Disney Characters in Real Life

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     I came across these images a while ago and I have tried to search for the artist with out success. (EDIT: found him! Harry Mcnally ) I thought these are too interesting to not share so here you go! When you look at them just don't think, "That's nice.." but try to figure out why you like the photos (if you even do like them)

      Is it that the B&W make the colors pop, is it the contrast of flat characters in 3D backgrounds, is it that their expressions are so well drawn that we accept them in a realistic setting.. all of the above? Or is this artist a Photoshop hack that was just looking for quick attention? What ever your opinion or thought, its all right. I'm just asking you to have one :)

BIG HERO 6 and CalArts

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Maybe a blog post can help me procrastinate from doing my syllabus :) 

   
  I haven't been posting because so much has been going on. I've been preparing for my trip to Costa Rica which I leave for in 2 days!! Also I just completed animation on Disney's current film BIG HERO 6 and that comes out in theaters NOVEMBER 7th! 

    I can't wait for everyone to see all the hard work that has gone into it. People are going to fall in love with Baymax just like how many did with Olaf. Maybe theres something to be said about them both being similar white talking marshmallows... hmm

_______________________________________________________________

   

     Some more big news is that I start teaching at CalArts in September! 

      I am teaching 2nd year 2D animation and to be honest I'm pretty damn excited. I had never been to CalArts before my interview and don't know much about it. I do know that Walt Disney created and founded the school in the early 1960's. I am surprised and happy to say that quite a few other Disney Animators are teaching at CalArts as well. You might recognize a few:

-Eric Goldberg who has worked on many memorable characters, including the Genie from Aladdin, is teaching 4th year students.

-Dale Baer is another amazing 2D Disney Artist will also be there.

-Jorge Ruiz and Wayne Unten are teaching 3D first year!

-Jen hager who is supervising on Disney's next film Zootopia is teaching 3rd year students.

     Many more amazing teachers work there but these are the ones from the Disney Animation Department. You can expect a few updates about my teaching experience at CalArts as the year goes on :D I remember being in college since it wasn't too long ago that I was in college myself. Maybe thats a bad thing or maybe thats a good thing I don't know. But whatever I bring to the table, I can guarantee its not going to be like the rest.

ANIMATED BUZZ: community of artists

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http://animatedbuzz.com/

WHAT IS ANIMATION BUZZ?

     Animation Buzz is a site that brings the animation community together with other aspiring artist and connecting them with current industry professionals. Not only do you get to make friends but you can get critiques, one session at a time, to students, from students, by professionals, Its pretty much a wild crazy fun place where who ever is interested can find what they need. Whether it's a second opinion on your work or some general guidance Animation Buzz is full of inspiration. Utilize the site's various social networking features to help inspire yourself on your creative journey

If I was to describe it I would call it a social network for just artists. A familiar facebook-esque layout is easy to navigate and see what is going on around your community. Forums are constantly being filled with threads related to art and animation. Illustrators are sharing their work and story artist are constantly asking for feedback. 

The site has 'coaches' which are industry professionals that are a part of the community that offer guidance and feedback when they can. Over seer's of the culture if I may, they offer critiques and chime into threads during their free time. Any one can become a member of AnimBuzz, all they have to do is sign up and create a profile. Totally FREE to do so.


WHY?

            This site is important because as an aspiring artist you must grasp how important networking is. to be good at networking is a whole other talent in itself that takes practice. If you are talented that's fine, but a;; that talent is going to be hard to find from a studios perspective if you haven't networked around. You will be an invisible gem that has very little chance to be discovered. Put yourself out there, say hello and who knows, you might make some lifelong friends along the way. The business world is a small world and I can tell you now that friends I've met 6 years ago through animation communities I still talk to today. So I encourage you to check out the site and I hope you find what you are looking for :) And even if you don't check out the site, go search for what community sites your style and immerse yourself in it!

____________________________________________________________

Let me introduce you to some of the coaches:

MARIO FURMANCZYK

The creator of the site is my buddy and fellow Disney Animator:
(don't worry I couldn't pronounce the last name correctly on the first time either!) Without him there would be no Animation Buzz. His credits include Princess and the frog, Winnie the Pooh, Frozen, and Wreck it Ralph. He's a great approachable guy with a whole lot of talent! He's constantly checking in on the community and dropping knowledge on the masses.








ANDREAS WESSEL-THERHORN
20 years of experience as a professional traditional animator. He can assist you on all aspects of animation! He has worked on films such as emperor's New Groove, Tarzan, Hercules, Space Jam and more (Yes! SPACE JAM) He's a wealth of knowledge and a powerhouse addition to the site.


EDWARD JUAN
He is the artist and designer behind the website Forest and Waves. He was a visual development artist at Liaka Studios for 6 years and before that: Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and more. He is a very talented artist and you could check out all his work here: http://edwardjuan.tumblr.com/



 STEVEN MACLOED
A Dreamworks story artist working in animation. He keeps up with an awesome blog that gives you insight to the life of a story artist at home and at work. http://clockroom.blogspot.com/ He's worked on awesome films such as The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon. If you join the community make sure to pick his brain bc he is just oozing with knowledge.




