AM.2.01 Overlapping Action II

Learning to block properly in stepped-mode is hard! It's so tempting to switch over to splines. At least it was a relief to learn that most of the other mentees at AnimationMentor felt the same way this week. I didn't even realize that learning how to work in blocked-mode was so important till Brad spun off a huge thread in the forums about it. A bunch of the mentors came in and posted their secrets on the merits and how-to's of the method. Not only is it essential for allowing easy changes after various reviews, it forces you to learn how to convey actions with clarity and really focus on the strength of individual poses.

I had to start over far too many times on this one ~ a severe indication that I don't plan properly. Hmm, I'll have to work on that too.


Perspective View


Front View

Hauru no Ugoku Shiro

I've been reflecting back on Howl's Moving Castle recently since it's finally come to the States. I remember all the anticipation of the movie in Japan back in 2003 as it's release kept getting delayed while Miyazaki-san continued to add more elements. That's one amazing thing about most Japanese studios ~ the great artists have much more production respect for their work and if it's not ready, they have the luxury to continue polishing it till it is (*cough* Steamboy).

Like all other Miyazaki movies, the animation and fantastical elements in Howl are absolutely stunning. Story-wise though, perhaps my expectations were a bit too high. I really wanted to see a new Miyazaki masterpiece which delivered profundity in the simplest of messages. The first hour-and-half were brilliant, but things were hastily resolved in the last quarter. I remember being disappointed that Howl lacked the clarity and coherence of his other works and was surprised later to find that most Japanese considered the piece to be one of his failures. Like Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl was based off a foreign novel. Yet whereas the tale in Kiki's was beautifully-executed, Howl's screenplay leaves a bit to be desired. My gut Miyazaki-fan reaction was to blame Diane Wynne Jones, the author of the original novel, for bad writing ~ there's only so much a great master can do with crap crayons, I thought. But I couldn't just go ahead and blame her without proper justification, could I? So I picked up a copy of her novel and read it...

...and it was absolutely beautiful....

Right after I got to the end, I flipped back to the cover and started right over. I must have re-read the story every day that week. Anyone who professes to love the movie should definitely read the novel.

On the first read, I immediately saw why Miyazaki-san fell in love with the story and spent years animating it to life. Certainly no one could do a more visually-apt rendering and of course he added many of his own exclusive themes eloquently to the tale. Which is why I'm still confused over my disappointment. Something must have gone wrong for him to adapt the tale with such a hasty ending. I'm still trying to find reasonable justification, hahaa. If anyone has an explanation, I'd love to hear it. It's been over half a year since I saw Howl when it first came out. Hopefully it'll magically come to a theater in the South (ha, I doubt it) so I can catch it again and at least bask in the visual artistry. Man, I wish I were living in a real city.

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Edit 07.05.2005 01.41
Oops, just remembered that Miyazaki wasn't even the original director on Howl. I think the director for Digimon (?!?!) was? So hmmm, that either explains a lot or nothing.

Good or Bad?

One piece of advice Mark gave yesterday was to avoid trying to get into a studio via the programming/tools side if you want to be an animator. In fact he said, never ever try this unless there's no other way you can get in, because the switchover is rare. Apparently if you're a great programmer, you become important enough that the department would never let you go. I suppose the rest of that thought, which went unmentioned, is that if you're a crappy programmer then you suck at your job, and well, that's not a really good rap, is it?

So that's the first time I've ever heard this advice. The typical mantra for people like me with computer science backgrounds who want to become animators always figures otherwise. When I visited the ETC (@CMU) back in April this year, the universal tale there was that if you can't get in on artistic merit, at least you can fall back on your software and project experience. Heck, I'd absolutely LOVE to be programming in the animation industry if it means I'd be immersed in an environment surrounded by creative production. The only reason I'm not is because apparently every other programmer out there who's aspiring to be an animator (on top of just all the kinds of programmers) thinks the same thing so studios have the luxury of taking their pickings. Which so far hasn't worked so well for me since they won't even look at my resume unless I have 5-7 years of industry experience (Arrrgh!! At least look at it!!). Throw in the Catch-22 of how to get those years of industry experience when the direct pre-requisite is to already have them and that renders quite a dilemma.

This piece of advice is completely contrary to all the other advice I've received before on this topic so I need some help digesting it. I mean, is this a good thing or a bad thing? It's great that I haven't stepped into that trap, if that's what it is. But it's not so great to think that something I have considered for a significant amount of time as the first step in a roundabout path to get to reach my goals is now tagged with a never ever try that recommendation from someone who's reached my goal. Then again, that may be a good thing that I'm hearing this now.

If I think about it, I see that the multitude of people who have recommended entering the industry through the programming door were people who couldn't get in the animation door. I've been guilty of this myself. Coming upon graduation last year, I applied to a ton of those jobs even though they all specified industry experience as a prime requirement. Of course I was disappointed never to hear back from the void. It's weird when you feel you can't reach your real dream so you try to go around in a circle to ultimately get there, but then you find you can't even get onto the circle.

