Class 6 is a go : Polishing and Portfolio

Class 6 has started. My Mentor for this course is Mike Stern. He Currently works at Dreamworks. He adds a new element from any other mentor I have had so far. He has actually gone through the AM course. He was one of the first students to graduate some years back. He really knows his animation and shows experience as a mentor. On the flip side he understands what it is like being on the other side as a student and offers insightful information. He did an awesome animated short called Distraxion. Very funny and of course amazing animation. I am looking forward to picking his brain on creating it. We have been lucky enough already where he showed us some early animation from it.

This class will be interesting to blog about as it is a bit different from past classes. Being that this is the Polishing and Portfolio class there will be no new work to document. The class consists of polishing the best of any assignments that will make a well balanced demo reel.  Adding polish to a shot is usually very minor tweaks. So much so in many cases the average viewer can not tell you what is different. If done right they will just know which one "feels" better. So I am not entirely sure how I will document the assignments. At the moment I think I will just show the before and after polish videos. As of right now I am looking to have 4 or 5 clips to polish for my reel. One clip is still waiting review from my mentor.



New Year, New Class

First off, a little late but Happy New Years! I started my sixth and final class in Animation Mentor a couple weeks back. Exciting and scary at the same time. Exciting to know how much I have accomplished in the last year. Scary cause it is almost over and in many ways I feel I still have so much to learn. I am not saying that Animation Mentor has not done their job of education, they definitely have! As my skills develop and grow so do my expectations of where I want to be. If I was able to take a modified DeLorean over 88 and show my reel to the old me a year ago I would have been ecstatic. However I have grown enough as an animator to look back at my work with a critical eye and know there is much needed work. So I will have my work cut out for me in the next several weeks.

 

On another note it is the last day for me to get my vote in for the Annie Awards. I have already started the voting process. I am saving the biggest category for last. The features category. This really has been a great year for feature films. Which makes for a harder time voting. For the most part I have my decision made. I am going to watch one the films again tonight as a refresher before I cast my final vote.

Annie Award Nominations Announced

Must be screener season! This year the studios have been kind to ASIFA members. Below is some of the shwag sent to me.

However this year is going to be a tough choice. The Nominations have been announced. A lot of good movies this year. Below are a few of the major categories announced.  I still have to see The Princess and the Frog and The Secret of Kells. I do have my tickets already for The Princess and the Frog next Tuesday!

Best Animated Feature

  • Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs — Sony Pictures Animation
  • Coraline — Laika
  • Fantastic Mr. Fox — 20th Century Fox
  • The Princess and the Frog — Walt Disney Animation Studios
  • The Secret of Kells — Cartoon Saloon
  • Up — Pixar Animation Studios

Best Animated Short Subject

  • Pups of Liberty — Picnic Pictures
  • Robot Chicken: Star Wars 2.5 — ShadowMachine
  • Santa, The Fascist Years — Plymptoons
  • The Rooster, The Crocodile and The Night Sky — Barley Films
  • The Story of Walls — Badmash Animation Studio

Best Animated Television Production

  • Glenn Martin, DDS — Tornante, Cuppa Coffee Studios & Rogers Communications
  • Merry Madagascar — DreamWorks Animation
  • Prep and Landing — ABC Family/Walt Disney Animation Studios
  • The Simpsons — Gracie Films

 For the complete list head over the ASIFA's  Annie Awards official website Here

 

Prep work for multi character assignment

Here are the sketches for my  multi character assignment. First image is the thumbnail sketch for the shot.

The second image below is the camera layout. After some discussions with my mentor a few things have been changed since creating these. One of the biggest most notible ones is the gunman character in the layout diagram.

He has been moved across the counter. Which is where he was originally going to be. However at the last minute I ended up using new rigs that became available to us.  The new characters are Dan and Glenn from AnimationRigs.com. Glenn happens to be short and stubby and Dan super tall.  I really liked their contrast but it posed a problem getting them to fit balanced in the same shot. If I had them both on the same side of the counter that fixed the problem. With Glenn closer to the camera he was higher in perspective. However after the discussion my mentor Mark had stated since he is behind the counter and we never see his true size or feet, to fake it. Raise him up to where he fits nicely in the shot. He mentioned that this happens all the time in the big studios to make a shot better.  Since raising the Glenn character up the shot now seems to be working better. No one the wiser except you fine folks who made it this far into the post know he is floating a foot or so off the ground.

