Yeah, I know most folks do this kind of thing in December, but considering that I just had my annual performance review at Reel FX (they always do it in the summer...don't ask me why), I thought it would be appropriate to toss some stuff out here.
It's definitely been an interesting year since my review last summer, with the most significant change being the switch from animator to TD that happened about halfway through. If you'd told me last July that in six months I'd be stepping away from animation, I probably would not have believed it. It might have sounded like an interesting hypothetical situation, but I still don't know that I would have accepted the reality of it it too readily. Even when I knew that I absolutely had to step away from animation, it was difficult bringing myself to actually believe it. After thinking about this for a while, I feel that part of that reluctance was due to recollections of a special church blessing I received many years ago. In this blessing, there's a phrase that's always stuck out to me. From what I recall, it says, "Don't get stuck in a rut in jobs you don't like."
It sounds pretty straightforward when you first look at it. For me, though, I never imagined that animation would become the rut. I always saw it as the thing that was keeping me out of the rut, and up until the point when the stress really started settling in, the mental picture of my career path was full of nothing but animation. I also remember hearing in high school about how the average person has several "careers" over the course of their lifetime, and recall thinking to myself, "That's ridiculous. Why go through all that? Just find something you like and stick with it. Why is that so hard?" And again, once I landed upon animation, I always felt that would be my job for the rest of my life. Why go through the hassle of switching when I've found something I love?
Well, apparently that love wasn't as deep as I initially believed. I'm still picking through the pieces and trying to find the one that is/was the key to the crash. Even if I don't find that piece, though, I'm at peace knowing that I've successfully made the transition to something that I truly believe I love more. Now don't get me wrong, I still have a strong love for the broad spectrum of animation. It's something about the process of animating that isn't exactly my cup o' cocoa.
It's interesting, though...several people have made the comment, "Once an animator, always an animator," and initially I was quick to dismiss that thought. I figured that once it's gone, it's gone. However, after further thought, it's probably not a good idea to be so quick to toss it out. Perhaps something will arise down the road that will call me back to do a personal animated project. I can almost guarantee, though, that I won't return to full-time animation. But you know what? I'm all right with that.
Getting back to my annual review, one of the concerns that was expressed by my supervisors back in January when I initially made the transition was related to my salary. They told me that they would find it difficult to justify paying a TD the salary of a senior animator, and that if I wanted to have any chance of keeping what I had, the expectations would be very high. To make a long story short, I worked my tail off and was pleasantly surprised to receive a raise. More importantly, though, I enjoyed every day of work since the change was made.
I'd say this year is coming along quite nicely so far. :)
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
News regarding "Animate a Face"
Back in August of 2004, Anzovin Studio began selling "Animate a Face," a dual-CDROM set of facial animation video tutorials that I'd produced in partnership with them. Part of our agreement was that if they decided to stop selling it, they would turn all rights back over to me. Sounded like a good deal, so I agreed.
Fast-forward to the end of May, 2008, when I received a note from Anzovin Studio that they were going to cease sales of all their Animation:Master tutorials and plugins. I've since received the final paperwork returning all rights for "Animate a Face" back to me, plus the few remaining units they had in stock. Looking back at the sales records I'd kept for my own purposes, it has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 copies in nearly four years. Not stellar by any stretch, but not too bad, either.
I've been debating whether or not to open my own online store to sell the stuff, but sales through the Anzovin store had already dropped very low, so it probably wouldn't do much. It's more likely that I'll just sell the remaining units at a bargain price and let it go, although I did find an interesting site today that would make it easy for folks to grab a copy whenever they want, and I wouldn't have to worry about keeping stock or anything like that. Anyway, keep an eye here and on my main site for the final decision, which will probably come down in the next few weeks.
Fast-forward to the end of May, 2008, when I received a note from Anzovin Studio that they were going to cease sales of all their Animation:Master tutorials and plugins. I've since received the final paperwork returning all rights for "Animate a Face" back to me, plus the few remaining units they had in stock. Looking back at the sales records I'd kept for my own purposes, it has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 copies in nearly four years. Not stellar by any stretch, but not too bad, either.
I've been debating whether or not to open my own online store to sell the stuff, but sales through the Anzovin store had already dropped very low, so it probably wouldn't do much. It's more likely that I'll just sell the remaining units at a bargain price and let it go, although I did find an interesting site today that would make it easy for folks to grab a copy whenever they want, and I wouldn't have to worry about keeping stock or anything like that. Anyway, keep an eye here and on my main site for the final decision, which will probably come down in the next few weeks.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Patricia's Gift
My animator buddy Dimos Vrysellas has a niece (the aforementioned Patricia) who is trying to raise money to help kids with cancer. She's also going to be donating a substantial sum of her own hair to the cancer society to help make wigs for young cancer victims. And the coolest thing: she's doing all this to celebrate her 7th birthday coming up on June 1st!!! How cool is that!?! :)
Her goal was to raise $500 to donate along with her hair, but people have already blown that number away and she currently has $2500 in donations. I think it would be AWESOME to make that number skyrocket even higher! If you're able to help, please visit her personal page and make a donation. Even if you can't make a donation, please spread the word. Thanks!
