The Power of the Movie Critic

Hey Y'all,
I just wanted to share some of my thoughts on a movie I caught a couple of weeks ago. The movie's name was "Delgo"... and I caught it on it's opening weekend with a couple of friends. Now you may have heard... "Delgo" bombed at the box office... and critics were definitely not kind in regards to their reviews... I was really surprised to see that the critics had given the movie an average score of a "D"
Granted, the movie wasn't a Pixar flick in it's quality... not in animation, or story... but I really dug the artistic look of the movie... and for animation... well, okay... it' wasn't that great... especially in the lip sync area... but I've definitely seen worse. The story wasn't really terrible... but it did feel a little long in some places. In my opinion though, the movie was made for the 8-12 year old crowd... or at least that's who they should have marketed it to... if they had any money to spend on marketing that is... which it looks like they didn't have any money to spend on that at all...

Overall I think that I would have given the movie a C+... a very nice effort for a first movie effort for Fathom Studios that was evidently plagued with many difficulties. I would give this rating of a C+ only because of my new artistic eyes for animation... but I think that the average public would have rated the movie a B.

I can't lie... I really wish that the movie had done better in the theaters... as if trying to distribute a movie independently wasn't difficult enough... I think the crappy reviews by the critics didn't help the situation at all... and I personally think that they even stole something from Fathom Studios... 'a chance'...
a chance to be seen by the public... I don't think that the general public would have given the movie such a crappy rating... and I think that many of them... would have really enjoyed it.

Autodesk & Studio Daily invite you to join this free webcast with the team from Reel FX Creative Studios

Hey Gang ;)

I'm passing on the info from my new friend from Cinesys, Michael Eager, for this free webcast from Autodesk and Studio Daily on the team from Reel Fx...

Autodesk & Studio Daily invite you to join this free webcast with the team from Reel FX Creative Studios. Their four panelists will talk about their work on Open Season 2, as well as Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda and let you in how they used their proprietary people and pipeline management tool, Insight, with an emphasis on the use of Autodesk products.
Date: Monday, December 8, 2008
Time: 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern
Price: FREE
This webcast will cover:
· Creating character animation, movement and style using modular rigging systems
· Moving back and forth between 2D and 3D environments
· Render layer configuration and other challenges of VFX planning and execution
· Smart media-management on Hollywood studio-sized projects
· Executing feature length projects in a short time frame
Reel FX Creative Studios, founded in 1993, is an award-winning animation, visual effects, and title/motion design studio. Its digital pipeline includes three HD Autodesk Smoke and Flame workstations, one HD Autodesk Smoke and Inferno workstation, three SD Autodesk Smoke workstations, one SD Autodesk Smoke and Flint workstation, 30 Autodesk Maya workstations, 19 lighting-and-compositing workstations running The Foundry's Nuke and Maya, and nearly two dozen more 3D and 2D desktops running Maya and other software. Current projects include Open Season 2, Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter, and The Express.

To register for the free event, please visit http://video.webcasts.com/events/pmny001/viewer/index.jsp?eventid=28765.


Michael Eager
www.cinesysinc.com
Atlanta 404-474-2812
Dallas 214-745-4700
Houston 713-272-0732
Miami 305-394-6616

Buy a camera

When you join AM, you'll be required to purchase a webcam...if you
don't have one already... I highly suggest going that extra mile and
getting a mobile camera. You might do all right if your camera is
attached to a laptop... But if you don't have a laptop you might
really appreciate the freedom that a portable camera can bring.
Sometimes you need to go away from your webcam just because there's
not enough space to act out your scene in your home. And then there
are the times when you want to shoot reference footage of something
that's outside of your home... A friend, a special performance,
animals, etc...
I've heard that even the inexpensive point and shoot cameras that can
record video work quite well for gathering reference footage.

Planning Animation

I thought that I would share a very cool reference book. It's
called "Simplified Drawing for Planning Animation" by Wayne Gilbert.
It's about posing... And I've discovered... Had a lightbulb moment
really.... Just how incredibly useful the right kind of posing can
be to your animation. For me it's made huge differences in my work
and in my learning progress to date... So I totally recommend
posing...check it out!

