Time for a new reel, right? Well, here is a progression reel of one of the two shots I did for Ice Age 4.
I wanted to share this reel to show how animators are expected to take what is shown on the boards and nail all the basic actions and beats that are shown there, but in addition, “plus” the boards with new choices and additional gags.
The boards were done by my very talented friend, Jerod Chirico. I actually animated this shot while I was also animating on Blue Sky’s film Rio back in 2010. I didn’t get to animate all that much on this show since I was part of the pre-production crew for Blue Sky’s film Epic.
Jeff Gabor's Animation Blog 
awesome Jeff!
Always pushing! Always great to see your work. I was wondering about some stuff though. Is it always someone else that does the boards? I mean does one have to be able to do them? When do you add sound? Is that during the making of boards? Also if you would be kind it would be awesome if you could elaborate a little on the differences between the boards and your blocking. Are the decisions made together in the team or just by you or by someone else? Why did you for instance. Chose to put him on the side while slowly lowering the
Thank again for you continuous will and effort to take time to give back to the community!
Hey Martin,
Yeah, we have an entire department at Blue Sky to handle the boards. Jerod is very much an expert at boarding Scrat sequences but he’s hardly the only artist handling the boards. Animators very rarely do any real boarding, but its not uncommon for us to pitch ideas either in board form or just verbally to try and sell an idea for a particular shot we have been cast.
Usually when an animator is deviating from the boards they’ll simply pitch the new idea to the director or just to the animation supervisor. I think for this shot I tried doing what was on the boards but quickly realized that the composition was just too difficult. Scrat simply doesn’t look appealing from the angle that Jerod drew him at, and the pose really didn’t allow me to play up how careful he was being with the nut.
So I think I made the new pose, showed it casually to the animation supervisor, and got approval to keep moving forward. It’s all rather fluid and fast. We are definitely given opportunity to change things up at Blue Sky as long as the intention of the shot isn’t changed.
Thanx for the reply man! Keep pushing! 🙂
You the man
Hey Jeff! I just wanted to say your comparison reels are some of the best I’ve ever seen. I’m a junior at Ringling College of Art & Design and I’ve watched all of your videos until my replay button stopped working. Thank you so much for the inspiration, it means so much to see such a mastery over the craft. I especially loved the freak out portion when the acorn gets stuck and you shrank and broke the rig – it’s brilliant!
Thanks Tabia. Kick ass while you’re at Ringling and say hi to Paul Downs (great instructor and former co-worker) for me.
haha will do 🙂
Very good