alexiss dawn

I’ve been taking a bit of a new approach in work flow as I’ve been animating my film. I’m spending a lot more time outside of Maya right now as things get fleshed out. I started doing it when we were getting into layout during class 5 and am keeping at it now that we’re into blocking. What? Why?! In the ramp up tutorials Jason Ryan has been doing I’ve been seeing his approach of sketching it out before getting into Maya. I tried for a bit on my tiny wacom but man alive, it just doesn’t translate well to my big monitor. The day I get a Cintiq will be beautiful. But for now, I’ve been doing it all the old school paper way. Yes, my tool of choice is a Sharpie. It’s been great so far for figuring out what I want from the poses and how the motion is going to flow between them. Seriously! I feel a lot more prepared when I get into Maya and I get through it faster than I have before because I go in knowing just what I want.

Back in class 1 we had to do several poses almost every week with Stu. Now more than ever I see the reason for it all. The more you practice posing and just loose sketch, not worrying about how it looks and just going for the motion, the more you start to understand about movement and the body and appeal. Not saying I know a ton, but I’ve come a long way since class 1. The sketches from a year ago…oh man. I’m no 2D artist, but I can totally see how important it is to sketch and explore posing and motion. And it certainly prepares you more to jump in and get those poses in Maya.

Sharpies…available at your local, well, pretty much any store.

This last week we had to block out the first third of our films. With the way I’ve divided it that meant the first 622 frames. Crazy.

Yes, yes, the snowflake will be smooth and twirling, but there’s no sense in tweaking that just right until I for sure have the character’s movement set. I’m having a lot of fun working on this. This go around I’m pushing to work with the little things more — spending time doing work on the shoulders, more work on the brows, little finger movements, and all that jazz. This is only the first pass on this section for the term so it’ll definitely get sweetened up. More to come as usual.

Class 6 is going great so far — had my first Q&A with my new class and Justin. The group is excellent — so full of life and excitement. It’s going to be a great term.

The two lectures we’ve had so far this term have been great. It’s all been about process. Carlos Puertolas talked about the process of his short film Bath Time and how he ended up getting a job at Dreamworks, and then Victor Navone talked about his process of making Alien Song which lead to his current job at Pixar. It’s really cool to hear about the process they went through and see how it relates to just what we’re doing. This week our lecture is with Pete Doctor and I’ll just leave it at: another amazing lecture.

Yes, I think I’ve just officially lost it… my video journal from Animation Mentor as of yesterday:

Focus is gone tonight…been dying of laughter for the past couple of hours with so many different things going on with AMers. Killin’ me man!

And make sure you check out THIS link. It’s part of tonight’s craziness.

Gosh I love animators.

Wow oh wow — it’s time for my final term at Animation Mentor! Crazy to think I’m already at this point!! Well the ballots are in and my mentor this term is Justin Barrett! Sound familiar? Almost this exact time last year I was posting this same thing! Yep, Justin was my mentor in class 2 and he was freaking amazing to have. I learned a great deal from him and so much of my workflow I have now has came from things he taught me back then. So it’s great to be back in his class as I’m positive he’ll help me end my time as a student at AM with a bang, pushing me way beyond my current skill level and really helping me make my film shine! And looky there, he’s still got the sombrero going for him.

Man I love this stuff - animating, the AM community, the people, the work being done, the whole shabang! First weeks of the term are always so amazing. Let’s get rollin! This week is pushing the blocking on 1/3 of the film. The goal this term: push for those subtleties, that final 10% that makes things really come to life! Here we go!

And we’re back! Well, I’m back! Just got back from California late last night. Man alive, that trip was fun. It was so beautiful down there. I got to go to Disneyland for a few days — man is that place packed!! Word to the wise: avoid spring break week. We don’t get spring break at AM so I didn’t know! It’s pretty cool how much they’ve put into the different lands though to make you feel like you’re in the wild west or a jungle. The parades and fireworks were great too. But during the nightly fireworks they have Tinkerbell fly around the castle. This person is hanging by wires swinging quickly back and forth around the castle and through fireworks. I swear she was about to slam into the castle. Has to be an exhilarating job every night I’m sure.

I also got to visit Dreamworks Animation in Glendale while I was down there. It’s such a beautiful campus and it was great to get to talk with people. I swear, when you bring so many passionate people together the results are so amazing. It was great to just have lunch and get to talk with some people and get to see the campus for a couple of hours. Many thanks to those who made it possible — I had a lot of fun. I left smiling and completely inspired.

One of the nights I spent in my hotel for my last Q&A. It’s always such a bittersweet moment — spending 12 weeks with these people and having to switch to another class!! We stuck around for a long time just chatting with out mentor about all sorts of animation stuff. It was a jam packed inspiration session that left me pumped for this next term. It really was an incredible class and it was great to have such an awesome last Q&A. “Work to learn, not to earn” and “It’s all about the entertainment” were two of the things we talked about. Ain’t it true.

