More exercises

More exercises with flour sacks and squash'n'stretch...

Bouncing balls...

Just making some small exercises with bouncing balls here...

More flour sack tests...

This one was done in PAP:free too...

Doodling around with a sack in Plastic Animation Paper...

Thinking of buying PAP:pro for making sketches and animation planning. I like the UI of the application, it feels "right" and is easy and fast to use. The tracing images are highly customizable and with the pro version you can choose keyframes in a sequence of images and roll through them only. Hmm... sounds nice, doesn't it!
I don't know why Animation Mentor doesn't include this software on the recommended list of educational discount stuff? Because you DO get this software at a discount as a AM student. I know, I asked!

Some more fast drawings...

A couple of drawings again...

An old Man's fight with an anti-gravity-device

This is a clip from a lecture given at Calarts by Glen Keane as he goes through a simple scene under a document camera.  An old man fighting gravity as he forces his way up from a chair.

Illusion of life

As a part of preparing for Animation Mentor I am now reading the johnston/thomas book "illusion of life". I have just read through the chapter "discovery 1934-1936" and I am completely fascinated. There is a lot of stuff about the inside dynamics of the Disney team, how the different personalities of the team are banging heads against each other and how they find some kind of a balance finding out who is good at which areas, how they complement each other... Very interesting. And so much of it directly reminds me of my own job environment at YLE, also a team effort making children's live action programme's. All those creative team crashes...
If the rest of the book is only half as interesting as this chapter it will be a breeze to get through the 600 pages.:-)

Two wonderful life stories

This is the introduction to Pixar's movie "Up", the married life of Carl and Ellie. It's so beautiful.

Here is another love and life story in short film form. This one was done by Carlos Lascano. I think it is beautifully animated... and in many ways it is the same kind of story as the Pixar one. A life's tale in a couple of minutes.

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

NOW it begins...!

"Welcome Animation Mentor Student!

It is time to set up your account. By clicking on the link below, you will be able to create a user name and password to gain access to the Animation Mentor orientation campus. "

This message just found its way into my mailbox! I don't think there will be much sleep this night...! :-)

Working with kids

This is a photo taken in a very normal day of my life... trying to get 7-year old kids to perform in front of the camera. It's fun but it's challenging. :-)



I have been working with kid's television here in Finland for almost 20 years now... (two more years to go and then I will celebrate!). The last ten years or so I have mainly done different "by children, with children, for children" types of programmes. And I can tell you; You learn a lot about directing, in general, working with children! You see, you REALLY have to work hard on issues as motivating and inspiring your actors as well as finding the simple and clear ways to describe and communicate what you want from them. Good lessons for any director in any type of production!

And of course it's hard sometimes. It's difficult! It's very, very demanding on so many levels... but at the same time it is enormously rewarding too, because you get so much love BACK from your young fellow workers. I love it.


Here is a clip I found on youtube with a little piece from a show called "oppåner å hitådit" that I was involved with a couple of years ago...
(It's in swedish - but I think you know the joke about the two tomatoes going across the street..?)