Progress of Animation

Late Night Animating

2011-09-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

I find myself with a little more time to animate and work on my film "Hot Property". I have finally created an animatic of blocked, rough and final animation clips. I am concentrate on getting each scene completed as well as added some temporary music.

The only way I have found to keep myself on track is to record my work hours as best as I can and to have a deadline. I am hoping to finish this film as early as Halloween, (only 52 days away) or at the least by the end of the year of 2011. I have been writing down the moment I start working and the minute I stop. So far, I'm discovering that I even though I have small chunks of time, they are adding up and my animation is slowly moving forward.

Metamorphosis Group 2 WIP

2011-07-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

This is Group 2's work in progess. I will be scanning in the rest of the project around the end of the week.

Metamorphosis Group 1

2011-07-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I began teaching a small group of High School students about the process of drawing animation and how to do it. Their first assignment was to draw a bouncing ball, in order to learn about timing, weight, spacing and other things needed to make their drawings move. Next they were given the task of bringing in a favorite image which they started with and then were given an end image that they had to animate to. Above is what the first group came up with and I think we are off to an interesting start.To see this in better detail, click here.

Where am I ?

2011-06-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been teaching High School students about traditional 2D animation. I've introduced them to something called a "Pencil", an input device which also has a built in delete button and they are using "Animation Bond" software to create motion on a series of animation paper. They also have been given a "Peg Bar", which is used with the animation paper, holding it altogether.

The first project was to create a "Bouncing Ball"; surly animation students will often roll their eyes loudly and yawn at this, but I think its the best way of showing how to make something move. As a magician, the number one rule to performing magic is to keep your audience's attention where you want it. An animator needs to direct his audience's eye where he wants it to go.

With a bouncing ball, you learn to see each frame as you follow the ball. Starting with a Path of Motion or Line of Action, a guide line that shows how the ball moves through the scene. By watching the ball animate, you can see if the ball is moving too fast or too slow. What the ball is made of shows in how much "Squash and Stretch" shows when the ball hits the ground and how it reacts to it. Does the ball react to gravity correctly? Ease Ins and Ease Outs, also known as Slow Ins and Outs, determine the ball's weigh as it goes into the arc, slowing down as it goes up and then speeds up as it returns to the ground.

Here is an excellent tutorial from Angry Animator which explains everything you will need to make your own animated bouncing ball. There is even a bit about how to flip your drawings as you are creating your animation. Check out this great site.

Now while this is going on, I have been working at a studio called Weareroyale since January. The studio has been doing all the on-air programming graphics for Disney Junior. I have been part of a small team of Maya animators to create short interstitials. I can't go into an details since I think I just spotted a black Mickey Mouse van down the street.

I read some blogs and its, " Tobor at Tobor Studio is awesome and I totally dig what be happening. You my doggs!" That's not me, I do want to thank everyone at Royale for making me feel welcomed and giving us great projects to work on. What started as an end date of March, happily was extended to July! Royale is a great studio with real creative folks that run the place and I have enjoyed every frame I have animated there. They also have allowed me to leave early on the days I had to teach without any problem. I look forward to work with Royale again.

I have been told that I cannot post any of my animation until after Feb or March of 2012, because it has to be shown on Disney Junior first. Wow, a whole year??! I could see the dangers of me popping my shots onto Youtube, but what happens if I put them on a DVD and sent it to Disney Features? Or with met someone at Pixar one on one , showing them my shots, but not giving anyone my DVD to keep. Would Disney lawyers begin suing other Disney Lawyers, creating a matter/anti-matter vortex based on Corporate Law, thus imploding really bigger laws like "The Laws of Gravity" or "The Laws of Physics"??? Mankind could end in the blink of an eye!

So, around the end of July, I will be looking for a new gig and I figure, the only way to show this new work would be in a face to face situation. No posting, no linking, no DVD sample reels, just good old American face to face salesmanship. So if you need any animation help, I'm available in August.

In the meantime, I have been working on "Hot Property" again and hoping to finish it soon.

Happy New Year 2011!

2011-01-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

Well here it is, 2011 and I am still in production on this project. It started out as a 3D project and then went to a 2D one, and back and forth a bit until it landed on the 2D side of the fence. I recently upgraded my Toon Boom Studio from 4.5 to 6 in hopes to finish this film using this new software version.

I'm sure I could finish this entire short in a matter of months, if I had enough time to work on it. Of course, this is the number one excuse used by anyone who sets off to make a short film. Especially if they present it in a blog which is sporadically posted ever now and then. Let's face it, animation production is pretty boring and even more boring to read about in a blog.

So this year, I'm planning to make my future posting more exciting to your the reader. I hope to finally finish this short film and reap its rewards if any, of course letting you know all about the real dirt so to speak. Yes, I hope to increase my blogging skills by gaining more viewers and subscribers who will begin blogging about me and buying my merchandise(when I get some).

Yes, 2011 will be a very good year, because after all 2012 will be the end of all of us.