Planning Animation

AM's 2008 Summer Showcase Reel

It's up and posted over on AnimationMentor.com
Go Check it out.... Cause it is AWESOME!!!
I just hope that I can be so talented one day ;)


http://www.animationmentor.com/quicktime/summer08showcase/


Enjoy!

How's it going Net???

Hey Everybody!
Some good friends of mine were recently giving me a hard time about not keeping up my blog... So here it is... a new post... Tada!!!!
This is, or was I should say, my progress reel for my second class at AnimationMentor.com
Class Two for me was quite a difficult time. I had trouble finding the time to devote to AM...and it shows in the reel too. I have learned a terrific lesson from my time spent struggling though... and that is to really... no, I mean REALLY... concentrate on your planning first. I had gotten to the point that when I got behind on the 1st assignment(freelance worked picked up and an expected cold/flu)...then the planning for the 2nd assignment suffered... then I got behind on that assignment (because the initial planning was crappy and I had to redo stuff)... so by the time that the 3rd assignment rolled around... again I cut short the planning... and it looks the worst of all the assignments...

Lesson learned though... So far I've taken a lot more time to do the initial planning and it has helped me along so much... I'm further along now in class three than I've ever been... and who knows... I might actually be able to go into an actual refining stage with this one *grin*
Nothing to show yet for class 3, but like I mentioned... I'm able now to try out my skills on stuff like overlapping action and follow through and nice arcs... oh and spacing... I've rather sucked at spacing so far in the past... so we'll see how it goes... wish me luck aye!!!

Here's the link to the class 2 reel on YouTube



I had trouble uploading it... the audio is supposed to be all under the first animation... the 180 'turn around'... but I'm tired of fusing with it... and it's not like I don't have other stuff to do *grin*

Till next post... Cheers!
~Net

AM Class One Progress Reel

Hey Everybody... things are fabulous for me... and I hope that they are fabulous for you too!
So I have recently finished up class one at AM... as you may have noticed with the posting of many of AM'ers recently to YouTube and the like.

So this posting is all about Progress... I recently, just this past weekend on my break from AM, have gone through a lot of my old photographs and videos, etc.... and I came upon Gold, pure Gold!!! I found some of my old animations that I had done when I was at SCAD... and they are soooo crappy.... it's just some amazing fun!!! I totally wouldn't want to post this stuff normally... but ... it will give all y'all out there a great comparison... and let you know just how great AM really is... and remember... this is only with the completion of class one for me :D



I did get a very small bit, I'm talking small amount here... better by the time that I left SCAD. My reel ended up looking better than this playblast because I learned a little about modeling and lighting... and I know enough about composition and editing to hide my mistakes... at least some of them *grin*... so here again was my final reel from SCAD...




And now... what you've been waiting for.... my reel from AM!!!




Now as a disclaimer... of course there are mistakes,

(and of course YouTube adds in it's own new mistakes...I've noticed this a lot with the bouncing ball assignments... often it will look like the animators never let the ball hit the ground in some spots... but it's just bad YouTube... I think that by the end of time at AM I will figure out how to post better quality video to my own site... for sure!!! But I guess that YouTube will do for now...)

And of course these samples have not been lit, or rendered... they are just a string of playblasts linked together...nothing fancy... but the animation itself... tons better... tons better *grin*

It's Week 9 already!!!!

