MADAME WEB

I dedicated 6 months of my life studying spiders for Madame Web.
At the beginning, I was the only animator working on hand keyframing these spiders and although I felt alone, it also gave me a bit of free reign to get creative with the tests.

During my free time, I developed a rigged webbing system to demonstrate how spiders traverse across a web. I established different rhythmic timings for how spiders behave in different situations and terrains. I studied different species, considered age, the climate they live in, and even how certain physical conditions affect how they move. Like people, spiders have character derived from conditions that are unique to each individual.

Most spiders are almost completely blind, and in my research, I discovered their legs move sporadically because they use them like navigational sticks. Whether they're traversing, rappelling, climbing, or walking, spiders are always reaching out to feel their surroundings. One species of spider that doesn't do this is the jumping spider. This is because they have exceptional vision, at least compared to the average spider. It also explains why the average spider isn't able to jump - they simply can't see what they're jumping into. Otherwise, the world would be a much scarier place. If I were to do these spider animations, I would know to take different approaches, depending on the species.

These keyframes were plotted through hours and hours of research - at one point I had even caught a little spider that I had in my room for a day to reference (it was released that night). You might consider this overkill, especially for something that had about 30 seconds of screen time in the movie. But I personally love everything about this process. Research has always been an important part of animation. Understanding a character's background, culture, and its history help animators achieve believable motion in their work.

I was directly told that my animations played a significant role in getting the sign-off for the pitches. Although I'm unsure how much truth there was to that, hearing this certainly helped ease the pain of being laid off a few weeks later.
I enjoyed being a part of this and I enjoyed the movie, though I must confess, I took a brief intermission in dreamland for about 20 minutes.