorted for dramatic effect (in The French Connection the car chase was shot undercranked by Owen Roizman - ie. sped up, and throughout the Mirror, Tarkovsky dips in and out of overcranked shooting - ie. slow motion, but often barely noticeable - the best example is towards the end of the movie when the boy is waiting alone in the dark room; see some great notes on his techniques here) Try timing to music if you have no dialogue to work with - in The French Connection all of the edits in the car chase sequence are timed to beats of Santana's Black Magic Woman.
Spacing - Relates closely to timing, but has more to do with poses. Are the poses spaced closely enough together to carry the eye from one to the next? If the spacing stays relatively uniform between consecutive frames then you have smooth flowing action. If on the other hand the spacing varies dramatically between frames you probably have sharp choppy movements which might not be what you want? Examining frame by frame spacing (with motion paths) might be too subtle to see errors (ie. at the inbetween level), maybe consider the spacing between every other frame, or between consecutive keys. Big changes in spacing indicate a big change in momentum (either a large force or a light object), wheras small changes in spacing indicate a small change in momentum (a small force or a heavy object with a lot of momentum). A change in momentum requires energy - either new energy arrived, and if so where from (eg. someone pushing something), or energy was lost (eg. something hitting into something else and coming to a stop).
Arcs - related to spacing - do the traces of the end of the limbs sweep out smooth arcs and are there enough frames to make the arc noticeable? If you're moving from point A to point B over 1 frame you can only go in a straight line - its impossible to go in an arc. If you go in 2 frames, then you can at best go in two straight lines (which will be too fast for the viewer to see an arc). If you have say 5 frames to get from A to B, then you have 5 straight lines (or chords) which will join together to approximate an arc. If you have too many frames and your object moves too slowly, then viewers won't notice the arc at all, but if you go too fast, then there won't be an arc to see! You can reinforce the shape of the arc with follow through - leaving appendages trailing behind in the arc. Check the arcs from the camera view. Draw the shape of the arcs over your background - do the shapes fit nicely in the composition of the background element, or do they clash? Consider the motion paths that your characters leave behind as parts of that composition - think of the vapour trails left in the sky by aerial acrobatics, or the stripes on a frozen lake from figure skaters - the motion is ultimately beautiful because of the arcs it produces. If you climbed into a pitch black suit in a pitch black room and wore flow in the dark spots on your knees, toes, fingers and elbows, and started walking, an audience would still be able to identify the motion of the glowing spots as being a person walking even if they couldn't see you. The human brain can identify motions just from the arcs they trace out. Laban breaks down motions into three types: spoke like, arc like and carving. if an arc isn't appropriate would a spoke or carve fit better? Acting for Animators has more on this.
Eases & Acceleration - An ease can be used to emphasize a key - ie. to spend more time around that key, or just to provide a sense of acceleration from one key to the next. Don't confuse acceleration and speed. Check the easing between your keys - something heavy will need a bigger ease, something light might not need easing at all. What caused the ease - is it related to a force, or to a visual hold to help the audience see a key?
Forces, Leading Limbs & Weight - Forces set a structure into motion, or stop the motion. Forces allow a motion to be changed. Weight keeps a motion going (ie. gives something momentum) and accelerates it downwards. Remember that weight never takes a break and will start tipping a character over as soon as a leg is raised. Don't just consider how weight works in a walk or a jump, think about more complex motions aswell. A skateboarder can move forward to some extent by weaving from side to side - they lean off balance, their body tips forward gaining speed, then they steer back the other way bringing their board underneath them. A surfer on a day with bad waves does a similar motion pumping the board from side to side, and by weaving he turns his weight into a forward motion. Weight doesn't just pull things down, its a key element in moving forwards. Without gravity, even if our feet were somehow stuck to the ground, we would be shuffling rather than walking and would have to do a lot more work to pull ourselves forwards, because we wouldn't be able to lean into the walk. By leaning off balance we give ourselves forward speed. Leading limbs - check which limb moves first - does it draw the eye to the right place? is it the natural limb to move? For example a dog will usually start walking with one of its rear legs first because in terms of phase difference the rear legs are a half cycle ahead of the front legs.