JORGE RUIZ, BOBBY PONTILLAS, TRENT CORREY, MALCON PIERCE, BENSON SHUM, and MYSELF (DANIEL GONZALES)
--are all Walt Disney Animators that have just joined the site. They are amazing and just a few of their credits include Wreck it Ralph and The blockbuster hit FROZEN that is still demolishing the box office. I see them just about every day and you could take my word that they're solid. Say hi when you get the chance to this crazy bunch

 

Note Taking During Critiques 101

NEW names on the right hand side! check them out if you haven't already, they are friends such as Alex Alvarado, Jeffrey Engel, Andrew Chesworth and more.

   Staying organized Mentally while working on something is hard for some people. Sometimes things can distracting and take you away from your work: such as friends, internet or even yourself! There are times I feel that I have been working on the same part of my assignment for 3 hours and have gotten NO WHERE...

      This is a bad thing, and the solution (my solution) to avoiding such a situation is keeping your mind organized and being aware ON WHAT YOU NEED TO DO NEXT.

-NOTE TAKING-
     Everybody takes notes differently, but the bottom line is that everybody SHOULD be taking notes when their teachers, mentors, or even some friends are critiquing their work. At work we have dailies every week (When the animators and us get together to look at everyones work they have done during the week.) When it's my turn for my work to be reviewed everybody, they just start shouting things out or go into a very detailed explanations one after another. Before you know it, someone else jumps in with an EVEN better note... If you could imagine, it can go pretty quick and nobody will wait for you to finish taking a note.
      So my strategy is to write EVERYTHING I hear down really fast and messy. By the time every one has commented on my shot, my 2 pages of notes look similar to what a nasty, one legged, charcoal footed chicken would look like tap dancing on my sketchbook... But as soon as I get back to my desk I reread my notes and rewrite them. If I don't do that right away I will not know what these notes mean later.

The page thats cut off, thats my regular handwriting, the big writing would be my messy handwriting :P

    I do not know about you but I get excited after I get some really good notes, there's an energy to knowing you just got information to make your work even better. Some animators use this energy to dive right back into their work and others bask in it and take a break to clear their mind to start fresh later.

-THE CHECK LIST-
      When I rewrite my notes I make a list of things I have to do so that I have something to check off. Not that doing this is necessary but it's a way to keep track of your progress and it feels good to cross off a note with a big fat marker and feel like a boss bc your TO-DO list is shrinking.

     (organizing the priorities on the check list: you are not going to fix your finger arca before you fix that major major hitch in your hips. So aim for the things that stick out like a sore thumb and is killing your shot.)


-THE CIRCLE-
     This is how I stay mentally focused..  everybody needs their strategy bc we all could get stuck noodling the same nose arc for 3 hours.. The Circle is something I came up with that visually breaks down what I need to do and what I have done (while showing me the time I have spent doing each task)

 -How does it work DANNY???? ok here is a step by step of how I do this:
You draw a clock, and you plan your day on this clock with general words.

Then as time goes by you shade in the appropriate section on the clock when ever you can.

      Then when you actually finish a task that you aimed for you mark how long it ACTUALLY took you to finish that task.

     Then you continue and adjust the rest of your schedule accordingly (like cancel those movie plans you made that night!!)
     With the circle I can easily see what is taking the most time to accomplish and where my time is going. I like the circle visually much more than a linear system like a bullet pointed list. This is how I get my work done when I am in crunch mode. I do not do this all the time. Here are some of the circles from my sketchbook so you could see how they really look (unlike the fake one I used to demonstrate above)

  

     That's all I got for today. hopefully it helps out who ever needed the help and If you didn't need the help, I hope you enjoyed the insight. Happy NewYears! Oh and one more thing...

PS:
     REMEMBER to not compare how fast you do your work with how fast your peers do theirs. Some peers might be insanely faster than you naturally but like wise do not take comfort if some peers are a little bit slower than you. Do not think that means to slow down and start to take comfort that you are a little ahead. work hard ALL THE TIME.

POSE 2 POSING... to SPLINE (an insight)

Holidays are here!

December!
     Make sure you check out the Prep and Landing short that just came out last week. Those characters are very great and it's a very nice and sweet 20 minute short. The story telling is really has got cranked up a notch at Disney! And it only gets better with new AMAZING shorts and their new film due out next year: Wreck it Ralph.

