Classes resume!


Winter break was awesome! Cold, but awesome. I went back home to Chicago and took advantage of the time with my friends and family. I went out A LOT more than I do at school so that was nice. The highlight of the break was New Years Eve. My buddies and I partied at the John Hancock building in downtown Chicago. We were on the 96th floor and the view was pretty amazing. Too bad I forgot to bring my camera with me. Damn.

Classes resumed this week and things are beginning to intensify a bit. We only have until April 26th to finish our films and I'm STILL putzing around with the storyboards! By the end of this month I HAVE to start animating. That gives me a half month to finish boarding, character designs, and animatic.

"The Best Show Ever" is set to go tonight. It's the character animation department's yearly showcase in the main gallery. I kind of regret not putting anything up but eh, I was working on my boards all weekend. I'll definitely put stuff up next year.

My classes are the same as last semester minus Color and Design and Story for Animators. I'm taking a functional anatomy class for a gen ed and I also signed up for a Saturday landscape drawing class. I expect to have a good body of work to showcase somewhere on this site from that class.

I don't think I'll be writing as frequently as I did last semester because this semester will be all about my film and pretty much nothing else...I think. Just me in my orange cube trying to draw really fast. I'll make sure to post and entry up when something interesting happens. Oh, James Baxter is supposed to be coming in later this month. That'll be cool.



January 24th, 2004 - Ahhhhh!

I've just gone through the most frustrating point of the year so far. I'm not completely in the clear just yet but I feel A LOT better right now than I did just a couple days ago. You see, we showed our story reels in animation class this past Tuesday and for the most part, my story bombed big time. I THOUGHT it was good but once it was shown in front of my class and Mike Disa, I felt like it was the most pathetic piece of garbage that I've ever done. It just didn't come together as well as I thought it did. Disa pointed out the obvious, in an indirect sort of way. It wasn't "about anything". The story had no theme, no point. It was just a story about someone who wants to draw bears. Bah! After that class, I started thinking about new story ideas but because time is running out (3 months till film's due), it was extremely frustrating. I was really worried that I wouldn't come up with anything better. I did some research, looked at some old producer show tapes and talked to some buddies in the forum for some help and viola! I got an idea! I finally realized that the most crucial part of ANY story is its theme, or controling idea. Once you know what the theme is, any idea you come up with will either fit or not fit because you'll have a direction. My film's about freedom and responsibility. I kept repeating that to myself and finally came up with something fresh. It's still similar to my previous story in ways but much cooler. I'm excited about working on the film. I'm SO excited.

I'll probably open up a page on the site specifically for my film pretty soon. I'll include some character designs and junk like that and once my film is done, that'll go up too.


Animatic

I stayed up till about 4 in the morning finishing up my first pass through the animatic. Whoo hoo! I wanted to get them done today to show Dan Hansen (layout teacher) to see what he thought. He gave me some good suggestions but for the most part he said it worked pretty well. Some of my other classmates saw the animatic and said it was much more entertaining then my first so that's a good sign. I heard a few chuckles here and there, too. I'll spend this week drawing out my final layouts and plugging them into my animatic file in Premiere. And by next week (hopefully) I'll start animating! I'm looking forward to it because I have some good acting scenes.

Films are due on the 20th of April. I can sense that everyone is getting a bit nervous. People are beginning to put in some long hours in their cubes. I know I am. If storyboards aren't finished at this point, I'd be panicking a little bit. There are a few people who started animating but for the most part, I think everyone is on the animatic phase. By everyone I mean first years.

In another month and a half I'll be back in Chicago for Spring Break! My goal is to have all the animation done by then so I'll have three weeks after break to put it all together on premiere.

Super Bowl Sunday was pretty sweet but I really missed being in Chicago for the game. My buddies were partying without me (bastards). It's just not the same out here as far as sports go. Chicago is such an awesome sports city...I love the atmosphere out there. There truly is no place like home so I've been doing a bit of research online about animation studios in Chicago. It's so disappointing that Chicago is such a loser animation city. There are a handful of studios out there that I'd be interested in once I finish Calarts including Calabash and Dreamation. If anyone can tell me about any other studios in that area, email me. I'm not saying that I have my mind set on going back to Chi-town but it would be nice. If I get a sweet job offer out here in LA I'll probably stay. Time will tell.