Her goal was to raise $500 to donate along with her hair, but people have already blown that number away and she currently has $2500 in donations. I think it would be AWESOME to make that number skyrocket even higher! If you're able to help, please visit her personal page and make a donation. Even if you can't make a donation, please spread the word. Thanks!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Voices for "Boom Blox" commercial
I'm occasionally called upon to provide scratch voices for spots produced at Reel FX, and did a quick session at the end of March for a commercial we produced for EA's Boom Blox. In addition to the announcer, there were five small character parts, and we decided to record that stuff first. I love doing character voices, and even though it was only supposed to be a scratch track, I approached it like a paying session and tried to make the characters distinctive and fun.
It took maybe 15-20 minutes to get through all five, and when the time came to switch to the announcer lines, the producer suggested that it might be best to get someone else in for that part in order to provide a bit more separation from the characters. I was cool with that, and left the booth with the usual "You never know...the client might decide to use you after all" ringing in my ears like so many scratch sessions before.
I didn't think much more about it until a couple weeks ago when the producer on the project came to my desk and said, "The client wants to use your voices, so it looks like we've got some money for you. How does [insert attention-getting amount of money here] sound?" Now, I didn't have any way of knowing if it was a fair offer or not, but my gut told me that it was more than reasonable for a 20-minute session that produced 10 words and a handful of animal noises and yells. After returning my jaw and eyes to their normal states, I agreed to the offer.
I confirmed earlier today that the spot has begun airing, so it is with great pleasure that I present my national television voiceover debut. This is a HUGE step in my efforts to pursue voiceover work, and I'm looking forward to assembling a character demo one of these days.
It took maybe 15-20 minutes to get through all five, and when the time came to switch to the announcer lines, the producer suggested that it might be best to get someone else in for that part in order to provide a bit more separation from the characters. I was cool with that, and left the booth with the usual "You never know...the client might decide to use you after all" ringing in my ears like so many scratch sessions before.
I didn't think much more about it until a couple weeks ago when the producer on the project came to my desk and said, "The client wants to use your voices, so it looks like we've got some money for you. How does [insert attention-getting amount of money here] sound?" Now, I didn't have any way of knowing if it was a fair offer or not, but my gut told me that it was more than reasonable for a 20-minute session that produced 10 words and a handful of animal noises and yells. After returning my jaw and eyes to their normal states, I agreed to the offer.
I confirmed earlier today that the spot has begun airing, so it is with great pleasure that I present my national television voiceover debut. This is a HUGE step in my efforts to pursue voiceover work, and I'm looking forward to assembling a character demo one of these days.
Friday, May 09, 2008
A new direction, part 2
Well, I'm a little over three months into the "new job" (see the last post for details), and it's going very well. And just to clarify a point that might have been confusing in the last post, my new work isn't a mix of animation and TD tasks. It's all TD, all the time. No animation at all. None. So far, that's turning out to be a very good thing. I still haven't quite figured out how all this is going to play out in the long term, but the immediate impact of the change has been very positive, even though the hours I'm spending at work tend to be a little more than what I spent as an animator. I'm providing technical support and tool development for somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 animators at the moment, about 70-80% of whom are working on Open Season 2. (Thankfully they don't all need help at once, or I'd have had a breakdown in the first week.) It's interesting work to say the least, and it definitely keeps me on my toes.
What's really going to have an impact on the future of this role for me, though, is our annual review, which just started this week. I've got to have my personal evaluation turned in on Monday, and with three-quarters of the past year's efforts going toward animation, it's going to be an interesting review. The process won't wrap 'til June or July, so I won't know until then how the switcharoo will impact my income. Here's hoping nothing changes...
What's really going to have an impact on the future of this role for me, though, is our annual review, which just started this week. I've got to have my personal evaluation turned in on Monday, and with three-quarters of the past year's efforts going toward animation, it's going to be an interesting review. The process won't wrap 'til June or July, so I won't know until then how the switcharoo will impact my income. Here's hoping nothing changes...
Saturday, January 26, 2008
A new direction
If you had asked me about a year ago if there was anything I would rather be doing besides animation, I would have quickly said, "No." From the time I learned that people could actually animate for a living, it was all I ever imagined myself doing. It seemed to be the perfect mix of my interests in computer graphics and acting, and I pursued it with a passion. I ate, drank, slept, and breathed it all through my time at the Art Institute of Seattle. I had the stereotypical grand vision of one day working as an animator at Pixar, and stereotypically sent them my reel once I graduated from AIS. Naturally I landed somewhere else for my first job, but that first job thrilled me all the same. And despite some rocky spots here and there, that thrill has stayed pretty strong for the majority of the past six-plus years. Going to work wasn't work. It was fun!
But then something changed. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly initiated that change. I have a handful of ideas what it might be, but despite the cause, the change happened. In short, there came a point where it wasn't fun any more. The joy of bringing characters to life was gone. It had become work. Not only that, but it had become quite stressful. If it was just tedious, I think I could have pushed through it, and there were several times that I tried. But there was more to it than just tedium. Something about the process of sitting down and doing the work just stressed me out. It wasn't until recently that I ran across this quote, but it seems to sum up my feelings at that time pretty well:
In the middle of some of this stressful, confusing time, we had a break before ramping up for Open Season 2. While most of the rest of the animation team worked on rig and blendshape testing for the characters, I was asked to spend about a month doing MEL scripting. It was a mix of writing new tools that the animators had requested, and revamping some of our existing animation tools to clean them up, add new features, etc. While I was doing all that heavy left-brained stuff, I was nearly in heaven. The time just flew by like it hadn't in ages. It hardly seemed like a month when it was all over. To top it off, it nearly filled me with fear as I looked at what the rest of the crew was doing and thought about going back to animation. When I finally did get my first assignments for OS2, I tried my best to plug away anyhow, and I got off to an okay start. However, the frustration and anxiety were all there, and I definitely felt like I would rather be doing something else.
