upcoming APT schedule

I've had a number of folks email me about when the next Animation Personal Trainer session will be. At this moment I don't have a firm schedule, but I am expecting to have another APT class this fall. However because of my full-time job at Valve I won't be able to take on as many students as before, so space will be even more limited than usual (right now I'm thinking of limiting the class to just 5 students). So if you want to get in on the next session the best thing you can do is keep your eyes on my blog here, since this is where I will announce the class dates and when sign up will be available. I am also debating on having a portfolio review for the students I do take on. This would be a first for me. I haven't decided if that is what I will do, but I figure I should let folks know that it is a possibility. We'll see. Whatever I decide I'll be sure to make that clear when I announce firm dates for the next class.
You don't need to do anything yet, just keep watching this space for more info.

Despicable Me = +1

My 8 year old son has been excitedly awaiting the opening of only one animated film this year. Not Shrek 4. Not How to Train Your Dragon. Not Toy Story 3. No, my boy has been anxiously awaiting to set eyes on the irresistible yellow minions of Despicable Me. So today we headed over to the local movie house for a matinee showing and we were not disappointed. The thing I liked is that DM is not trying to be a serious film. They knew their bread would be buttered with appeal, humor, some action and just the right amount of heart. It doesn't burden itself with ambitions of 'weightier' themes like Pixar seems to be trying to do more of late. DM started off pretty silly and it embraced the fact that it's a cartoon pretty much the whole way. The filmmakers did try to add heart with the relationship with the kids, but by and large it felt like the relationships grew organically and it wasn't just tacked on. One or two sequences relating to those relationships felt out of place and really forced, but for the most part I liked how they handled things. And while there were a few modern animated film cliche's, they weren't insufferable and they didn't drag down the more clever bits. The minions are pure animated gold in every way. The world will want more of those. I could definitely pick up on co-director Pierre Coffin's influence on the film. I've long been a fan of Coffin's style and sensibility and it's great to see him getting the chance to shine on DM. The French animation crew did a fine job overall. There were a lot of very nice performances in the film, a nice mix of life inspired movements and pure cartoon inspired ones. The look and feel of the film was solid, even if not exactly groundbreaking. And that's fine. It's a sign that the medium is starting to settle in a bit. The film certainly never felt cheap. The designs for the most part were fun, especially some of the gadgets and the whole style guide for Gru's stuff. The Bill Gates inspired antagonist was a stroke of genius. A few of the third level character designs didn't translate into CG so well, though, but by and large the cast was appealing and well done. Some of the decorations on the rollercoaster in the themepark looked like doodle straight out of Bryan Ballinger's sketchbook. Overall it was a solid, well done film. It didn't stray too far from established formula in look or plot, but it handled most everything quite well, proving once again that ideas aren't all that special- execution is where things fail or succeed. And again, it never took itself too seriously, a wise choice that bought the filmmakers plenty of leeway in execution. I can't speak on the 3d screening quality since both my son and I get headaches seeing films in 3d, so we stuck with the old school 2d screening. Universal should be really happy with how this film will perform for them. My son's already asking to see it again.

GIRAF call for entries

I was asked to pass this along, and I thought "Hey, that sounds interesting..." So here you go. You independent animation filmmaker types, send something in!

Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival (GIRAF)
Wednesday, Nov 3-7, 2010
at Plaza Theatre, Calgary, AB

Call for Submissions

The Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival is the only exclusively independent animation festival in Canada, with a focus on experimental and self-produced animated film. GIRAF plays an essential role in the promotion, education and appreciation of independent animation from around the world, exposing hungry local audiences to the best animated content from at home and abroad.

Important Note: Submission deadline August 2nd, 2010

Visit

http://www.giraffest.ca/

Cours Toujours

This little gem is absurd, but charming and graphically appealing. I like it!


Cours Toujours - animation short film from Cours Toujours Team on Vimeo.

Sculptris

I've tried several different sculpting/modeling programs. Z-Brush, Mudbox, etc. They all were really clunky for me and I was never able to get them to play nice with my animator brain. No matter how hard I tried I always just made tumors. Something about those programs was just.... I dunno. Not something I could handle.

