Session 312

Sooo, this is it for Class 3. It's been a fantastic quarter. Great class and a great mentor. I've never done any acting before AM, and making a complete fool of myself thru video reference was a bit scary, but I did it and I'm proud of it :)

My respect for actors has grown enormously during this quarter. The amount of work that goes into an acting part is a lot more than what we eventually see on the screen. I feel that I've scratched the surface of what acting is, but it will probably take a lifetime to master it, which is cool - always something new to learn :)

The first assignment this quarter, the letter-shot, was a tough experience. It was a 4-week struggle from start to end. A lot of frustration, trial and errors (mostly errors) and I was on the edge of giving up a few times. But, ironically, when looking back, it was probably during that time I learned the most and even if that shot still doesn't work as well as I wish, it made the next assignment a lot easier to do. I was able to avoid all the pitfalls from the previous assignment when I started the Zues-shot. I went back to my old workflow and was able to refine it further. I felt that I had much more control over the shot. It was still frustrating at times and a bit of a struggle, but much much more fun! So all in all, this has been the toughest quarter so far, but then again, equally rewarding in the end :)

Michelle was a perfect mentor for this term. She's tough (in a good way), honest and went straight to the point, always respectful, kind and supercool. The q&a's was well prepared with tons of awesome tips and tricks related to the specific lecture and lots of cool stories about her experience in the industry that ranges from high-footage environments like The Sims to high-quality work like Gollum and Princess Fiona.

Next term is Advanced Acting. Class 4 is the last quarter before we begin our short film in Class 5 and then finish it in Class 6. It's scary to think about that it's only three months away, but at the same time I feel a lot more "ready" now, than I did three months ago.

A huge thanks to Michelle and to all my fellow classmates! It's been awesome!!

Here's my rendered assignments from Class 3:



And the revision of the Zues-Shot:

Session 311

Phew!! The final assignment in class 3 is turned in. It's been superduper hard, many many long hours, but most of all FUN!! We're about to finish up the 9th month at Animation Mentor. It's really unbelivable, 9 months ago we struggeled for a week with a bouncing ball and now we're animating a fully rigged character to dialogue. This school rocks big time!!

Disney-animator Mark Henn (supervising animator: Jasmine, Mulan, Belle, Pocahontas, Young Simba and more) hosted this weeks lecture about sincerity. How to get the audience to believe in the character. It's soooo cool to get his thoughts about this concept, that I believe is the core of what creates the magic of Disney, from one the most experienced animators in the industry.

Here's the final of my "Zeus"-shot:

Session 310

I've continued to refine my "Zeus"-shot. I re-did the hands after watching the awesome lecture about hands this week. I also tried to umph it up a little bit more by tweaking the timing/spacing here and there.

Here's the 2nd refining-pass:

Session 309

I went from blocking to refining this week. Except from some workflow problems in the beginning of the week, its been a pretty good week. Again I have to make a reference to Mentor Schleifers blog :). He has a very very good post about going past blocking, The fear of moving past blocking.

In the last couple of weeks, some awesome videos/documentarys about Richard Williams has popped up at YouTube. This is simply awesome inspirational stuff. Check out 'I drew Roger Rabbit' (4 parts) and 'The thief who never gave up' (6 parts). There's also lots of pencil test uploaded. Take a look at this Beaty and the Beast test. More pencil tests from this user. Great stuff.

Here's my refining pass of the "Zeus's"-shot:

Session 308

It's been a really good week. I'm back working with my old workflow on this assignment (blocking in linear - playblast in stepped) and I feel a lot more comfortable and in more control by doing that instead of the copied pairs method. I get a sense of the timing right away and I can keep the shot fairly open to changes pretty far along. I'm sure the Copied Pairs method have its pros, but I tried it on my previous assignment and it didn't quite worked out that well for me.

What else....the lecture this week was about eyes/lids and blinks and it was hosted by Disney's Jason Ryan. Eyes truly are the window to the soul :) Great lecture. I also read a post over at Jason Schleifers blog about receiving critique. Check it out. Very interesting thoughts and I totally agree.

Here's my 2nd pass of blocking of "Zeus":


And another revision-pass on the Letter-shot:

Session 307

First week of blocking with Bishop, our new character. I got a go from Michelle on the "Zeus's" clip, so everything is set for this one to be a really fun shot to do.

During the past months, Animation Mentor has collected students work and put together a showcase that first was presented at Comi-Con and later at Siggraph. That showcase is awesome! Take a look!

Here's my first pass of blocking of "Zeus's":

Session 306

Busy week. I did another revision-pass on the Letter-shot and for our next assignment we had to find three lines of dialogue, which basically means watching tons of movies and television shows in order to find interesting audio-clips. In addition to that, we had to shoot videoreference and thumbnail all three of them. Phew!