Happy New 2011!

Happy Holidays 2010!

2010-12-23T23:28:00.000-08:00

Color Testing

2010-04-29T08:27:00.001-07:00

I am trying to determine an interesting color scheme or technique that will blend into the character without drawing your attention to it. I want to avoid the flat "Cel" colors by adding levels of shading as well as textures. To do this in Toon Boom, I am using After Effects to composite all the pieces together.

I might be doing too many things to accomplish this, but I want have a blue jean texture in the farmer's overalls. Then I want to separate the characters from the background, throwing the background out of focus slightly. Here a green color is around the Farmer and Pig and a red color on the Farmer's overalls. The first pass, I'm keying out the red and putting a the denium texture on the level below it.

On a second pass, I am now removing the green background to reveal the background level below. This second pass is combined with other levels as well as the background and rendered out with sound track as a final shot.

Here's the final composite with a blurred out background photo of a farm.

Scene 05

2010-04-19T15:03:00.000-07:00

This scene was animated on my Cintiq using ToonBoom.

Back to the 2D!

2010-03-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here I go, turning the Animation Bus around again and heading for the 2D on-ramp on the production freeway. I have decided to go this direction in order to give my brand new Cintiq a workout and see if its possible for me to make a "paperless" production. I have a handful of programs available to help me do this and it looks like I will have a bunch of free time available in April to work on making this film.

The Cintiq is like having a animation light table that you can draw images right on the monitor screen. This is the most natural way of drawing as opposed to drawing to the side of your body while looking at the screen with a normal Wacom tablet. I am using ToonBoom 4.5 to do the animation in and hoping to composite some elements into After Effects to give it a different look.

Alien Test Walk

2010-02-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

This is just a rough test of the Alien walk.

New Year's Revolution!

2010-01-01T10:31:00.000-08:00

Tis the new year and a time to get things done. I have some old Maya files of the Alien and the Farmer character as well as the beginning designs of props and locations which everyone can use to rebuild.

Neil Bonsteel has been working on rigging the Alien character and figuring out how to make the tenticle arms and legs move. He also is designing a rig which everyone can use for the project. Once he has tested and retested the Alien, I will let the animators take the Alien and get use to the rig before scenes are assigned.

I am considering a solution to finding a modeler/rigger for the Farmer and Pig characters. From the beginning of this project, I was animating this in 2D and thought it might be interesting to combine 2D with the 3D, CG world. The farmer and the pig characters would be composited together in a CG world where all the models, props, background elements, Aliens, the ship, tractor,etc.I will compiled a complete list of what needs to be build and or rigged. I would like to do a few test scenes with the Aliens to see what kind of look we can get using this process. I want to avoid a flat 2D cartoon slapped on a 3D render, so any other thoughts would be welcomed.

The Aliens should be able to do a lot of things.I want everyone to have fun with the Aliens, whereas the Farmer and pig will need to be treated more real in their motion. Being Aliens, they can squash,stretch and be more cartoony in general. They're bodies float above a scramble of tenticle legs that chase after the floaty upper half of the body. Here's a short test of what I'm talking about.

HappY Holidays!

2009-12-24T14:55:00.001-08:00

A Whole New World...

2009-12-15T13:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, let's make this official and legal. Welcome to what hopefully will be the shortest "end of the world" film in history. You all have permission to add to any discussion here, provided you don't post any "dancing kitten" videos.

Jim

Dancing Reptiles

2009-11-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

Life imitates Art in this photo from November 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine. When I saw it, it reminded me of the famous scene in Fantasia. Here's a drawing from Preston Blair's animation book.

Ancient History

2009-08-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

When I made my film "Cat & Rat" in the dark ages, it won a student academy award and before I knew this, all the winners were flown into LA for a week for the ceremony. I was living and going to school in Chicago and before I left, I starting working on my next short film called "Once upon a Canvas". It was a story about an artist struggle to paint a canvas and finally in the end it becomes a work of art by mistake.

I had storyboards all done and was starting to begin animating before my trip to LA. I figured people would be asking me, " So, what are you working on now?" And I thought I could show them my idea and someone might say, "Bingo Babe, We want to finance this puppy, sign here." Then I would make the next film and then a TV series would pop up, I would soon be elevated to Superstar statis and have to get hooked on some drug in order to write a book or movie about it in years to come. I had it all planned out, my next film was already to go.

So, I fly to Los Angeles from Chicago and am treated as royality by the Academy's Student Award division. I had two beds in my room, a desk and even a phone in the bathroom, very close to the toilet. Extremely fancy, wealth and fame floated in the air and I felt like a hick from Florida, which I sort of am. But that week, all your personal flaws, your self image, you felt like you were constaintly being watched and I think I got a taste of how it feels to be a celebrity.