Anyhow, back to the Super Bowl. Calarts had a little party at Mom's Cafe with free food and beer. It was a good time. Some of my buddies and I had several ridiculous bets going. Coin toss bet, first team to score bet, last team to score, winner of the game and whether Budweiser or Pepsi would be the first to air their commercial after kickoff. I won every bet except for one. The consequence for losing that bet is to do a little dance in class everytime a teacher says the name of the class. So, for animation class, if the teacher says "animation", I have to do the "swim" dance or whatever. Pretty embarrassing but not the worst bet. Some of the other guys have to carry around a jug full of mountain dew all day labeled "Pat's Urine" and drink from it. There was also one where they have to wear a funny hat all day and a sign saying they lost a Super Bowl Bet. There were other funny ones too. Good times.




Animating in February:

I've been so busy with this film ever since the second semester started. All of the character animation classes have geared towards our films so there isn't much homework given out. Everyone is busy animating in their cubes until late night (and sometimes morning) hours. I usually stay up no later than 2 - 2:30 because I start feeling like crap at that point and it's senseless for me to animate like that. My film is going pretty smoothly. I started animating a couple weeks ago and I just finished up my 8th scene. I have about 12 more to go.
I made up a schedule and assigned due dates for all of my scenes. If I can stick with my schedule, I'll be done animating by the end of March which will give me three weeks to refine my animation, scan it and assemble in After Affects. It's a crazy, busy time right now and I feel like I'm rambling on about stuff. It's 3 a.m and I finally got myself to update the site! All I have to say is that this semester is pretty intense. It's not too bad as long as you don't procrastinate and manage time well. For those who plan on going to Calarts, be prepared for a very exhausting (and fun) time working on your animated shorts! My favorite part of this whole personal film is the animation process. It's time consuming and sometimes frustrating but it's all worth it when your character starts to come alive! ............ok, I need some sleep. Post some stuff in the forums all you artists......



Half way there!
Feb 28, 04

These weeks are going by so fast it's unbelievable. It almost seems like an entire week goes by in one day. I mean, landscape drawing class feels like it JUST ended but I have the class again tomorrow morning. Obviously, time is flying because my schedule is incredibly packed. I'm working on my film every day till at least 1 or 2 in the morning.
We have about a month and three weeks left before films are due and it seems like this is the beginning of "crunch time". Some people seem to be in a bit of a panick but for the most part, it hasn't set in completely, I think. I'm expecting the last three weeks to be insane around here.
Anyway, I'm relieved to say that I'm about half way done with animating. I just finished my 10th scene today and have 10 more to go. I actually ended up finishing this scene alot sooner than I expected. It was supposed to be finished 2 days from now so I'm going to try and get some more scenes done to get ahead. It seems like nothing is going through my mind other than my film these days. It's weird. I don't even feel like partying or just chilling out. Occasionally I'll take a nap though because I get so freakin tired.
Every now and then I meet someone visiting the school that has ran into this site before. They're like...."hey, do you have a website? Animatedbuzz!?" I think it's awesome how people actually visit this site and find it useful! I could make it more useful by putting up more tutorials and artist lecture notes but I'm just too lazy to work on anything other than my film right now. I'll definitely add some stuff here and there once I finish the film though.
Oh, we had a guest come in today from Sesame Street productions. I think she was one of the main executives in charge of the entire show and she's been there since it started in the 60's. All of the memories of watching Sesame Street as a kid flashed through my mind. It was an awesome experience to meet someone who was behind the scenes of such a classic show. Supposedly, they come to Calarts for recruiting every year. Ah, speaking of guest lecturers, Adreas Deja is visiting next week. He worked on most of the really successful Disney features including the Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beaty and the Beast, Lion King and Lilo and Stitch. I'll have some notes from the lecture but I don't know when I'll post them up. Maybe after films are done. Also, Calarts was invited to a question and answer forum of some sort with Aladdin's creators at the Hyperion theater. I guess it's for a DVD special feature. Hopefully I'll make it on screen!  I don't know how they'll miss me because I'll be holding up a huge Animatedbuzz.com banner. Gotta represent.