A few people in the LA area heard I was in town and we ended up getting together for dinner and drinks on Friday as well. It was so great to see these guys and just hang out in good company and talk “shop” and about AM. The energy whenever animators get together is absolutely incredible — perhaps that’s why studios are such amazing places. These people are awesome!!

A great trip and a great way to kick start my final term at Animation Mentor! Now it’s back to work and time to finish up my film!

Here’s my final assignment for class 5! Worked on refining the timing and posing, jumping into a few more details, and not get too ahead of myself.

Oh, and the ending after the credits. That stems from a Q&A session with my mentor and class and a 4 am video chat with several other AMers the other night. Yes, we think we’re hilarious. Gracias to John and Teresa for that!

Class 5 has been incredible. It’s definitely been the most challenging class at AM for me so far. So many different elements are involved but it was great to be able to explore so many areas. I was able to jump in deep with other classmates and develop my understanding of appeal a little bit more. Probably the biggest thing I’ve learned this term is to stand by my ideas. It was so incredibly tough for me at first as I was trying to find a story idea that would please everyone. Just as a heads up for those of you who haven’t hit class 5 yet — it’s not possible! No matter what your story is, it just won’t fit everyone’s tastes. You just work to make the best story you can. So a huge thanks to everyone that supported me again this term over at AM — you guys are family and I appreciate it!

I’ve had an amazing mentor and group of people in my class this term. It really is an amazing process to see films develop from ideas, to pitches, to boards, and on. Probably the most creative time I’ve been able to be involved in.

Anyway! I’m off to California for the week! There’s no break between terms this time around, but during week 12 there’s technically not as much to do. But I’m still bringing my laptop with me to animate! Addiction? Possibly. But more like I’m knee deep in production…and I love it. I leave in 5 hours and I have yet to pack…or sleep. See ya guys in a week!

Just a heads up that the new eCritique is up for the winner of the February competition over at the 11 Second Club. This month’s eCrit was done by Dave Burgess! Dave is a great animator — I’ve been able to watch several of his critiques over on the AM member’s site. And now you guys can check it out. 33 minutes of gold for all animators. And it gives you a great insight into what we get every week as students at Animation Mentor!

Carlos just put this list up on his blog and all I can say is holy cow! We had 22 Animation Mentor graduates and former students work on Horton Hears A Who!! When I saw it with AMers last Friday we had a lot of fun trying to point out all of the names we knew — it was incredible. People we know! And this isn’t counting all of the amazing mentors. But people that started off just like us at AM. Dang, it’s amazing. It was a great feeling to see all of these names scroll by. Congrats to everyone that worked on it. And a huge congrats and thanks to AM for making it possible for so many of these people to have the ability and chance to do this!

AM graduates:

• Aja Bogdanoff
• David Sloss
• Gordana Fersini
• Jeff Kim
• Miles Southan
• Lluis Llobera
• Shahbaaz Shah
• Max Perelman
• Eric Luhta
• Pete Devlin
• Ken Music

Former AM students:

• Greg Rizzi
• Nathan Engelhardt
• Steve Melagrano
• Ryan Hobbiebruken
• Dan Barker
• Lance Fite
• Anthea Kerou
• Rebecca Perez
• Scott Farrell
• Venece Lyman
• Paul Diaz

Heavens knows I didn’t get to spend as much time as I wanted to on my film last week with everything going on, but I was able to accomplish all of the goals I set for it last week. Sweet. So here’s the full layout, with some temp music on there. I’m in the process of getting the final music so it’s coming! Anyway, a few more tweaks then it’s time to get really blocking this baby.

Have I mentioned that I’m really enjoying this short film process? Man it’s fun.

It’s been a great week - and for so many reasons! First off, a huge congrats to all of the AMers that got jobs this last week. I cannot even put into words how excited I’ve been as news has popped up each day of yet another and another friend getting a job. A huge congrats especially to Ron (PDI/Dreamworks) and Maciek (Dreamworks). Seriously guys, you’ve earned it! It’s totally made my week to hear your news! There’s no better feeling than seeing my friends’ dreams come true. It’s an incredible sight! Been bouncing in my chair all week in excitement! It just seems like things are going great for people — things falling into place bit by bit and I absolutely love seeing that happen in these guys’ lives. An incredibly exciting process.

Of course Friday was the opening of Blue Sky’s new movie, Horton Hears a Who. I got to go see it with the amazing group of Utah AM animators. Gotta love it. It was a great movie with some interesting quirks. But the animation was stellar and the movie had us laughing at several parts. It was so great to watch the credits and see so many names of friends and people from AM. Man, this stuff is becoming real! Of course dinner and several hours of talking followed the movie. I love those guys.

Also this week my brother came home after living in Peru for the last two years. Crazy stuff to be seeing him. But it’s a lot of fun. He’s just as crazy. And I’ll admit that this week that event took up a lot of my time. Today we had a ton of people over and man was it loud. I totally enjoyed being able to kick back and just play with my niece for several hours though, watching movies and chasing her around. A great day and night off.

Life is good. Film update coming tomorrow!