I have no idea what to expect in Class 5. I do know its about story development for the short film we're supposed to produce, that's about it. However, since I have visited Class 5 students' workspace in the past, I have been coming up with story ideas and concepts for the short film and am excited to pitch them in class and see how things go. Now the short film criteria is not that it has to be 30 seconds long, that's unrealistic because the length of the film is (should be) dictated by the story, so, the rule is that only 30 seconds of the film will be polished at the end of Class 6 with the intention to add it to the demo reel for presentation to prospective employers. That is good news because the more I tried to shrink my stories to fit 30 seconds the more they ceased to be entertaining. I will, however, try and have an entertaining short film that is approximately 30 seconds long.
Kenny Roy is my mentor this semester and during the first class introductions I was positively overwhelmed by his high strung enthusiasm for a class that he has taught for many years at Animation Mentor. Kenny brings a unique talent to the mentor cadre in the fact that he owns Arconyx Animation Studios plus the fact that he animated on hits such as King Kong, Garfield, Scooby Doo2: Monsters Unleashed, and as a dustbuster on Marco Polo: Return to Xanadu. His enthusiastic attitude, experience and broad knowledge of the industry as a whole intrigues me immensely and I feel lucky to have him as my mentor.
There is not going to be much animation (if at all) in this class so don't expect any work. However, I may post some small projects here and there that I will be doing to hone my animation skills and Maya knowledge.
Class 4 has been intense in its content as well as the amount of concentration and detail work it demanded. Nicole Herr has been phenomenal in her approach to the work critique and informative Q&A sessions. The class covered subjects like animating dialogue, facial expressions, storytelling through cuts, animating multi characters, advanced dialogue work through, principles of entertainment, subtext and subtlety, design applied to animation, and a walk through with Victor Navone from dialogue to finished animation which was quite encouraging to watch.
Here is the two person dialogue exercise that I worked on. I had to make sure that my dialogue choice not be too long lest I do not finish it in time.
The polishing phase is ongoing, but I think experience is what I now need to hone my polishing skills and train my eyes to see the workflow in advance. The next class will be about pre-production of a short film, a very short film (30 seconds). In the meantime I am going to enjoy the one week break.
June 1st, one month since my last post.
The two person dialogue is in refining stage (one step after blocking). Time is fast becoming a rare commodity and in a couple of weeks will be the end of the semester. Nicole's Q&A sessions is something I look forward to because she fills it with useful and informative lessons. The time I enjoy the most is the "torture time" as she refers to it. That is when she'd randomly cam a student and gives him/er a line describing the start of a scene then the student builds the story from there. She then would cam the next student who must keep the continuity of the story and so on. This is an invaluable practice to exercise the imagination and story telling techniques in preparation for the next class.
Other happenings; watched the Battle for Terra, a CG animated feature that my Class 3 mentor, Kevin Koch and AM student Harry Porudominsky worked on. The movie was good but by no means a blockbuster. It is, however, a major accomplishment for the independent film house Snoot (toons spelled backwards). I think the story lacked a way to relate to the alien characters. A humorous situation or some drama that could bring the alien world to terms that we can understand could have helped establish an emotional link with the characters. The animation, as good as it was, felt restrained (a director's choice), to the chagrin of the animators who were working on it I'm sure. I find it strange, in this golden age of CG animated features, that story (or great story for that matter) can still be overlooked by some producers. An entire section has been dedicated to story in the animation bible The Illusion of Life. So how could an animation producer miss this fundamental part of movie making? PIXAR built its foundation on story and they make no secret of it. They are enjoying the same success that Disney enjoyed in their hayday. Just watched UP last weekend in theater and it is proving to be yet another hit. "A good story cannot be ruined by poor animation, but neither can a poor story be saved by the very best animation"; (The Illusion of Life, chapter 14, p. 367) It is that simple premise that makes memorable animated features. I can only hope that future production houses keep that as the minimum standard to adhere to, especially in today's society of jaded movie goers and skyrocketting production costs.
So, this is the last week of Class 3. It has been by far the most informative and challenging term. Kevin Koch is a special mentor. He gives the longest and most detailed ecritiques than any other mentor, by far. The immense knowledge that he shared with the class will be with me forever. No moment was wasted in any of the Q&As, that's because he always came prepared with notes or a topic he or the students wanted to discuss.
The weekly lectures were phenomenal in their content. They were given by leading industry animators. The subjects covered pantomime acting, body language and gestures, secondary actions, phrasing, dialogue, eye blinks, entertainment principles, hand gestures, and sincerity in acting. Some of the lectures were step by step walk through while others covered broad principles.
I am not going to post the dialogue shot that I worked on since it won't be finished until the first quarter of the next semester where we'll be working on facial expressions, so, stay tuned for that one.
On to Class 4
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