PEOPLE TO KNOW:
     Some other updates I want to mention: I want to bring some attention to my buddy Andrew Chesworth, who is an amazing animator. He does 3D animation with me at Disney but he was brought up on 2D animation. He recently won a contest for a small piece he made. His stuff can be checked out at  ANDREW CHESWORTH

     Another artist that I'm vey exited to mention is Brittney Lee. Most might know her work already but that still does not take away from how great and unique her work really is and it's always worth mentioning again and again. I recently ran into her at work and was able to get my hands on one of her prints/painting. If you ever get the opportunity please take advantage of it. I liked this painting especially  since I've spent the last 5 years in SF.

Brittney Lee

Animation: POSE TO POSING TO SPLINE
     Animating at Disney has taught me a lot. Most importantly, the amount of information and detail pose to pose animating can have. I was always turned off to pose to pose animation because it got messy fast when you went to stepped to spline. You could not tell what was happening and it was hard to pick out what control was making what pops. But having warmed up to pose to pose for the last 3 months here at Disney, I have got a technique that I want to share and hopefully it can help you out when you are animating pose to pose.
    Before I got from stepped to spline, I always lay another set of KEYS on everything before the value change in the graph editor/timeline. I know that was confusing, let me clarify: In STEPPED, your timeline looks like this with your keys: l       l        l         l         l         l....

what I do before going to SPLINE is:  l          ll          ll         ll         ll        ll....

Why? I do this so that when I switch to spline EVERYTHING STAYS THE SAME. And then I can go and animate one control/avar at a time while everything else stays on 'stepped'. This way I can animate the root (or what ever else I want) without ANY distractions and everything else just pops or stays still while I polish what needs to be polished.

This has helped me out a lot, I still keep my layering method for polishing and I get the benefits of pose to posing.

I don't know if this is something every does and im a little behind or this is new and could start helping some people. I hope it helps you and who ever else is having trouble when transitioning out of stepped. I hope all of you guys have fun over these winter holidays and have a lot of fun, The New Year is a few weeks away!

The Mouse

The Mouse is everywhere... 

-All I have to say is that... big things are on the horizon...

      Disney has some crazy cool things in store in the next few years and it is a VERY VERY exciting time to be here. Riding on the heels of Tangled are some very emotional filled movies that I can't wait for all of you to see. Disney Animation Studios is packed with talent in every hall way and over every desk and with the over sight of Lasseter and Ed, the studio has many bright days in front of it. I can't speak of most of it but just take my word for it since im behind the scenes. :)

      Being here at Disney is very rewarding because they give you opportunities to draw and grow as an artist. I have been oil painting and life drawing more than I have in a while. Here are some things I've done..

Figure Drawing.. quick 2 minuts stuff

Oil Painting, one hour

So what I want to touch upon today is something very simple but very hard to control:
STOP TALKING 


      -Ever have a hard time with an assignment? Know whats wrong with it but just need time? When people take a look do you feel the need to jump in there and point out the flaws so they know you're not a dumbass and can see the mistakes you have made?

       Then how about you DON'T show people!!!!! Get your work to the point where the excuses stop and your work can speak on its own. Bc THEN, when people grade that, their notes touch upon much more valuable information. This recently happened to me. I wasn't raised on MAYA because where I was at, they used house made software and it was very well good. Now I have to use maya and I have to learn it while I try to do my best on my shots that are given to me. In the beginning I used to show early and often, like how one is suppose to, but I noticed some of the notes I was getting from my peers and mentors were notes coming from my inexperience with Maya.. but I didn't say anything because no one likes excuses :) So I started staying late and only showing my work when it was the furthest I could push my animation in the time given and where it wasn't evident that my inexperience with MAYA was a factor. Then I started getting notes that mattered and they really helped me out.

Theres a Beast.. and it's called MAYA

       So thats a little example of something im going through right now. None the less I am having a blast. I know I know I've been getting emails of people asking me the same question so I'll answer. You can not really compare PIXAR and DISNEY's animation houses. they are two different machines. One house in my opinion, is more Spline conscious and the other is more Pose Conscious. What do I mean? Well one studio focuses a lot more on the graph editor while the other one is heavily heavily influence by 2D style of animation :) and both of them are very very powerful. It's like trying to compare super powers, you can't! Each house has it's own strengths.

So that's it for now, I have to cut it short this time (no epicly long Post this time, but I will try to post again soon!!!) keep on animating and see you at CTN because it's right down the street :)

-Daniel Gonzales

Animating a Shot: Part 3

     

     Happy first day of fall! So I'm just about over the hump of the hardest part of completing an animation piece. Yes yes, I had the beard going, blood shot eyes, the zombie stare, the anti-social anti-food anti-TIME feelings flowing freely in my mind. I was in the Zone. It doesn't look pretty from the outside (ask my girlfriend haha) but on the inside, it's wonderful, my mind was 100% on creative mode.

