Jeff: 1st Round Animatic Here is the first round of my animatic for this year. As you and I can both see, it’s not perfect just yet. However, at least I can see what needs to be done timing-wise. Now off to layout and exposure sheets!
Hello again… How embarrassing! It seems I fell off the radar for a bit.
Adam, nine months is not a bit. It’s a lifetime in the world of blogging. You sir have some ‘splaining to do for what’s left of your readers.
Yes, I know. Dear readers, please accept my humblest apologies for not posting in, wait, nine months?!
Yeah, jerk. What do you have to say for yourself? A baby was born in the time you were gone.
Wow, well, I…I was bu—kidnapped! I was in a hostage situation and I didn’t have access to a computer for eight (of the almost nine) months. Yes, so, not my fault.
Adam, kidnapping is a very serious matter. And, I’m pretty sure a hostage situation lasting eight months would have made national headline news. Oh, also, kidnap and hostage are two different things.
Yes, I know. That’s why I was away for so long. There was a kidnapping and then a totally different group of bad guys held me hostage. Both groups were Luddites, they wouldn’t even let me touch an mp3 player.
And, what about the fact that there’s not one article reporting your disappearance?
Hard hitting investigative journalism just isn’t what it used to be, my friend. In fact, you are getting the first exclusive interview with the victim. If you play your cards right, I may throw in the movie rights.
Just take it like a man and fess up. How do you sleep at night?
Fine. I wasn’t kidnapped or held hostage.
Thank you. Finally, the truth.
I was abducted.
GAH! Just post something!
Fine, here are some early character sketches for my film this year!
“Step, to stop, to get it.” 
Before I begin my post, let me say that until last weekend, I had no idea what “Falling Lizard” meant. That is, where it got its name, but also, what it’s actually like to make an animated film in one weekend.
Firstly, when I asked about the name, legend has it that it comes from Africa. Then something about a dance and a former student saying, “Animation is like falling lizard. You have to step, to stop, to get it.” This is usually where the story ends so, I said “Ohhhhhh…I see. Cool.” and walked away confused.
As for making a film in forty-eight hours (actually less than that, considering everyone is goofing off, watching movies, and playing Calvinball out in the school’s back-lot), you learn pretty quickly how difficult your original idea will be to execute. I started cutting corners as much as possible at about four in the morning on Sunday, leaving me with this weird shell of an idea. Before viewing my film, I should mention that the theme was “failure.” Take a look:
Originally, I was going to have the guy get angry at the toy, have a heart attack, fall over dead with the toy in his hand, and the ball would go into the cup (yes, a little dark). I had it all keyed and almost animated, but the inking would have taken me longer than I had at the time. So, I had him explode (without even animating an explosion thanks to the government’s royalty-free archives) and voila! A finished film!
In other news:
I saw this man’s films for the first time on the big screen. Some put me to sleep because they didn’t have audio (which is essential for visual music animation—what were they thinking?). However, overall, really neat stuff. I asked his daughter (who was there for a Q&A) a question about when Fischinger was asked to work with Disney on “Fantasia” and she cringed. It was so quiet, I might as well have walked to the front of the theater and slapped her in the face. I knew what had happened (it didn’t go well, to say the least), I just wanted the juicy details. She didn’t give them to me. Oh well, whatever, I’ll read about it on Wikipedia or something.
The Annie Awards
On Saturday, the Annie Awards took place at Royce Hall. I didn’t have a ticket because I didn’t know I could go, but apparently I could have for only $25. I will be going next year. Anyways, one of my professors, Mr. Tom Sito, received the June Foray Award, given to those who have made a significant impact on the industry of animation. ASIFA-Hollywood has a brand new podcast where you can hear about the award ceremony, as well as an interview with one of my mentors. Here’s the link.
“The Simpsons” go to the Olympics
This Sunday, you will have the opportunity to see an episode of “The Simpsons” that was directed by another one of my professors. His name is Chuck Sheetz and I’ve learned so much from this guy already. I’m really happy all of you will get to see his work this weekend (or on hulu because, I assume, it will be there too). I’ve already seen the episode’s color test and there’s some good stuff in it!
