Weep Week
No,yourecrying.
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In life, crying represents a loss of control a cathartic release of neurobiological tension that science hasntentirelyfigured out.
But when you watch a character cry in animation, its the opposite.
Its the difference of painting a single line, Sugar says, but you feel the impact so strongly.
Of course, Ghiblis prodigious talent pool makes it look easy.
Its a lot to keep track of, Sugar says.
Choices like that have to be really aggressively planned.
Read em and weep.
He doesnt cry, and he thinks hes failed, but that was good enough forSecretariats director.
But then afterward, hes anxious.
He doesnt think hes good enough, full of all this self-doubt:Am I good enough?
Am I a joke or am I an actor?He goes outside and breaks down.
An ugly, solo cry was the direction for the scene.
I looked through old emails: It should be a soft, real moment of BoJack crying.
This shouldnt be a single tear or overly broad sobbing.
It should look ugly and broken.
He exhales and breaks down.
There was another note I found: Add tears.
So at some point we were having him cry without tears.
At some point, we decided it would be better with tears.
If youre going for comedy, overdoing it is fine.
Here, less is more.
Its almost like youre trying to confirm the character is tryingnotto cry.
Animation is a team sport.
Its notes and notes and notes and notes and notes and revision and revision: Try it like this.
Okay, try that.
Okay, its not working with the camera push.
Lets try it without the camera push.
Okay, now lets try it on a close-up.
As silly asBoJackcan be, we tried to play moments like this as honestly as we could.
I dont think we would want BoJack to cry in a funny way.
It wouldnt mean anything.
If this is one of the only times he cries on the show, thats really cool.
Hes, in a way, crying about crying.
I think he loses himself and what his axis is that defines him.
He isnt sure how to behave when all of these emotions start coming back.
His expression slowly begins to change, and his sorrow surfaces as tears.
Well have these voice files as reference.
I take a stab at listen to them before animating.
Imagining that helps translate what we do with the characters performances onscreen.
With season one, we were still trying to figure out the production process with the entire team.
Season two was much more emotional.
The production timelines for anime are quite tight.
We dont have a long schedule, and we dont have a lot of breaks or vacations.
At times I do want to cry!
One of my favorites is the scene with Mei and her friends at the 4*TOWN concert.
I always loved that moment of the main characters wishes coming true.
Its a really funny moment, but its also very emotional.
Everything in animation is so choreographed.
Does it build in the corner?
Does it build in the middle?
Does it build in the inner corner?
The viscosity of the tear has to be taken into consideration, too.
We dont want watery, thin tears that just stream down the face; I want thick surface tension.
When the tear travels down our face, does it leave a wet trail?
Do we see that shiny wet trail?
Because in some of these scenes, its a very intimate close-up!
Are we seeing the shiny wetness trail, or is that distracting?
Would we rather have the tear go down and leave a slight trail?
Maybe that trail dries up almost immediately afterward.
We want to keep her nice and fluffy and keep her silhouette appealing and engaging.
So we just did the cheat of it rolling down her face.
Tears count as an effect.
And on our shows, on our films, theres a specific budget for effects.
Even if its one tear.
It was funny that a single tear is valued the same as an explosion onscreen.
It might actually be just as impactful.
Hes learned that at this point, and yet its too late.
Thats pretty heavy stuff.
Kristien Vanden Bussche was the very talented animator who did Geppettos crying on the beach.
It really is the expression of that artist.
From a purely technical point of view, one of the challenges with stop-motion is working in real space.
When you get into tears, its a liquid, and it wants to evaporate.
So we use glycerin gels and different types of oil.
And you have to do something thats not going to destroy the puppet.
You cant put chemicals or things on it that are going to stain it.
But you just hear his voice and it tells you volumes.
That gets you 80 percent of the way there:I see what this is.
When I was told not to do it, it made me want to do it more.
And this was such an important sequence.
Years earlier, he asked if I would do a drawing to gift to his daughter for her birthday.
For years, we were all waiting for a sequence important enough to have his touch on it.
We wanted it to beSteven Universes most ultimateFusion Dance.
ForSteven Universe, we had to design probably more than a dozen different styles of tears.
They had different names.
In this sequence, theres a little highlight on a tear that drips.
Its traveling, so its important to know where it will go.
Or for a joke, milky-white tears.
Or if its a really serious moment, transparent tears.
Its animation, so everything is bespoke.
We liked to give a lot of that power to our storyboard artists.
And more often than not, I would say, No, I want to honor the snot.
