The Nut Job wraps up

Work on my first feature is quickly coming to a close. It's hard to believe that I got this break so early in my career, and even harder to believe that it's ending so soon. I have spent a little over four valuable months at ToonBox working and learning simultaneously. I have grown a lot as an animator and I can see the progress in my work, which is always rewarding. Although my time on The Nut Job is almost over, thankfully my time at ToonBox is not. I am lucky enough to have been offered a position on the studios next feature entitled Spark. 

However, I do have 6 weeks off in between films and I plan to use that time relax and get some sun, but also to continue practicing my animation skills from home. During this time I want to put together some sort of tutorial that will hopefully provide some useful tips. My goal is to have this tutorial ready before I go back to work in mid-August.

 

An interesting look inside the world of Pixar

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I'm back!

It's been a while since my last post but I am still here, working hard everyday to improve my animation skills.
Things here at ToonBox continue to move along at a brisk pace and I continue to learn more with each working day. When I first arrived I would need to show the director my shot multiple times and receive a decent amount of notes before it was good enough to be approved. Now I feel much more confident and capable and I am able to tackle a shot much more independently. My speed has also improved significantly which is important for both studio and personal work.
I plan on posting a tutorial video in the near future that will demonstrate how I plan and execute a shot. I am by no means an expert animator, but I would still like to take the opportunity to share what I've learned with anyone who might find it useful.

Work on the short film that I am involved with is also moving along quite well. I will be posting updates in the "short film" section of this blog soon including storyline, character sketches and call-outs to anyone wanting to be involved.

The Nut Job press release

Following the news that Liam Neeson will be joining the cast of The Nut Job, the following press release was issued at the end of the last week:

Open Road distribution

My time at iAnimate

As per a request from Kat I want to take a bit of time to go in to more detail about iAnimate and what is it like to attend their workshops. Personally I spent many months - roughly six I believe - practicing at home so that I could put together a reel that would enable me to skip the beginner classes. Jason assessed my reel and placed me in workshop 3 where I would spend 14 excellent weeks!

When you become a member of iAnimate you get access to many things: the community of fellow animators, the amazing feature quality rigs which are still the best I've worked with and literally thousands of hours of lectures, demos, Q&As etc. This for me is probably the most important part.

My advice is to ensure that you have several days in which to devote to "studying" when access to the community first becomes available. I learned a lot from my instructor during my assignments, but I learned the most from the seemingly limitless supply of instructional videos. Do not take these videos lightly. Dedicate as many hours per week to watching them as possible. There are videos about virtually everything you can imagine to do with animation and best of all, you get to download them all and keep them forever! From Jason Ryan chatting with fellow animators about the industry and profession, to him explaining how he plans a shot in 2D and many on how he takes a shot all the way from blocking to polish - these are probably the ones I found most useful. These demonstrations about how he animates a shot range from cartoony runs to subtle facial acting and they will help you immensely. You get to learn his entire workflow and it really makes you think about your own workflow and how you can make it more efficient - something I am still striving to improve!

Take advantage of the community space and post your work. Not only can you receive further feedback from fellow animators but the more people who share their work the more inspirational work there is to watch. When I first started at iAnimate the community was very vocal and people were posting at a rampant pace. Unfortunately it did slow down as the weeks wore on and the community became quieter. Hopefully it has picked up again since.

One thing I would suggest to anyone wishing to apply is to research the different mentors before you choose the one you will work with (yes you get to pick which mentor you want, provided there is still space in their class). Figure out who you like the sound of the best and which one specializes in the type of animation you want to pursue (realistic, visual effects, cartoony). A lot of mentors are from Dreamworks and most have a similar style but still, make sure you check each one out a bit.

Finally, when the mentor critiques your work (once or twice a week depending on how they want to run their class) tell them that you want them to be harsh. Trust me you would much rather they tell you that your shot looks like crap than baby you. I often found that my mentor was too easy on both my work and the work of my fellow classmates. He was a great guy and a good mentor overall, I just think he could have pushed us all a lot further by being more honest and harsh.

