Well, It's here... class 5... the story production class at AM. This is where we develop our story ideas that will eventually become our animated short. We basically use all of this class to flesh out a proper/entertaining story idea... and we take that idea... plan the shots... the camera angles... make a layout... and make a story reel. Then in class 6... we will use the entire time to animate.

It's pretty hard to come up with the ideas for the short... AM has shrunk down the time for the short... I think that it used to be at least a minute... now it's only 30 seconds... It's really hard to come up with a traditional beginning, middle and end kind of format.

I've luckily come up with my required 3 ideas to start off with... and now this week we are supposed to narrow it down to 2 choices... and then do a video/acting/story pitch for those... and then next week... I suppose we'll be down to just one... OH.. but which one?????

Class 5 at Animation Mentor

So I found out today that my new mentor for class 5 is none other than Mark Pudleiner... YEAH!!!
He's got a really Awesome Blog at http://markpudleiner.blogspot.com/

Class 5 is all about the Short Film Pre-Production... developing your story that is... and turning it into a layout to be used for animating in Class 6. AM has changed there rules a bit in regards to the making of the short film since they first opened their doors... for us it is now only 30 seconds long... that is a Max 30 seconds... you can evidently go shorter. And I'm thinking about going shorter... at least it would be nice... if I can only come up with something that is a good story that fits into such a tight little space... aaarrgh... hard stuff to do... But it's gonna be even harder to animate it... especially if you let it get too long and with too many characters. As for right now I've only got a couple of very rough ideas.... so I'm just a wee bit nervous... like anybody else too.. I want it to be a good story... with a beginning, middle and end.
I'm going to try and be better about blogging this term.... I'm very excited about the New Year and all of it's prospects and opportunities that lay ahead...
I'm going to go back and polish up my past animations... I never got to them over the busy holiday break... but I'm looking forward to digging in and polishing them up...2009 is going to be an Awesome year!!!

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