Secondary action relates to the leading limb. if the leading limb is the first thing to move, try to work out the chain reaction of what will move next - My brain wants to move my foot, but really the leading limb is my upper leg, then my lower leg follows and my foot drags behind. Try not to think about what you want to move, but what has to move first. Working up the chain, my uppper leg no longer has support on the ground, my hips drop on one side and this propagates up my spine - my upper body adjusts to move my weight over my other leg and you get counter-animation (listen to Eamonn Butler on Animation Podcast if you don't get what counter-animation is) around my neck and shoulders to keep my head level - all one after the other, all time offset (ie. overlapping action). If you combine 'secondary action' and 'follow through' you get successive breaking of the joints (like a propagating wave). Follow through happens in space (ie. appendages following (and shaped to) the motion path), but also in time (one thing after another). The way our bodies move is like any structure (say a tower of cards) one thing affects the next. Check your know which movement is deliberate (independant action), caused by the character, and which movement is due to external forces, or secondary action. When I started out I was easily confused by the difference between secondary/independent/overlapping action & follow through, and for the most part treated them (wrongly) as one thing, but realising that they are in fact four separate concepts to implement was a big help. Don't confuse any of the different types, and make sure you've covered all of them!
Squash and Stretch - Self explanatory for cartoon styles. Always check you've maintained volume. What is the direction of the squash (in line with the stopping force) or the stretch (following the shape of the drag)? How quickly does the object squash or stretch - both require energy - is this a high or low energy situation? For rigid objects you can use the idea of squash and stretch to form the pose without actually squashing or stretching the anatomy of the character. For example an example of a 'stretched pose' might be if you stand up on tip toes with your legs and back straight and your arms above your head and fingers reaching as high as you can - without distorting the limbs you still get the idea of a stretch. A squash might be a crouch - imagine you've jumped from a great height - you don't squash elastically like a ball, but rather you crouch to absorb the force and spread your limbs sideways somewhat. Consider the squash and stretch to work on the bounding box of the character in the case of realism.
Anticipation - With aniticipation you need to check (1) the size of your anticipation and (2) the duration - two separate things - don't talk about a 'big' anticipation, be specific - is it a big movement over a short time, or a big movement over a long time, or a small movement over a long time? What exactly is big? In general if the action is physically large, then the anticipation will be physically large. If the action is physically small, then the anticipation will be physically small. However if the action which is about to happen will take a long time then the anticipation will be over quickly (so as not to bore the audience, or tire the character - for example someone about to run a marathon doesn't have a dramatic anticipative movement before the start the race). Vice versa if an action is going to be over very quickly (eg. someone hitting a baseball with a bat) the anticipation needs to be long to give the audience time to read it as the actual hit will be over very quickly. The size of an anticipation is proportional to the action, whereas the length of an anticipation is opposite to the length of an action. Sometimes surprise is key though, and giving the audience no warning at all can be the best option.
Model - Finally I check that the character hasn't 'broken' the model or the rig in any way - I do this last because I don't want to be animating around problems, rather I animate as best I can, and hope it works, and if it doesn't I'll try to fix it on the model rather than by fiddling with the animation. Check details like eyes and stiff fingers - hands can be really expressive if animated correctly.
Phone a Friend!
Only once I've gone through all of this stuff, do I then phone a friend for crits. Learning to understand/analyse what's wrong is probably the most important skill in learning to animate. It's very easy to look back at a piece of my own work and says its rubbish, but working out "what smells" (as Jason Osipa puts it) is the difficult bit. The easiest way to spot mistakes is to have a systematic way of looking for problems (I use this checklist I've typed up which has most of my common mistakes in, but I'm sure I have many other common mistakes I haven't spotted yet), and also to have another way of looking at your work. If you're struggling with a drawing then looking at it from a different angle or mirrored to see whats wrong. If you're working in 3D and you've already seen the problem pose from all angles then draw that pose by hand and you'll soon discover whats wrong by reconsidering the pose in a different medium, or at the line of action stage. Reference everything and don't rely on reference other people have given you - discover it yourself from videos and sketches - that way it'll stick much better in your memory.
That's all for now. I'm planning on switching to stop motion this year so I can animate faster and hopefully do some dialogue & acting work which I haven't had as much time to do in 3D.