Then I'd heard about this small, free sculpting tool called Sculptris. The price was right so I figured, what the heck? I'll try it. And wow!-- It is easy and super friendly to use. The interface is extremely slim and unintimidating. The program isn't bogged down with a million different modes or tools. There are maybe 8-10 different hot-keys and two modes- sculpting and painting. And that's pretty much it. I was impressed with how it automatically adds tessellation when the sculpting needs it and you don't even need to think about how that works. It just does it. But it also lets you paint to reduce the topology if the mesh gets to be too dense to deal with. You'd still need to re-topologize the model to get a rig-able/animatable mesh from this, but then you need to do that with the other more expensive tools, too. Here's the first character head I made with Sculptris. I whipped this up in a couple hours today....

And a screen grab of the entire interface. This is literally it- no other windows, menus or tabs. Simplicity personified....

I had an absolute blast making this. (I wish CG animation was as simple and fun) It's not a great sculpt, but then I harbor no delusions of grandeur regarding my sculpting skills. But for someone who has never been able to make anything more than a lumpy potato in Z-brush or Mudbox, I think this is a bit of a breakthrough. If you've tried the other sculpting tools and felt overwhelmed by them, maybe you should give Sculptris a go. At a slim 3.2 mb download it's smaller than an MP3 from iTunes. And you can't beat the price (there is a donation button on the site, though. For something so cool I just had to drop them a little cash).

Emery Hawkins interview

This isn't really a new item, but I stumbled across it going through Thad Komorowski's blog the other day. This is a transcript of an interview that John Canemaker had with Emery Hawkins back in the 1970's. Hawkins is an old time animator from back in the 'golden era'. I found his story resonated with me. He never did settle in and become known as a 'great' animator on the strength of his film animation at the big Disney studio, even though he worked there at different times. In fact he never settled down into much. By his own account he'd changed jobs 47 times in his career. He spent time doing all kinds of different types of animation. Mostly shorts and commercials. He never did work on a big feature film (until his work on the Raggedy Anne & Andy movie at R. Williams' studio at the time of the interview- and even that wasn't a smashing box office or critical success), but you don't get the sense that he felt like it diminished his career. He certainly didn't seem bitter about it. Seems he enjoyed his non-standard career rather much, actually. He spent a good number of years at Sutherland's studio doing corporate animation, and other years doing commercials. Basically he is the polar opposite of the 9 Old Men in nearly every way except in his skill. I definitely empathize with his wandering attention span. I too get bored really quickly if all I do is the same thing every day. And repeating a single style or formula of animation is also not something I find terribly interesting or fun. This quote pretty much sums up my feelings about my own career....

In fact the one thing I found that was more rewarding was working for a small insignificant studio because they just didn’t care what you did so you had an opportunity without it being cut out or altered because they had a rigid notion about something. You’d get that chance to do it.

I realized this about myself some years back and I came to see that I'd be a terrible fit at a big studio- so I stopped looking for work in one. Every now and then a person (often a student) asks me why I never worked at one of the big film studios. Like there's something wrong with me (some folks maintain it's because I'm a 'failure'. Whatever narrative works for your worldview is fine with me). But I know myself well enough to understand that it's just not my bag o' bagels, ya know? And if it's not mine, then there's a good chance that there are others out there who feel the same way. The animation biz doesn't do much to validate those outside the big film studio systems, which is kinda sad, but understandable on a base human level. It's for this reason that I find non-conformist stories like Hawkins' to be refreshing and even a little liberating.

Fantastic!

More than a few folks have asked recently, so I figured I'd indulge...

I've been at Valve and in the Seattle area for almost 8 months now. Life right now is glorious. The Good Lord has been very kind to me and has seen me through some pretty turbulent times over the last 10 years, but now I am blessed beyond my imagination in every area of my life. I didn't expect it, I don't deserve it, but I am thankful and I give Him the credit for it. :) Valve is a great place to work. My work is interesting every day and I enjoy the projects and the people I work with. It's challenging, fun and engaging. I'm surrounded by amazing talent and brains, people who impress, motivate and inspire me. The Pacific Northwest is flat out gorgeous country. The scenery when I drive to work is at times nothing short of breathtaking. The town we live in is great. We've found a really good church 4 blocks from our house. Our neighbors are darling people who are becoming good friends. The schools are really good and my family is happy. And again, it's not because I'm special or great or good. God is. It's all very humbling because I have some dear friends who are in some dark valleys now. I've been there and I know it may seem impossible to imagine it, but the sun does shine again. Just hang on, keep being faithful. And for those of you who don't like it when I express my faith, well... I dunno what to say. I am who I am, take me for what I am.

new Despicable Me trailer

I totally dig the yellow minions. There's some clever gags in here, but there is also the potential for some ham-fisted handling of "emotional" scenes. We'll see- the proof is in the execution....


