Beautiful, beautiful arcs!

Have a look at these ultra slow motion clips... those arcs are so beautiful!
And here is a good tip; turn that damned music off, it's just so distracting! :-)

Polish on class 3-5 shots

Halfway into the finishing 6th class of Animation mentor! Only 6 weeks to go and focus is now completely on the process of polishing you shot to final.

This is some recent polishing work that I have done to my shots from class 3. With the help from my awesome mentor, Kenny Roy, there are some significant improvements, I think. :-)




This is also class 6 polish of my work from class 4-5, the "bankrobber".

Insight into an animator's work at crunch time....

This interesting article I found in Brendan Body's blog...

It's kind of a diary with detailed notes from the animator's process behind a shot for "the legend of the guardian", from start to finish. It is packed with detailed process notes, communication with the director and even time stamps so you can see the time taken!  Very informative for a guy like me who hasn't been working in that studio pipeline environment yet...  This is a good description what the normal work week looks like, I guess.

And it is also confirming something my mentor, Kenny Roy, said the other day - the process of animation isn't straightforward, as in "going from a perfect blocking pass to a perfect blockingplus version straight on to the perfect polish".  It's a process of tweaking and making changes until it's finished...

http://brendanbody.blogspot.com/2011/06/week-in-crunch-part-1.html

Report from Annecy 2011

When I arrived in Annecy late at monday evening, the outside screening of "Rango" had just started in the park outside the festival centre. I was struck by the cozy atmosphere immediately. There on the grass were literally thousands of other animation enthusiasts, students and profesionals crammed together. There was so much people that you couldn't see the grass they all were sitting on.
Didn't catch much of the film though, dubbed to french and with no subtitles - but the whole thing was still an experience in itself.

My visit was kind of short, I was there only for three days. But I tried to get to see as much as possible in that short time and used the time quite efficiently I think.

Some of the highlights from the screenings (remember I only saw a fraction of all that was offered):

Of the short films the one that made the biggest impression on me was "la Détente" produced and directed by Pierre DUCOS and Bertrand BEY. A fantastic, highly visual story on the subject of war. A french soldier becomes paralyzed with fear during bombings in the first world war. He escapes into his fantasy where the war takes on the form of a toy-world.

This is the trailer.



On the feature screenings I really fell in love with "the rabbin's cat", which later also got the crystal award of the whole festival for best feature film. The story is about the very unlikely situation of a family cat who swallows a parrot, thus gains the ability to talk - and wishes to convert to judaism.
The film is based on a comic book by Joann Sfar and directed by Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar.

This is the trailer for "le chat du rabbin"



I joined several screenings in the television series class, since that is where my own main interest is. Some stuff was really good there - and some of it I utterly hated.
One of the more fresh experiences was an episode from the british/french production "the amazing world of gumballs". Normally I'm not too hot on cartoon networks style of children's animation. Too loud and too busy for my taste. But this was something I really liked, mostly because of the craziness of the story and for the cute main characters. Story turned out annonyingly thin but nevertheless I found it very entertaining, it made me smile.
Produced by Dandelion studios, directed by Mic Graves and Ben Boquelet




There were also numerous masterclasses and talks about films and animation. I got to see a couple that I really enjoyed. On wednesday there was a 3 hour seminar on four different productions, presented by its producers. We were shown material from the development of the films and got to hear a little about the processes behind each of the productions.

On thursday there was another presentation that focused on VFX and animation, also very interesting, even if it's not my primary field of interest.

I visited the MIFA area on thursday as well and strolled around among all the booths and stands. Stopped for half an hour at the Disney booth and listened to Paul Briggs who gave a speech on "the art of story".

And of course I met with all the other students from animation mentor who happened to be there, shared a couple of beers and talked animation. Too bad I only had a couple of days, it sure would have been fun to spend much more time together with them all.

The only thing I won't miss after my visit to Annecy is the bloody weather - it rained almost all of the time I was there. My feet were soaking wet for three days in a row. I hope for more sunshine on my next visit to the festival! :-)

polishing the shot from advanced acting class

Class 5 is close to its end now, just a couple of days to go. Indeed time flies here at animation mentor.

This piece is not by any standards finished yet. There are still lots of things to clean up and polish, textures that need to be fixed... the list is actually quite long. It will all be completed in class 6, or so I hope.

But for now, this is what it looks like.

(And if you are wondering why dad is rubbing his daughter's forehead in the last shot it's because he is smudging out a crayon mark that she has painted on there, a lightning bolt mark a la Harry Potter. She is obviously a Potter fan. I just haven't put the crayon mark in there yet...)

blocking plus, working in a stepped workflow

This is a blocking plus version of the shot I'm currently working on at animation mentor. Lots of stuff still to be done.... the next step will be to start blocking out some rough lipsynch.

And BTW, if you are wondering about why dad is rubbing his thumb against his daughters forehead.... The explanation is that there is supposed to be a handpainted bolt mark a la Harry Potter, that she has painted on herself using a crayon... just haven't put that in there yet. :)




I am trying hard to keep away from splining early this time. Following the recommendation from my mentor I struggle to learn how to "see" spacing and timing in stepped blocking. Man, that is hard to learn! And when I every now and then do switch over to spline to see if my judgements were correct more often than not I discover that I'm waaay off, having just looked at it in stepped mode.

It will come with experience, I guess.

Bankrobber, final (almost) polish from class 5

Well, this is almost the final version of this shot. There will be some more polishing and fixing with it in the final class of AM, but for now it is in quite I good place I think...