Style
Aside from concerns of how the style relates to the narrative or the function of the piece (form follows function, or a house style), style can partly be dictated by the quality of the animation you're aiming for. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to move away from cutout animation and try drawing. Cutout animation is realistically only efficient for making limited animation on a fast turnaround - its a real struggle to make 'full' character animation in cutout. In cutout animation poses typically end up being very weak as you don't have to engage with creating the pose as much as you do in drawing (by default the assembly of the cutout pieces resembles a pose, so people tend to do the minimum posing work necessary, whereas every drawn pose must be created from scratch), and the restriction of the media prevents you from working with proper three dimensional poses, in perspective and so on - you might find it hard to progress your character animation skills if you limit yourself to cutout. Compositions also often end up being very flat and dull, and thinking spatially, its hard to bring the audience into the scene - the flat look resembles a long lens, and gives a voyeur's viewpoint in contrast to a POV which might be obtained with a wider lens (less flat composition). Unless you've storyboarded or thumb-nailed strongly its likely you'll make compromises in the animation stage due to the awkward workflow that cutout has.
Limited animation is fine for a certain type of work, but the work might have to rely heavily on dialogue (as for example Hanna Barbera cartoons do - see "Limited Animation Unlimited Imagination" in this set of essays) or on a fast paced story line (for example, "The Simpsons" is an example of animation where story is prioritised over animation), and unless these are really great, you'll have people turning off very quickly. Try sitting through the whole of the Beatles film, the Yellow Submarine and you'll see what I mean about limited animation failing to hold attention.
Drawing
Drawing is so important, not necessarily for image making, but as proof that you can observe correctly. People often say they can't draw, but really the problem is that they can't observe, and if you can't observe, then you stand no chance at all of being able to critique your own work and will constantly be relying on others for advice. If you can hold a pencil and draw a straight line, a circle and a square, and you are capable of tracing, then there is no problem with your drawing facility, but rather with your observations. The word animation literally means breathing life into something, and so, no matter how far away from realism your style might be, its still essential to reference back to real life. Draw lots of poses from life to practice (if you can't find anywhere to go life drawing, get out on the street and draw people who are moving as fast as you can, or try posemaniacs if you want a way of checking how accurate your sketches are). Crit each drawing you do yourself, draw corrections over the top in a different colour (see John K's advice). Pick a scene of your favourite film and break it down into key drawings as if you were rewriting the storyboard. Draw from music to help capture a mood, literally draw everything you want to capture in your animations as it will be a way to proving to yourself that you've processed and understood what you want to capture. Also physically get into the poses that will be in your animation - feel where the weight is, what aches when you hold the pose for too long, if you're off balance, which way will you fall? Is the pose natural, would moving a limb make it more natural. How does the pose make you feel - commanding? subservient? confident? vulnerable? open? and so on. Draw with both hands, one after the other, and at the same time. Try to make drawing automatic if it feels unnatural, so you don't have to think or worry about moving your hand over the paper. Sit a real person next to a life-size doll and draw the scene trying to capture the life in the person and the stillness in the doll.
Acting
Act out the scene a few times trying different things, then record it when you're confident you know the scene so well you can act it as if it was real (ie without any trace of your 'acting' showing through). The director Bresson used to get actors to repeat scenes hundreds of times until he felt they weren't showing any acting - he referred to his actors simply as 'models' who had to follow instructions rather than invent on the spot every time (See Notes on the Cinematographer for more). You should know the action inside out before you even begin to animate. Make sure the action is natural - would you do it that way? Ask someone else to do it without showing them how, without them acting, and without them knowing your watching or recording their movement - you'll have to set it up somehow eg "hey could you pass me that X over there".
Referencing
Working from the video draw thumbnails of every single frame. (see Rainplace for a great workflow idea). These can be very rough to start with, but by drawing every single frame, not just the keys, you start to learn how long each action needs to be in terms of frames, and also you feel the flow from one key to the next if you're drawing fast enough (Shamus Culhane used to work frame by frame drawing very fast so as not to loose track of the flow). If you can't imagine the movement or draw it out from memory without looking back to notes, it will really slow down your animation. I find that making a neat summary of what I've learned really helps afterwards - here are some examples from my own notes: 1 2 3.
Once I've finished going through stop frame, I'll play the reference back on loop at real time speed and try to tap the rhythm of where I think the keyframes should be (footsteps, head turns, etc) as if I was learning the beat of a song. If its lipsync, rather than working with a dope sheet with phonemes, I personally prefer to speak the dialogue with my finger on my top lip and my thumb on my bottom lip, feeling when my mouth is most open and closed (the most important part visually), and then on a second pass, where it is widest or narrowest. For 3D animators Stop Staring has some great advice.
