Ere Santos remembers that he once had to animate a fight between his character, the sidekick, and the hero of the film.
The sidekick lands on the hero’s head, and the scene cuts. Luckily, the hero’s animator sat next to Mr Santos.
Much like their creations, the two colleagues went to battle on how the interaction should work.
Instead of drawing, these feature film animators create computer simulations based on physics.
Mr Santos likens it to making a puppet that the computer will bring to life.
Trouble ensues if the build is even fractionally inaccurate, because the puppets will slice through their world like a ghost, rather than a real being.
“You can have a hand going through a table, or through another hand if they are clapping,” says Mr Santos.
Eventually, he and his neighbour ironed out their characters’ skirmish.
Animators need to co-operate when their characters interact