In this sense, Mark's advice comes as a huge sigh of relief. My brief internship over a year ago at I.G. was an absolutely awesome experience, but going in as a programmer hoping to learn the artistic side proved to be impractical thinking. Though my current job has no relation whatsoever in getting me where I'm trying to go, at least it pays the bills, especially that AM one :) and gives me the time and resources to develop myself outside of work. Then again programming at I.G. was infinitely more motivating and amazing than programming for any other industry I've been in so far and I did get to see a lot of cool stuff. And then again, the tradeoff was that ultimately I ended up spending 150% of my time programming and -50% of my time learning about animation. Hmmm, yet given the opportunity to do programming work at a studio, I'd most definitely jump on it. I guess the important point here is that since it looks like I can't get into the American entertainment industry through programming anyways what with those upfront prereqs HR has and all, I should stop pursuing about that route (or at least understand it's not my current best option). With Mark's advice I guess I now have all the more reason to cut efforts at trying to just get onto that roundabout path and start over completely with the right way ~ return to going for the real goal head-on.

Learn Timing

Just had our first Q&A with Mark Behm ~ very nice guy and great mentor! He's definitely someone who not only lives and breathes this stuff, but really knows what to focus on and how to explain things clearly.

My favorite tidbit from tonight was a lesson on timing. Learn it! Understand what a second means. Count it out...one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand...and know that each syllable corresponds to six frames. So 'one' is six frames, 'one-one' is twelve, 'one-one-thou-' is eighteen, and 'one-one-thousand' is twenty-four. Isn't that cool?! I'd never thought of it that way, but this simple breakdown brings quite a bit of tangibility to such an elusive concept. And from the chat window, it looks like everyone simultaneously hit a wow-things-just-make-sense-now moment :)

To really understand timing, Mark suggested consciously trying this out in your references. Watch something and guess how many frames an action corresponds to. Then of course, frame-by-frame it, see how far off you were, and keep working on it till you've got a real feel for how timing works.

That's clarity! The next twelve weeks are going to be great! He even stayed an extra thirty minutes with us to answer questions. And to top it all off, lots of cool people in this class :)

AM.2.00 Already?!

Class 2 @ AnimationMentor.com officially started up today and I've finally kicked my lazy self and resolved to blog here like I meant to start doing months ago. Here's to yet another view into the crazy world of AnimationMentor.com!

The first term was amazing. I don't think I've seen such motivation or had the honor of being part of such a mutually-inspiring community in...wow...simply far too long. So Saturday, I was filling out my end-of-term mentor evaluation form and jotting down my crits and thanks online when it finally hit me how awesome an experience this has already been. Last term I had the one and only Victor Navone as my animation mentor. I'd seen Victor's short, Alien Song, a couple years back so of course I could hardly believe it when I received my first mentor assignment back in March. I knew I was lucky, but it didn't fully hit me how grateful I was till Saturday when I reflected on how much I learned this semester. Victor's one of those awesome mentors who frame-by-frame through every moment you invested into your animation and shows you exactly what he's talking about. And he's got a freak sense of humor to complement it all. Hey, I don't mean to turn this into a Victor-worshipping moment, but I'd like to give out my due thanks. Any of you reading this who are a part of AM, you know what I'm talking about. And if you have him as a mentor now, you're in for a ride. His e-critiques never fail to be simultaneously enlightening and hilarious. So much so that I'm practically having butterflies now about switching mentors!

Actually, I just got my new mentor assignment over the weekend ~ Mark Behm!

[BIO] Mark has been working in the animation industy for over 8 years. After a childhood of studying stop motion and traditional animation and a few years as an illustrator, he set off into the world of 3d animation. He started out focusing on character work in his local NYC commercial market, then onto "321:Penguins" at Big Idea Productions, "Robots" at Blue Sky Studios and is now at DNA Productions working on "Ant Bully." Stop by www.markbehm.com to see examples of his animation and other artwork.

He's got great illustrations and style. This'll be fun having a mentor with a completely different background than Victor ~ whoo hooo! Hahaha, I suppose the only reason I have butterflies is because I've been spoiled in my last class. Though I guess I should feel 100% excited knowing the fact that all the other mentees at AM feel the same way. When's the last time everyone's been so engrossed in school to wish it would go on indefinitely? Hahaha, simply an incredible place.

Oops, it's almost 11pm now and we're having our first Global Q&A for the Summer with Bobby, Shawn, and Carlos. So I'd better finish up and close my first AM post here. All the folks over at AM are great, mentors and students, alike. The classmates are what the place even better than it already is. The amount of growth and feedback you can witness there feels unlimited and that aura alone is inspirational. If you happened upon this blogspot via a google search on learning animation, surmising about the place, apply!!! A friend pointed me to AM (Thanks Aja! Life would be so different and boring without that one email) three days before the application deadline before the first class of students started. Knowing nothing about it the first time I visited, all I saw was that it's mission seemed to speak perfectly to my aspirations. So I went for it. Never looked back :)

AM.1.11 In-Depth Look at Hips

Vanilla Walk


Skip

AM.1.10 Intro to Walks with Character

AM.1.08/1.09 Intro to Walks and Weight

Plain Vanilla


And with a Quick 180

AM.1.07 Arcs and Paths of Action

AM.1.06 Overlapping Action

AM.1.05 Anticipation

AM.1.04 Squash and Stretch

I've no idea how to spell 'squetch.'

Dang, posting all these clips in retrospect for the sake of completion is embarrassing, but hey, go progress!