Some quotes for your weekend

....woah it's raining! Even though the 80 degree sunny weather was nice for the past few weeks, this is very refreshing. :) Now if only I could get my mind back on animating instead of zoning off at the wall in front of me. Good thing my cube isn't next to the windows or else no work would be done. ha! Alright, back to the whole point of this post:

"The picture that looks as if it were done without any effort may have been a perfect battlefield in its making."
-Robert Henri
(For me it's more like a scene or particular action that a viewer might really like. So many scenes in my film have put up such a fight, yet in the end, when I see the scene really moving the way I want it to, it's extremely rewarding. Can't wait to see the entire film completely finished in a few more weeks, alpha channeled and all.)

"A man is a fool for not putting everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating...It's a matter of just sitting down and working."
-Frank Herbert
(This quote makes me want to re-animate some of the scenes that I'm deeming "weaker," but we'll just have to see how it goes. The next 2 weeks are dedicated towards this though. So hopefully get to put a little more care into a couple of the scenes that "bug" me because I really just whipped them out and didn't really think them through too well and I feel it really shows.)

"Try to draw something that connects with people. Draw things that connect with yourself and try to express that through your drawings so that other people get it. At Pixar, it has to do with character. Whether it's an individual character that you're trying to find the expression of, or the character of the environment. How does it feel? What does it evoke in others? Is it funny, sad, beautiful, irritating, claustrophobic, invigorating? Work on creating expressive drawings-drawings that feel like they're alive."
-Joe Ranft
(Found this quote in August, right before coming to CalArts, and really favor it. It's posted in my cube so I can see it every time I reach for more animation paper. Always a goal of mine whenever I draw, whether a single still drawing or a whole stack of animation drawings.)

Okay, back to work! Get to start roughing in my most anticipated scene today! Real juicy acting bit with my cat character, Pilot. And away I go...

"Suddenly I see, this is what I wanna be!"

Edit at 6:30: We talked about 3D animation in my Animation and the Body class today and the teacher shared this really cool short with us: 9 It's a spooky one so heads up
Best if you watch this in a dark room. The rest of the class was spent watching parts of Toy Story at half speed and looking at how both the toys and humans were handled. Really cool....oh the eye blinks. haha.

Just finished meeting with my assigned mentor(Leo Hobaica) about my film......it went really well, still not completely perfect(and honestly never will be. There'll always be something to fix--as with anything), after a second viewing, he picked out scenes that "bothered" him and he framed-by-framed them; pointing out specific issues and why they're detracting from what I have so far(only was able to show the first 55 seconds. Not quite ready to show the next half). Just from his critique: 3 more things to fix---still have other issues I need to address, just need to get this film fully animated before I go back and fix such things. Feeling really jazzed though(like back in November when my story class "tore" my boards apart) and my mind is all fired up and dying to finish my two last scenes so I can A) Share the next half and continuing getting such fantastic feedback from people like my mentor. And B) Fix what I have so far and make it sing(at least be able to sit back and watch Fight or Flight comfortably). Going to be one VERY busy weekend--not going NEAR the internets until probably Tuesday--so going to be a little quiet around this blog. Do expect a nice little guest lecture update next week though, Gary Trousdale is coming by tomorrow night so that out to be fun. Anyways, two classes are left for today--Animation and the Body and Traditional Animation. Actually, it's just about time to head on over to that first class.....

The sequel of Guess that time

Happy Daylight savings---get to SPRING forward now and lose an hour.....want to know the only living thing I know of that'll be happy about this?


"You mean I get to eat a WHOLE HOUR EARLIER?!?!?"
Her new favorite holiday. haha. Geez, I remember when I had to turn the clocks back in October...time has shot by--that day does NOT feel that long ago.



P.S. I sense a similar theme going on in the past couple of posts.....need to move away from the feline world in my next update.

Guess what time it is guys?

It's crunch-time. I've heard this said about 4 times now(by upperclassmen no less), so it's official. CalArts' character animators have hit crunch-time! 44 days to go guys! We can do it!
12 days until I have to finish actually animating(according to my own schedule)---this cold I caught yesterday isn't helping, but I'm getting over it. Indiana Jones and tomato soup make great cold fighters-haha. Also a scene that's actually going well(first one in the past 2 weeks) helps too.

Crunch-time also defines the main action in this particular scene I'm working on. Here's a photobooth preview(they really do match up in terms of size. Just can't keep consist when holding them up to camera.)


*CRUNCH* This is actually a secondary hop, I'm not going to show the first BIG smash quite yet, but it's gloriously scribbley! Till later, back to the disc...

The Bottomless Pit Calls!

Oh the entertaining stories I'm hearing from my Mom about our cat Annie(Butter Boat). These quick doodles are dedicated to our cat's daily 5 am routine outside of my parent's bedroom door.

