Except for that, I think the way I made the character holding the cup also was not so appropriate, so that when she was trying to drink the angle of the wries was very strange.

I practiced the repeating exercise with Penny on the lecture, but I was still confused about it, we repeated the same dialogou and continued with some observation of each other, which I found weird and kind of useless at first. However, after reading a paper of a professor named Yan He in Shanghai Theatre Academy (it was writen in Chinese so I can read and understand it fluently) , I currently assume that this repeating is actually a practicle method to keep concentrated on the other who is trying to communicate with ourselves. The same dialogue helps to really seeing and listening to the one that actor faced with. Started with a simple observation like "you are wearing black trousers" actors are able to calm down and receive information from each other, with the info they find they can express different and changeful emotions when they are saying the same thing time after time. That means this repeating is not machenically saying the same thing, everytime the actors say it, the words come out from the lips with different feeling.

Also, continuely the observation will deep down to the real linguistic expression of emotion and feeling, which is the second stage we didn't reach on the lecture. Actors will repeat the same simple sentences to describe the emotion they recognized on each other, such as "you are bored" or "you seems like pissed off", and still repeating it. By this time the repeating is actually describing the undercover subtext of the other. And that makes the actors know that they are feeling what the other is feeling now.

The repeating dialogue or in another word the language is kind of a tool here to keep the actors knowing that they are really listening, watching and feeling each other, and truly engaged themselves into this connecting time and then make real, natural and empathic reaction.

It's kind of like digging the other at present as far as you can. And the final aim of this repeating exercise is to get used of reacting, and put oneself into the set circumstance as soon as possible, as deep as possible I guess.

In this scene, the main character Shoko broke her leg after the new year eve, but she didn't tell it to her boyfriend Yonosuke because she didn't want him to be worried about her. However, Yonosuke came to the hospital as soon as he heared about Shoko's injury. He was very concerned about her, and blamed her for hiding the accident, in his opinion people who are truly caring each other are supposed to inform each other once they got injured. Shoko was very touched by his confession and decided that Yonosuke was the one deserved her true love at this moment. So to prove that change in her mind, she changed the calling for him from Mr.Yokomiji( his last name) to Yonosuke( his first name ). In the story background Shoko came from a wealthy family with strict manner, she even calls her parents as Mr.Father and Mrs.Mother, so calling someone by his first name is a proof that she treats this guy as the closest person in her life.

This dialogue happened after Shoko made the above decision. All it showed in the screen was just Yonosuke and Shoko repeating each other's name again and again.

On the very first time, it was more like an attampt, Shoko called Yonosuke's name carefully, because this is a huge forward move for her in this relationship. Yonosuke was attampting too, he called her name almost silently, because he was still not sure about whether Shoko would be regret about this decision, or whether it's approprate for him to call her by her name too.

On the next few time, with the definite response from each other, they were both sure that they became the closest people in each other's life at this moment, so they repeated the other's name firmly, loudly and with joyful tone.

Continuely, they repeated the name happily with saitisfication to each other, full of the happiness that knowing the other loves themselves as deeply as they do.

With this simply repeating, the audience can get into the process of their relationship changing. And the reason why it was so touched for audience is the reaction with growing emotion between them. That's what really important in the repeating I think.

Reference material:

Research about the "Repeating Exercis" in Meisnar's acting method, He Yan , 0257 - 943X（2017）05-0070-09

Live a real life in an imaginary circumstance, He Yan, Shanghai Theatre, 2017

In this repeating dialouge, the director used positive and negative lens in the very first three callings between characters. With the transfer of the characters' emotion when they were calling each other's name, the camera was gradually closed in time after time.

Started with the first calling, when Shoko and Yonosuke were still not sure whether it is approporate to call and calling each other with doubt carefully, here the director sattled a medium over-shoulder shot for them, which is very normal method in characters' conversation shooting.

However, on the second time when they firmly called each other, the camera was changed into a close-up shot, the distance that the audience could feel between them was closer too, even though the pyhsical distance was still the same.

On the third time, the lens is even pulled closer, with 3/4 screen taken by the head of them. It makes audience feel like they are talking face to face.

This focusing is actually a hint for audience that the psychological distance between the characters was closer. By calling each other's name time after time, their reaction showed that they were accepting each other step by step. The first common over-shoulder shot illustrated that they are trying to close each other in a normal social distance, but in the next few times, with the disappearing of the shoulder, it means the barrier as regular people's social boundary between them was gone. The closer the camera moved, the closer their hearts were.