I had a series of long talks about this with my supervisors, and to make a long story short, they were gracious enough to let me shift gears. A little over a week ago, I made the official change from Animator to Animation TD. While there are a lot of things I still need to learn to truly fill that role effectively, I do know this: the joy is back. It's back despite the fact that I'm running more directions in a given day than I have in a long time. It's back despite the increased demand outside of "normal" work hours. Some might call this stress, but compared to how I felt the last time I sat down to animate a shot, it's bliss.
That said, I haven't totally given up on the world of animation. I still love talking about it. I still love analyzing it. I still love helping the students I work with at Animation Mentor push themselves and learn and grow as animators. I'm working with Class 6 this term, and it's so much fun to help them take their short stories to the next level. I'm also doing some of the weekend makeup Q&A sessions, and it really feels good to do a demo or answer someone's question and see comments come back that what I did or said helped them to understand a certain concept more clearly. It's just frustrating that the act of doing it myself has become so....well, frustrating. However, I'm thoroughly enjoying the more technical work I'm doing now, and feel that my time as an animator will only help me be a better animation TD.
So that leads to the next question, which I probably won't answer until a later blog post because I'm still figuring it out myself:
What's to become of "justinAnimator.com"?
But then something changed. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly initiated that change. I have a handful of ideas what it might be, but despite the cause, the change happened. In short, there came a point where it wasn't fun any more. The joy of bringing characters to life was gone. It had become work. Not only that, but it had become quite stressful. If it was just tedious, I think I could have pushed through it, and there were several times that I tried. But there was more to it than just tedium. Something about the process of sitting down and doing the work just stressed me out. It wasn't until recently that I ran across this quote, but it seems to sum up my feelings at that time pretty well:
"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."James M. Barrie
In the middle of some of this stressful, confusing time, we had a break before ramping up for Open Season 2. While most of the rest of the animation team worked on rig and blendshape testing for the characters, I was asked to spend about a month doing MEL scripting. It was a mix of writing new tools that the animators had requested, and revamping some of our existing animation tools to clean them up, add new features, etc. While I was doing all that heavy left-brained stuff, I was nearly in heaven. The time just flew by like it hadn't in ages. It hardly seemed like a month when it was all over. To top it off, it nearly filled me with fear as I looked at what the rest of the crew was doing and thought about going back to animation. When I finally did get my first assignments for OS2, I tried my best to plug away anyhow, and I got off to an okay start. However, the frustration and anxiety were all there, and I definitely felt like I would rather be doing something else.
I had a series of long talks about this with my supervisors, and to make a long story short, they were gracious enough to let me shift gears. A little over a week ago, I made the official change from Animator to Animation TD. While there are a lot of things I still need to learn to truly fill that role effectively, I do know this: the joy is back. It's back despite the fact that I'm running more directions in a given day than I have in a long time. It's back despite the increased demand outside of "normal" work hours. Some might call this stress, but compared to how I felt the last time I sat down to animate a shot, it's bliss.
That said, I haven't totally given up on the world of animation. I still love talking about it. I still love analyzing it. I still love helping the students I work with at Animation Mentor push themselves and learn and grow as animators. I'm working with Class 6 this term, and it's so much fun to help them take their short stories to the next level. I'm also doing some of the weekend makeup Q&A sessions, and it really feels good to do a demo or answer someone's question and see comments come back that what I did or said helped them to understand a certain concept more clearly. It's just frustrating that the act of doing it myself has become so....well, frustrating. However, I'm thoroughly enjoying the more technical work I'm doing now, and feel that my time as an animator will only help me be a better animation TD.
So that leads to the next question, which I probably won't answer until a later blog post because I'm still figuring it out myself:
What's to become of "justinAnimator.com"?
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
About blogging, about change
I'm evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they're letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.
It covers:
- The best blogging techniques.
- How to get traffic to your blog.
- How to turn your blog into money.
I'll let you know what I think once I've had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it's still free.
In other news, there's likely to be some change a-happening around here. And by "here", I'm mostly talking about my main site, justinanimator.com, but to some extent it will likely affect this other "here" as well. Confused yet? Join the club...At any rate, things are a-shifting at work. In a way, it's scary and confusing and I never thought it would ever happen. But in another way, it's taking me to a place where I feel at peace, so there's gotta be some good in it, right? Anyway, we just started making the transition today, but it's not totally final and not totally announced, so I'm keeping hush-hush about it for now...except for really annoying teaser posts like this, of course. More later...
Sunday, July 22, 2007
More ketchup?
Yeah, another "golly gee, it's been ages since I've posted here" post. Not much to say, really. Things have been busy on all fronts, and I haven't exactly felt terribly "inspired" to put anything here. I think it's time to back off and slow down a little...not from the blog (that's already been done, as you can see), but from other things. It's just tough deciding what to back off from and/or where to do the down-slowing, you know? I've got a few ideas I've been collecting, though...just can't post anything about them as yet. Need a bit more time to think and pray and ponder and so forth.
