AM.3.01 Intro to Acting

New AM semester! Once again, I was reluctant to see the last class draw to a close, but I was all charged up to jump into this next class ~ acting. And this first lecture didn't disappoint. Simply amazing.

Over the course of the previous semester, I'd gotten so used to thinking in terms of physical action that I was kind of panicking that I wouldn't even know how to start thinking about acting at all. This week's lecture (led by Dave Burgess) was excellent though, and readily replaced a lot of that anxiety with anticipation again. There was just so much info jammed in and great pointers drawn from experience throughout.

What I'm really looking forward to is that the courses this semester will be lead by various mentors. Bobby, Shawn, and Carlos are great teachers, but it's quite an experience to pick the brains and excitement (Geez, they've all got such contagious excitement!) of all the other awesome mentors on campus. Whoooo so much fun!!!

Ooh! And I've got Pete Nash this semester! Quite honestly, I didn't know much about him before our first Q&A aside from the blurry idea from somewhere that I think he'd once worked at Pixar, but this is going to be great! It was so much fun to hear him do character voices when the topic of which scenes he animated came up ~ he never just said, "Oh, I did the one where...." These guys are always so animated. And next week Pete's going to give us a walkthrough of his workflow by animating a walk!

Hmmm, just crawling the forum and campus again and am reminded how one of the coolest things about AnimationMentor.com is that everyone who's here is here because they sincerely want to be a part of this. And this underlying quality is so wonderully visible in every aspect of the whole community.

Ok, I'm going to go fulfill my much-needed exercise quota through DDR now before I start getting too mushy here.

Oh yes! Fun moment from lecture:

That's really creepy! Did you see my Smurf? Look at him! He's awesome!

[Dave Burgess's wonderment upon realizing he can still whip Smurfs out of thin air decades after working on the show]

AM.2.12 Final Q&A

The short version of some great last pieces of advice from Mark :)

• Let go of your ego.


• Watch other people's critiques and critique other people's work.


• Analyze reference video ~ that's not just the video you shoot on your own, but also look at complete works from great sources.


• DO NOT try to squeeze too many poses into too short a timeframe.


• Drag, follow, overshoot... Determine what leads what and what's following what and get things on interesting beats.


• Use secondary action to add polish details and appeal and to draw people in.


• Get feedback from others!


• Don't go too big or small ~ go just right.


• Take more risks and explorations in the planning stage.


• Give audiences enough time to process the shot.
• 
  
• Ideas must be clear and appealing.


• Poses must be clear and appealing ~ The Incredibles has amazing posing which alone could even work as a storybook stills.

That's all folks!

Nintendo Revolution

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/09/15/news_6133335.html

Today (or maybe yesterday) Nintendo announced it's new controller design! Wheee! I haven't owned a box since the 64 (I love my 64!) ~ mostly because there were always more game consoles than people at college ~ but as a crazy Zelda fan and a fan of sleek spiffy objects, I'll definitely have to check this one out when it's finally available. At first glance, it looks like there are going to be very few good cross-platform games available in a Nintendo version for the future and that the controller is more like an endless number of peripherals you'll have to buy and stick together, but the fact that the joystick moves in 3D space is pretty neat. Lalalalaa. When's Zelda coming out?

Lost and Not Found! GAH!

So I finally decided to move down the hall. Last weekend, my room got overtaken by ants ~ not quite as bad as that plant episode, but it's the room right above the plant episode so I'm sure the inside of my walls were just crawling. Anyways, there is just something WRONG with that room. The central heating system is several degrees off in there. The rest of the house is fine, just not that room. I should've moved earlier, if not just to conserve heating/aircon energy. Plus, every other morning, a bird would just fly into the wall like it totally didn't see the house or something, then get up and start knocking like a crazy woodpecker ~ still haven't figured that one out.

So yea, I'm still in the process of moving...which means that everything I need is missing and everything else is strewn everywhere between that old room and this new one. Uhhh, I should get on that. In the meantime, I've looked everywhere but still can't find my camera's USB cord, making it impossible to clear out space for pictures this weekend! GAH!! Must make space for NYC visit! RAR BIG APPLE!

Roth vs. Traditional?

It's time that I figured out what the heck to do with my money instead of letting it rot against inflation in my savings account. Well actually, thank goodness I at least switched to an Orange Account last year. That was a good move. They're up to a healthy 3.3% APR now as opposed to Bank of America's measly 0.00000000001-or-something%. 3.3% is enough to wipe out many traditional CDs too, wheeee! If you don't have an Orange Account already, you're missing out. If you don't know what an Orange Account is, you're REALLY missing out. It's only the most awesome savings account ever and you need one. If anyone still needs to open one, I'll send you an invite for $25 free bucks to start off with in your account (plus I get $10 for a referral ^o^). Whee!!!

