Birds of a Feather Flock in Relative Proximity of Each Other

Another quick update. I attended CG Con this weekend and it was simply fantastic! The animation masterclasses were full of gold nuggets that I am looking very forward to implementing. I was also able to have my reel professionally reviewed by Matthew Russel of Valve and Charles Alleneck of ILM. Both experiences were humbling but positive; some definite tweaks to make, so much more to learn but overall they thought it was rather strong, which is a good sign as I certainly can't judge my own worth. One thing they both mentioned was that I could use a full body, body mechanics shot and so I have started one. It's only in the blocking phase and a short test, but hopefully I can get it polished up by Siggraph.



I've essentially finished the subtle acting piece I've been working on, and decided to cut off the ending, I felt it drag on a bit too long for the purpose it was trying to serve, which was to demonstrate a context between text and subtext. It was understood at the reel review so that's a good sign to be sure. I've compiled it all together in what is now my current reel, but only for a couple more weeks, as I have to go back and tweak other shots. But here it is for the time being:



CG Con is planning on coming to Vancouver in the next few months for a smaller road show, they've asked for my assistance so I'm seeing what I can do to make that a reality, not much mind you. It will be great if they come, a lot of local talent and interest to be sure. So yea, it's largely just the mad rush to get ready for Siggraph, GameJam, and mostly just finish tweaking my reel as many studios this year it seems requires a pre-submission to be talked to; rather smart but kind of annoying hehe. A test of endurance, can't stop now! :D

Et Tu Bay?

Just a quick update, it's been a week off between terms but I still managed to keep busy. I started a new monologue shot that still needs a lot of finess but it's well on it's way. I decided to go with an clip from the original Frost/Nixon interviews as the authenticity of the piece really sung out to me and presents an interesting challenge in what's being said and what the subtext actually is.


My new mentor for Class 5 is Jason Taylor and I feel very lucky to have him. This term is all about story and I'm very excited, also nervous to come up with a short film idea that I will be happy with as I will be spending the next 6 months on this. I've had a few good brainstorming sessions already, but I'm not letting the cat out of the bag yet, too early.

CGCon is only 2 weeks away holy schnikey! Part of my reason to do a new animation was just to bulk up my reel for this event as there will be an impressive job fair there, to which I will get an opportunity to hand out some reels and more importantly receive feedback to make them stronger for Siggraph, the theory seems sound anyways. Also there will be some excellent animation master classes and a chance to meet some AM mentors, alum and mentees, it's going to be a busy week.

I saw Transformers 2, I shall refrain from comment on that one as I want this to be a short blog post. Also saw Ice Age 3, and that was excellent stuff. Great for kids, but the animation in that was supersolid, I feel really inspired right now and I gotta keep that feeling. Also with any luck there is a new twitter widget on my blog as I recently found out I can combine the two, feel free to follow me if you wish.

Instant Coffee Offers a Different Sort of Caffeine Sweats

This is the last week of class 4 and just wrapping up one of the most challenging assignments of my journey. There are still minor fixes, but my two person dialogue shot is practically complete and what a learning experience has this been. It's amazing how much I really started learning this last month, hard to quantify but certain elements really started to click into place; namely the amalgamation of body mechanics and acting choices. To some this may seem trivial, to others non-sensical, but having the marriage of both work with each other rather than against was a big breakthough in the annals of my mind. Term break next week, but I'm already beginning work on a new monologue/acting piece so I can have something to pad my reel a bit more, no rest for the wicked or socially dis-inclined it seems.


In other news, my Andy-mated Webcomic strip has finally gone live on VancouverAnimation.ca and so far response has been positive. It proves an interesting challenge to come up with content as it's weekly and industry related, but it's one I am happy to go about as it will definitely help keep the creative juices flowing. You can view it at this incredibly loooong link: http://www.vancouveranimation.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=52&Itemid=127 Partially related, as an incentive for my efforts in swinging this together I was honored to receive a ticket to Rob McKee's 3 Day "Story" seminar which was a fantastically amazing, yet thoroughly exhausting experience. Not a single regret from the 35 hours of his lecture, as I really look forward to apply his concepts to make a powerful piece in term 5 for the development of my short film. This is the same man who taught Pixar how to do it and his book has become the staple of screenwriting in Hollywood as well has led to numerous academy award winning movies, it was truly an honor.

Also, Siggraph is ramping up, and I cannot wait to attend it in New Orleans this August. I have already made time to accomadate my Gabriel Knight photo tour, simply as it was one of my favorite all time games growing up, and still for that matter. I made it tho, I am an official contestant in the GameJam! competition which is a 24 hour collaborative experiment to make a theme based game. Although I have no clue about scripting and game engines, it should prove to be ample fun and my 3D skills should come into play very well. I also just recently found out about CG Con in LA, which is a new event, but having a great job fair and Animation master classes, so I'm looking into the rationality of being able to attend.

April Anuerisms bring May Dopamines

Well a fair bit to update on this one. First and most notably, Pixar is opening up a studio in Vancouver! Asides being exciting in general, the launch of their studio sort of coincides well with myu completion of the core program at AM. I know realistically, my odds of getting hired there are small, but I also know that they don't always go for the best quality, they like to see a certain... panache I guess. Anyways, long shot, but exciting.

My charitable project is now very much complete, and reception has already been quite promising. For those who wish to view it you can here. It was an amazing plethora of technical challenges and creative design; occasionally drove me nuts, but I think that's the nature of the work. I feel much accomplished for having done it and am glad it's serving a good purpose. If you're reading this and live in the lower BC mainland, I highly encourage you to donate as well; the cause is quite just.