On another note, I saw Ratatouille again tonight...er....last night, this time with my whole family. Still struck me as strongly as the first viewing, and this time, I actually got to see all the credits. The first time I saw it -- with Emmah, a couple weeks back -- the projectionist chose to turn off the film shortly after the main credits began to roll. I wasn't pleased. I voiced my unpleased-ness, but was told that people were waiting for the next show.
I'm sorry, but I paid to see the whole film. Our showing had started late anyway, and I didn't hear any complaints about the late start, so why can't the folks in the hall do what we all did wait an extra minute or two for the credits? It's a huge disrespect to the artists (and to any folks in the theatre who are waiting and expecting to see the credits) to cut them off. I was extra disappointed considering that this was my first visit to a new theatre that had opened in our area. I was too upset about it to talk to the theatre manager before I left, so I voiced my feelings to the corporate office via e-mail. I won't be going back there for a while.
Let's see, what else? Saw Transformers...yeah, it was a little corny, but I didn't expect a stupendous plot. My wife and I both loved it, and want to see it again if we can. Harry Potter 5 was also quite fun. Picked up the final HP book last night. We read the first couple chapters aloud together after we got home, then read a bit more aloud this morning, but then Genie just took off on one of her reading sprees, and now has less than 90 pages to go.
Biggest news on the home technological front was the death of my old 17-inch CRT monitor a couple weeks back. I was about 45 minutes into my first Animation Mentor Q&A of the summer term, when it just died. Shut off completely. Wouldn't come back on no matter what I tried, and made a strange pinging noise when plugged in. It was about 6+ years old, so it was about time for it to perish anyway, and I was just waiting for some excuse to get rid of the ol' clunker so I could switch to LCD. My wife also used it as an excuse to replace her CRT as well, so I ended up taking the funds I'd originally planned on putting toward an iPhone and put it toward two 22-inch widescreen LCD monitors instead.
That'll probably wrap it up for now. There's more that could be said (I think), but it's just past 1am, and I do have church tomorrow...er....today. Hopefully it won't be months before the next update...we'll see...
On another note, I saw Ratatouille again tonight...er....last night, this time with my whole family. Still struck me as strongly as the first viewing, and this time, I actually got to see all the credits. The first time I saw it -- with Emmah, a couple weeks back -- the projectionist chose to turn off the film shortly after the main credits began to roll. I wasn't pleased. I voiced my unpleased-ness, but was told that people were waiting for the next show.
I'm sorry, but I paid to see the whole film. Our showing had started late anyway, and I didn't hear any complaints about the late start, so why can't the folks in the hall do what we all did wait an extra minute or two for the credits? It's a huge disrespect to the artists (and to any folks in the theatre who are waiting and expecting to see the credits) to cut them off. I was extra disappointed considering that this was my first visit to a new theatre that had opened in our area. I was too upset about it to talk to the theatre manager before I left, so I voiced my feelings to the corporate office via e-mail. I won't be going back there for a while.
Let's see, what else? Saw Transformers...yeah, it was a little corny, but I didn't expect a stupendous plot. My wife and I both loved it, and want to see it again if we can. Harry Potter 5 was also quite fun. Picked up the final HP book last night. We read the first couple chapters aloud together after we got home, then read a bit more aloud this morning, but then Genie just took off on one of her reading sprees, and now has less than 90 pages to go.
Biggest news on the home technological front was the death of my old 17-inch CRT monitor a couple weeks back. I was about 45 minutes into my first Animation Mentor Q&A of the summer term, when it just died. Shut off completely. Wouldn't come back on no matter what I tried, and made a strange pinging noise when plugged in. It was about 6+ years old, so it was about time for it to perish anyway, and I was just waiting for some excuse to get rid of the ol' clunker so I could switch to LCD. My wife also used it as an excuse to replace her CRT as well, so I ended up taking the funds I'd originally planned on putting toward an iPhone and put it toward two 22-inch widescreen LCD monitors instead.
That'll probably wrap it up for now. There's more that could be said (I think), but it's just past 1am, and I do have church tomorrow...er....today. Hopefully it won't be months before the next update...we'll see...
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Catching up
While the previous post was the first actual "content" in the past five months or so, this is the semi-obligatory "Holy cow, I haven't written in ages!" catching-up post. A lot has happened since last November, but even as I type this, I'm still evaluating how much of the goings-on of the past five months to share in this space. Hmmm...
Work-wise, most of my time was spent supervising a BOZ Christmas special which is slated for release later this year. In the middle of that, I had an opportunity to help with our portion of animation on TMNT. In the end I only animated one shot, which is probably why my name was omitted from the credits, but it was fun all the same. I was also able to contribute a little bit to the cinematics for the upcoming Transformers video game. Animation-wise, it was only one shot (again), but I actually appear -- in silhouette form, anyway -- in one scene of the game.
There's been a bit of a break recently in BOZ video production, so I've had the opportunity to animate on some other projects. Recently we've been doing a number of promotional bits for Shrek the Third -- TV commercials for product tie-ins, character interviews, etc. -- and earlier today I put the finishing touches on a rather long (25-second) shot of Puss in Boots. The model is nicely rigged and was fun to animate, although it was strange looking at the fur-less version of Puss and wondering how the poses I made would appear in the final render. Anyway, I saved out a number of videos showing the progress of the clip from start to finish, and once I have my hands on a rendered version, I'll post the collection to the Animation page of my site.