Dan Povenmire
Today, I scheduled an interview with Dan Povenmire, one of the creators of “Phineas and Ferb,” a cartoon on The Disney Channel. This is part of an assignment for my seminar class so, I will be filming the interview. I don’t know if I will be able to post the video on my blog, but we will see if I can, at least, post the transcript. Chuck was the one that hooked me up— just more proof that he is an amazing person.
All in all, I have a busy week ahead of me. I haven’t adhered to my “animate 20 seconds a week” rule! Step…stop…get it? Me neither.
Now for something completely different… Ah! It’s February?! Where does the time go? Tell me Daniel Faraday where does it go? Last night was the premiere of “LOST” and yes I did stay up until 2:30 in the morning to watch it on VHS since I had class. It was everything I could have hoped it would be. But enough about that!
While the Losties were having deja-vu, I was showing my final animatic for “Hot Diggity Dog.” I decided to change the name because there is a film already called “Hot Dog” by Bill Plympton—remember that name, it will come up again in this entry. I still think the end of my film is a little fuzzy when the main dog trips. I have a feeling it won’t look right until I get something animated.
Speaking of animation, I get to start animating! I want my rough animation to be finished by the end of March. That’s 22.5 seconds of animation completed each week, or 540 frames, or 270 drawings. Oh, is that all?
In other news, this weekend is “Falling Lizard Weekend.” It’s a kind of “lock-in” where all of the animation students, alumni, professors and enthusiasts get together and make an animated film in one weekend. I was really excited about doing this a few months ago but right now it sounds like more stress. Although, they did say we will be playing four-square and baseball at midnight every night. Whatever the case may be, I’m taking my air mattress so I don’t have to walk home at 4 in the morning if I need to sleep.
Also, guess what? Bill Plympton is coming to teach a master class tomorrow! It’s a nice bit of scheduling since it’s right before “Lizard” and we have to make a film in 2 days. He’s probably the most efficient animator out there and his body of work is daunting considering he’s a one man show. You’ve probably seen something by him at some point—in fact, I guarantee it. Windows 95 anyone? Here’s a clip from “Hot Dog.”
Over in 15 Seconds Today marks the end of the quarter for me and at five o’clock this evening, I will see my creation on the big screen for the first time. Granted, it’s a 15 second animation that will be projected for a small audience of animators and not a feature-length movie in theaters around the world, but, I can’t complain.
This is actually very exciting for me even though it seems trivial on a grand scale. It is only 15 seconds of animation but making 15 seconds happen is no easy task when there is no computer involved. That’s right folks, what you are about to witness is an animated film completely untouched by the computer. Okay, I adjusted the levels a bit before posting, but that’s all! This was shot the old school way. I animated it all on paper, transferred the drawings to cels, painted the cels, sat in a dark room for 2+ hours and took a photo of every drawing. To give you an idea of what it was like in that dark room, I was babbling a mantra to myself the whole time: “Blank cel, dog cel, dog cel, blank cel, check the X sheet, shoot once, pan the background an inch, shoot again. Blank cel, dog cel… All I have to say is, thank god for the computer. If this experience has taught me anything, I appreciate “The Jungle Book” on a whole new level. Because that hot mess must have been a living hell to shoot.
To use my time wisely, I took a 15 second chunk of the film I plan on completing by June and animated it for this assignment. Since I don’t want to do my whole film on cels (the old school way), I’m going to scan all of these drawings and render them in the computer. The final product will not be black and white. So, without further ado, I present 15 seconds, or 360 photos on film, or 187 drawings, or a hot mess, whichever you prefer.
Note: There are a few mistakes but you will never spot them because your eye cannot perceive them! Mwahaha!
Just for kicks, I have inserted it into my animatic for my June film. Here’s the clip in context with a few tweaks to fit the scratch music.
Testing, testing… In animation school, the only tests you have to take are pencil tests. Here are some of the pencil tests I’ve done so far.
1. The Bouncing Ball: Make a ball bounce into a square, then back into a ball. Shot on 1′s, 2′s, and 3′s.
2. Asterisk: Animate a simple object, like this *. Don’t blink, it goes a bit faster than I remember.
3. Anticipation: Have energy build and then release. Wow, these are all going faster than I remember.
Make a little birdhouse in your soul… 
Lately, it’s hard for me to understand what’s going on in my life. On one hand, I wonder what I’m doing here. In a studio apartment. Going to school again. Eating popcorn for breakfast. The list could go on. Sometimes, I just can’t think about my situation too much because it makes my stomach hurt. Maybe that’s the popcorn, but, I’m still waking up some mornings confused about where I am. Which leads to me asking myself, “Oh yeah, so what are you doing here?” Then, I get to experience a night like when I met Brad Bird, and I feel a lot better about answering that question.
