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[edit] Introduction
[edit] What
Staging is about presenting actions clear and effectively. It involves how characters are posed, scene content, cameras, lighting – everything that will help communicating to an audience the ideas contained in the film.
[edit] Why
From its name it's immediate that this is another principle brought from the art of acting. After all, for the spectators, filmed action has constraints similar to those found in theater. Watchers don't walk around inside the space where the story is happening, neither can they choose what they want to see there or even the best angle and distance for viewing and listening.[1]
The objective of Staging is to overcome the restrictions of the medium so that viewers can enjoy the richest experience possible, even if they have to watch it from a small 2D screen, with no control over the camera.
There is an implied agreement between the audience and the storytellers: the first accepts to “sit and watch”, while the later should try their best to present well staged actions that everyone can follow.
MAIN BENEFIT
communicate ideas from the animation as well as possible, with clarity, liveliness and intensity.
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[edit] How
[edit] Lights
Good lighting is at least as important as good modelling and texturing for the finished product. The difference between a well and a naively illuminated scene should leave no doubt about it.
But it's not only about realism and visibility. Lights help set the mood of the scene and even of the characters, not to mention the many effects that can be created.
Anyway, there are whole books devoted to this topic, as well as webpages and specific Blender documentation, including a Bsod project. So we stop here.
[edit] Camera
Good animation, presented with bad camera work, isn't much better than a good adventure told by an awful narrator.
Like happens with lighting, many things can be learned about cameras, from technical details to effective methods and tricks developed during a century of live action and animated movies, but basic knowledge can already improve your stills and sequences considerably.
Presentation
Which is the best way to show a given action? Takes from far away to show the whole scene or close-ups? Steady, zooming in or out? In front, ¾, from above, below? Using a single camera for a long time or cutting from one to another frequently?
The best configurations depend, obviously, on the action, the settings and the desired effects.
Motion
We have total freedom of movements in CG3D, but it's not a good idea to overuse it with cameras. Wild camera movement can work well in certain passages, but abused it will distract and perhaps bother or even nauseate people from the audience.
Camera movement
a good general tip is that it's fine to change and move cameras, but not enough to call attention to the cameras themselves.
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- pan left / right
- tilt up / down
- pedestal up / down
- truck left / right
- arc left / right
- dolly in / out
- crane up / down in any direction
- zoom in / out
- rack focus in / out
[edit] Action
Poses
Poses should have intelligible and interesting silhouettes, actions must clearly show to the audience the intentions and feelings of the characters.
One thing at a time
What works best is not to mix actions. First one thing happens, then another, then another, not all at the same time. Dialogue is an immediate example: in general it's staged so that characters don't speak simultaneously. Otherwise viewers may have trouble understanding what was said and done.
The exception, where multiple concomitant actions make sense, is when the intention is to show confusion and chaos in the scene, naturally.
Guidance
Animators can and should guide the audience's eyes to each action “focal point” following the determined sequence of events: look at this, notice that, now this, now that, now the other thing, etc.
[edit] Scene
”The Tramp”
Scene staging: a famous saying attributed to Charles Chaplin stated that he only needed a park bench, a cop and a beautiful girl to make a comedy.
How to assemble a scene set? General guideline: do not add unnecessary things.
A rule used by cartoons for a long time (and many plays since centuries before that) is to only include what is really needed, either because it will be used in the scene or because it is part of a small set of things that make the location believable and help set the mood.
This works well, placing focus on the action and the acting. Besides that, the fewer the (real or virtual) objects in a scene, the easier to manage the production.
Scene staging
do not put things in a scene just because you can or because they look cool. Each detail should have its role and help define the setting.
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[edit] In Blender
[edit] Story Development
[edit] Notes
[edit] More than ever
Of course there are more experimental plays where the viewers can move in the same space where the actors are. And in the future we should be able to walk in virtual environments where stories will be told, as we can in videogames. But none of these cases make staging unimportant – much to the contrary.
[edit] 3D Freedom
Those who already played videogames when the first good 3D games set in huge virtual worlds started appearing, might remember that both designers and players had an initial difficulty with how much freedom they had. Sometimes for players it was hard to know where to go next and for designers it was hard to show the intended direction and to convince players to follow it instead of getting lost and bored exploring uninteresting areas for too long.
With experience designers started to learn how to create such games with tighter and fluid gameplay without having to rely on senseless restrictions. It surely has something to do with Staging...
[edit] Just Kidding
Subverting another principle to get another tool: what if we play with the audience?
A character says "did you hear that sound?". But the audience doesn't hear anything. Will they doubt the character? What if it's said later in the story that only a few can listen to that sound? Usually the audience would also listen to it, making them feel special, interested.
The pattern here: play with the audience, remove some of their "special abilities". Would this detract from the experience or make them feel less special than the characters who can listen or see something that most can't in the movie?
Summer of documentation 2006 -- Willian 07:20, 5 July 2006 (CEST)
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