An interesting non-character animation opportunity arose while working on a shot for one of the commercials. I probably shouldn't give the details away until the commercials airs, so for now I'll just say that it involved animating a number of cylindrical objects bouncing and spinning on a tabletop. Hand keying all that spinning action in a believable way would have been a huge pain, but luckily I was able to draw upon the work I'd done roughly six years ago for an Animation:Master rig experiment and build my own rig for the objects that made the spinning animation SO much easier. I was even able to add an element missing from my original A:M rig that automatically offsets the contact point as the object tilts, which makes the spinning action more realistic. There have been times when I've questioned the value of those old non-character animation experiments, so being able to go back and draw upon one of them to get a job done was a fun sort of validation. Unfortunately there's still a hitch in the Maya version of the rig that I wasn't able to overcome due to my limited understanding of Maya's constraints, but working around it for the purpose of getting the shot done was fairly easy. Once I figure it out, I'm thinking of constructing an auto-rigger and sharing it on the MEL scripts page of my main site. No guarantees, but it'll probably happen...eventually...
That's about all the time I have for updates at this point. I'll try to be more active with this crazy blog thingamabob as time permits. As with the auto-rigger mentioned above, though, there are no guarantees, but it'll probably happen...eventually. :)
Work-wise, most of my time was spent supervising a BOZ Christmas special which is slated for release later this year. In the middle of that, I had an opportunity to help with our portion of animation on TMNT. In the end I only animated one shot, which is probably why my name was omitted from the credits, but it was fun all the same. I was also able to contribute a little bit to the cinematics for the upcoming Transformers video game. Animation-wise, it was only one shot (again), but I actually appear -- in silhouette form, anyway -- in one scene of the game.
There's been a bit of a break recently in BOZ video production, so I've had the opportunity to animate on some other projects. Recently we've been doing a number of promotional bits for Shrek the Third -- TV commercials for product tie-ins, character interviews, etc. -- and earlier today I put the finishing touches on a rather long (25-second) shot of Puss in Boots. The model is nicely rigged and was fun to animate, although it was strange looking at the fur-less version of Puss and wondering how the poses I made would appear in the final render. Anyway, I saved out a number of videos showing the progress of the clip from start to finish, and once I have my hands on a rendered version, I'll post the collection to the Animation page of my site.
An interesting non-character animation opportunity arose while working on a shot for one of the commercials. I probably shouldn't give the details away until the commercials airs, so for now I'll just say that it involved animating a number of cylindrical objects bouncing and spinning on a tabletop. Hand keying all that spinning action in a believable way would have been a huge pain, but luckily I was able to draw upon the work I'd done roughly six years ago for an Animation:Master rig experiment and build my own rig for the objects that made the spinning animation SO much easier. I was even able to add an element missing from my original A:M rig that automatically offsets the contact point as the object tilts, which makes the spinning action more realistic. There have been times when I've questioned the value of those old non-character animation experiments, so being able to go back and draw upon one of them to get a job done was a fun sort of validation. Unfortunately there's still a hitch in the Maya version of the rig that I wasn't able to overcome due to my limited understanding of Maya's constraints, but working around it for the purpose of getting the shot done was fairly easy. Once I figure it out, I'm thinking of constructing an auto-rigger and sharing it on the MEL scripts page of my main site. No guarantees, but it'll probably happen...eventually...
That's about all the time I have for updates at this point. I'll try to be more active with this crazy blog thingamabob as time permits. As with the auto-rigger mentioned above, though, there are no guarantees, but it'll probably happen...eventually. :)
Thoughts on studying animation
Wow...first post since November? Yikes! Well, I'm lazy...and busy. Mostly busy, I think, but laziness certainly can't be discounted. Anyway, I had an e-mail conversation recently that I thought was worth sharing, and was further encouraged to share it here after sharing it with my current Animation Mentor class in our Q&A earlier this evening.
I was contacted not long ago by a former AM student who was taking some time off, and was planning on studying a lot of classic animation (Disney, Warner Bros., etc.) during his break from school. In part of his message, he asked if I had any "tips for studying these clips frame by frame." Initially I couldn't think of anything specific that I do that's terribly different from what most people do...study poses, arcs, overlap, breakdowns, etc. But then a new method of studying animation occurred to me, and my reply went as follows:
I was contacted not long ago by a former AM student who was taking some time off, and was planning on studying a lot of classic animation (Disney, Warner Bros., etc.) during his break from school. In part of his message, he asked if I had any "tips for studying these clips frame by frame." Initially I couldn't think of anything specific that I do that's terribly different from what most people do...study poses, arcs, overlap, breakdowns, etc. But then a new method of studying animation occurred to me, and my reply went as follows:
I rarely have/take the time to break down clips frame by frame any more. I know I should, but I'm either busy with other things, or when the opportunity arises, I kinda breeze through a single shot, see some interesting stuff, log it away, and move on to something else.