Principles
Once I've internalised my reference and planned out my keys either as thumbs, or ideally as full size sketches (I tend to block in 2d, even though I'm animating in 3D as it gives me a much better grasp of how the poses work and really helps to record it in my mind, which I don't think I get in the same way if I do my blocking in 3D), then I start to animate. Even if you hate disney style animation, you can't ignore the 12 Principles of Animation which are present pretty much in any movement. Disney chose certain aspects of them to exaggerate (notably squash and stretch and appeal), and certain aspects to underplay (personally I always feel that their staging is sometimes dull and straightforward - I would guess for efficiency and clarity over drama), but if you pay a fairly even amount of attention to all of them, you'll be heading for life-like animation. The summary on wikipedia is really no replacement for the full version in the The Illusion of Life which is definitely worth a read if you haven't already. You should really know these principles off by heart and be applying them all at once without having to think about them. Its not good enough just to be able to list them, they have to be happening automatically in your work without thinking about them. Its easy to find examples of them all in animation, and the disney book has great illustrations which go through each principle, showing it visually - try copying a few sequences out if you don't get what the text means.
Pop-through
I wouldn't start to animate a scene before I know whats going to happen in it, and have planned it out, at least in terms of major poses and keys, in thumbnails at minimum, but ideally on layouts at full scale. I know some people like to feel their way through without thumbnailing first or without doing a rough blocking pass, but usually I find this costs a lot more work, and makes the edit much harder. At the very least you need to know how one shot connects to the next, so you have to have a sort of target pose to reach by the end of the shot. If you choose to go straight ahead (as I do for most shots - I work in 3D as if its stop motion, animating frame by frame, and completely ignoring the graph editor), then I'd strongly recommend using a type of "pop-through" technique, where you work out the timing on a separate rough pass (either with live action stills or quick sketches), then start again animating straight ahead, but aim to hit the poses on the times you planned out. You could go the whole hog and film live action and rotoscope to it (even in stop motion or 3D), but ideally I'd recommend reducing a live action shoot to a selection of keys and then sketching over the keys to exaggerate them. In Bresson's Notes on the Cinematographer he discusses how a photograph of a sculpture has none of the artistic (or monetary!) worth of the original, and as such a video of an actors brilliant performance has none of the brilliance of that performance (in the way it does live in a theatre). The video needs to be resuscitated - Bresson does this in the edit - as animators we have a second chance to do it with exaggeration.
To take an example of the pop-through method:. if you know you have to hit a contact position on frame 9, and its a fast walk, then you're going to need to be around the up position on frame 7... ie you work backwards from the key you need to hit to work out how close to it you need to be on the frame you're currently drawing or posing. That way you get the nice flow of straight ahead, but none of the unpredictability. If you're working in 3D straight ahead you might benefit from some tools to smooth over glitches - tracking motion paths as well as the Push & Relax tools found in blender are very useful.
Troubleshooting
Once I'm done, if I'm not happy with the result I have a big troubleshooting checklist to go through. There are tonnes of books out there for learning animation methods, but nobody really tells you what to do when it doesn't work. Start with the big questions first...
Staging - Are the characters in the places on the screen which would both ease the cut (if that's your aim), and communicate the situation as best as possible? Is the character above or below the camera's "eye" level if they are dominant or suppressed respectively? Can you see a facial expression if you need to? Have you needlessly close-framed to try to get "added drama" (point 3 in Bordwell's list)? Is the camera obeying the 180 degree rule (and the 30 degree rule - alternating angles and shot sizes to avoid jump cuts)? If not are you breaking the rules for good reason, or establishing your own set of editing rules? Is the shot size and location supposed to convey information about a POV or not? Does the shot clarify or obscure the geography of the scene? Is there a continuity error in the staging? Is the camera moving? Why (If you're Ken Burns-ing/Hitchcock Zooming every shot how will you hike up the tension when you really need it - see point 4 in Bordwell's list)? If its moving check the animation with it still if possible to minimise the number of things distracting you in your error checking process. If you're not sure which shots to use check out David Mamet's On Directing Film, (sometimes more cheaply available in the compilation book A Whore's Profession which includes some other essays on screen-writing which I haven't got around to reading yet).