     If you think physical/acting animation is alone the toughest part of the whole process, you haven't animated dialogue yet. Not harder but it's almost the same level of difficulty as acting and physicality. I believe it takes the most amount of attention and concentration. Your background music, podcasts and side conversations must be put on hold when you are listening and drawing mouth shapes for dialogue. So in tradition of the first person story telling style of the last 2 posts, here I go:

THE MOUTH
     I know mentally this is the most draining part of the process. So as I prepare my desk by setting up 2 mirrors and an extra pillow on the seat of my chair, I'm mentally thinking of all the mouth shapes one see's through out the day. The funny thing I noticed is that YOU DON'T SEE mouth shapes. You kind of interpret the shape when it flashes by. And in a sentence you only see the Major sounds take shape in the mouth.

e.g: "Fuck"
-You will see the 'F' shape very clearly and is mainly the only shape you have to nail when generally animating the word. The rest is just jaw and a general 'UGH' mouth shape.

     So I'm going over all I know mentally before I start. When I start animating, I initially want to exaggerate EVERY LITTLE SYLLABLE. But a quick trick where you put your hand under your jaw, and say the line of dialogue and take note how many times your hand dips. The points when it dips/or opens wide, are the points to exaggerate the jaw opening. This keeps me from animating my characters mouth opening on every syllable. So I first draw in the key poses when the jaw opens in my animation. I time those poses out to match the dialogue perfectly. Then I move on to other major mouth shapes such as the M's B's F's P's V's. I make those shapes very clear so that they can be read at a moments glance.

IN-BETWEEN THE LINES
      While animating the mouth you always have to be aware of a very important thing. That the mouth is connected to the face. If you are just animating the mouth and not moving the head, nose, or jaw; your mouth would look like it is floating on the surface of the face. So all it takes is a small stretch of the nose, or a blink on a hard accent, or countless other tricks to make your mouth feel connected to your face. Also (to those 2D animators out there) always check the distance from the top lip to the nose and bottom lip to the chin and try to stay consistant. Many times I found my mouth drifting closer and closer to my characters chin with out my knowledge.. Lots of erasing... lots of finger cramps..

Here is a video of the dialogue (90% finalized)

FINISHING UP
     If dialogue was the biggest mental drainer, then finishing up and 'inking' of a piece is physically draining. As i finished up doing my dialogue I was OVER my piece. I wanted it does, I wanted to be done, I was ready to start on something new. It's a very trying time. I took two days off my work. Went outside and got some sun, I went to Santa Cruz and visited my brother, caused some trouble and just messed around. I was not eager to start the process of drawing wrinkles in clothing over and over again for 150 frames straight. I was not eager to draw an oval of a head 500 times and keep it consistent, I was not eager to sit 10 hours at a time and kill my hand tracing and erasing and tracing over and over again...
      But I went online, read a book (King Lear), watched a movie (The INSIDER) and went on a campaign to inspire myself again. And that's all it took, at eleven at night after watching a movie with my lady, the surge and energy of inspiration hit me and I immediately took advantage of it because i know in the morning the inspiration it would be gone. 'Aren't you coming to bed?" she would ask, "No, I feel like [I gotta work] work, I have to get it out of me."

     When I animate and I'm nearly done, I POLISH as I INK. which means as I am outlining my animation with black, I take notes on what can be pushed or tweaked. But I don't always fix them as I come across the mistakes for fear of ruining the momentum I have at the time. If I was to stop to solve the problem I have found, it drains the clock and it also drains my motivation. One hour and finishing a scene of 5 seconds? or spending an hour fixing 4 frames (5 percent of a second)? What makes you feel like your being more productive?

SO here is me while I am finishing up, hopefully I have time to really polish the hell out of it. It's the last push so I'm going hard: more hours, harder concentration, and keeping constant pace.  I do still see mistakes in my animation but I'll try to finish first then go back and fix them.

How I feel right now: tired, motivated, and a urge to push until I break which comes from insperation

Animating a Shot: Part 2

Universe showing off it's still the best at creating beauty

     So it's easy to DO the work in your head. Like right now.. Bam! just created a master piece. (in my mind).
     But to actually start on your work is a very crucial step that most artists never get to. Last post I talked about 'planning' your shot and making it specific conceptually. But now it's all about planning your work technically and executing your animation. Last post I talked about the very very first stages of starting an animation piece, here I will continue that post..

TIMING and POSES
     I had just finished story boarding my shot so I know what camera angles I want. The next day I sit down at my computer and think about my acting. I do rough poses and draw them into my storyboards. Then I play them to see if they 'feel' right in the time given. 'FEEL' right referes to, does it feel aesthetically correct, is the timing rushed rushed? Do I read the acting as a viewer? Is the tempo of overall movement complimentary to the tempo of the dialogue.. All these things have to come into play.
      Think about it, if the tempo of my movements in my animation are beat for beat that of my dialogue, then on each word or accent I will have movement. First off, that is not natural and it will be too distracting. So After an our or two of getting the beats and acting right, I came up with this (you might call this BLOCKING):

     The timing is pretty close to what I had originally proposed with my initial storyboards. The cuts work, the characters are not over acting, every choice I made checks back to the very specific background story I had came up with. This part of the process did not take that long, but I still stop working for the day because I know the NEXT step is the most difficult....