Anyway, I think it's cool to pick out things like arcs, line of action, poses, etc. when studying a clip, and I'll often focus on those myself. However, one thing that I haven't yet done -- and that I would really like to try some time -- is to fully dissect a clip I want to study. By "fully dissect," I mean start clear back at the beginning, treating it like it were an assignment that I were receiving to animate myself.
For starters, take a step back and look at what's happening in the story. Look at the surrounding shots for context. Where is the character coming from, and where is he going to? Track the path of his emotional arc and figure out where he is emotionally at that given moment. Also take some time to figure out the character's personality (if you don't already know it). Is the character easy-going? Uptight? Aggressive? Passive? Whatever it is, work it out. Then ignoring the finished animation for a moment, look at the shot and identify the vital action bits...what does the character need to accomplish in the shot? Perhaps Wile E Coyote is pushing a cannon to the edge of a cliff, so the pushing of the cannon to the edge is the needed action.
With that, you have pretty much everything the original animator had when they animated the shot initially. You know the context of the shot within the larger story, you know the character's emotional state, the character's personality, and the needed bits of action. Let those settle and gel for a bit, and then start examining what the animator did with that information to turn those raw facts into a piece of entertainment. Let's say it's Wile E pushing the cannon. What did the animator do with Wile E as he pushed the cannon? Does he push the cannon directly to the edge? Does he stop and catch his breath along the way? Do his feet have perfect traction, or do they slip? Is this the first time he's pushing it, or the tenth time, and how does that affect his performance? How does his personality come through in the action of pushing the cannon? How is he affected by earlier bits of the story? Are there any obstacles in his way that he must overcome to get the cannon in position? If so, how does he overcome them, and how is THAT action tainted by his personality, emotional state, etc? Is this a key shot in the scene, or is it secondary, and based on that, how did the animator massage the performance based on that understanding? In other words, ask yourself all the same questions that you would if the shot were yours to animate. Then observe what the animator did to answer those questions, and notice how those answers led to specific poses, and timing, and spacing, etc.
It's easy to approach the process of studying classic animation in terms of breaking it down into the mechanical components...arcs, overlap, poses, etc. And while that stuff is important, the decisions made by the animator in creating the performance of the character are equally important (if not more so) because of the influence they had upon those mechanical bits. However, they're not always as carefully considered as the mechanics and technical princples, largely (I feel) because we can't directly see the animator's decisions. We only see the results of their decisions. It takes much more effort to reverse-engineer the thought process that led to the performance than it does to reverse-engineer the mechanics of that performance, but both are equally valuable when studying animation.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Thanks and stuff
Happy Thanksgiving to all those celebrating the holiday this weekend! It's been a while since I've posted a significant update here, so I figured it was about time to crank through a few different things.
First off, The Very First Noel is going to be airing on DirecTV beginning Friday, November 24th, and running through December 31st. It'll be on channel 103, with the first show at 7:30 am, and repeats popping up every two hours after that.
More candy ballistics tests are on the way. Shortly after the first installment with Smarties, Steve and friends ran another test with Starburst. How on earth did they manage to get Starburst down the barrel of Steve's gun? What happened to it once it was fired from said weapon? Stay tuned for more candy gun fun...
Some questions have come up regarding further updates to the tweenMachine. I still have plans to add additional features, and even started working on some of them shortly after releasing 2.02. However, those efforts were short-lived, as I was just a little too burnt from the big push I made to get the updated TM released. Things were complicated further when the motherboard on my home box died and I had to get a new machine. My old hard drive survived, thankfully, but I haven't yet re-installed Maya (and to make a long story short, Alias doesn't make that very easy). Anyway, I do plan on picking up the torch again one of these days, but at the moment I'm working on a totally different scripting project that will likely keep me busy 'til the year is out.
And finally, on a more personal note, some of you will be receiving notification of a new e-mail address for me in the near future. While our spam filter does a great job of setting aside junk mail, the ratio of spam to real mail has taken a dramatic leap in the last couple months (about 10:1 at this stage...even worse on my wife's account). If you don't receive a note with the new addy and start getting bounces from my current address, just use the handy-dandy contact form to get in touch with me. (Sadly, even that has needed an update or two recently to deal with form-spammers. Just sick-n-wrong.....)
There are a couple other things I want to talk about, but they're a bit more involved, so they'll be coming later in their own topics.
First off, The Very First Noel is going to be airing on DirecTV beginning Friday, November 24th, and running through December 31st. It'll be on channel 103, with the first show at 7:30 am, and repeats popping up every two hours after that.
More candy ballistics tests are on the way. Shortly after the first installment with Smarties, Steve and friends ran another test with Starburst. How on earth did they manage to get Starburst down the barrel of Steve's gun? What happened to it once it was fired from said weapon? Stay tuned for more candy gun fun...
Some questions have come up regarding further updates to the tweenMachine. I still have plans to add additional features, and even started working on some of them shortly after releasing 2.02. However, those efforts were short-lived, as I was just a little too burnt from the big push I made to get the updated TM released. Things were complicated further when the motherboard on my home box died and I had to get a new machine. My old hard drive survived, thankfully, but I haven't yet re-installed Maya (and to make a long story short, Alias doesn't make that very easy). Anyway, I do plan on picking up the torch again one of these days, but at the moment I'm working on a totally different scripting project that will likely keep me busy 'til the year is out.
