I get asked about breathing quite a lot when I give my training courses and especially when we get to the topic of animating life when the character does nothing at all, doesn’t move (what I’ve been calling animating “nothingness”, which is important to keep as exactly that: nothing – no movement, but still some life). It’s extremely difficult. But making the character breathe just because they’re not moving is not the answer. Partly because we don’t see people breathe in normal life and partly because well… you haven’t made your character breathe before that point, did you?
However, of course we animate the character breathe in very particular circonstances. Like, obviously, if we hear in the sound their heavier-than-normal breathing. Or when it goes along a physical effort (even if you don’t hear it in the sound). Also when the character sleeps because it’s absolutely expected by the viewer in this total stillness (the viewer will feel like suffocating if you don’t make your character breathe on screen while sleeping – empathy is a magical thing!). Not forgetting too: when the character sings. Don’t forget to place some breathing intakes, even though music will drown that type of sound and you will therefore not have any clues when to place those! You will have to figure out when and animate them.
So, this is all well and good, but how to animate a stop-motion character breathe? It can be extremely tricky. First, let’s talk about body parts going where and how: with the lungs filling up with air, the chest puffs out and with the exhale of air, the chest empties out, meaning it goes inwards. Which is not something we can easily do, unless we have a rockstar puppet from the model-making department (basically most of us will not encounter a puppet like this, ever – I only did on the short film “Un Coeur d’Or” by Simon Filliot). So we have to cheat to give the impression. With the chest filling in with air, we can raise the shoulders a teeny bit and lower the chin a teeny bit, to give the illusion. And the reverse motions of shoulders and chin for the chest emptying/exhaling. This is one cheat. Sometimes I don’t have great access to shoulders, but I do have separate clothes. In this case, I can act on these, pulling on the clothes outwards and raising the chin for the chest filling in and pushing the clothes and the chin in a bit for the chest exhaling. The manipulation can be a bit tricky in order to get under the top that the puppet is wearing and it might require to make yourself a custom tool.
Case in point, these last months, I’ve been animating on “Včasih sem Papirnati Zmaj”) (Sometimes I am a kite), a short film by director-animator Leon Vidmar. I’ve had you guys in mind that whole time and I made photos and videos to share with you. For example, I made a video of the breathing I did, with what tool, what increments and for what results. Here’s the tool. Nothing flashy as you can see, just a twisted and shaped bit of aluminium wire:
And now, here is the resulting breathing motion, first the movement frame-by-frame, then full-speed:
If your stop-motion puppet doesn’t have clothes and you want to act on more things than just chin and shoulders, you can act on the texture (plasticine, silicone, resin, paper, wool, you name it…) by brushing the surface always one way; then always the other way (albeit minimally!) to affect the texture itself or the way the light reflects on it and therefore mimick an exhale and an inhale.
You might have noticed in the examples I gave earlier that, in one example, I animate the chin in the direction of the chest filling up, and in the other example, I animate the chin in the counter-balancing direction to the chest filling up. It doesn’t depend on what other elements you animate with it, it depends on how strongly you consider your character is breathing in and out and/or on how mobile and independent the neck is for your character in the context of the scene. As most often is the case with animation, try out both options on your own body or on a colleague’s and what you should do between these 2 options will become apparent.
I hope it helps you guys negotiate the rather rare times we have to animate breathing.
As always, if you find this advice useful, don’t hesitate to tell your animation friends about this blog. I will write up and upload more tips from that Leon Vidmar’s short film very soon!