MATH and MOVEMENT
     "My project is 24 frames per second but for every frame I make I duplicate it so that it comes off as 12 frames per second. But when there is a movement or an action I will not duplicate and animate all 24 frames per second thus giving me more control over my timing and the ability to make the action read better."

    I'm thinking this to myself as I get out of bed... I 'm recalling how Disney animators use to animate during the golden age of animation. Mostly on 12's, but on 24's when the action was complex. If you do not know you're multiples of 12's, 2's, 6's and sometimes even 3's, you are going to be animating blind when it comes to planning out movements and timing. Math plays a SMALL role in animation but a crucial time saver if you use it correctly.
     For example. In my first shot I want my character to lift up it's head. I do not want it to happen in one frame as it is right now in my story boards but in a normal like manner, but not too slow that it feels mechanical. So I think in my head, "one second is too long for a head lift, so maybe half a second.. (I try lifting up my head at the speed I want) It took a little less than half a second to lift up my head. So that means when animating my head lift it should be 3-4 Frames. Why 3-4 frames? 4 frames is 1/3 of a second. It's not quite half, which would be 6 frames (because 6 is half of 12.) 12 frames being one whole second. four frames would be pretty damn close to the timing I am looking for.

If that was confusing, that should be a red flag.

ANIMATING
       (This is the part of the process where all new animators rush too and they skip all the prior steps I have done.)

My Order of Operations:
Movement, Stills, Facial, Mouth Dialogue, Specifics (clothes, hands, hair etc)

      So I animated. I animated all day. The first things I animated were the movements. Movements are the most eye catching elements in animation and they have to be timed out right so that they do not catch your eye at unwanted moments after your dialogue is done. (I DO NOT start animating dialogue yet) So once I get the physicality and acting believable then I would move on to dialogue.
     When I animate I will usually draw out the first and last pose, (lets look at the first head lift again) I will draw the down position of the head and the final up position. Then do in-betweens. BUT LET ME TELL YOU ONE THING, I actually tried to takle this with straight ahead animation but I re-did it many times (5 times). Because when you do straight ahead you do not have constraints and limits. So each time I would play what I had just animated, It would over animated. I had way too much of an anticipation, or I had an overshoot I didn't even need, or worst, I threw in an arc that was totally unnecessary. I was getting very frustrated, because it all looked good but it wasn't the FEELING of acting I had in my story boards. I asked my self what did my storyboards have that this animation does not. It had simplicity. The story board JUST had a simple head raise, not some fancy dance move of a head raise. I stood up in front of the mirror and did the head raise, I was right, not a lot happens during the head lift. So after an hour and 37 minutes I animated the correct head lift in 9 minutes.

     Remember to not be satisfied with you're work UNTIL YOU GET WHAT YOU DESIRE. That said, there is another side to that piece of advice. While I was doing the part, "you never, cross the finish line.." I had other ideas come up as I was animating... a lot of ideas matter of fact. I had thought of many more acting choices that my character could be doing on that line instead of a head shake. So I animated them to see if they were better than my current idea. They looked good, but again, in the whole big picture, it didn't feel or compliment the whole project very well. But I still had ideas and I kept animating them out. If you have time, always explore other solutions. At first I did not realize they were not working because they didn't flow with my animation piece as a whole, I thought they didn't work because of my animation ability, and I re did it and re did it soo many times I almost threw my pencil at my cat. Everything gets better when you walk away from your computer and come back later :) 10 minutes later or an hour later, it all does the same good... My original idea ended up being the best solution, so after 4 hours.. I finished animating the right solution in 1 and a 1/2 hours.

Duchamp, animating within a painting? hmmm.. think about it..

SECOND NATURE
      So this is where I am at now in my animation process. Here is a video showing what animation I have done so far. The things I have not mentioned about my process are things I take for granted. I should be telling you:
      I ALWAYS check that my drawings are somewhat consistant, that my forms hold the same volume in each drawing and if I'm in doubt, use guidelines on the face to help out with the construction of the character.  I tend to draw past the edges of the camera to make sure my pose and proportions are right. I try my hardest not to hold frames. and if I do they are only to show timing bookmarks and not to be left in my animation for the final product. Try cycling 6 drawings before you EVER hold a frame.                      
     I also write notes to my self on the page. Timing quirks I come across, notes on the eyebrows I did not want to waste time animating right now (remember I'm only doing physicality, even though I have a big urge to start animating the face and mouth I have to keep myself from doing so.)
Sometimes the notes have nothing to do with animation. I write down things I think of for futre projects or write down ideas that inspire me. You might also just see things I wrote down because I want to wikipedia them later!

And before you ask, I do listen to music and podcast while I animate. but when I do dialogue I do not have anything else playing.  What podcast? Today was the podcast "Things You Should Know".