And finally, on a more personal note, some of you will be receiving notification of a new e-mail address for me in the near future. While our spam filter does a great job of setting aside junk mail, the ratio of spam to real mail has taken a dramatic leap in the last couple months (about 10:1 at this stage...even worse on my wife's account). If you don't receive a note with the new addy and start getting bounces from my current address, just use the handy-dandy contact form to get in touch with me. (Sadly, even that has needed an update or two recently to deal with form-spammers. Just sick-n-wrong.....)
There are a couple other things I want to talk about, but they're a bit more involved, so they'll be coming later in their own topics.
Disney rips off Chinese culture?
I'm only joking, but that's one thought that came to mind when seeing the hairstyle on this Chinese artifact. (More info about the piece)
Ah, the things that amuse you when you're sick over the holidays.
Ah, the things that amuse you when you're sick over the holidays.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Blog tweaks
Just migrated to the new Blogger beta, and I'm also switching my blog host to Blogspot instead of hosting on my own server. The look of the blog won't change (i.e. it should still mesh nicely with the rest of my site), but I believe that the hosting switch means that those who are tracking the RSS feed will have to point to the new location: http://justinanimator.blogspot.com/ . That said, it's possible I'll be moving it back to my site if I decide to install Wordpress, but I haven't made up my mind yet.
To pilfer a phrase from the inimitable John Berry, catch ya on the flip side! (Okay, so maybe it's not a John original, but he sure says it a lot...)
To pilfer a phrase from the inimitable John Berry, catch ya on the flip side! (Okay, so maybe it's not a John original, but he sure says it a lot...)
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Fun at work: Smarties Ballistics Tests
Steve Kolbe, who is head of layout and asset management for BOZ, has a modified Nerf gun that he constantly likes to "test". It has much greater air pressure than the off-the-shelf model, and an added tube allows it to shoot the smaller Velcro-tipped darts as well as the larger missile-style rockets it was originally designed to launch.
Most of Steve's tests lately have been attempts to shoot the small darts at my desk, which is on the opposite side of the studio from his, but this past Friday, someone brought in a bunch of Smarties rolls, and it was suggested that Steve shoot one of those from his gun. I didn't have my camera ready for the initial test, but it ended about how you'd expect. The Smarties lost big-time.
Steve's next attempt was with two Smarties packs at the same time, and this time I was ready with my camera. The white dot on the target wall is the impact point from the first test.
A final test later in the afternoon involved a repeat of the shotgun test, but shot inside the studio (in the back, where there's large, mostly-empty space). However, I wasn't aware of this test until I heard the gun go off, then the sound of Smarties raining down on filing cabinets, old monitors, etc. Fun stuff. :)
Most of Steve's tests lately have been attempts to shoot the small darts at my desk, which is on the opposite side of the studio from his, but this past Friday, someone brought in a bunch of Smarties rolls, and it was suggested that Steve shoot one of those from his gun. I didn't have my camera ready for the initial test, but it ended about how you'd expect. The Smarties lost big-time.
Steve's next attempt was with two Smarties packs at the same time, and this time I was ready with my camera. The white dot on the target wall is the impact point from the first test.
A final test later in the afternoon involved a repeat of the shotgun test, but shot inside the studio (in the back, where there's large, mostly-empty space). However, I wasn't aware of this test until I heard the gun go off, then the sound of Smarties raining down on filing cabinets, old monitors, etc. Fun stuff. :)
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
The Very First Noel
We just wrapped production on a really sweet project: The Very First Noel. I animated a few shots on the side from my main work, and had a great time. It's definitely going to DVD, but the directors are pushing to get it on TV as well. Anyway, check it out and get ready for the holidays!
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
NFB puts 50 animated shorts online
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I watched a lot of Canadian TV, and was exposed here and there to some of the great animated work done through the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). When a DVD was released of some their top animated shorts, I jumped on it. While it's not all character animation, even their experimental stuff intrigues me. Recently I also learned of the release of a DVD cataloging the work of one of their more popular animators, Norman McLaren, and I'll jump on that when I get the dough. And now I find that the NFB has put fifty of their animated short films on their web site! Sweet!!!
Friday, September 22, 2006
Everyone's Hero clips
Just posted a couple Everyone's Hero clips on the animation page. One is from the film, the other is a fun test from pre-production.
And yes, I know this note is redundant considering that I posted the same note to the front page of my site, but that page doesn't have an RSS feed. One of these days that front page will be this blog...or this blog will be the front page...or something...
And yes, I know this note is redundant considering that I posted the same note to the front page of my site, but that page doesn't have an RSS feed. One of these days that front page will be this blog...or this blog will be the front page...or something...
Everyone's Hero, Part 2...sort of
I'd originally planned to post this part closer on the heels of the first one, and ideally before the film was released. Now that the film has been out for a short stretch, it probably won't mean as much, but here it is in a nutshell...
I'd heard/read several comments prior to the film's release about how the first trailer gave away the plot of the film, and people were less interested in seeing it if they already knew the ending. True, it did reveal a lot about the begininng and end of the film. What it didn't reveal much, though, was the middle...the journey.
You see, if films were about nothing more than beginnings and endings, they'd be dull. A lot of what makes them interesting and appealing is the journey in the middle...the experiences the characters go through on the way from the beginning to the end, and how those experiences change and influence them. While the end of a film is certainly important, it is nothing without the journey. So while we may say we go to a film to see how it ends, I have a hunch we're really going for the journey. It's the journey that gives the ending its power.