 

Below is a screen shot of an early layout shot

Multi character dialog sound clips

With the dialog shot they always start out with pick an audio clip. While fun it can be pretty daunting going through hundreds of audio clips until one clicks.  We have to pick three that we feel we could do and later narrow it down to one after discussing with out mentor. Below were the title cards I used to turn in with the audio.The first clip is from Tropic Thunder. The second two were from the office. I really liked shot two but at the time did not have any clear vision for how to lay it out. Shot 1 came to me instantly and with looming deadlines it was the clear winner. Not only that I also could easily picture in my head the facial expression and thoughts going through both characters heads.

Looks like the audio is gone for the last two. But you can hear it in the player below while it lasts.​

CTN animation expo

 I will be attending the CTN Expo (Creative Talent Network) on the 21st. I will be there all day Saturday. I am keeping Sunday open depending how well the floor events are. If anyone is going and would like to meet up send me an e-mail! 

 

Below is the official CTN-X Press release

Hosted by the Creative Talent Network®
Be a part of the only dedicated Expo for animation talent in the USA—located in the #1 market, Burbank California, this event fills a substantial void by providing highly focused conference programming, workshops, recruiting, presentations and networking opportunities designed to connect animation artists, studio executives and industry leaders both locally and internationally.

Launched in 2004 CTN (The Creative Talent Network) is a virtual community of animation artists from some of the highest grossing films in the history of animation who come together once a year to showcase their work and connect with other creatives. As the leaders of this community our mission is to empower the talent and engage with studios and educators. Making meaningful connections that propel talent into positions within the animation, games and surrounding industries is at the heart of what we do.

“Great ideas and meaningful connections happen most often in the hallways and casual gatherings of creative and talented people!.” says Tina Price founder of CTN and award winning animator, industry pioneer and 24 year former animation professional with the Walt Disney Animation Studios. The CTN Animation Expo is a unique event that brings these creative talents together by providing a collaborative arena in the heart of the animation market to promote employment, education and industry growth — and have some FUN doing it!

Event includes:
Artist panels / interviews
Special exhibits and demonstrations
2D and 3D demonstrations
Speed Talent Recruiting Mixers
Privileged access Networking
Leaders of the Industry Discussions
One on One Critiques

 

How to Train your dragon trailer

Dreamwork's new trailer for How to Train Your Dragon was just released. Looks pretty good. Co directed by Chris Sanders (Lilo and Stitch). I was lucky enough to meet him a few years back at the Comicon. He was very cool.

For more info on 'How to Train Your Dragon' visit: http://www.hollywood.com

Happy Halloween

Here is a cool spooky animation. I really like the simple style. Happy Halloween!

​

Better Quality Upload

Face sketches for part 2

Part one of the assigment was to do body and eyes only. Part two is now about  doing facial expressions and lip syncing. Once again it is all about the planning. Which means thumb sketches. This time it was focusing on the facial expressions and mouth only. Below are my sketches showing my thought process working out various ideas for the shot.

Class 5 comes alive!

Class 5 has started off on a high energy vibe! I hope to keep the momentum up. I am working on part two of my face animation. During that time AM has us working on facial study exorcises. We have to find a photo with a close up on the facial expression. Then we do our best to match the model Bishop to have the same said expression. It really is a good way to learn what the Bishop facial controls are or are not capable of doing. Below are some of the assignments for week 1 and 2.

Class 4 comes to an end

 Class 4 is over. I learned a ton in this class. Lots of credit owed to fellow students and of course my  mentor Brett Coderre.  On the second assignment I think  I was definitely playing catch up most of the time. I started off early with over exaggerated body poses.  In the Body Mechanic classes you have Stewie who has very simple eyes and no face. In order to get your acting across you are forced to animate through poses that more often than not exaggerated.  Our new assignment introduced us to Bishop who has a face. It is a two part assignment. The first part of the assignment was to do just body and eyes. During this first part the facial features were locked other than the eyes.  So I was compensating by using the body to convey all the acting. So I  exaggerated the poses. The second part of the assignment will be adding in the facial expressions.  My problem was that I was not thinking about the facial expressions when I started.  I was told to do a second pass where all the motions were much more subtle.  Brett warned me how the extreme gestures would be overkill once the facial expressions were added. That it would come across as over acting. I had to keep in mind that the face is going to really sell the performance once in place.  So I went back and re did the shot with the poses way more subdued.  Another important lesson is keeping the head from moving around  to allow the viewer to read the facial expressions. I still have a few rough patches I have to work on but all in all it is neat seeing this character come to life.
 I am working on getting the latest progress real up. Now that we have audio I am having some syncing issues. Once I get that resolved I will post it.



The start of dialogue and St Thomas Vacation

I got the chance to go with the family to St Thomas. All my wife and I had to do was supply the air fare. Good deal? Damn skippy! One of the big obstacles for this trip was being able to still turn in my homework and attend my Animation Mentor class.  I figured I could just tell my mentor an iguana ate my homework as they are pretty common.

