The Journey Begins

The journey of my career begins next Monday. Out of the blue I was asked to come in for an interview at Topix animation studio in Toronto. I am by no means guaranteed a job but just being contacted for an interview is a big step in the right direction. It was a little over a year ago that I decided to dedicate myself to animation and give up on my dream to reach the highest levels of professional golf. It was a scary decision and one that I did not take lightly. There were no guarantees that I could become a good enough animator to make a career out of it. Afterall, it is a career that I never even considered until my fourth year at McMaster University. Now here I am twelve months after effectively quitting golf to pursue character animation and in a few days time I will walk into Topix with legitimate prospects of obtaining a job. I'll check back next week to let you know (whoever you are that reads my posts) what the outcome is.

I have a job...sort of

Starting this week I will be going in to Chuck Gammage Animation three days a week to work on an animated short. The studio will then use this short to try and bring in 3D work. I am no longer just as intern. As of this week I will actually be a lead animator! It sounds more glamorous than it is though. The only reason I am the "lead" is because I am the only person working on it. I will have one other person helping me build the sets and some models and Chuck will act as my supervising animator, but other than that it's just me. Hopefully this short will attract a lot of paid character animation work for me to sink my teeth into. The most important thing is the experience that this short will give me and how much it will boost my resume which is currently very weak.

Progression of a shot

I decided I wanted to post an example of how I approach an acting shot. I am still learning but I definitely think I'm improving. Not so long ago an acting shot of this length would have taken me be about 50hrs to complete. Now I have a more efficient workflow and I have cut that time in half. There is still a long way to go when it comes to my acting choices but I think my animation skills have improved significantly in the past three months. Anyway, here is a video demonstrating the steps I go through to complete a shot.

My first top 20 ribbon!

Last month I entered the 11second club's August competition and reached my highest ranking yet: 16th! My previous best was 42nd I believe. I really wanted to use the contest to gauge how much I have improved as an animator since my online workshop. I was really hoping to see a leap forward and thankfully I have. There are still lots of things to improve and I didn't really spend any time developing a story (I wanted to focus completely on my acting choices and creating solid animation) but I can see growth which is very exciting! You can see the animation in my latest demo reel.
I plan to enter the September competition as well because I think I will have time to do it. This time around I want to improve my level of animation and also spend a bit more time developing an interesting story. My goal is to reach the top 11 and improve upon my personal best.

Updated Reel

After completing my workshop and entering the 11second club this month (I had my best finish ever, 16th place!) I have updated my reel. I have several more projects on the go but I won't be updating my reel again for a little while.