Wow... I can't believe that it's week Nine already. Time has been passing by quickly... like a task that you love... like playing outside in the summer... you don't want the day to come to an end!
It's been a lot of hard work... but I think that I have been reaping the rewards. I'm getting a little better with each assignment. Getting a little bit more comfortable with the flow of things.
I wouldn't say that I've gotten the flow absolutely figured out yet... That's my big challenge at the present... and really for the upcoming assignment this week. We are on the 2nd week of trying to get Ballie to walk(the character that looks like a ball with legs, no arms or face) So just this previous week we had to make him walk 48 frames, 2 full cycles, just in stepped mode.
So you may be wondering what 'Stepped Mode' is... well, I'm trying to figure all of tis out too *grin* A pretty good internet resource on the topic is http://www.navone.org/ This would be the website of Victor Navone... who works at a small company you may have heard of, Pixar :D... and he teaches at AM!!! I have to admit... I've really enjoyed watching his critiques... he's really, really good at it... very thorough... He was one of the first mentors to give an e-critique for the 11 second club... you can check them out here.
My time spent in the blogging world has slowed tremendously as many others before me... if I have extra time, I'v been spending it within the virtual walls of AM... it's a great place... there are forums to check out, chat rooms, and buddy lists, e-critiques to watch, workspaces to visit, and critiques for me to give on friends Public Review spaces. It is very immersive... and it's to the degree that you want it to be... So I am sure that you will understand my lack of frequent posts... I am soaking up as much AM as I possible can... while I have the time to bask in it's glory *grin* (Actually, Alumni get to hang out there on the AM site in their own area as well...and in the forum areas too... but I'll still drop into the blog once and a while in the future... when I'm a rich and famous alumni of AM that is *grin*) I will post up some of my work as soon as I can... but most likely not until after week 11 or 12 of the class one that I'm in now.
I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Shawn Kelly, co-founder of AM and awesome ILM animator, on a VES award! And the Pixar family for taking home the Oscar this time! Go Team!
And I'd like to thank all of the AM community for helping me in my journey to become an animator... your help has been priceless! As we say in the south... Y'all ROCK!!!

take care of yourselves!!!... till next time

Cheers!

~Net

What's been going on Update!

Okay...
So here it is the beginning of week 5 here on my journey at Animation Mentor...
I have finally caught up with my posts for the individual classes...but I thought that I would go ahead and share a little bit more...generalities if you will :D

So... First things first... I should take this opportunity to remind you and inform you... So... remember...
it's the top of the month... and that means that good things abound
1.) the AM newsletter will be out really soon (it is already for the AM students...) So be sure and sign up on the Animation Mentor website for your monthly newsletter.
2.) It's time to get to voting on your favorite animation over at the 11 second club...and soon there will be another e-critique up for the viewing.

Also I wanted to mention a very interesting new product that is out by a company called http://www.funhouseinteractive.biz/



It's intended to help in your 3d animation workflow so that you can spend less time in the graph editor...Nice! So I plan on checking this new tool out... so you'll probably hear more about it from me later on.

Now... on with the other stuff!

I thought that I would take a moment and mention some of my thoughts about AM now that it's been a few weeks...

This place really is great. I feel more connected with the gang here than I ever did taking 'live' classes at SCAD. The community really does embrace everyone with open arms... and they continue to embrace as well...it's not just a bunch of hype. I can't begin to explain how cool this is for me... Not only is it nice from the stand point of animation...cause you always need somebody to look at your stuff and give you feedback... but it's much more than that... it' one big huge warm fuzzy feeling... it's Great! And I really have seen my animation skills grow... and it's all because of the community... I've have gotten so many tips, and tricks, and helpful advice... and awesome motivating pep talks... it's great... especially when things get hard and you're asking yourself...'what am I doing here, am I crazy, maybe I made a mistake...blah, blah, blah'


So... I hope to keep up with the whole blogging thing... but better folks than I have gone under.... so we'll see *grin*

I have been pondering my schedule a lot since starting... and I do thing that it's a never ending process of refinement. So far we have had 2 character posing's (can that be a word:D) I drew out my sketches each time...but then when I got into Maya I went insane moving Stu around and adjusting the pose. Now granted... it's why I like 3d.... I can think of a pose better than I can draw it out... but... I've decided that this will just have to change. I've been spending too much time horsing around with Stu...(boy that sounds scandalous) Really though... it was great at first... it gave me some time to get to know Stu and all of his controls... but now I think that I need to utilize my time more efficiently...the way I would in the 'real' world. So I have already drawn a few poses for Stu .... 'Devastation' is the theme this time around. But once I get a pose that I like... or maybe two or three... I will try my best to push the pose like crazy before I ever go into Maya with it...