And this occasion happened on an ordinary morning before she goes for work, she was sitting behind the table putting on her lipstic, with a mirrow on the other hand, very cautiously, slowly moving the lipstick on her lips back and forth until she thought they were perfectly and nicely covered by red color. After so, she pursed her lips with satisfication.

The movement I acted was fine, but the lip balm really caused a few trouble for me when I made the animation. The top surface of the lips balm I used in reference is flat, but the one of the lipstick model I made in maya has a certain leaning angle. It makes the movement of the hand a little bit different, and this little angle on lipstick would enlarg the motion of the wrist and albow too. So there would be a few adjustment to do in the process of animation.

I added key poses when the lipstick moved to the middle poiont and the corner of the lip. And to fix the problem caused by the angled surface, and to make sure that lipstick's top surface touch the lip perfectly in every frame, I added more keys on the wrist when I was doing the blocking, averagely one key per five frames.

Also I added movement to almost every controlers of her upper body to meke the motion more realistic, but not as much as the wrist has.

With penny's feedback I decided to leave this clip stepped, but to fix the problem, I also added more keys in the other controlers, keeped them as frequently as the wrist, polished my blocking to make it better.

Raymond is an piano private tutor, he teaches the piano course indicidually to each student. He is also a very kind, skilled pianist and music lover himself, so everytime he listens to nice piano play he can't help but move his body. One day he was asked to give some feedback at the individual class to his student before the student's solo concert. His student is going to play June: Barcarolle from Seasons composed by Tchaikovsky, the student played very well, Raymond enjoyed and appreciated it so much, moved his hands and body uncontrollably to the beautiful notes.

I acted the reference vedio by myself, moved my body like I was listening to my student exercising in front of me, moving my hand to give some hint and feedback about the direction of the notes and the flow of the melody.

Because the record vedio already included the sound of the music, so I exported another wav music of this clip to put into Maya, which can perfectly matched the reference by beats.

I like the snapping he did when he tried to test whether Raymond is asleep and the reaction he did when he was caught. Also the whole plot of this clip is very dynamic and humorous. So I'm gonna keep the things mentioned above in my own task.

Character Profile of Emily

Emily is a young dreaming girl at her 20s, she wants to be an actor someday and struggling around the city for audition. Currently she worked at a restaurant as a waitress to make a living.

Emily is very enthusiastic and outgoing, she's willing to help people around and always bring warmth to the others. However sometimes she might cross the line and seemed like too helpful to make people feel uncomfortable. In the relationship with Raymond she is the active one.

Character Profile of Raymond

Raymond is an private piano tutor, but he's now trying to find a more stable job to support his future plan. Recently he applied for a couple of public high schools to be a musical teacher, while it didn't go well, he is still waiting for the message of offer.

Raymond used to be a respectable and balanced person, with nice skill and strict manner. But sometimes he is too strict to communicate with. Also recently he was annoyed by the fact that he didn't get a single job offer, so he hasn't talk to his girlfriend for a while.

Emily snapped twice in front of Raymond and he didn't have any reaction for that, so she directly attached her hand to the phone. However, as soon as she touched the phone, Raymond woke up immediately.

Raymond caught Emily peeping in her face, he was annoyed and felt being untrusted. Emily was very embarrassed for being caught.

But I can't act the moment that Emily catch the phone by myself, so I think I still need a more specific reference of a hand catching the phone helding by another hand.

Also I need another referenc vedio of the facial expression changing which is not so clear in the overview reference clip.

After the basic blocking, I added a breath cycle on Raymond when he was still asleep, so that it seems less stiff for him in the first half part of the clip.

Also considering about the frequency of the shot changing in the layout, I took penny's advice to keep just ont straight shot from the begining to the end to show the danymic plot changes between the characters.

With that problem Penny showed me the lecture about "moving hold", which is a way specifically to solve this problem. Obviously in the gap between two movement, if the character stopped statically, it seems less realistic and very unnatural for audience to believe that the character is a real person. That's why the character need to stop in a moving way. In this way you need to add more keys at the end of a moving part to make the character move a little more towards the final direction of the last movement.

After the adjustment of moving hold, the movement of Emily looks more dynamic than it used to be.

Except for the animation, I sat an area light to imitate the light of the television they were watching, I also added a sound track of tv white noise as background music, and some sound effect of snapping and the rubbing between their clothing and the fabric of sofa.

audio effect sources:

self recorded

https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/

In this task I tried to spline the animation after blocking, it went much well than last week, but still looked like floating in the air.

The feedback said the legs of the character are stiff all the time, which makes the animation unrealistic. So I made a chair for Raymond and added more keys on his legs to make them moving in a very limited range。