Feedback from Ed Hooks

So after some feedback from Siobhan on the Breakdown-version of the 11second piece ( video posted earlier) I got a suggestion to send an e-mail to Ed Hooks and ask him for his opinion since he is THE guy to go to when you need help on acting, and also empathy.
I didn't want to get my hopes up since he's a rather busy man, but man was I wrong..

After 15 minutes I got this e-mail:

" Hey Kristian!

It is wonderful to hear from you. I watched your animation several times, and you are doing very good work. I don't know how much time you have to tinker with it, so I will just give you my notes as if you have all the time you want. I understand that is not the case because your time is limited, but you can look at my notes and decide for yourself if you want to work any of them in.

1) Did the alpha person fire the girl? I think that is what happened, so the first thing that that jumps out at me is: What is the alpha person "doing"? Action in pursuit of objective while overcoming an obstacle -- remember that acting lesson? Alpha appears not to be empathizing with the girl. (Alpha is a female, yes?) Alpha has a benign smile on her face the entire time. What is she doing? I see that she takes the name off of the office door, and if I were you I would have her remove the name either BEFORE she delivers her line to the girl, or WHILE she delivers the line.. The objective is to collect the name panel, the action is entering and reaching for it. The obstacle is that the girl who got fired is standing there and is clearly distressed.

2) What is the girl "doing"? I see that she is very unhappy, but being sad is not a playable action. It looks like she cleared the stuff out of her desk, put it in a box and was on her way to do something with it, probably to take it home. I wish you had started the animation with the girl trying to close the door behind her while holding a box of stuff in her arms. Alone on camera for maybe two seconds. Then Alpha enters, takes the name panel off the door and then puts her arm around the girl's shoulder. The name panel would work better, IMO, if Alpha was holding it in the same hand she puts around the girl's shoulder. I can envision the girl standing there with the name panel almost looking like one of those mug shots we see in the newspaper. It would reinforce what she thinks of herself.

3) Your biggest challenge is telling an entire story in eleven seconds. What you chose to do was to begin the animation from a pose rather than mid-action. You also are ending it with a pose. For my money, action is almost always stronger than poses.

Nobody ever said animating was easy, right? If it was, then anybody could do it. This requires hard work. Despite my notes, you really are doing a good job. I hope you let me see your final.

Hugs -

Ed"

(I asked Ed for permission to post his response on the blog)

What a response - He really took his time looking through the piece. But the best thing to me was that he understood what happened, since I didn't explain the story beforehand.

I don't feel I have time to do all the changes mentioned since it will be a lot more work animating Mrs. Crawley struggling with the door, whilst holding on to the box.
But what I did do was to change it so that Edna is talking while she is taking the sign down and to me that looked a lot better than having her take it down in-between the lines. It worked a lot better than the way it was, even at blocking stage it felt more natural and also gave Edna a even more nasty attitude.

I also tried to make the beginning a bit more like it's in a motion and not starting with her in the hunkered down pose.

So thanks, Ed. I appreciate it greatly!

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I have been working on secondary breakdowns after that and I am close to moving it into linear. Just waiting for feedback from the MA Facebook-group now and my next move depends on what they say.

Here is the piece (still in stepped keys):