 

I went with getting a lap top instead. I loaded it with all the necessary programs needed. Worked out pretty good.

 

The week of the trip was the start of the dialogue test. We had to pick a line of audio that we will animate the model Bishop to. I selected three audio clips and narrowed it down to one. I chose one from Joe vs. the Volcano with Tom Hanks. The clip can be heard here . Try hearing that a few hundred times!

 

"Brain cloud! I knew it! Well, I didn't know it, but... I knew it!"


The next step was to film myself acting out body gestures. while it is called dialogue test we are not lip syncing. This assignment is about eyes and body gestures. This version of Bishop lacks the detailed mouth controls. We can only open and close the mouth. Class 5 we will take the final version of this test and add in the controls to create proper syncing. Below are the sketches I did while viewing the video reference. I Then used my camera to take a picture instead of a scanner. Not as good but got the job done.

  

I have to admit at one point when watching the class lectures I had to stop and take a moment to realize I was on the balcony overlooking a tropical bay in St. Thomas! If you have to do homework, This is a pretty good way to do it. Below I thought I would share some photos.

 

 

Animation Mentor BBQ

Just got back on Monday from San Francisco where the annual AM BBQ is held. I showed up a bit late due to traffic trying to get over the bay bridge. Took an hour and half between that and trying to find parking! Good news is it seems as if many were still arriving when we were.

 

unfortunately I missed the big photo op by like 5 minutes from what I have been told. It was great getting to meet so many people I have been talking to via Internet! I am amazed how many people were able to spot me out of the crowd. While I was wearing a name tag, visually the only thing people had to go by is a 60 pixel avatar photo from memory.

I also have to give Bobby Beck Credit. I had just arrived and out of no where he taps me on the shoulder and says a big HELLO! There were tons of people there and he knew he had not seen me yet and made the effort to shake hands and give a welcome. He is as cool in person as he is on all the news and school lectures.

I definitely need to arrive earlier next year. There were a few people I knew were going and did not get a chance to talk to either because I did not find them or they had already left. I did get to see a few fellow class mates that I attended Maya Springboard with. A few of us had met back in LA at an animation conference so it was cool to get to see them again in person.

 

  I also was able to get to meet my Class 2 Mentor Charles Alleneck in person and chat a little about his experience on Transformers 2.

Great weather, great people and a great day!

 

Before I knew it the BBQ was winding down. Crowd started to thin out as the catering tables were folded up and pulled away. Walked over and made sure to get at least one photo with me and the iconic bridge before heading out.

Class 4: Introduction to Acting

Class 4 has started! My Mentor for class 4 is Brett Coderre from Pixar. Our first assignment for this class needed to consist of two distinct and contrasting “beats” that tell a basic story. Like going from Sad to anger or happy to frustrated. This assignment is 4 weeks long. The first part, as we have been doing all along is to film reference and sketch out key frames.  I decided to have Stewie walk out confident on high diving board. Once he finally looks down his confidence turns to fear. Below are the boards I created from the reference.

Rhino art

Here is  a rhino colored image I did. Drawn by hand then colored over in photoshop.

Rough Animation Test of flying bird

I have been spending some time over at DonBluthAnimation.com where Mr. Bluth has created a club. In this club he teaches tips and tricks on traditional animation. Below if my rough animation test on a lying bird based on his tutotial. Fun to animate via pencil and paper :)

Based on a tutorial done by Don Bluth at DonBluthAnimation.com

Class 3 Theme 2 Story Boards

The final assignment for theme 1 and theme 2 preproduction shares the same week. While putting on the final touches for theme 1 I was getting ready for theme 2.  Once again I was in front of a camera acting out the shots I will use. While I do feel a bit awkward doing these extreme gestures on film it comes in very handy later. Note the pads on the ground! The character in the shot takes a fall. Since I am using my reference to call upon it means I needed to really take the fall. I had my wife throw wadded up news papers at my face to represent the ball. Several falls and wadded newspaper to the face later I think you could actually read the copy on my face. You could say I was "read in the face" *bud dum chshshshs!*. But I digress...

 

Just as I did for theme 1 I sketched out the key poses from the reference video that I will use to set up my rough animation.

 

 

Below is a shot taken from the rough animation posed using the the sketches above. This week instead of animating in stepped mode I was in clamped. This allowed me to see real time movement instead for just the key poses. I worked in this mode to avoid the gimbal lock that I had to deal with in the last assignment. In stepped you don't see that you have it until you switch to a real time mode. By then it can take a bit of time to correct. In real time you can see if it happens as your creating it and action early.
 So far so good!