Animating a Shot: Part 1

Once you start something, you have to commit. Like Ajax here preparing to fall on his sword.

       Animating a shot can be just as challenging as starting a painting, turning on your camera, sitting at a piano, or even picking up a pencil as you are looking at you blank pagel...

..because after you grab your tool... then what.. where do you start? HOW do you start?

      So instead of telling you a few pointers I will take you along how I go about starting a piece, in this case animation. But the same amount of thought and detail of my procedure can be put to any art form. Since I had mentioned the 11 Second Club last week, I will be using the dialogue segment they provided for this months contest. The clip is roughly 12 seconds long. I will have about 4 posts of my progress and problems I encounter and finish by the end of September. So lets get started then shall we?

So Get Your Dialogue... 
      How many of you out there do this: You get your dialogue or assignment and your ass giddy as Richard Simmons on a treadmill, you think about what you are going to do, you toss out the first 3 ideas because that's what you where TOLD to do, then you ask EVERYONE what they think about your fourth idea, you take ALL the good ideas you heard and mush it into one super idea, then start working!
Only to find out that half way through you lose all motivation and drive to complete the assignment you have now lost interest in...

      Sound familiar? I bet it does, especially to you animators. Painters and others are mostly by themselves any way but animators, as natural collaborators constantly go to each other. And they usually fuck themselves over. So before I go into how I go about starting a piece I want to just say, that I am not saying by any means MY WAY is the right and only way. There are millions of ways to come up with good pieces of animation but this is a way I find highly successful. Take it for what it is and hopefully it helps you out.

FIRST STEP FIRST
      -I went to the website and downloaded the dialogue. (http://www.11secondclub.com/) I read in the description and it said it refers to football since football season is about to start and they wanted to be festive about it. (First unintended obstacle I encounter: I read an interpretation of the dialogue, and now have to try to stay un-biased when I hear it.) So now I'm thinking of footballs and helmets and stadiums... this is a bad start already. The line of dialogue reads:

"There is no end zone. You never cross the goal line, spike the football, and do your touchdown dance.. Never. It's not for me."

       So I start cussing out loud because the line has NOTHING to do with actual football but now I'm stuck visualizing 50 yard lines, players and locker rooms. The line is a metaphor. For what? I don't have a clue, I do not know any context or a hint of what the hell I'm dealing with. I sit down and think for 5 minutes. What first comes to mind? Stupid ideas, like always. So I get up and forget about it. I have to! And I don't plan on revisiting it till tomorrow because what I'm doing is setting myself up to listen to it again with a clean un-biased plate. I let my girlfriend listen to it, she doesn't say anything because she is use to the routine and lets me be.


TIME IS YOUR FRIEND


      As the day goes on, I'm in the middle of washing dishes and NPR plays in the back ground, I think about my line of dialogue. It sounds like the man talking is giving advice.. He is using 'you' in the first part of the sentence. Who is he talking to? Better yet, who is he??? These questions plague my brain through out the day..  maybe he is giving advice to a guy who is about to get married?

      I am content with my conclusion that he is giving advice to some one else. So the next day I sit down and start to write down on my 'X-sheet' (for the non animators, this means that I am starting to map out what words and sounds land on which frames of the animation. In other words, a tedious process) But as I finish and walk away, I'm thinking about the dialogue in my head.. WHY DOES HE SAY "IT"S NOT FOR ME?" I try to forget about it and go along with my day. What I am doing here is trying to let as much time go by so my ideas 'marinate' in my head. The longer they stay in my head with out me acting upon it, the more chance I can think of something critically about the ideas and solve potential problems..


.."it's not for me"...
       Without these few words the line would be a straight forward advice sentence. Some guy would be sitting next to another guy, slaps him on the shoulder, and basically says there is no happy ending. That's that :) but these last four words.. (it's not for me) hint of something deeper, some subtext of: been there done that. What situation could you be in to say something like that? A specific one. I fall asleep staring at the ceiling and say screw it, I'll just do a cinematic close up of a mans face and make him deliver the line. Forget trying to think of a context and a setting. I'm losing time over this planning shit... I nod off to sleep.. (First Mistake, settling for something sub-par)

      I go the whole next day with no new ideas and here comes night time so I sit down ready to animate. I haven't tested my idea yet.. but I already know it's crap. That's why it's been ten minutes and I'm just staring at my screen. (by the way I animate using a 2D program called TVPAINT.. it's cool) I need to bounce my idea off someone. Someone I trust. Not just any thinking piece of meat out there, I need someone who knows what they are talking about. When you go to idiots for advice you get just that, idiotic advice. So don't ask them. I look across the room at my girlfriend and say, ok im ready.

THE BRAINSTORM (warning. this is an unedited rant)
      So we stand up in the middle of the room, I tell her my idea, she says that's lazy and we start to talk about ideas. back and fourth.

