Monday, May 30, 2011
Arte y Animacion
flipping through Michelle's blog I saw a link to Arte y Animacion who I don't know, awesome collecting blog with stuff I haven't seen before. Have to make note so I remember to look at it when I have more time. Thanks Michelle.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Amanda Louise Spayd
Wandering through the blog of Amanda Louise Spayd (and another blog she's involved with). She's got an interesting vintage creep going on. Found her because of this trailer (she's the puppet maker/concept artist (maybe))
anyway, she says this at one point and I wanted to remember it...
Being terribly busy is just this huge cover-up to me sometimes; even if I'm not making quality, at least I'm making an incredible quantity, or leading people to believe that I am, because being really busy is the sign of an "active" and "driven" and "motivated" person.
I make art, and I make products, and the whole reason I make them is because I want people to stop for a moment and enjoy something. I want them to have something that looks and smells beautiful in their shower or perfume cabinet, something that takes them away, and makes them happy and relaxed, and makes them escape a little bit, and take time to exercise senses that they don't always take time to stretch. I make art that I hope will take people beyond their ordinary experience, and make them think and wonder, and be interested in little details, and imagine a history for objects they've never encountered before.
I make things because I want people to stop and think and breathe and experience.
The Maker - Trailer from Zealous Creative on Vimeo.
anyway, she says this at one point and I wanted to remember it...
Being terribly busy is just this huge cover-up to me sometimes; even if I'm not making quality, at least I'm making an incredible quantity, or leading people to believe that I am, because being really busy is the sign of an "active" and "driven" and "motivated" person.
I make art, and I make products, and the whole reason I make them is because I want people to stop for a moment and enjoy something. I want them to have something that looks and smells beautiful in their shower or perfume cabinet, something that takes them away, and makes them happy and relaxed, and makes them escape a little bit, and take time to exercise senses that they don't always take time to stretch. I make art that I hope will take people beyond their ordinary experience, and make them think and wonder, and be interested in little details, and imagine a history for objects they've never encountered before.
I make things because I want people to stop and think and breathe and experience.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Screenwriting Tips - Aliens
Scriptshadow has a post 10 things to learn from Aliens
I had started to copy paste notes, then realized I was just copying the whole thing.
They have another post about 10 things not to do from Aliens 3
*I'm getting more links from Twitter, so I'm not keeping track as well to credit where they come from
I had started to copy paste notes, then realized I was just copying the whole thing.
They have another post about 10 things not to do from Aliens 3
*I'm getting more links from Twitter, so I'm not keeping track as well to credit where they come from
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Timothy Hittle
Awesome clay stop mo by Timothy Hittle great lesson in appeal and staging and simple entertainment
The Quiet Life from Timothy Hittle on Vimeo.
Canhead from Timothy Hittle on Vimeo.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Puppet blog
Found a puppet blog: PuppetVision
cool little short found on there by Creaturiste
nice sense of weight (after the minute of playing with a flash light)
cool little short found on there by Creaturiste
nice sense of weight (after the minute of playing with a flash light)
Jason Schleifer - Animation efficiency
Jason Schleifer (name corrected ;) put up a couple of posts about being more efficient with your animation. He doesn't have me convinced yet, but I'm linking them anyway because it's probably just going over my head right now.
post one post two ah, he snuck two more in while I wasn't looking post three post four
basically, he's a supervisor now so he has less time to animate, and the time he does have is like 30 minute chunks, so he needed to learn a way to be able to jump right in (instead of "warming up" for 30 minutes) and make small steps of progress.
So I tried something different. As I was getting up from my desk to head to a meeting I would think about the very next thing I wanted to accomplish in the shot. If it was a pose, a simple movement, a rhythm, whatever it was I would decide on a small chunk of animation that I felt I could accomplish in about 20 minutes. and then think about that whenever he could until he could get back to animating.
small tasks let to small successes that kept him encouraged instead of overwhelmed.
The important thing here is not the time that I had to work on the shots.. it’s the planning I was doing before I started working so I knew exactly what my task was. By making this plan, I always felt like I was making progress.. and feeling like I was making progress caused me to make even more progress.
I know what some of you are thinking.. you’re thinking “that’s great if you know what to do, but what if you’re exploring? I don’t KNOW what kind of pose I want to do, or what my shot is supposed to be! ”
And that’s totally fine! Here’s the agreement you can make with yourself that will reduce your stress 10-fold. Agree that you will give yourself 3 hours at the start of every shot to explore ideas. Give yourself 10 minutes to write down the emotion that you want the character and the audience to feel. Give yourself 20 minutes to talk to another animator about it. Give yourself 1 hour to thumbnail (do you know how many thumbnails you can do in an hour?) . Give yourself 20 minutes to look at other shots of the character that other animators have done.
Those are incredibly small tasks that will really improve the quality of your shot because they will help you focus on what’s important.
About quality: first know your character inside and out so you'll know how they react in any situation.
Then:
By knowing what the shot is about[the purpose of it in the movie}, clearly and distinctly in your head, you can ask yourself right away “what is the clearest and most direct possible way I can get this point across?” Instead of thinking about the mechanics of what the shot is, you can think at a higher level of what does the shot need. Once you know what the shot needs, then you can layer in all the subtle things that make it unique for the character.
