Toy Story Toons - "Small Fry"

Buzz Lightyear is left behind at a fast food restaurant when a kids' meal toy version of Buzz takes his place. While Bonnie's toys are stuck with the annoying three-inch-tall Buzz impersonator, the real Buzz is trapped in therestaurant at a support group for discarded toys. As Woody and the gang devise a way to rescue their friend, Buzz tries to escape the toy psychotherapy meeting. "Small Fry" is scheduled to release in cinemas with Disney's "The Muppets" on February 10, 2012.

Brave

Sleep Well - Take 1 - WIP

So I decided to go with the "Sleep well" audio clip from Supergirl. This is my latest blocking pass. I started splining everything but I started running into several problems. Her walk into the scene just wasn't working right. As she turns different controls were moving at different times. I thought I cleaned it up in blocking before switching over to splines but I may have missed some things.

So after a great brainstorming session with my buddy Richard, we came up with a different layout and an all new blocking. So now I'm taking it "back to formula." Starting from scratch. The deadline for Reel FX is looming so I have just under four weeks to get this done. The other scene I'm working on for the short film is nearing completion. When I get these done I will have a few more scenes to add to my reel. That is always the fun part.

New possible dialog projects

I'm trying to decided on my next couple of projects. I'm planning on applying again to the Reel FX apprenticeship program. The deadline is December 16. That gives me roughly two months to come up with some new material. I'd like to add a total of three new scenes to my reel: two acting scenes and a body mechanics scene. So the other day I went looking for dialogue clips and I found a few. Here are my top six choices:

CLIP #1

Voice One: "Curse you, Bonzai! Don't you realize what you're saying?! Your whole plan is gonna be destroyed and you sit here wasting time!"
Voice Two: "Time? I got nothing but time."

CLIP #2

Voice One: "This is no democracy. It is a dictatorship. I am the law. If you survive camp you will be on the team. If you survive.

CLIP #3

Voice One: (exhale) "Sleep well. And when you wake drown in my eyes and be all mine.

CLIP #4

Voice One: "You hate me, don't you."
Voice Two: "Hate you? I don't even know you. I don't even know your name."
Voice One: "Ethan."

CLIP #5

Voice One: "See This? This is my boomstick!"

CLIP #6

Voice One: "Beef jerky?"
Voice Two: "No, no son. Thank you very much but it gives me the winds, something terrible."
Voice One. "Oh!"

A fellow AM alum gave me some advice that is really helping me make my decision on which ones to work on. One of the main factors is time. I need something I can accomplish in two months. Is the scene going to involve huge sets or can it be accomplished with a very simple set, or no set at all? Also, what am I trying to accomplish here? Which skill am I trying to show? Am I focusing on body mechanics or facial acting? And quite possibly the most important question is what kind of studio am I applying for? If I am applying to a feature film studio, then I would need to focus on facial animation, lip sync and acting. If I am applying to a gaming studio I would need to focus on walk/run cycles, body mechanics and fight sequences. LUCKILY, there is a webinar coming up this week discussing that very topic.

Once I have made my decision as to which clips I will use I will post the results here. I may even do some quick animatics for each to help illustrate the ideas I have in mind.

New Swag!!

Last month my mentor Dana was at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver. During our usual video chat meetings she asked me and my buddy Richard for our mailing addresses. We were two of the four animators not able to make it to SIGGRAPH. She told us she got us something there and needed to mail it to us. Well I just received a new toy in the mail today!! And here it is....!!!!!

If you haven't heard of it before, here are some links that talk about it:

On facebook

And the actual RenderMan software from Pixar here.

Happy 99th Birthday Chuck Jones!!

Going Off Grid....temporarily

Since my last post I've been doing some thinking. Sunday is my day off and there are quite a few things I need to get done. For starters I will be filling out a PDAS for the day so I can make sure I list everything I need to get done. A few things on the list are the usuals: laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc. What I also need to do is change my oil on my Durango. And last but not least is what I always want to do on my day off, ANIMATE!

Here's what I intend to do. I am actually going to unplug the internet from my computer. (GASP!) In doing so I will eliminate these Weapons of Mass Distraction from my sight before they even get a chance to arm themselves. I will still be able to check e-mail and facebook from my phone; however, since it is not a sophisticated smart phone its capabilities are pretty limited. No web browsing for hours at a time. My PS3 will still be able to pick up the wifi signal. I'll keep that going so I can have something to watch during my breaks. BUT that, too can become a HUGE distraction so I may have to limit my access to hulu and Netflix, as well.

So I will see you back here in 24 hours. Hopefully I will return with a greater sense of productivity and accomplishment.

Wish me luck!