     -What if he's like Clint Eastwood? -No first off ,what is he doing? -Maybe he's a coach and is about to quit! -No I see him outdoors. -Out doors doing what? -Walking. -NO DOING WHAT? where is he walking to? -His car as he's talking to a young football player? -Why? -Bc the kid needs advice! -Why is he walking with the coach? Is he his son? Are they going out for ice cream, or did he just catch coach as he was walking home? This is going to affect the acting
-Maybe he's not giving advice...
     WTFfasdsafdsfdsg?? We were getting somewhere! -No think about it. Why, if he's giving advice to some other person, then go around and make it about himself by saying "It's not for me."?
 -ok you are right.. -maybe the kid is asking him to do something. Like come continue coaching for us?? -can we make him talk with a cigar? -What?? -Yes a cigarette or something. I see him cool like Clint Eastwood saying, yup been there done that... not for me. -I saw him more modest, old and fat. -No he has to be cool! -Maybe he's WAS cool and a hot shot, that's why they are coming and asking him to coach again. -Who are they? -The kid. -No it can't be a kid now. Listen to the dialogue, he doesn't even sound like he's talking to a kid.- Fine another old guy. Does he know the guy or is it a stranger? -He knows him, nobody gives meaningfull advice to strangers :) -So they are in a field? doing what? -Maybe the guy came to his house. His house has a field next to it. -ok ok. so man at home. guy comes to visit.    
-Make him wear a suit!!!! -YEA!!! Contrast! one guy is in everyday work clothes and dirty, other one is out of his element he doesn't belong in the field.
     -So regroup. this guy is asking the other guy to come join coaching the college team again, our 'clint eastwood guy' is saying no, he likes exactly what he is doing, he doesn't want to go BACK. It's not for him. -What is clint doing when they are talking, NO CIGAR bc if he was athletic he wouldn't be smoking. -Working on his field as they talk? -Isn't that rude? -Maybe but he's making a point that he doesn't want to go with suit guy so he doesn't even look up from his work.-Hmm. I see him just standing there talking but is about to walk away form suit guy to go back to work. Lets listen to it again.


-ok standing up it is.

PLANNING and EXECUTING
      So after this LONG brainstorming session, I decide to work on what camera angles will best represent my idea and context. I was happy that we came up with something SPECIFIC and not generic for my actors and story. Now I need specific camera shots. When you have something specific you can make specific choices in regard to acting and camera angles.
     The context that we came up with reminded me of a Clint Eastwood movie called 'Unforgiven.' It has a scene similar to mine where one young cowboy is asking a washed up cowboy to join him, but the old cowboy declines the younger cowboys offer. I go to the movie and study the directors camera choices in that scene. I do this because I want a sense of cinematic story telling to my piece. A lot of the times you get 'one camera shots' of animation exercises and it looks sort of.. bland. Animators do not change camera angles a lot bc they like to see the ANIMATION carry the art piece. but me, not being an animator but an artist, think it's very foolish to leave the camera out of the equation. the camera is a powerful tool to use, if you know anything about Alfred Hitchcock you know what I'm talking about.

      So after an hour I came up with this. I drew and timed out my shots in story board form.  just to represent the shots I want. I think it works and my go to person (my girlfriend) agreed as well :) So here it is. My next step would be to start animating. That will be another post. I know this one is already terribly long.

Remember not to go with your first intentions if you have not already thought out your idea inside and out. Planning and inventing a context will set the foundation for creativity and specific spontaneity in your animation. THINK, brainstorm, and THINK some more, research your idea. Then start to animate.

11 second club

                                   

Here is a quick post about a community that holds an animation contest every month.

They are called the '11 second club' and they provide a sound bite that is roughly 11 seconds

in length at the beginning of the month. And tons of animators from all around and from all different levels make animations in 2D or 3D! If you are ever out of exercises or things to do, the 11 second club is always a good place to go to motivate yourself or test yourself if you are an animator. 

http://www.11secondclub.com/

Un-Finished work: What to do with it?

Mozart- un-finished symphony

-Franz Kafka had unfinished writings published after his death,

-Mark Twain made THREE versions of the mysterious stranger..

never finished one of them..

-If John von Neumann never would of wrote that incomplete "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" ---Computers would not exist as we know them to be today.    

-Geoffrey Chaucer never completed "The Canterbury Tales to the extensive length that he originally intended..

-Michelangelo left a lot of sculptures and paintings only partially finished to inspire others!

-JR Tolkien made 12 volumes of the History of Middle Earth, huge parts unfinished and in draft

-Edmund Spencer wanted to make 'Faerie Queene' 12 books long. He only made it to 6, and it's the longest epic poem in the English language. 

Un-finished work is no less better than most finished work.