For this assignment we have a new skinned character, Bishop. We will work on this assignment for the rest of this quarter and for the first weeks of Class 4, by then, with a full facial rig. Things are getting tougher, thats for sure :)

I read a very interesting post over at Keith Lango's blog - his thoughts about why some movies succeed and others don't. Very interesting, worth a checkout!

Here's my audio-clips for this assignment:


And here's the thumbnails:




And here is my revision pass of the Letter-shot:

Session 305

It's been the final week with the Letter-shot and it's been tough and exhausting, but totally fun and I've learned a lot about acting (which I knew almost nothing about beforehand) doing this shot. Hopefully I will be able to take that further on the next assignment when we're animating with a completely new character to a dialogue piece. That's gonna be tons of fun :)

I bought an awesome book last week, "A Practical Handbook for the Actor", that teaches a great acting technique. Check it out! While you're at it, check out Ed Hooks' books too. Awesome stuff.

Another very cool thing I came over was a thread at CG Talk called "The Unoffical Truth about the Industry". It's a great post about everything from wages and how to best put together a demoreel.

Here's my final of the Letter-shot:

Session 304

Yooohoooo! Things has been a lot better this week. Michelle liked my blocking and i've taken it into refining/blocking plus. It's awesome how great the good days feels after a couple of really bad weeks. In fact, I think that having a bad day or two actually is very useful and maybe also necessary to be able to appreciate when the real fun kicks in :)

Fantastic lecture this week about Secondary Action by Jason Schleifer. Stuff that helps enhancing who the character is and what emotional state he is in. Great stuff. Jason also has a great blog. Check it out!

Here's my assignment this week, the blocking plus of the letter-shot:

Session 303

Week of despair. Nothing has worked out for me this week. Three re-blocks and none of them is as solid as I would like it to be. Feels like I hit a brick wall or something...ahhh well, that happens once in a while. Just has to get over it and move on :)

Anyway, the assignment has to be turned in, no excuses, so I kept going and tried to find some inspiration. It's been a while since I read the transcript of the Stanford 2005 Commencment Speech by Steve Jobs, but this week, while I was searching for something to keep me going, I stumbled over the video of the speech at YouTube. I also went back to the Animation Podcast, awesome stuff. Especially the Glen Keane casts.

Sooooo...bottom line, my week of despair is over!! Lots of stuff out there to pull me back up and continue towards becoming a character animator. Still happy, still looove animation :)

Here's my new blocking of the Letter-shot. Back to my old workflow this time, copied pairs didn't seem to work that well. At least not for now:

Session 302

Alright...off to a tough start this term. The thief-idea I submitted last week went out the window in exchange for another idea with better potential for showing emotional change. So I came up with an idea of a guy opening a letter, read it and then reacts to it. Basically I started over with new videoreference and new thumbnails.

I'm testing out a new workflow this time - blocking in copied pairs. I was pretty happy with my current workflow, but it's a good habit to stay open to new and better ways of working...and no regrets so far. In an acting shot with few key poses, I think copied pairs is a great way to block out the shot, 'cause you can get a better sense of the timing a lot sooner and it's easier for the director/mentor to get a feeling of the shot at an earlier stage. So that's cool :)

Here's my new idea thumbnailed and the first pass of blocking in copied pairs with only the key poses and one breakdown inbetween each pose.

Session 301

Whhoooohooo!! This term is going to rock big time! My new class is awesome. I know most of them from previous classes and the new guys are great people. The whole class is foreigners which means q&a at 8pm instead of 6am, which is kind of nice :)

My new mentor, Michelle Meeker is supercool and she has done a lot of great stuff. Here's Michelles official AM bio: After graduating from CalArts in 1993 and 1996, Michelle has worked on both U.S. coasts and abroad in New Zealand and China. Her animation credits include "Shrek", "Antz", "Lord of the Rings" and "Geri's Game." She started off working for Sesame Street Interactive amd then moved into studios such as Pixar, PDI, and Weta Digital. Mixed in with the bigger projects have been stints with E-greetings, Maxis (Sims), Stormfront, Vidlit, and Little Airplane. For the past 4 years, she has also enjoyed teaching animation at the Art Institute of California, San Francisco.

Did you read that? She animated Shrek....that's beyond cool! Shrek rocks!!

Anyway, no fooling around the first week this time. Straight to business. Acting! Oh man that's hard. We had to come up with an idea, shoot videoreference and thumbnail, preferable several versions. Here's my planning and a quick animatic of the story that I submitted. (The videoref is for AM eyes only hehe):