Hopefully I've done a decent job at explaining my time there. It really is fantastic value for money and I recommend it highly to anyone looking to improve either animation skills :)

Anyone Can Animate

I don't have the book in front of me, but I think it was Richard Williams who said this in "The Animators Survival Kit" - a must own for all animators by the way. To say that anyone can animate is not to say that animation is easy...not at all. It is an extremely difficult skill and one that can never really be mastered. As an animator you are constantly learning and evolving, especially today when the technology is always changing.
What is missing from this quote is "Anyone with a passion for animation can animate". It requires practice, hard work and commitment. For the purpose of this post I will use myself as an example.

I got in to animation relatively late. In fact, I had never even considered computer animation as a potential career until a little over a year ago. I spent my life chasing the dream of becoming a professional golfer. I had always known I needed a back up plan in case golf didn't work out, but I never figured out what that could be. I wanted to do something I enjoyed but little else spoke to me enough to make a career out of it.
As a kid I loved movies and I loved to make movies. I loved to shoot some footage, edit it and watch my "masterpiece". The problem was I never knew what I could do with this passion for movies or how I could turn it into a profession. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I stumbled across animation, realized how much I enjoyed bringing life to a character and decided I wanted to do it for a living.
It was a scary decision to put golf aside and concentrate on animation because at that time I was not a good animator. I had never animated six months prior to this decision and the only education I had was self-taught. But once I'd made the decision I knew I had to knuckle down and commit to it. I worked hard, practiced at home, purchased tutorials and eventually, when I could afford it, took a workshop at iAnimate.

If anybody is reading this who is at the early stage of their animation career and you want to know how to get better, here's my two cents:
A) Work hard. There is no substitute.
B) Post your work for critiques on sites such as "11secondclub" or "youanimator" and listen to the feedback. Develop thick skin, take it on the chin and use it to get better.
C) Watch as many tutorials as you can while you get started. Jason Ryan has some great ones on his site for a very reasonable price. It's a great way to learn and improve.
D) If you can afford it, enroll in an online school like iAnimate. It's a great way to make connections, receive feedback and work with some fantastic rigs and characters.
E) Network. If can easily be overlooked but it's one of the most important things. Research the studios that you want to work for (don't shoot for Pixar right away) and contact them. Ask them for a tour of the studio or an informational interview. This is what first got my name on the radar at Topix. I emailed a dozen studios asking to meet in person and they were the only one to respond. I met a lead animator at the studio and a year later I got my first job in the industry. Contact as many studios as possible and contact them often, always being as polite and personable as possible.

That's all for now. Hopefully this helps somebody out there :)

I recently had the good fortune to be offered a position on the animation team during production of The Nut Job! It's a tough decision between staying at Topix or taking the chance at ToonBox. Ultimately I feel that the opportunity to work on a feature film at this stage of my career is too big to pass up. It is also much closer to the style of animation that I originally wanted to pursue. During my time at Topix I have picked the brain of my co-workers who have been in the industry far longer than myself. I've tried to acquire as much information about the industry as possible and from what I can gather, working on a feature film can open up a lot more feature possibilities in your career.

I would be sad to leave Topix because the studio and the people have been great. I have learned SO much during my time here and I can never thank them enough for everything. A lot of people wait a long time for their first paid job so I know how lucky I am. But, I would also be very excited to start this new experience. It was my goal to be involved in a feature film after five years in animation so to be offered this gig after only four months is huge. Hopefully this is just the start!

My first top 10!

This past month I placed in the top ten in the 11second club for the first time! It has been a goal of mine to get one of those little trophies (how nerdy) for several months now. This past month I had a little more time to commit to my entry and the work paid off. Since entering I have gone back and polished up more of the shot as well as changed the camera, lighting and background to place more emphasis on the animation itself. Next goal: at top three finish!

You Animator site

For those of you who are interested in posting your work and receiving valuable critiques, You Animator could be the perfect site for you. Everybody is welcome to post their work, critique the work of others using their built in software and even become a mentor by giving excellent critiques. There are other sites such as the 11secondclub that provide similar opportunities, but You Animator takes the ability to critique a shot that much further.

YouAnimator

Eye dart reference

Here is a fine example of eye movement and eye darts. It was orginally posted by fellow animator Kyle Kenworthy. Enjoy and happy learning!