Tangled....at the Disney Studios Theatre

I almost forgot! As a bonus to top the incredible weekend off, we got invited to see "Tangled" at the Disney Studios, couple days before its release.

What an experience. What a priveledge. I can't describe the feeling, but I'll try my best. Here we are, prospective students who dream of working in the industry, who dream of bringing stuff to life, suddenly at the Disney Studios, THE studios, where it all began, about to see Tangled, which is about to put Disney back on the map as an animation superpower. It was amazing. We arrived at the studios and had to wait a while because they were checking ID's. After that, we had to trek through the studio back-lot to arrive at the theatre, which is essentially a screening room. Once there, it felt like airport security. They had scanners for cameras and we had to give in any electronics, understandably. But, from that point on, it was just...wow. The theatre was cozy, with old-school red seats, and bright red silk curtain, reminiscent of the old cinema rooms. While we waited for the movie to start, Disney music, and tangled music, was playing to hype up the ambiance.

When the movie started, they played the Steamboat Willie overture, and that really got to me. I thought to myself, "Wow. I'm at Disney right now. I'm at freaking DISNEY!! So much history was behind this place, and seeing the Steamboat Willie Mickey Mouse show up on screen, announcing Tangled as the 50th motion picture, the feeling was unbelievable.

And the movie was just MIND BLOWING! It felt like a golden age Disney film, only it was in CG. Maximus, the horse, was, to me, a revolution in animation. I HAVE to buy the bluray and frame by frame everything!!! You guys have to go see the movie. Its a game changer for Disney.

CTN-X 2010: Animation Expo in Burbank, California

Hey guys. Man it's been a while! Sorry for the absence, but it's been so busy around here. I have a lot of writing to do in order to catch up!

Firstly, I'd like to talk about my experiences at CTNx this year.  For my birthday, I flew over to Los Angeles, and head over to Burbank, where the annual conference and expo is held. I don't regret it one bit--quite the contrary.  The experience assured me that there is no school or community more wonderful than AnimationMentor, and there is no industry cooler, exciting, and awesome than animation!!

I had planned to go early on with Rusty Gray, a classmate in Class 1 (mentor Tim Crawfurd). We've got different mentors, but have been "hanging out" (on skype, ventrilo, and other internet mediums). Its crazy how quickly you befriend people from AM. We all have the same passions, and that's probably a big factor.

So, originally, we had decided it was best to concentrate on our studies and go to events next year...but after seeing the attendance list and the speakers, we couldn't resist!! I've always dreamed of seeing L.A., and this was a great opportunity. Long story short, we ended up being 5 class 1 students in the same hotel room, and we all left as close friends.

Meeting each other was funny. Its like there was no transition, we just already knew each other, but had never seen each other in physical space. In essence, there was no awkwardness, and it was like "sup!".

It was such a great idea for the five of us to share a hotel room. We had this feeling of companionship given the fact that we were only 8 weeks into the program--simple class 1 babies! That brought us so much closer, and it made Bobby really happy to see another example of what he dreamed his school would achieve: bringing animators closer and building incredible friendships and networking. (He was also super happy to see so many class 1's go out of their way to come see the AM community).

So here we were: Rusty Gray, Ellen Michelson, Belen Gil-Palacios, Jamie Ryan, and myself, at the Burbank Airport Marriot Hotel, ready for an amazing weekend.

We really didn't know what to expect, and we thought that as Class 1 students, we would possibly feel left out. Boy were we wrong---oh so wrong! If anything this helped us! Where a lot of people had attended as individuals, we were "The group". Everyone was truly amazing. We got to hang out with Victor Navone, meet Carlos Baena, talk with Bobby Beck, and the whole crew! We had amazing talks with Cheryl Hoke, the student administrator, and an incredibly inspiring person. The people at animation mentor care so much about student life and education.

There is such an amazing sense of belonging when you're part of the AM clique. I would pass by "random" people wearing the Spike logo on their t-shirts, and when we would spot each other's shirts, we'd have this understanding, nod, and smile. Their was no awkwardness with anyone. Everyone seems to have this love for what the school represents: following our dreams, and achieving them. We met so many alumni and co-students!

The parties and AM events were great!  It was a chance for people to meet and greet with students and alumni. It's funny how many times you'd run into someone, see their demo reels (normally on an iPad, go figure!) and be like "oh, YOU did this! I loved this shot!" .  At the party at Lucy's 51, Bobby talked with us for what seemed to be ages, and he was just such a cool person. This guy cares so much about animation and teaching it!

During the hotel party, we met so many great people. Among them were Jude Brownbill, who was, and still is a "Spotlight Alumni". She was a total sweetheart, and incredibly humble. We also got to meet Danny Gonzales and Cat Hicks, who work at Pixar with Jude, and they were sooo cool!  I spoke to Nelson Brown for a bit, and we talked about what it was like to start work at Dreamworks, and animate on Megamind. What awesome people. Here we were, surrounded by happy people living their dreams.

We all went to eat at the grill attached to the hotel and spoke about all things animation! What an experience.

I'm also forgetting Dana, who is a class 1 student, and also an intern at AnimationMentor, working as part of the video team. She's a funny and energetic person, and it was great to meet her too.

 from left-right: Michelle, Belen, Jude, Myself, Rusty, Jamie

 Victor Navone!

 The group with Carlos Baena

 An absolute legend, Disney master-animator Andreas Deja, giving some insight to Rusty and Belen

The gang, with Cheryl Hoke

 us with Andreas Deja

 Bobby Beck, AnimationMentor founder and former Pixar animator

Myself, Cat Hicks, Belen, and Danny Gonzales

 AM students, always working...