The staging can have a big effect on the length of a shot - ie. do the characters spend ages walking around before we see any relevant action? Is it OK to cheat the position of characters within the shot to avoid lots of unecessary locomotion? (for a great example of cheating staging see from 2m30-2m40 in Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood: Ivan walks about 500 metres in the space of half a second but the audience accepts it because it has been done for emotional effect). Is it OK to cheat physical space across a cut? - see Edward Dmytryk's seven rules of cutting (in On Film Editing) for when its acceptable to do this. If your staging is wrong you might have to reanimate the shot - get it right in the thumbnail stage if you can, then block at layout scale to check the poses still work when timed up.
Composition - Much like staging, but in 2D screen space (whereas I consider staging to be primarily concerned with the 3D set or world space). Hit the key actions on the third guides, use leading lines in the set to focus the eye to points where action occur. Are limbs cut off awkwardly by the cropping of the shot in a distracting manner? Do the visual shapes the characters make communicate well and integrate into the background well (not just silhouettes - consider complimentary colours and brightnesses)? Check your title safe area - make sure nothing important happens outside it? Eyes will be drawn towards areas of high levels contrast - check the animation most thoroughly there - also consider if the composition causes strobing problems - movements which are too fast and in high contrast colours (for example I had a black wing sweeping across the screen over a white background very fast, and it just flashed/flickered due to the extremes of brightness).
Readability - Can the audience tell whats going on - show the shot to someone who hasn't seen it and isn't an animator and ask what they just saw. Closely linked to this is silhouettes. If you're working in an overly graphic or cartoony style which lacks clear definition of volumes, check that the shot works in silhouette and that you can tell whats happening from the silhouette. Be careful though that working in silhouette doesn't cause you to choose a dull flat Disney-esque composition every time. Use it more if you're communicating something crucial. In Sculpting in Time, Tarkovsky argues that as a director you must leave things ambiguous rather than emphatic, and not spoon feed the audience as if they were stupid. Stories are more interesting and exciting if the ambiguity that you create is not so much random, but adds to the plot development emotionally (deliberate confusion or disorientation) or logically (an alternative plot line). You should also expect a degree of competance from your audience - I think its in Werner Herzog Eats his Shoe where Herzog talks about the problem of visual illiteracy in audiences today.
Line of Action - As well as planning poses starting with a line of action, assess animation by working backwards from your finished animation into sketched lines of action with a grease pencil - are the lines what you were aiming for? can you reinforce the line in the pose? Does the line show either (1) where the force is - if the character is static and/or (2) where the character is moving to/from if its in motion and (3) what the emotional state/mood of the character is? is it possible to get all three of these elements into your line of action without compromise, or would you be better to focus on just one of these for this scene? For example, if the plot point is being conveyed using acting within a shot (or an inflected cut to an emotively emphatic pose), rather than locomotion, then it might be better to use the character's line of action to show depression/elation rather than using the line to show where the force propelling the character is. Has the timing of the animation given enough time for the pose to read? Eric Goldberg talks about 'attitude walks' in his Crash Course book - where he adds eases around the contacts - the keys- which most express the attitude of the walk through the pose. If the line of action is right, check the pose - if I'm working in 3d and I have trouble with a pose I'll draw a copy of it by hand. If I have trouble drawing it, then I know its probably an unnatural/uncommon pose (one I'm not used to seeing in life drawing!) - I try to draw something else then put that in. Remember even if you're working in 3D, every frame is ultimately a drawing - the audience sees every frame for an equal amount of time - its no good getting just the keys right!
Pacing - Essentially timing, but on the scale of the edit. Is the story moving too fast or too slow? If you're working with a three act structure have you spent enough time on each part: the setup, the conflict, and the resolution? Have you given the audience time to adjust to the shot (half a second of wasted screen time per cut). Digital editing encouraged whats known as frame f*cking (see Intensified Continuity: Visual Style in Contemporary American Film, a paper by David Bordwell) which is when the editor replays a sequence of shots over and over, each time removing a frame at a time from one shot until the shot is as short as it possibly can be (contrary to Edward Dmytryk's rule 2: cut long rather than short). The short cuts problem originated with action movies, but the disease has spread so that average shot lengths for feature films are now in the region of 2-4s rather than the 6-20s common in the Steenbeck editing machine days; obviously when manually splicing film, frame f*cking was a much more laborious process.
