Thursday, June 30, 2011

Class IV - Stairway to Acting

Alrighty, break is over and it's time to dive into Class 4 - Introduction to Acting. This is where things really get though. Not only do you have to have solid mechanics, you have to show your character thinking & reacting. There will only be two assignments to do this class (other than some minor pose ones). The first one will be a pantomime shot with Stewie and the second will the start of a full acting shot with Bishop. Here goes nothing!

My new mentor is T.Dan Hofstedt. Check out his page and his reels (especially the 2d one ... don't forget to pick your jaw up off the floor after.) Anyway, just had my first Q&A with him & the rest of the class here last night and I do believe it's going to be an amazing term. T. Dan actually worked with Mark Pudleiner (previous mentor) at Don Bluth Studios as well as Disney. That's pretty cool. So far I've had 2 straight Blue Sky guys who know each other and now 2 straight Disney/Bluth guys who know each other.

And away we go ...

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Class 3 Wrapup

Class 3 is done & in the books.

This class was a lot like Class 2 in the sense it was a continuation of body mechanics. Where it differed was 1) having a character & story that continued across multiple shots and 2) having a little focus on acting as well as mechanics. Mark Pudleiner was my mentor and always wanted us to think where the character was coming from and use that as the starting point for the mechanics. So instead of just a generic walk, give him a brave walk, for example.

I found trying to have a start, middle, and end to not only the whole 3 animations together but as well as each shot individually was a bit tricky. 200 frames is not a lot of time to get things accomplished. Especially if you had extra characters.

Mark was a great mentor. Our Q&A's covered how to solve problems in our shots as well as his thought on various animation related subjects (eye darts, reactions, arcs, the technical aspects) as well a lot talking about being a professional artist and how to go about your business. He always had good notes on my mechanics but also ways I could push my scene further by slightly changing up the actions to make things more dynamic and entertaining.

Other than that, there were one or two Q&A's that were pretty fun (Hop & Rio). I didn't get to near as many extra Q&A's this term unfortunately. I would spend my nights about as focused as I could to work on these shots, so it was usually just music in the BG. I'll try pick more up next class.

And that's about it, great term, great mentor, and on to Class 4 - Intro to Acting.

Class 3 - Week 12 Final Animjam

Alrighty, here's my final Animjam. I have not gone back and done any tweaks to it yet, but I plan to (hopefully before class 6 but who knows).