Weapons of Mass Distraction

I have been reading the book The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield. In it he says:

"Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance." 

Basically, he is saying that Resistance is any force that holds us back from being the person or artist we are meant to be. It is a force that prevents us from doing anything creative. With today's social networking and internet, this is truer than ever before. I can tell you countless times I have tried to get some work done but have been distracted by Resistance. The graphic above says it all. I get online and check my e-mail. Then I check facebook. Then I go to Coming Soon.net, Cartoon Brew and On Animation. and see what's going on in films, TV and animation. Some of their posts have videos which will lead to links of other videos, and so on, and so on, and so on. Next thing I know several hours have passed and I haven't done a damn thing!

How does one stop these Weapons of Mass Distraction?!

I have no idea. I'm still reading the book. But I think I came up with a solution that seemed to work really well. It's described in one of my last posts. If left to my own devices, I'd never get anything accomplished. If there was a way to make money off of watching TV and browsing the internet, I'd make a fortune. So what I had to do was make a schedule for myself on my days off. I scheduled myself something do to every half-hour. And you know what? It worked! I got so much done that by the end of the day I had such a feeling of accomplishment. I knew when I rested my head on my pillow that night that I had done something productive and, more importantly, something creative by day's end. The creative bit was not something huge, but I DID do something that I enjoyed and gave me fulfillment.

So what is my solution to defeating the Weapons of Mass Distraction? 1) I could unplug the internet from my computer. (HEAVENS NO!!!!) or 2) I can make myself a Personal Daily Assignment Sheet and follow it to the letter. The first one sounds plausible but a bit extreme. The second is very doable, because it has worked before.

I found out recently that a studio I've been trying to get into will be posting a job opening coming in November. They will also be opening up their apprenticeship program again in January. This means I have about six weeks to come up with new shots for my demo reel. Now comes the tough part, trying to decide on what to do. According to a recent blog posting from Animation Tips & Tricks, here's what I know I need and what recruiters might be looking for:

• A body mechanics shot
• A pantomime acting shot
• A dialog acting shot

So that is what I need to do. I have plenty on my reel but nothing new. I need to change it up to show my growth, knowledge and experience. I have a couple of shots in mind already. It's just a matter of narrowing down my choices to the top three in each category and picking one.

If I can paraphrase Steven Pressfield to better fit my situation, here is what he would have to say:

"There's a secret that real (animators) know that wannabe (animators) don't, and the secret is this: It's not the (animating) part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to (animate).

What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance."

The fact that I'm sitting here and writing about Resistance IS RESISTANCE!


BLERG!!!!

Every time I stop and think about my life and my unlived life, two songs come to mind. The first is called "Living Without Living" by Hipbone. I think the title alone says it all. Most of us are just "living without living." Hipbone is a jazz group that I came across by accident and this and this are the only traces I can find of them online. If you love great modern jazz, I highly recommend their album The Brothers' Love and Movie.

The second song comes from my favorite band in the world, the Dave Matthews Band. This song is from their Listener Supported CD and DVD concert. It is called True Reflections and performed by the great Boyd Tinsley.



The lyrics say it all:

Find some inspiration
Reach down deep inside of you
Amend your situation
Your whole life is ahead of you

If you want to make a change, you are going to had dig deep inside of yourself, tap into that inner strength that we all have, DESTROY those Weapons of Mass Distraction and MAKE that change. What have you got to lose?

Vimeo Walk Cycle Tutorial and My Results

The other day I came across a walk cycle tutorial on vimeo. I thought it was pretty interesting in that it was a four-parter and seemed to go step by step. After looking at it for a few seconds, I decided to follow along and see what I can do. So I opened up Maya 2008 and opened up the Bishop character from Animation Mentor. I have the Morpheus rig the tutorial was using but I found it a bit too challenging at the moment. As I was following along, I noticed he was using some controls that Bishop does not have. Aw crap! So I went ahead and opened up Morpheus and proceeded with the tutorial. It was not as difficult as I remembered. Granted it was only a standing still walk cycle, but still not too bad. So here are the tutorial videos and my results afterwards.

 Walk Cycle Part 1
 

Walk Cycle Part 2
 

Walk Cycle Part 3
 

Walk Cycle Part 4
 

My Walk Cycle Tutorial Results

One of the tips I learned was when doing a walk cycle was to animate the two feet together, then when it looks complete you take one foot and offset it and BOOM you have a walk cycle! Another is that when the foot lands after contact, it is the pinky toe that makes contact first and then the rest of the foot rolls down. It was fun doing this tutorial. If I have some time later on I might go looking for other tutorials that I can follow along with.

A Short History of CG Characters in Movies

a short history of CG characters in movies from lnrdshelby on Vimeo.