I have also discovered that whenever possible, it's best to get your planning stages up as soon as possible for the PR (public review)... so that you can get as much feedback as possible early... giving yourself plenty of time to animate on the project later on in the week. So in this spirit I have posted my planning images for the obstacle course... and I will rough out my sketches for Stu's pose while those images are up in the PR.

The first week at AM is suppose to be so that you surf around the site and figure out where everything is... I also discovered that it was a great time to go around and meet new people... some of the 'older' classmates .... and folks that are just starting out also...but in different classes. I met some AWESOME folks the first week out that are still my buddies today :D and some of the people that I've met... I actually already had hooked up with through the blog world... so it was a great chance to go around and find all the people that I had been reading up on for weeks and months already.... pretty cool. I've also realized that there are way more people blogging in the AM world than I had originally realized... it's truly amazing... My Awesome new friend Alexiss has actually started a forum post on the AM site to see who all has been blogging. When it's completed I'll see about posting it here.

So this post should hopefully make up for my lack of posting for the past few weeks... I'm off to make more Stu sketches and to check out TradigiTools...till next time... Cheers!

class 104

Okay... trying to get all caught up with my posts here :D
The 4th week at AM is all about Timing... so this week we animated 2 bouncing balls... one heavy and one is light... here's what my planning looks like...




We luckily didn't have a Stu pose this week... just concentrating on the animation~

Here's what the animation ended up looking like...

class 103

This week our assignment was to create a bouncing ball animation, using a basketball or soccer ball as our reference.
Here's an image of my planning phase...


And here is the video of the Basketball bounce... it's YouTube so you may have to let it run through a couple of times for it to play nice and smooth...



Yes, I have cheated with this one ... it is my revision... since I'm posting so late... I figured what the heck :D

And I almost forgot... we had another pose with Stu... this time around the theme was "Excitement"

102

So... Another week at the ol' AM *grin*
It was a fabulous week!...
On Monday I was able to attend a Welcoming Q&A hosted by none other than Shawn Kelly himself... Saaaaweeeeet!!!!!
A really nice guy... I mean, really nice! The event was supposed to last an hour and a half... but instead he stuck around for a whole lot longer... like an hour or more longer. In the Q&A 'rooms' there is an area to send chat messages out to the rest of the group... the room was so filled with folks, excited... and typing away... it was like a speed reading session just trying to keep up with what everyone was saying.... That was until Shawn stepped into the room :D It was a fun session, being able to ask him industry questions, and questions on how he animates, and of course... questions on Fried Chicken;)
You can check out some great regular tips from Shawn Kelly in the AM monthly newsletter... to subscribe just check out the AM site... www.animationmentor.com .... and join in on receiving their newsletter... it's in the lower left hand corner on their main page... just remember to allow cookies or else it won't 'take'
Also... don't forget to check out 11secondclub.com for the monthly sponsored AM critique... this month it features Mark Behm :D of PDI/Dreamworks!

By Tuesday evening I sat in on the Techy Q&A hosted by Kevin Freeman, it's a weekly Q&A held in the event that students have technical questions about any of the projects that they are working on... Kevin seems like one really smart guy... currently he works as a Sr. Technical Animator for Sony Pictures Imageworks... very cool!


So our first assignment of the week was to put 'Stu' into a pose. We were to go out into the public realm and draw folks just hanging out, or whatever. I hit up a coffee shop, bookstore, and karate place. I felt a little like a stalker... but I managed to get a few decent poses. I decided to do one from the coffee house. Actually I started doing one pose, then I changed my mind on it after I had gotten some feedback... after I had already been posing Stu.... so I spent a lot of time posing Stu this week... All in all it was a good thing.... I feel much more comfortable with his controllers... and I think that the more posing I do... all the better. But for this week.... I've posted some sketches for my poses up early... so I'll hopefully make a final decision on 1 pose... and stick with it... no being shy about posting sketches this time around! I won't have the time to put Stu in more than one pose this week... cause we've got a basketball to animate ;)
So here is the final Stu pose that I did turn in :D


I do want to say a note of Thanks... if it hadn't been for the wonderful, Awesome community at AM... I never would have pulled off such a nice pose... everyone was so helpful in giving me feedback and advice... what can I say, but.... Y'ALL ROCK! :D Thanks for all of your time, and help... I really, really appreciate it!

