Session 512

Once again at the end of a term. Kinda sad, but really exciting too to get into the final chapter of Animation Mentor.

This term has been a lot harder than I expected. There's so much stuff to learn about storytelling and, you know, in class 1 we started with a bouncing ball and kept learning more and more up till class 4. But this term, it feels like a load of new stuff has been released on us - all at once. It's been very hard and really frustrating at times, but I've enjoyed it equally much, so that's cool :)

My mentor, Pepe Valencia, is the the nicest guy ever. He's picky, which is really great, and still very good at keeping the motivation up. Always kept pushing and suggesting more and better stuff. Great guy! I'm gonna miss him a lot.

We're moving straight over to class 6 next week, no break this time. I'm gonna keep blocking out my film, trying to get as much ahead as possible :)

To all my fellow classmates, thanks for an awesome term and good luck next term!

Here's the layout and my animatic from class 5:

Session 511

New Ratatouille trailer is out! June 29th - mark the day :) It looks so awesome!

It's been a pretty good week. Pepe is happy with my layout so far and I've managed to get thru a 1/3 of the first pass of blocking. Nice to be ahead for a change. I'm sure it won't last, though :)

Here's what I got so far. Blocking is still rough:

Session 510

This week I've worked a lot on refining the layout and polishing the camera work and the editing, after an awesome critique by Pepe. It's beginning to take shape :) I've thumbnailed different ideas, shot some reference and started blocking the first couple of shots.

If you want to become an animator and are currently not an AM student. THIS is a very good reason why you should apply right now! Animation Mentor Winter 2007 Showcase is released. It is fantastic! Take a look :) A great link I came across this week is an interview with Disney's Andreas Deja done by Frames per Second Magazine. Very inspiring.

I'm currently reading 'Thinking Animation' by Angie Jones and Jamie Oliff. That book rocks big time. It's a must for animators! Don't hesitate, go get it! It's gold.

And here's the current pass of the layout. Still open for refinement, but this is pretty much the starting point for the film.

Session 509

I got thru a first pass of the whole layout this week, which brings me a week ahead of schedule....currently. I'm at 48 seconds of actual animation in my short, and that's gonna be tough to do in 11 weeks the next term, so I need to get into thumbnailing, gather and shoot references and start blocking as soon as possible, hopefully already next week :)

I've researched all the VFX I need and most of the modeling are done (still backgrounds and sky/clouds left to do), so I feel I'm as ready as I can get at this stage :)

Here's some stills from the layout-pass.

Session 508

Been workin' away into the first 3rd of layout this week. Pepe liked the new version and now I can begin to refine and polish stuff within the story.

I've been using the Main Theme from East of Eden (1981 Mini Tv Series) as temp music when developing the short and initially the plan was to replace it with something royalty free music or an original score, but I like the music a lot, so I wrote the composer, Mr. Lee Holdridge, an email and he gave me permission to use the East of Eden music for educational and film festival purpose. That was soooo kind of him. Lee Holdridge has quite an impressive record list, so I'm really trilled about being able to use his music in the final film.

It's been up for some time now, but here's a cool link to Victor Navones Splines tutorial. Neat stuff!