Two students in the department had other plans for the night, so they gave their tickets to the ASIFA-Hollywood celebration of the tenth anniversary of The Iron Giant to Vivian and me. After a long drive with Vivian navigating my iPhone (Mulholland Dr. is scary), we get to the university where the event is to be held only to find that it has moved to the Warner Bros. Studio lot (the people that gave us the tickets got that memo). I was both frantic and excited about hearing this news; frantic because we were already ten minutes late, and, excited because I was going to meet Brad Bird near the Warner Bros. and their sister Dot. It doesn’t take much, folks.
Under the studio water tower (yes, they actually have it), we tip-toe to our seats. I was wide-eyed and silent with my mouth open for a good five minutes seeing the line up of people on stage (I drew them above). Tom Sito was the M.C. (Note: Rumor has it he will be teaching a class next quarter—hopefully, I will be lucky enough to be enrolled). Alan Bodner was the art director on the film. If you look two seats to the right of Alan, that is Scott Johnston who created the ToonShader software for the giant. It’s what made the CGI elements fit into a 2D world. Then there’s Steve Markowski, the lead animator. And Jeffrey Lynch, head of the story team. And then, the two on the end were CalArts students that he let work on the movie after they took him to lunch. What?! More about this later. It’s not that the other people in my drawing were unimportant, I missed the introductions and tried scouring IMDB to find their names and roles based on my doodle but, no luck.
It was mostly a lot of clips from the movie and some of the undeveloped portions that you can find in the special features section of the DVD, but, hearing the commentary from the creators in the flesh was the real treat. What really impressed me was hearing how devoted everyone was to the movie. It was a flop according to the figures, and it had half the budget and time that most feature length animated films had at the time. I don’t know how much truth was behind it, but the group joked about not being able to pay some of the artists toward the end. Here’s one quote I found particularly poignant (from Bird, not verbatim):
I would ask for a change as we were wrapping up the picture and I knew I couldn’t ask for more from the team. They had already put their blood, sweat and tears into the thing, but I had certain tweeks I felt needed to be included. So, I did them myself. I even did some inbetweening. And, at the end of the day, the morale of the crew was, if I needed something done, they didn’t care about being paid. Everyone had a passion to see this thing through and to make it special.
Afterward, I made a mad dash for the stage. I left Vivian with my “Art of Ratatouille” book and a Sharpie so she could get that signed when she met him. I shook Mr. Bird’s hand, introduced myself and he signed my DVD and initialed the little Iron Giant figurine I had with a B.B. He then said it kind of looked like boobs (B.B. on the back torso of the figure). This took me by surprise and I didn’t know how to react. I was having enough trouble getting out the words “thank you” at that time and it came out “thank HA.”
I twiddled my thumbs a bit watching people crowd me out of the circle and then ran a B-line to talk to Shane (one of the students that worked on the film) to drill him about how he scored a lunch with Bird. He said they just asked. So, some of the other UCLA students and I asked if he (Shane) wanted to go to lunch. That is still pending but at least we asked.
All in all, the night came to a close with a burger from “Bob’s Big Boy” and a banana milkshake. When I got home, my brain wouldn’t turn off. I felt inspired to work on some animation but my body was not about to let me, so I stared at the ceiling and waited. Even though the past few months haven’t been the best for my nerves and well-being, I’ve been dealt a healthy dose of inspiration. Not just from being among The Iron Giant crew, but from all directions. My classmates inspire me everyday when I see their work. Maybe this estranged lifestyle is supposed to be intimidating on purpose so I’m inspired to rise even higher. Yes, let’s go with that.
The Karate Kid Part IV: Art School One thing that should have been more obvious is the fact that animation requires a lot of drawing. I mean, I knew this going in, but I didn’t realize I was going to spend this much time with my pencil. I’m not complaining (though my hands may be—they do have control of the keyboard right now) because all this practice has made my drawings a lot better.