Also, through networking at a rather unique CG/Steampunk event a couple weeks back, I have an opportunity to start a webcomic for a local animation related website. This is very exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. A weekly publication that would run for about a year, but now that I've ironed about a bunch of the lumps, I think it's quite achievable and am really grateful for this opportunity. I had to be proactive and pitch my idea, which was liked, so hopefully next week on www.vancouveranimation.ca my work should be published weekly! Also a great way to gain some recognition and just generally be creative. Here's the first prototype issue; rather relevant to current local media:









New assignment has been going on for school the past couple weeks as well, the all encompassing 2 person dialogue shot. After sifting through near half of every movie ever produced, I narrowed down my choices of audio clips and after a long deliberation of determining what I wanted to achieve with this shot, I ended up choosing a clip from The Wedding Crashers. It's highly emotional and shows good anger and fear; plus I was able to throw it way out of context and do (what I think) is a rather original take on it. Still in it's base blocking stage, I am definitely hoping I'm not getting too far over my head, or that I inadvertantly offend someone or come off as a masochist or pervert :P but I think I'll be fine and this is just how the story evolved.

Once again long overdue for a blog post. The monologue shot has essentially been finished up, here's the final version posted. Working on the facial details took more time than I would have imagined, but was a very exciting and promising learning experience; amazing how the slightest of changes can really affect the emotional state of the character.


Also, due to a faulty windows update on a macintosh computer, I have switched over fully to OSX as getting Windows to work again work require a full reinstallation through bootcamp. It will happen, but it is not a viable option for the next couple weeks at least. With that said, I'm getting quite comfortable on the mac side of things, but definitely a huge stretch of the imagination to call myself a fanboy. A lot of it is in part related to the final touches to put on my video for VWSAC, which is essentially complete; just some minor revisions.
The new assignment is a 2 person dialogue shot and I'm quickly narrowing down my choices for audio clips and creative scenarios. Much more to consider than I would have originally thought, it's a matter of what I think I can reasonably finish and polish, what challenge I want to take on and ultimately what I hope to accomplish with it. Will update soon with what I end to choose and base blocking; in some senses this is the most challenging part, the commitment :D

Pantomimes, Monologues and Voice Replacements, oh my!

About time for another update. The pantomime assignment went well; I definitely learned a ton from it and I was amazed as to how much time I spent fixing mistakes in blocking when transitioning to splining. It helped me greatly with my workflow and I'm adapting it all to the next assignment to something that I feel is a better fit for me (eg. building in offsets in key poses rather than doing it after the fact, personal preference but it seems to vibe.) Here's the final version, tho a revision is still in the works.

Things are really beginning to click. After obsessing the past 3 weeks over the last assignment and the new one, I'm beginning to have a series of "Ah ha!" moments which is boosting my sense of self confidence but I'm still remaining very humble about it all. I've definitely reached a new echelon in my personal development for which I am grateful, but there's so much more to learn. It also just occured to me why at AM we spend so much time on so few assignments; spending 5 weeks on an 11 second clip seems absurd at a glance, but in retrospect it's brilliant. It forces me to push my work and see what's wrong with it at the finest levels of animation and subtleties, instead of producing a massive repetoire of so-so shots, as I'm particularly used to.

In terms of the new assignment, it's our first dialogue piece, a monologue rather, so one character, a new rig and the challenge of real acting. After sifting through many many carefully picked clips, I chose one and shot more video reference than I ever have previously to test out different ideas. I decided to go with a serious, emotional clip as most people tend to go with something humourous, but I figured I could get more out of it with a solidly conveyed piece. With that said, it has it's risks and rewards as I'm learning; far less forgiving over a funny shot, but I believe in myself I can make it shine. Here's my first pass blocking attempt at it, halfway through the second pass, but I won't post it yet.

Further development on my charitable project, have many rendered shots and the base of it is complete, a lot of fine tuning still yet to do. The script has undergone some serious changes to increase the length and overall power of it, so a lot of things are being reworked and reshot. Also an amazing learning experience and one I'm not soon to forget. As an additional test and personal curiousity, I did a little experiment with multi-channel sound editing. Largely because I haven't tried before and I wanted to see if I could. By and large it seemed to work and proved to be more challenging than I had previously thought; no copyright infringment intended this is simply a test but I successfully removed Robert Downey Jr's voice and replaced it with my own. Victory!

Here's the near polished version of my first acting (pantomime) assignment, it's been quite an evolution. I rendered this out to test the lighting and occlusion, all in all worked pretty well. It's down to the last 10% of polish to put that often imperceptible oomf into it; if you ask me, also the trickiest part.

In lieu of Ironman and my seemingly undying interest in visual effects as well, I messed around with making a HUD much like the one featured with Tony Stark. Much of it was done through the aid of a tutorial, but the experience was all together new and I learned some invaluable tricks and techniques. Here's basically what I got. I want to reshoot the footage and splice myself into Ironman, but after rewatching that sequence, I'd have to be really crafty with the audio... if I can get the music on it's own track then I'd say it's possible and totally worthwhile.


Coraline comes out this weekend, very exciting, and new Monsters vs. Aliens posters are released. If you have no intention on watching that film then shame on you! It should prove to be thoroughly enjoyable for all ages. Dreamworks has finally learned from past mistakes, all the power to them. March 27th, mark it down.

Many other things in the works, but I don't feel obliged to talk about them right now; they're not in any real state of public displayability, so I'll hold off until my next post.