It’s the combination of these two things.. clarifying the intent and then making it character specific that gives you the ability to make the shot great.
...if you can solidify these things before you start animating you’ll be able to quickly get rid of any ideas that will lead you down the wrong path.
...The great thing to realize.. is that in most cases the director doesn’t really care how you reach the point of the shot, they will care more that you get the point across. If you don’t know the point you’re trying to make.. how do you make it?
post one post two ah, he snuck two more in while I wasn't looking post three post four
basically, he's a supervisor now so he has less time to animate, and the time he does have is like 30 minute chunks, so he needed to learn a way to be able to jump right in (instead of "warming up" for 30 minutes) and make small steps of progress.
So I tried something different. As I was getting up from my desk to head to a meeting I would think about the very next thing I wanted to accomplish in the shot. If it was a pose, a simple movement, a rhythm, whatever it was I would decide on a small chunk of animation that I felt I could accomplish in about 20 minutes. and then think about that whenever he could until he could get back to animating.
small tasks let to small successes that kept him encouraged instead of overwhelmed.
The important thing here is not the time that I had to work on the shots.. it’s the planning I was doing before I started working so I knew exactly what my task was. By making this plan, I always felt like I was making progress.. and feeling like I was making progress caused me to make even more progress.
I know what some of you are thinking.. you’re thinking “that’s great if you know what to do, but what if you’re exploring? I don’t KNOW what kind of pose I want to do, or what my shot is supposed to be! ”
And that’s totally fine! Here’s the agreement you can make with yourself that will reduce your stress 10-fold. Agree that you will give yourself 3 hours at the start of every shot to explore ideas. Give yourself 10 minutes to write down the emotion that you want the character and the audience to feel. Give yourself 20 minutes to talk to another animator about it. Give yourself 1 hour to thumbnail (do you know how many thumbnails you can do in an hour?) . Give yourself 20 minutes to look at other shots of the character that other animators have done.
Those are incredibly small tasks that will really improve the quality of your shot because they will help you focus on what’s important.
About quality: first know your character inside and out so you'll know how they react in any situation.
Then:
By knowing what the shot is about[the purpose of it in the movie}, clearly and distinctly in your head, you can ask yourself right away “what is the clearest and most direct possible way I can get this point across?” Instead of thinking about the mechanics of what the shot is, you can think at a higher level of what does the shot need. Once you know what the shot needs, then you can layer in all the subtle things that make it unique for the character.
It’s the combination of these two things.. clarifying the intent and then making it character specific that gives you the ability to make the shot great.
...if you can solidify these things before you start animating you’ll be able to quickly get rid of any ideas that will lead you down the wrong path.
...The great thing to realize.. is that in most cases the director doesn’t really care how you reach the point of the shot, they will care more that you get the point across. If you don’t know the point you’re trying to make.. how do you make it?
Posting your film online
Interesting short blog post about these film makers who posted their work online.
interesting to me was that it led to unexpected opportunities because of the wide exposure
and that they got a lot more interaction and feedback from their audience, and that's why we do this right, to communicate and share with an audience.
and it hasn't completely undermined selling distribution of the short
but they did get disqualified from some festivals and awards because of it
interesting to me was that it led to unexpected opportunities because of the wide exposure
and that they got a lot more interaction and feedback from their audience, and that's why we do this right, to communicate and share with an audience.
and it hasn't completely undermined selling distribution of the short
but they did get disqualified from some festivals and awards because of it
Monday, May 9, 2011
The Helmet
The Helmet Teaser Trailer from Jen Bamford on Vimeo.
by Jen Bamford love the color pallette. Foam latex bod, silicone arms
Friday, May 6, 2011
Eye Direction
James Gurney has a really interesting post up, about how the features affect which way our eyes look.
that's the same eyes
that's the same eyes
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
John Kassab - Sound Design - Lost thing
a really heartbreaking moment for me happened during the mix when a lot of the sound fx we created for the utopian sequence was replaced with the music and I guess for me I guess it was the first time I ever experienced anything where you spend so much time developing something to then see it end up on the cutting room floor. But it wan't until I heard a quote, actually that night, about a director who said that you need to be prepared to sacrifice your best shots to make your best film, and I thought about the amount of work that goes into creating a shot or even a scene and then to just cut it for the benefit of the film, really allowed me to move forwards as a sound designer where now I see the film and I understand that it was an emotional moment and the sounds were all too mechanical and as flavorsome as they were, and as hard work as they were to develop, we needed them there as options but they weren't the finished film, and what works now is quite beautiful and I think has moved a lot of people including myself
* found @ onanimation
Monday, May 2, 2011
Opening Night
Nathan Flynn & Joshua Flynn are working on a stopmotion film for their 3rd year at University of Glamorgan in Cardiff and it is lookin sweetly professional! Definitely worth wandering through their production blogs to see how they are doing it, things like replacement faces, armature making, mold making, it's a virtual walk through of how to do it yourself! Or check their joint site Sculpt Double.
this is the duo behind Stumped, so looks to be a good short (hope it has more of a resolution to the story though)
STUMPED by Nathan & Joshua Flynn from Joshua Flynn on Vimeo.
and I am beautifulI AM BEAUTIFUL by Joshua & Nathan flynn (version 2) from Joshua Flynn on Vimeo.
* found @ animateclay
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