WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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[laughing]

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Alright, okay. Let’s watch an animated McDonald’s
commercial. Humor me.

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And that’s why I’m laughing. C’mon.
If you haven’t worked at McDonald’s yourself,

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you know somebody who has. Is this the story
that they tell you? Of course not.

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It’s an adorable commercial. In English
this style of animation is called anime. Anime

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originated in Japan and is a hundred years
old. The biggest hallmark of the style is

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large eyes, but there are tons of anime that
use realistic eyes or even solid black dots

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for eyes.

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What sets anime apart from other cartoons
is the method of storytelling. It draws more

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on emotion and feeling than it does plot or
goals. Sure, the characters often work towards

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a goal like saving the world, but it’s the
relationships between the characters that

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make the story. Even in this short commercial
you can see that.

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A Western version of the commercial would
show the employee training every day to become

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the manager, probably to solve some kind of
problem like not having enough tuition money.

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The Western formula is problem: solution.
The anime is about the flustered new employee

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and her interaction with the manager and customers.
Anime is about characters. For that reason

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there are lots of popular anime that are literally
about people living their everyday, normal

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lives, just like you and me. No magic powers,
no monsters, no futuristic technology. Lucky

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Star is an example of that.

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The commercial is short so it’s more animated
than a typical anime, but I can still use

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it to show you anime efficiency secrets. Anime
is very good at cutting down on character

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motion and putting the saved time into backgrounds
and widely varied character designs.

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First is camera panning. Don’t animate anything.
Just pan along a nice background. Play music

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or character narration or offscreen dialogue.

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If somebody is talking, point the camera somewhere
else so that you don’t have to animate their

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mouth moving. Pointing the camera at somebody’s
reaction to the thing being said is common.

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Only animate part of the character. Everything
else stays still.

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Crowd shots. Don’t animate the crowd. Draw
people frozen in place and only animate the

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character who is speaking, or only animate
the main characters walking. In this shot,

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tiny animations on the still characters give
the illusion of action. The commercial goes

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the extra step to animate the hands on this
guy in the background. Normally he’d be

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still.

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Extreme closeups. The less of the character
you have to animate, the better.

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One thing the commercial does that anime tends
not to do is reuse backgrounds. And anyway,

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reuse of this background is done on purpose,
not to save time. It’s meant to show a cycle

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of life - how people start from one role and
move to another.

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You’d think that considering everything
else anime does to cut down on actual animation

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they would reuse backgrounds, but they don’t.
Even if half the episode takes place in the

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same classroom, they redraw it from different
angles, positions and perspectives.

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So. Which do you think is worse - working
at a fast food place, or working as an animator

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in Japan? I hear the industry is cutthroat
and stressful with long hours. Then again,

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I hear that about everything in Japan.

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Friendship time! I collected art where I’m
together with others. This is me and Bluescar.

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Sometime we have to part ways. I have a few
pieces of art with Scribbles and Cyn Wolf

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together. This one is by Talonsoficeandfire.

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Taking naps on dragons is always a good idea.
Nightcomet doesn’t seem to mind. Yet.

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I actually do eat raw lemons. I had one yesterday.

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Is that a heart tattoo on Raven Blade Kitty’s
face, or is her fur just naturally like that?

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A bunch of me’s in a bunch of styles together
with Bumble Flow.

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Start the episode with anime, end the episode
with anime. Hummingbird watching with CattiMadi

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and DannyFox.