Which will quickly give way to this

A few agonizing seconds pass, not a peep from behind the door, and Annie is reduced to a rocking lump:

However, fear not for our young hero, this tail has a happy ending--once the parents wake up, head downstairs and fill Annie's bowl...in a blink of an eye(before you could even sketch this event)--she's eaten her fill and happy once more:


At least for the next hour.....haha.

Alright, life drawing in 8 hours! Yeah, definately time for bed....

Ollie's Final Performance

Tonight marks the night that I finished official animation on one of my characters. My old man, Ollie, has reached his final pose and so I can call him basically finished! I still have to composite, etc. him and he has two other scenes that he's in, but he's a non-moving tiny background element. So yes, primary animation is finished on the ol' guy! I have 4 scenes left--3 involve my other character Pilot(SUPER fun scenes! I've been looking forward to animating these scenes in particular since summer!) and 1 scene involves a background with a pan(all After Effects so I just have to draw the background). As Corky St. Clair(Christopher Guest's character) said in Waiting for Guffman, "The pieces, as Dr. Holmes would say to Watson, are coming together sir."(This quote has been stuck in my head for the past week! Yet I can't find the actual scene anywhere online! YouTube has failed me....)

Just quickly thinking about Ollie--here's a good piece of advice for anybody reading this: Never give your characters goggles, poofy mustaches/eyebrows, or poofy coat collars. They might look cool, but they're one huge pain to animate--granted I'm thrilled I stuck with it and animated every last goggle drawing in perspective(the results work just fine), but I have no intention of doing that again on any future films. And here's a quick photo-booth image of a drawing of Ollie from his last scene:

The goggles.....alkdjfaporu@#I($W....

However, this drawing and the handful before it will never make it into the final film. I had to cut a few seconds off and this drawing, despite being a favorite of mine, had to go. It was even cut before I had a chance to really clean him up too.

MORE GOGGLES! DO NOT WANT!@#%$*@!
Here's the very first drawing of the scene(Scene number 22 to be specific). Cleaned up and ready to go. I wonder what he's up to??? Hmmmm. This one will be in the final product. Anyhow, tomorrow I plan on roughing in a big action bit with my cat, Pilot, and by the weekend start my favorite Pilot acting scene.

P.S. James Baxter interview on AnimationPodcast.com...can't wait for the next part, incredibly inspiring though now I don't want to see a frame of my own animation that I've finished. Oh well, I still have 3 scenes that can really benefit from what James Baxter talks about.

Lights Out--the Adventure

Oddly enough, I had my camera with me on Friday so here are a couple pictures of the events that took place:

First off, like I said before, I spent my morning out sketching Valencia people. These two drawings are my favorites out of the handful that I did. I kid you not on how vibrant her pants really were....I loved her pose, so hilarious along with the faces she was making as she read her book(never caught the title).


The father had this black plastic bag that he kept opening for his son. Never took the item(s) of interest out though---maybe something else to match their ensemble?


Beautiful day for drawing too. Already in the 70s around 11 in the morning. A shot of the bridge I walked across to get to the people...

4pm: and off the electricity goes---

An example of how dark it got in some areas of the department. This is Keane street, the street that I'm on(Disney Walk) had a little more light, but obviously by 6pm everything was pitch black except for the emergency lights(some lights were on, but only for stairs, some hallways, and the main gallery). By 7pm an exciting game of badminton commenced in the main gallery:



This above picture gives a better sense of how much light we had in the gallery. Still made it hard to see the birdie though.

It's now approaching 9:30 and the topic of ghosts and haunted places come up. 4 of us decided to venture away from the main gallery and head into the most haunted place at CalArts---the Modular Theatre or Mod as it's called. Earlier I had run back to my dorm and grabbed my flashlight, it came in really handy while exploring the Mod. Sadly didn't take a lot of photos, however here's a shot of what it looked like under the stage(had to use the flash to see anything). Looking back over this, It would have been really creepy to suddenly find a person in here----


Otherwise we explored from ceiling to floor, climbed a couple staircases, etc. no ghosts, secret compartments containing Walt Disney's frozen head, or anything spooky like that. We did find a piano and started playing "Grim Grinning Ghosts" and other such haunted tunes on it while describing our own stories with the supernatural(living in haunted houses, etc.). It was a lot of fun and by the time we came back out an eerie fog had formed outside the main building--it was drizzling too(this photo does not do this scene any justice).

Otherwise, we joined the rest of the animators in the Palace, and watched cheesy movies while playing Risk once the power came back on shortly after 10. Pretty fun night---okay film calls--for my own schedule I have 18 days to complete the rest of my actual animating stage!