Eric Goldberg. THE Eric Goldberg, doing an animation demo. He's the guy behind the Genie in Aladdin.

Week 5: Antics, Squash, and Stretch

So far I think I can say Animation Mentor weeks are nuts in every good way possible, without fear of being rebutted anytime soon. They're also challenging, and exhausting---particularly this week.

The focus was on the importance of anticipation, and applying squash and stretch. Shawn hosted the lecture. It truly is amazing how much more complex than what I thought these principles are. Anticipation has always been a no-brainer for me. It is the mechanical buildup of force, and it doesn't make sense to omit antics, unless, of course, you do so with intent and for comedic purpose(or anything). A human jumping, for example, will squash down to anticipate the jump: he will build up the energy required to fire himself up in the air.

But anticipation can be so much more than a boxer winding back for a punch. In the lecture, they talked about how even a blink can anticipate an action. We have at our disposal a tool that can be so powerful in its subtlety.

Look at this example I came accross this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT5TKk1EqG0&feature=related
This is part of a bunch of marketing videos for Disney's "Tangled" (which looks unbelievable, really pushing 3D animation!).  
At the very end of the clip, Rapunzel's hair falls on Flynn, and the horse laughs. Look closely, if you can, at what happens before the laugh. The horse has a very subtle, sudden shrug before bursting into a laugh. That's what gets us laughing. The punchline is being built up by the shrug, which tells us it's gonna be one hell of laugh before we know it.

An example I hadn't thought of, and proof of just how complex this stuff is, is anticipation in walks. If we look at what happens with the waist, it's incredible how this principle applies to everything. When a person steps into the next foot, his waist will move back and twist in the opposite direction just before lifting the foot of that leg, and then travel along with it as we expect. This blew me away. There's an explanation for it too. Locomotion requires weight shifts. The waist pulls and twists back to peel weight off the planted foot, kind of like pulling on it. Once that happens, the foot is triggered to lift, and the waist can now move forward. So, we can think of the waist as a  sort of pulley.

The lecture was also about Squash and Stretch, because it relates to Anticipation. We learned about creating different compression zones in the body, like expanding and compressing the legs. This is considered squashing and stretching. It's really everywhere! We can use the line of action and silhouette to convey SS.

Finally, they left us with an amazing tip, which I used a lot in my latest assignment. It is much easier to push an action too far at first, and then tone it down. If you end up deciding later that you want a bigger action, but you've been animating small actions, you'll end up with too much counter-animating and graph cleaning to do.

Royce gave us a great Q/A. He spent a lot of time answering questions, much to our delight, about what it is like to work at Pixar. He also went through some shots he did and showed us his ways of applying squash and stretch, and the importance of rythm.

ASSIGNMENTS

My approach was to great a strong sense of rythm and beat to the animation. I spent a lot of time working out the spacing and the timing, as well as the squashing of the ball. Planning this shot was hell! I had writers block, so to speak. 

This is my posing homework. We had to portray "Devastation"

Here is my revision for last weeks assignment.

Maybe I wrote a bit too much this time around!  Thanks for reading, and I'll post my revisions for the week after word from my mentor.

Cheers!

Animation Station.

Replicas and goodies on my desk.

Saw this Steamboat Willie, hand carved, and I HAD to get it.

The all-important Animator's (TRUE) Survival Kit:  The espresso Machine!!  (I figured I should get one that had some funk to it ;) )

For Old Time's Sake

This was an assignment I did last year while studying at Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. During second year, students are forced to try a lot of experimental styles. We had to do a short animation using charcoal, under-the-camera. For those of you who don't know what that means: I had to erase and draw over every single frame!  Enjoy (it's not entirely finished)

At the time, I dreaded the idea of doing this. Looking back on it, I certainly learned a lot about principles. When you have no way of testing your shot before doing it, you have to learn to have a feeling for what you're going to end up with. It allowed me to think and plan a lot before I went ahead and drew my frames, and to trust my gut instincts on timing and the fundamentals!

Week 4 update

quick revision after comments from a lot of students:

Week 4: Heavy and Light balls (and week3 revisions)

Just finished my assignments and I'm about to pass out! This week was just awesome. Shawn Kelly held a q/a session and based on his 2 hour talk with us (yeah, he went an hour overtime) I've concluded that this is gonna be the funnest job in the world!

Our focus was specifically on timing and spacing for Week 4. Carlos Baena gave a great lecture on different ways to approach timing and how much it makes a difference in your shot. I learned a truck load working on this assignment. We had to animate two balls that contrast in weight. I decided to make them interact in a fun way, and it was quite a challenge. I spent so much time on the graph editor trying to clean out the spacing and make it feel natural.

Royce gave a great Q/A. He took us through an approach to animating bouncing balls and how to tackle the curves to clean up the shot, and what details to pay attention to.

Because we don't yet have a squash channel on the ball rig, and Royce doesn't want us to use one, I lowered the beach ball into the ground and forced the balls into each other, or walls, on impact for one frame to give the feeling of squashing.

WEEK 3 REVISION:

I've never had a teacher that goes into so much detail when it comes to correcting, critiquing, and guiding me to push my animation to be the best it can be.  Even this week he admits he was very picky, but our class just loves that. He's got the Pixar touch !  I'm really learning to look at my shots in a different way, and how important small details are. Maybe you don't see those extra two frames, but you sure feel them! In the end, you'll get that extra "oumf" factor.

Here's my corrected basketball:

And for my pose, Royce suggested I be less forceful with the silhouette, because I sacrifice a lot of force in the pose by doing so. As long as the pose remains clear. The body was a bit off balance, so I rotated the spine to the screen-right a bit. I pushed the left arm in to give a stronger "Yes!" feeling, and I straightened out the arm holding the club to give more power, among other changes.