Timing - This is where you really need to go back to your reference to check, or start tapping out beats on the desk. Unfortunately the timing from live action and from blocking doesn't necessarily always translate across to animation. If the timing's wrong, then why is it wrong? Don't just start shuffling keyframes randomly (see the update to Keith Lango's shuffle key method, or jump to the non-shuffle method), try to quantify where your mistake was so you don't make it again. Push the timing from real life - there are many examples in live action films where timing has been deliberately contorted for dramatic effect (in The French Connection the car chase was shot undercranked by Owen Roizman - ie. sped up, and throughout the Mirror, Tarkovsky dips in and out of overcranked shooting - ie. slow motion, but often barely noticeable - the best example is towards the end of the movie when the boy is waiting alone in the dark room; see some great notes on his techniques here) Try timing to music if you have no dialogue to work with - in The French Connection all of the edits in the car chase sequence are timed to beats of Santana's Black Magic Woman.
Spacing - Relates closely to timing, but has more to do with poses. Are the poses spaced closely enough together to carry the eye from one to the next? If the spacing stays relatively uniform between consecutive frames then you have smooth flowing action. If on the other hand the spacing varies dramatically between frames you probably have sharp choppy movements which might not be what you want? Examining frame by frame spacing (with motion paths) might be too subtle to see errors (ie. at the inbetween level), maybe consider the spacing between every other frame, or between consecutive keys. Big changes in spacing indicate a big change in momentum (either a large force or a light object), wheras small changes in spacing indicate a small change in momentum (a small force or a heavy object with a lot of momentum). A change in momentum requires energy - either new energy arrived, and if so where from (eg. someone pushing something), or energy was lost (eg. something hitting into something else and coming to a stop).
Arcs - related to spacing - do the traces of the end of the limbs sweep out smooth arcs and are there enough frames to make the arc noticeable? If you're moving from point A to point B over 1 frame you can only go in a straight line - its impossible to go in an arc. If you go in 2 frames, then you can at best go in two straight lines (which will be too fast for the viewer to see an arc). If you have say 5 frames to get from A to B, then you have 5 straight lines (or chords) which will join together to approximate an arc. If you have too many frames and your object moves too slowly, then viewers won't notice the arc at all, but if you go too fast, then there won't be an arc to see! You can reinforce the shape of the arc with follow through - leaving appendages trailing behind in the arc. Check the arcs from the camera view. Draw the shape of the arcs over your background - do the shapes fit nicely in the composition of the background element, or do they clash? Consider the motion paths that your characters leave behind as parts of that composition - think of the vapour trails left in the sky by aerial acrobatics, or the stripes on a frozen lake from figure skaters - the motion is ultimately beautiful because of the arcs it produces. If you climbed into a pitch black suit in a pitch black room and wore flow in the dark spots on your knees, toes, fingers and elbows, and started walking, an audience would still be able to identify the motion of the glowing spots as being a person walking even if they couldn't see you. The human brain can identify motions just from the arcs they trace out. Laban breaks down motions into three types: spoke like, arc like and carving. if an arc isn't appropriate would a spoke or carve fit better? Acting for Animators has more on this.
Eases & Acceleration - An ease can be used to emphasize a key - ie. to spend more time around that key, or just to provide a sense of acceleration from one key to the next. Don't confuse acceleration and speed. Check the easing between your keys - something heavy will need a bigger ease, something light might not need easing at all. What caused the ease - is it related to a force, or to a visual hold to help the audience see a key?
Forces, Leading Limbs & Weight - Forces set a structure into motion, or stop the motion. Forces allow a motion to be changed. Weight keeps a motion going (ie. gives something momentum) and accelerates it downwards. Remember that weight never takes a break and will start tipping a character over as soon as a leg is raised. Don't just consider how weight works in a walk or a jump, think about more complex motions aswell. A skateboarder can move forward to some extent by weaving from side to side - they lean off balance, their body tips forward gaining speed, then they steer back the other way bringing their board underneath them. A surfer on a day with bad waves does a similar motion pumping the board from side to side, and by weaving he turns his weight into a forward motion. Weight doesn't just pull things down, its a key element in moving forwards. Without gravity, even if our feet were somehow stuck to the ground, we would be shuffling rather than walking and would have to do a lot more work to pull ourselves forwards, because we wouldn't be able to lean into the walk. By leaning off balance we give ourselves forward speed. Leading limbs - check which limb moves first - does it draw the eye to the right place? is it the natural limb to move? For example a dog will usually start walking with one of its rear legs first because in terms of phase difference the rear legs are a half cycle ahead of the front legs.