One thing, though, the animation looks well executed. The animators look like they had fun. Certainly not shabby by any stretch.

Note: In some browsers the embedded video might not show up. Head here to this link for a look if it doesn't work for you on my site.

new Despicable Me trailer

I totally dig the yellow minions. There's some clever gags in here, but there is also the potential for some ham-fisted handling of "emotional" scenes. We'll see- the proof is in the execution....



One thing, though, the animation looks well executed. The animators look like they had fun. Certainly not shabby by any stretch.

might be time for a site update...

Looks like more and more of the videos I want to embed on my blog/site are wider than the 480 pixels this template is set up to handle. So it looks like my summer will be spent on a new theme that can accommodate the bigger videos the inter-tubes are serving up. Fun!

Le' Illusionist trailer

Wow, this is just so gorgeous. The new Disney Tangled trailer is lush in its own way, but my heart really responds to this on a much deeper level. I hear Sony will have an end of 2010 US release for this. I'll be sure to catch it on the big screen...



A quick summary of the story proves intriguing as well...

Reverse Perspective animation

Stuff in the distance gets bigger, stuff closer up gets smaller. Trippy!

True Reverse Perspective from JMS on Vimeo.

Blind Date-- Aardman short

So how far are we from stop-mo in CG?

I can't wait to see this tech develop and be implemented into some CG animation interface. C'mon, Autodesk, do something revolutionary for once. :)

Crater Face

This is so awesome on so many levels. I loved the spaceman at the control panel animation- fantastic! Congrats to Skyler Page on this lovely little ditty of a short film.


Crater Face from Skyler Page on Vimeo.

Azureus Rising

For something that's not normally my cup-o-tea, this struck me as being pretty cool. Might have gone to the stock anime trope of "action-action-action-- land and hold a cool pose" well once or twice too often, but other than that, pretty nifty! Congrats to those involved.

Painting on real people

Found this via the Lines & Colors blog. This is a real person in a room...

Pretty cool, huh?

This is part of an exhibit done by artist Alexa Meade. Be sure to see her Flickr photoset of this exhibit.

Here's a similar approach by a different artist, Peter Kun Fray. (found via the David's Really Interesting Pages blog- a good blog if you're into NPR rendering. And dinosaurs. Heh)... 

Kinda blows my mind, really- and it certainly opens the door to thinking more about what is possible in CG as a medium, too.

Nick Cross' animation process

Animator/director Nick Cross (The Waif of Persephone, Yellow Cake) outlines his animation process, with lots of little video clips showing things as they progress. He's animating a new film called The Pig Farmer. A great, great blog post- especially for you guys who've never animated in 2d before. Those previous students of mine who adhere to the more 2d-centric way of animating in CG will find a lot of very familiar thinking and approaches.
Be sure to check out his other posts, he has one on his inking process in Flash, too.

John K on Cartoon Directors

Another good, fun read. Unfortunately in today's media conglomerate system this approach to animation isn't really applicable. But as things slide forward and we see more and more opportunities for individual directors or small, nimble teams I think we'll see a resurgence in this kind of animation approach. And when that time comes these ideas espoused by Mr. K. will come into play more and more.

The Impending Death of Complexity?

Very interesting read from Clay Shirky. He explores how the systemic complexity in how current visual media is made may end up being a huge roadblock that will prevent old-guard media systems from adapting to new formats and audiences. For additional commentary, read the TechDirt summary, too.

The take away for us animators? Our pre-conceived idea about what constitutes "good animation" may need to seriously shift if we want to be nimble enough to find a niche for ourselves in the coming media landscape. As horrible and unfathomable as it sounds, "good" animation production values are not a pre-requisite for successfully finding an audience. Being entertaining and appealing are. All that said, if you can still afford to make "good" animation, then I think you owe it to yourself (and your audience) to try and do so.

UPDATE:  Mark Mayerson just posted some thoughts on the same article. His insightful analysis is always a favorite of mine to read. Check it out, too.