Now, while the journey in Everyone's Hero may not be earth-shattering or mind-blowing in its depth and complexity, it most certainly has an impact on the end, and there are some fun things that happen during that journey that make the end more meaningful. So even though you may know how the film ends, I think it's worth seeing for the journey.
I'd heard/read several comments prior to the film's release about how the first trailer gave away the plot of the film, and people were less interested in seeing it if they already knew the ending. True, it did reveal a lot about the begininng and end of the film. What it didn't reveal much, though, was the middle...the journey.
You see, if films were about nothing more than beginnings and endings, they'd be dull. A lot of what makes them interesting and appealing is the journey in the middle...the experiences the characters go through on the way from the beginning to the end, and how those experiences change and influence them. While the end of a film is certainly important, it is nothing without the journey. So while we may say we go to a film to see how it ends, I have a hunch we're really going for the journey. It's the journey that gives the ending its power.
Now, while the journey in Everyone's Hero may not be earth-shattering or mind-blowing in its depth and complexity, it most certainly has an impact on the end, and there are some fun things that happen during that journey that make the end more meaningful. So even though you may know how the film ends, I think it's worth seeing for the journey.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Everyone's Hero, Part 1
My involvement with Everyone's Hero has a bit of an odd twist to it. It started when I was working as the lead animator at DPS, which was/is a sub-company of IDT. Somewhere during late 2003/early 2004, we got word that the head of IDT, Howard Jonas, had written a story called Yankee Irving that he wanted to have made into a feature film. At first, all I knew was that the title character was a young boy, and the story had something to do with baseball. Next we heard that Christopher Reeve was going to be directing it, and he even came through the DPS office at one point (I saw his bald forehead as he rolled down the aisle on the other side of my cubicle wall and into the editing suite for a meeting). Before I left DPS in the spring of '04, modeling had begun on a Yankee and the baseball, Screwie, but I still didn't know anything more about the story. After leaving DPS, I freelanced for Reel FX before they hired me full-time in the summer of '04.
Fast-forward to the late fall of 2005. I'm walking past one of the Reel FX conference rooms, and as I glance in, I catch a glimpse of an animatic that's being projected on the wall. My eye latches onto the lower part of the image, where I read "Property of IDT Entertainment." That made me stop and look more closely at the animatic drawings, and I saw that they were of a boy and a baseball. Was this Yankee Irving? I checked with my sup, and sure enough it was. We were bidding to help with animation and lighting on a project that I almost worked on at my previous job. How weird is that!
Not long after that, we started getting the character rigs to play with, and by late January of this year, we had started animating the first shots out of of roughly 20 minutes of footage that we were assigned from the film. A short while later, we got word that the name of the film had changed to Everyone's Hero, and about that same time I had to shift gears as I was starting to take over as animation supervisor for the BOZ video series. In the end, I only animated five shots for the film, and I'm probably only going to post one of those on the animation page of my site once the film comes out. Despite my short time on the project, I'm pretty happy with how my shots turned out, and I'm grateful for the things I learned in the process.
I was going to write more tonight, but I gotta crash. In Part 2, I'll be responding to a comment/complaint I've heard about the film's trailer...
Fast-forward to the late fall of 2005. I'm walking past one of the Reel FX conference rooms, and as I glance in, I catch a glimpse of an animatic that's being projected on the wall. My eye latches onto the lower part of the image, where I read "Property of IDT Entertainment." That made me stop and look more closely at the animatic drawings, and I saw that they were of a boy and a baseball. Was this Yankee Irving? I checked with my sup, and sure enough it was. We were bidding to help with animation and lighting on a project that I almost worked on at my previous job. How weird is that!
Not long after that, we started getting the character rigs to play with, and by late January of this year, we had started animating the first shots out of of roughly 20 minutes of footage that we were assigned from the film. A short while later, we got word that the name of the film had changed to Everyone's Hero, and about that same time I had to shift gears as I was starting to take over as animation supervisor for the BOZ video series. In the end, I only animated five shots for the film, and I'm probably only going to post one of those on the animation page of my site once the film comes out. Despite my short time on the project, I'm pretty happy with how my shots turned out, and I'm grateful for the things I learned in the process.
I was going to write more tonight, but I gotta crash. In Part 2, I'll be responding to a comment/complaint I've heard about the film's trailer...
tweenMachine v2.02
Didn't announce 2.01, so I'll cover that and 2.02 in this little update...
For v2.01, which was posted a couple weeks back, the major update was to make the tweenMachine play well with character sets. Now you can easily key character set data with it, using one of two methods. You can create a custom character set group (using a special menu item) that will key the active character set, or you can import your character sets into the tweenMachine.
2.02 just got posted, and adds the ability for those using Maya 7 and higher to toggle the use of Maya's "special" tick color for keys created using the tweenMachine.
For v2.01, which was posted a couple weeks back, the major update was to make the tweenMachine play well with character sets. Now you can easily key character set data with it, using one of two methods. You can create a custom character set group (using a special menu item) that will key the active character set, or you can import your character sets into the tweenMachine.
2.02 just got posted, and adds the ability for those using Maya 7 and higher to toggle the use of Maya's "special" tick color for keys created using the tweenMachine.
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