Frog Ref

I always tell my students that animation is reference, reference, reference.  Well, putting my money where my mouth is I took the two boys down to the Nashville Zoo for the day.  We love the zoo and go often, but this time we spent an extra long time in the "Unseen New World" exhibit so Daddy could watch and record the poison dart frogs.  These are quick and tiny little buggers.

Suit Up!

Got to suit up in the mocap stage for the first time today.  We needed some quick visual reference for waltzing - so Jack Geckler from our department and I got the job.  We learned from youtube how to waltz in about 5 mins and spent 15 mins capturing the dance.  He led. 

Class 6 Week 4: Po LipSync

My next (and possibly last) shot here at AM is going to be unique.  My mentor, being a supervising animator at DreamWorks, encouraged me to try using one of the DW rigs this time round.  So, this week I started building the lipsync for Po.

It's a method our mentor suggested, to lay in the lipsync prior to animating all the big body/acting movements.  So far I'm a fan.  Unfortunately, I ran into some pipeline tech issues over the weekend and will have to iron those out before I take my 2nd pass on this shot.

Also thought I'd share the video clip I'm pulling this line from.  It's "Year One" - not a great movie, but great for Jack Black lines.  I needed something that had him overacting a decent bit (while not overdoing it Tenacious-D style).  I actually had about 8 great clips from this movie to choose from, and some that got throne out for being R-rated, but would have been hilarious.

Class 6 Week 3: Vampires and Reference

So, went back and started working on another project, needed some time off from the 2 char shot.  My wife had a great idea on how to spin this shot and give it some personality.  So he's now a vampire.  It was really fun to give this guy some specifics to his character/personality.  I also like that it's a little inside joke on the line, since a vampire puppet is a story point in the movie the line is from - Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

Did spend a little time on the 2 char shot.  What you'll see is a new char design for the businessman.  Also some tighter camera work and framing.  Also starting to play around with a new idea for the last shot - something that feels a little less over-animated.

We also had to come up with dialog and reference for our next project this week.  Below are the audio clips and video reference for my ideas.  I'm going to be animating these to Po at work, so I'm really excited about that chance to play with a really really fun character.

Class 6 Week 2: Redo's

I felt like my approach on the big project last class just wasn't working.  A lot was trying to cram it it to fit the 3-shot/360-frames requirement.  With the sky the limit, I took a new pass on this with a new establishing shot and basically re-cutting and re-framing the entire piece.

I even went back and redid vid-ref for this project.  Hard to imagine I was putting on that coat to film about 2 months ago...I used this as a test to see how it would play breaking up my shots.

Class 5 Week 5: Layout Pass and Video Ref

Fun but busy week.  Had to come up with character outfits and props, have the set in place, get a first pass on layout of cameras and char placement...and act both parts of my scene out with myself!

Class 5 Week 1: I'm Back Baby!

Yup, I'm back!  After a nice 3 month "sabbatical" (ie: broke my ankle) - I'm back at Animation Mentor.  Jumping right into lip-sync animation the first week.  We're taking our previous assignment as a starting point.  Lots of fun and lots to learn.  Below you'll find my video reference of myself (with a cameo in the background of my dear pet Roxie) and my planning thumbnails thinking about the mouth shapes. 

Class 4 Week 6: Planning First Dialogue

Example

Example

Class 4 Week 1: Acting begins!

Here we go again!  Starting the second half of Animation Mentor!  Now we begin to explore acting.  I've got a great class and a great teacher, Wayne Gilbert (I actually already have his book http://www.anamie.com/ that I got back in Class 1).  This entire class we're only going to have 2 projects, one with the usual character we've been using, the second will actually have facial features for the first time.

For this project, I went back to an idea I had in Class 3.  Actually, I had gone so far as to film all the reference of me up on the roof acting it out, before I switched at the last minute to the 'pumpkin lift' shot instead.  I really felt like this could provide some real nice moments to focus on the acting. 

Class 3 Week 9: Re-Blocking the Pumpkin

Well, once again some big changes.  Got some great feedback last week - and decided I really needed to push the animation a lot more, it had too many subtle things crammed into it.  So, this week was about simplifying and giving enough time to the one or two big actions.

Also, my previous video reference wasn't all that helpful, so I filmed new reference this week.  That also changed quite a bit of my staging.  Really happy with the new changes and direction.

Class 3 Week 5: Blocking Pass on New Assignment

Here's my first pass at our next assignment.  I changed the idea a bit from my initial plan (which was a guy falling off a treadmill).  Basically, that idea felt way to much like a good ol' crowd cycle.  And I'm trying to use this class as a chance to explore more dynamic movements than that. 

My last mentor, Jeremy Cantor, gave a list of shots he thinks every animator needs under his belt.  This is why I did a big jump on the last assignment.  One of those he suggests is to have a character running.  (The last one on his list I'm lacking is to lift something heavy...guess what my next project will be...)

So I kept with the running idea, but had Stewie run after something - gave him a goal.  Since my last assignment had a bit of an Indiana Jones inspiration, I went the same route here again.

Class 3 Week 2: First Blocking Pass on New Idea

 

 

Well, this was an "interesting" week.  I was really unhappy with my initial plan for this shot (the stage swordplay).  I felt that idea would be 1) too similar to the sword in the stone shot from last class, and 2) would involve lots of complicated movements that still wouldn't have the WOW physical action I want to try my hand at.  Since the first class, I tend to gravitate towards more subtle actions, so I wanted to open it up with this class.

This idea came to me really really late in the process - so what you're looking at is what I was able to block out between 10pm and 5am (before heading in to work).  I really like the idea and I'm anxious to get in some more time on it.

I like that this shot can be viewed as a metaphor for me in this class - struggling to find an "idea" (i.e. lightbulb goes on) that's just out of easy reach...

Class 2 Week 1: New Class!

Class 2: Pyschology of Body Mechanics

No break this week!  But it was a glorious two days without homework.  Mostly involved recovery sleep.
Really excited about this next class - it's going to consist of only 3 assignments, spending four weeks on each one.  We're given a list of about fifteen actions to choose from, and my idea incorporates a few of them: walking down stairs, a side step, and for the hell of it, a bit of a walk at the end.  I've been waiting for a chance to use Dick Van Dyke for reference, and here's my perfect chance.  We're also encouraged to film ourselves acting out the movements, so here's my best go at being Van Dyke.

According to my previous mentor, I tended to be "subtle" in my animation and poses, and he encouraged me to really push my animation more.  Hopefully this is a good project to push things.  My new mentor Jeremy Cantor, comes from the live-action visual effects world of animation, so I'll be excited to add his perspective on things.