     If you started a walk cycle, worked on it for two weeks, stopped, let 5 months go by.. do you go back and finish it? Would your time be better used if you would just start a NEW walk cycle instead of trying to fix the problems of the old? Wouldn't it be better to take what you learned from the experience of that un-finished walk cycle and pu tit towards a whole new assignment? Here is some work I did waaaay back in sophomore year of college. I cringe when I see it, but I find it healthy having this anthology of files that show a lot of finished and unfinished work. You end up seeing your progress. So if you are asking me, DO NOT go back and touch up every old piece of animation...

So here I'm sharing one of MY old unfinished piece I did in a span of 2 weeks. Hope you can make sense of it :)

Do not feel like you are wasting time by leaving your work unfinished, you ARE STILL LEARNING as long as you are animating. But FINISH your work when it counts. Nobody likes a quitter.

To further prove my point. Here is some unfinished work by John Lennon released in 1996, even recorded with a hand held mic, it still is a wonderful timeless piece.

Drawing in Public: Europe

      So I'm back from Europe. I was busy soaking up the sights, people and parties, BUT, I did manage to squeeze in some drawing time. Mostly I drew at airports and train stations and along at a few parks. The subject: people
      Drawing people is a bit tricky, bc once they find out you are drawing them, they stiffen up, or try to get in a better "artificial pose". Or they.. (my favorite) they grab their shit and leave. There's an art to pretending you are not drawing some one. It on par with training to become a ninja...

Here are a few drawings from my sketch book. Nothing grand, just figure drawings from europe. As you might observe, people on the the other side of the globe sit and wait just like we do in America.. fascinating...

At the Airport, Flights are DELAYED... I used a blue animation drafting pencil.. WHY? because it just happened to be the one my hand grabbed from my pocket. I don't think when sketching.. I just sketch.

On a Subway tram, I knew that SHE knew I was drawing her.. 

I wonder what people did at the Airport before the Iphone was invented...

So here is an example when I ADD a little ME to the drawing. The guy with his dog moved around way too much while he was reading his book, and you would think an old lady would hold still for more than 2 seconds! So I said FML and gave up drawing people for a minute. I let my mind wander  and I ended up drawing some weird Hippie Space Age stuff on the top of the page. (FYI the 'special' brownies in Amsterdam are called 'SPACE AGE BROWNIES' lol)  And for the lady, I drew her looking through a door with some fire on the other side.. Reflective of my feelings? Perhaps..  ..Sue me.

I like draw 'till the whole page is filled. They tend to come out like this, with no up or down orientation. Very annoying to who ever looks through my sketch books. I like to fill the whole page bc I am forced to vary the size of my figures. 

When I see an interesting face I try to capture it fast instead of wasting time on the body or clothes.  

It's ok to be messy when you sketch. As long as you capture the pose and the person, that is what counts. 

I like this small section because I have a very detailed face next to a very simplified drawing. both show a type of personality and are clearly different people. Like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't matter HOW you draw you figures, as long as you get the specifics of WHAT MAKES THEM UNIQUE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb80qq4JUpE   ...LOL sorry but I had to..

Pencil over Blue Drafting Pencil.. not as fancy as it sounds...

On thing I like doing is drawing the environments I am in and then Filling them with people. People you can find ANYWHERE. but places.. there can be only place for every place. You can not have two places of the same place.. (if that even makes sense..) This is another airport.

Another collage of drawings. The background is the street map of berlin. The page looked dull with a white background so I spiced it up a bit. There was nothing interesting on the train I was on, so I took the map out of my pocket and made some magic.

This would be the city of Ghent.  I didn't get a chance to draw, my brother wanted to keep moving. But this drawing captured the edge of a canal. I think drawing places is worth your time bc it makes you work on perspective and proportions.  

people dancing..

This one.. When we missed our train. (that's why I wrote, "I hate fuk'n trains.." in the bottom right corner) So at 3 A.M. I drew this train station. No matter how complicated your view is before your eyes, always try to capture as much as you can on the page. Draw every pipe, every line, every bench, no matter how far or irrelevant it is. I didn't get to finish bc our train came. So after one painstaking hour this is all I could sketch down. There were tons of beams and wires in this station but I tried any way. Don't always go for the easy landscapes and the easy environments, CHALLENGE YOURSELF!!!

I sat in a park and drew a Museum...

More people posing and climbing a statue. The lady in the bottom right is on a bicycle taking a picture..,just in case you were wondering.

At another park in Europe... or outside my apartment in California.. hmm. now I got you wondering... goes to show that people no matter how different we perceive ourselves to be from one another, we are more a like than we would like to admit.  

Looking outside my Hostel window out onto an Amsterdam street. Yes that a canal in there too, hence the boat. 

A lot of live music over there in Germany, and what did they play? BOB MARLEY :) 

He gave an hour long show for some coins, turned out he plays at the local bar and just decides to play in the plaza once in a while.

So sorry for not being around to post something in so long, but I'm back now, so expect some awesomeness on this blog soon. Remember to draw draw draw. You don't need to put aside 3 hours to draw. All you need is 30 seconds. Just do it.

-Danny