Secondary action relates to the leading limb. if the leading limb is the first thing to move, try to work out the chain reaction of what will move next - My brain wants to move my foot, but really the leading limb is my upper leg, then my lower leg follows and my foot drags behind. Try not to think about what you want to move, but what has to move first. Working up the chain, my uppper leg no longer has support on the ground, my hips drop on one side and this propagates up my spine - my upper body adjusts to move my weight over my other leg and you get counter-animation (listen to Eamonn Butler on Animation Podcast if you don't get what counter-animation is) around my neck and shoulders to keep my head level - all one after the other, all time offset (ie. overlapping action). If you combine 'secondary action' and 'follow through' you get successive breaking of the joints (like a propagating wave). Follow through happens in space (ie. appendages following (and shaped to) the motion path), but also in time (one thing after another). The way our bodies move is like any structure (say a tower of cards) one thing affects the next. Check your know which movement is deliberate (independant action), caused by the character, and which movement is due to external forces, or secondary action. When I started out I was easily confused by the difference between secondary/independent/overlapping action & follow through, and for the most part treated them (wrongly) as one thing, but realising that they are in fact four separate concepts to implement was a big help. Don't confuse any of the different types, and make sure you've covered all of them!
Squash and Stretch - Self explanatory for cartoon styles. Always check you've maintained volume. What is the direction of the squash (in line with the stopping force) or the stretch (following the shape of the drag)? How quickly does the object squash or stretch - both require energy - is this a high or low energy situation? For rigid objects you can use the idea of squash and stretch to form the pose without actually squashing or stretching the anatomy of the character. For example an example of a 'stretched pose' might be if you stand up on tip toes with your legs and back straight and your arms above your head and fingers reaching as high as you can - without distorting the limbs you still get the idea of a stretch. A squash might be a crouch - imagine you've jumped from a great height - you don't squash elastically like a ball, but rather you crouch to absorb the force and spread your limbs sideways somewhat. Consider the squash and stretch to work on the bounding box of the character in the case of realism.
Anticipation - With aniticipation you need to check (1) the size of your anticipation and (2) the duration - two separate things - don't talk about a 'big' anticipation, be specific - is it a big movement over a short time, or a big movement over a long time, or a small movement over a long time? What exactly is big? In general if the action is physically large, then the anticipation will be physically large. If the action is physically small, then the anticipation will be physically small. However if the action which is about to happen will take a long time then the anticipation will be over quickly (so as not to bore the audience, or tire the character - for example someone about to run a marathon doesn't have a dramatic anticipative movement before the start the race). Vice versa if an action is going to be over very quickly (eg. someone hitting a baseball with a bat) the anticipation needs to be long to give the audience time to read it as the actual hit will be over very quickly. The size of an anticipation is proportional to the action, whereas the length of an anticipation is opposite to the length of an action. Sometimes surprise is key though, and giving the audience no warning at all can be the best option.
Model - Finally I check that the character hasn't 'broken' the model or the rig in any way - I do this last because I don't want to be animating around problems, rather I animate as best I can, and hope it works, and if it doesn't I'll try to fix it on the model rather than by fiddling with the animation. Check details like eyes and stiff fingers - hands can be really expressive if animated correctly.
Phone a Friend!
Only once I've gone through all of this stuff, do I then phone a friend for crits. Learning to understand/analyse what's wrong is probably the most important skill in learning to animate. It's very easy to look back at a piece of my own work and says its rubbish, but working out "what smells" (as Jason Osipa puts it) is the difficult bit. The easiest way to spot mistakes is to have a systematic way of looking for problems (I use this checklist I've typed up which has most of my common mistakes in, but I'm sure I have many other common mistakes I haven't spotted yet), and also to have another way of looking at your work. If you're struggling with a drawing then looking at it from a different angle or mirrored to see whats wrong. If you're working in 3D and you've already seen the problem pose from all angles then draw that pose by hand and you'll soon discover whats wrong by reconsidering the pose in a different medium, or at the line of action stage. Reference everything and don't rely on reference other people have given you - discover it yourself from videos and sketches - that way it'll stick much better in your memory.
That's all for now. I'm planning on switching to stop motion this year so I can animate faster and hopefully do some dialogue & acting work which I haven't had as much time to do in 3D.
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