Glenn Vilppu (figure drawing) is my favorite teacher. He’s like my drawing sensei. He sits in the front of the class with his calm, pensive demeanor and I can’t help feeling like I’m being taught “The Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.” Except with a pencil, of course. Last week, he told us the legend of the samurai Miyamoto Musashi (cue Ennio Morricone music):
Musashi was famous for his swordsmanship and because of this, he also had many enemies. One of his enemies, Sasaki Kojirō, asked for a duel with Musashi but he refused. Kojirō continued to request a battle with the samarai until one day Musashi said, “Meet me at dawn on the beach.” The next day, Kojirō had an army waiting to ambush Musashi, but he didn’t show up. After a while, one of the soldiers spotted a tiny boat coming in with a man standing in it, unarmed. It was Musashi and as he rolled onto the beach, a confused Kojirō ran to meet him. “You’re a fool! You have no sword!” he said. But Musashi didn’t say anything. Didn’t smile or retort. He simply picked up the oar from the boat and knocked it over Kojirō’s head.
So, what does this have to do with drawing? Master Vilppu says drawing (like battle) isn’t complicated. There are no rules, just decisions. If you have a plan of attack (a gesture drawing), the knowledge to implement it (the landmarks on the body), and the spirit to follow through (uh, be brave with your mark!), you can draw (or defeat) anything.
Then, he told us to go home and draw circles for 3 hours.
Figure Fridays 
Friday was my first session of what I like to call “Figure Fridays” (because it’s pretty much all day Friday). The teacher’s name is Glenn Vilppu (his website) and he’s been studying life drawing for forty years. He’s a Renaissance rock star. He would break out his $150 Japanese pen and be like, “So, here we have a human head.” Swish, swash, swish. “And, say we want to make this a bear?” Swash, swish. “See? Okay, you try.”
I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the human figure, but figure drawing in animation is taught a lot differently than what I remember from my undergrad days. It’s more about analyzing the model so that the animator can draw it from memory. I won’t get the luxury of having a model sit there for an hour while I get the dirt under the toenails perfectly rendered. To emphasize this point, Vilppu brought in two of the most uncooperative, restless models he could find. His 11-month-old grandson and his dog.
I admit, I was having a hard time…and baby Vilppu was not making it easy. However, I’m glad it was difficult. It’s been a while since I drew outside of my comfort zone. I have never tried getting a gesture of the model and then working on top of that with imagination and knowledge of anatomy. Which, by the way, reminds me I have to go find an anatomy book because I forgot what the iliac crest was…and the zygomatic arch.
That night, after class, I went to a kareoke event for the producer students. The producers need to know everyone in film school or else they would have nothing to do in the future so, all of the departments were invited. For a while, I was the only animation student there, but it was kind of cool because everyone would say “Animation?! I haven’t met any animators tonight!” And then there’s a list of things that would usually come next:
- “Do you know Maya?” (No. And then I would shrug.)
- “Do you do 2D or 3D animation?” (Well, I like them both but it depends. No, I don’t know Maya.)
- “I have this idea that involves animation, let me tell you about it. Do you think you could do that?” (Sorry, I don’t know Maya yet. Can you wait until the summer of 2011?)
- “Do you want to bump iPhones?” (Excuse me?)
I’m mostly joking, everyone was very nice. Though, a lot of students in the other programs know what Maya is.
Stay tuned! Next Friday, we are going to the Natural History Museum to draw more animals!
A (short) tour… Here I am! After finally settling in, I’m now ready to make a post on my new blog. The place isn’t quite designed how I’d like it, but it’s going to take some time for that to happen since php is the most frustrating coding language in the world. At least for a newb like me. Before I present an inside look of where I will be spending 60-99% of my time this year, I would like to sum up the last few weeks with 5 helpful statements:
- A moving truck that is pulling a fuel-efficient Prius, is not very fuel-efficient.
- On Labor Day weekend, Disneyland is not quite the happiest place on Earth. I guess that makes it the swellest place on Earth for one weekend of the year.
- A lint roller is the perfect tool when killing ants. They march in a row, you know.
- If you need to make a friend while visiting Westwood, just buy the hobo that sits outside the In & Out a burger.
- And finally, when painting a pattern on a wall of your apartment, spray paint is not a good idea.
That’s all for today! Enjoy!