Ok, so back to my original rambling...Roth IRA vs. Traditional IRA...takers on the topic? This is probably the most useful article I've found on the issue thus far:

http://www.fairmark.com/rothira/rothvemp.htm

I've heard so much blazing extreme stuff back and forth about both that I've no idea which is the better way to go between moments of uninformed conviction. As far as I can tell, the Roth IRA has oodles of benefits and no real disadvantages that matter to someone who's nowhere near retirement. I mean, if you expect to make money on your investments, why would you want to be taxed on the hopefully-huge amount it grows into in the future rather than on the smaller amount you invest now? Tax-free earnings! Why would you even need to think about it? But then when I went down to my happy Bank of America and asked to open an account, the financial advisor looked at me blankly and said "Don't you have an employer 401K? Why would you want to open a Roth?" I know it's a great idea to bring your 401K up to the employer match, but beyond, why wouldn't I want to open a Roth while I can qualify for one? But I couldn't effectively answer his question so I went home. Over the next few days, I asked a bunch of people at work about the options, but no one really had much of an idea.

So due to lack of confidence in my understanding of this mess, I ended up just doing nothing. I didn't max out my 401K or open a Roth IRA. And today I realized that that all happened over a year ago and that that was probably the dumbest of the choices I could have made. So back to the original question...Roth vs. Traditional? Advice?

AM.2.11 Clarity

So there I was, happily animating along, smoothing out the body mechanics for the assignment this week, when I finally realized how far I'd missed the whole clarity thing. Errrh, yea, dang Irene it's only the whole point of the WEEK!!! No one has any idea why Stewie falls over (I think I knew once, but I forget).

*sigh*

It just goes to show how I didn't plan properly again. Well, at least this one will be more ok than the last project. I think I can just focus on the ending and rework that whole bit ~ start from figuring out what Stewie's thinking at the moment and replan from there. Here are my new thoughts so far on why Stewie collapses:

• back breaks


• he's too weak and the wires pull him back (the original idea from last week)


• the wires snap and he shoots backwards


• his foot slips (what?!!?! who'd be looking at his foot?! no, scratch this one)


• successfully rips out the wires with his uber strength, but the overlapping action on a graphics card which flies out on the ends of the wires swings around in a foreboding arc to peg him in the back of the head and knock him out

Uhhh, so some of those are probably more manageable than others, but I don't think any are particularly good. Whatever the case, unless I go for the back strain option, it looks like I'll need cables in there. Cables have been problematic. Brad was super helpful and sent me a simple rig last week, but I can't animate it right. So far, I've only managed to rig something which bends around using spline IK and something else which squetches in length according to a curve. Too bad those two qualities aren't on the same rig!!! So I decided to let it go for the week as my crappy rigging was distracting me from animating.

On the animation itself, the fellow AMers on the forums have been great as usual in pointing things out, but I couldn't wrap my head fully around the body mechanics of any of their suggestions this week and implement them well enough. Bah, conceptualization/visualization problems. Ok, break for today and back again later...once clarity sets in...too much confusion...can't think anymore....

Caffeine Plus Tryptophan

So if mass amounts of chocolate chip cookies keep me awake and milk makes me sleepy, is it ok if I eat a lot of cookies right before bedtime provided that I drink lots of milk to try balancing it out? I know...I have no restraint with cookies :(

Hmmm, probably doesn't work that way. I'll probably just be really awake and sleepy simultaneously.

Smells and Sounds

I just threw a batch of dishes in the dishwasher and a batch of cookies in the oven :)

This is the first time I'm running the giant metal mixing bowl through the dishwasher and it produces a lovely whooshing noise as the water shoots around the inside. It sounds like some sort of exotic wind instrument. Wheeeeeee....

*sigh*

It's been one of those Office-Spacey kind of weeks at work where it goes beyond general blah to smacking-over-and-over-beatdown blah. I guess it happens. As the mud topping on the yuck cake, I can't believe I didn't figure out we have a long weekend for Labor Day till this week...I could've totally used the vacation to go somewhere.

But I think now I'm ok...the smell of cookies and the whooshy dishwashing noise are surprisingly calming. Now I need to make sure I don't eat all the cookies or I won't sleep till the sun comes up again.