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!