My First Week... on the 'inside'

I have finally made it!!! I am on the 'inside' *grin*

I didn't, obviously, post over the holiday season... it was hectic like most folks... and there was an issue that I needed to figure out before AM began as well.

I really didn't expect to have so much difficulty in this area, but I ended up having problems with the Web camera. I ended up buying a total of 3 before I found one that worked with my system... As they say... the 3rd one's charmed *grin* Basically it was an issue with the hardware and addressing... a hard issue to fix with parameters on your puter... it's better just to try a new camera and cross your fingers *grin* A Microsoft web cam was the one that worked for me, after having tried the AM suggested Logitech Pro, and a Creative Labs (same brand as my sound card).

AM contacted us newbie's back in December to invite us to take a brief and somewhat limited look around campus to watch some orientation videos and to have us set up our profiles. There were quite a few videos to watch. All about the exciting features that we had waiting on us to log into the campus for the first time on January 7th, 2008!

So I've dug in hard this past week. Trying to spend time clicking on every little button... seeing where it would take me *grin*

There are areas called workspaces, classrooms, forums, and training...and each of these areas are broken down into even more path choices.

Basically every student and every mentor has there own space.

Videos are posted into the space by users in order to share work that's been done for that week(whether it's animations done by a student, or critiquing of students assignments done by a mentor)... College mates (I say college instead of class... because I mean the entire school) come by your space and leave you some comments, and suggestions for your work.... and you in turn go around to some other spaces and leave comments on their work... No, of course you don't go around to every single person's site(AM is getting too big for that;)... but you try and get to as many as you can. Reciprocations go a long way ;)

There are forums that exist for you to check out... they are used for sending out comments to the community as a whole. You just start up a thread, or join into one... much similar to the way that other popular forums work... and you can also communicate to multiple folks at one time through the use of chat rooms that have been set up for just that purpose.
You can also chat singularly to fellow AMers and you can have instant chat sessions as well. You can organize the college-mates that you most frequently speak with in your "Buddies" section... similar to using other chat programs like Skype.

There's tons of video to watch to help with your training... ranging from the assignment of the week... to training on maya.... tips on animating.... guest speakers... just a plethora of stuff!!! And later on this quarter... students will have the option to sign up for even more training on Maya (which I plan to do... even though I am pretty familiar with Maya already, there have been too many nuggets of gold in the video's that I've already watched to pass up the prospect for more!!!)

And who is my own personal mentor you ask?

... Steve Cady...

Steve Cady is a french-canadian born in Montreal, Canada. He is a 1997 graduate from Sheridan College's Classical Animation programme. For the past 11 years, Steve has worked for numerous studios across north america from gaming to films. His most recent film projects have been Scooby2, Ring2 and The Chronicles of Narnia at Rhythm & Hues.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1513513/

So I've had my first class already and it was great. From Steve's own admission, and from the buzz around campus... he's not the type of Professor that will tell you 'yeah, that looks great... nice try, blah, blah, blah'... but instead he's going to be pushing to give good critique's and in turn really pushing students to dig deep to make their work stand out and develop into something amazing! That sounds awesome to me... the more details that I can get on a crit, the more things I can fix or add to my work... all the better *grin*

So, I leave you now... I will be trying to blog weekly, each Sunday I suspect. But we'll see how that goes... I've seen a lot of Bloggers go down because of the 'crunch'... I'm sure that no matter what though... at the very least... you'll see me post my progress at the end of each class.

Till next Post... Cheers!

~Net