The first night was a reception at the Yamashiro in LA where we got to meet the other filmmakers who were up for awards as well. Groups suddenly formed, the screenwriters, the short film directors, the editors, documentary filmmakers and lastly, the animators. It was like a small high school in one room of the Japanese resturant and the animators where the geeks. Some might argue about this fact, but we were labelled, "Oh them, there animators". I felt we were the lower class, although we got along with documentarians. Screenwriters were ok, but you felt like they were taking you in when you talked with them. Some would stop you in midspeech as says, "Hey! That's good, I'll have to use that one." Then fumble to write it down on a napkin, eventually winding up in their next screenplay.

Someone asked me the question, "So, what are you working on now?" And I was ready, calmly I explained my concept to this person. "Hmm, that sort of sounds like Richard's film..." and then walked away to be with the live action people. I met an animator named Richard Quade, kind of shy like me at the time and a little overwhelmed, but he lived in LA, so he knew the lay of the land. He told me a little bit about his film and I tried not to fall over and shatter into a million pieces.

Skip sharply to the next day and we have a screening of everyone's work. And as Richard's film began it was like watching your life pass you by. It was pretty much the same plot that I had of my film, however it was done in a slight experimental style. It was the same idea, different flavor. It also pretty much ended the production on my film since it was so similiar. Which proves that great minds or is it mines, think alike.

Richard went on to make a second film called "Sand Dance" which won him another Student Academy Award and he was soon snatched up by a place called Pixar. Here's a funny drawing he did for me when he was living in Venice Beach.

Rough Scene_012

2009-08-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

I am starting off this project by animating scenes out of sequence. Beginning with the Farmer and his pig. This helps me get use to drawing the characters and keep them on model.
Here's a rough of Scene_12, featuring the Farmer and his pig. At the beginning of the scene, the Farmer is listening to someone off screen. He looks down at the pig and makes a decision to hand over the pig. The pig starts off listening too, but then realizes he doesn't like what's going on. This might not all come together, but the main thing is trying to get the scene to read, even if its very slight.

Farmer test Take 02

2009-07-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a little more of refining on the Farmer's lip sync as well as some head movement. His head now shakes slightly as he says,"No, no, no,No.". A double blink at the beginning will help to keep him looking alive and not just tilting forward. The shaking hands should be reduced over time as well to avoid looking like a windshield wiper effect. This reduction of waving hands will help focus the viewer's attention to Farmer's facial expression.

The Farmer in my Dell

2009-07-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a scene which I am working on.The Farmer is looking at something which he really doesn't want to see and turns away. I have scanned rough drawings into ToonBoom 4.5 and a soundtrack of myself as the Farmer. This is a pose test to see if this will work and what needs improvement.

The lip sync is off right now, but if you have anything to add, please feel free to let me know.

Its Hot .....

2009-07-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

It was eight years ago, when an idea I created for a short film was returned to me just before I was laid off after 5 years of employment. Shortly after this, we moved to Los Angeles...

And yet the story has still been floating in my head ever since.

I think good ideas and stories are like fine wines. All really good tales take time to develop and grow and should be picked before the story gets too complicated or confusing. And so, when my idea was just a funny little thought, I let it grow stronger to see if it would be fruitful and still hold up over time. After the first few versions of the storyboards, I put the final versions away for a few months. The time away from the boards allowed me to later see it with fresh eyes and made story problems were easier to see and fix.
A few years ago, I sat down and created an animatic of the final boards along with a temp track of sound. Again, this animatic was filed away and unearthed again to see if the story worked or not. I did find a few shots to improved and I think I've got the film as good as I can get it without medical science issues. And so, here's how it begins....

The story begins near sunset with a Farmer putting up a "For Sale" sign on his old tracker and then calling for his lost pig. He finds him in a nearby corn field and we discover that the pig is his friend and must do this thing all the time. Just then, the pig notices something in the sky and then the Farmer spots it too. A saucer shaped space ship lands nearby, both Farmer and pig stand still not knowing what to do next.

The ship's doors lower to reveal 3 odd looking backlit shadowy figures standing inside the ship. The Ship is hugh as it dwarfs the Farmer and his pig. The Alien visitors slowly approach and begin to speak an unknown language. The Farmer thinks they are talking about the pig he is holding and hands it to the leader of the group. The Alien looks confused and chuckles, he returns the pig to the ground and gestures to something else, something the Aliens really want.

I don't want to spoil it for you, especially the ending, but I will leave it there for now as I begin reveal more production notes along the way. The film will be about 43 shots long and is less than 5 minutes in length.

Since this is my first attempt at blogging, please feel free to ask me any questions along the way as I take you through this process and madness.

In this day and age, it is possible to do everything on a computer and not draw anything onto paper. I could accomplish this using a wonderful device known as a "Cintiq" made by Wacom.

If any Wacom representives would like to let me borrow a Cintiq to use on this project, I will greatly sing the praises of all your Wacom products, give you screen credit, name one of my children "Cintiq" or anything you like, to be able to use one and impress other animators in my neighborhood. Otherwise, I can't afford one right now, and so, I will be creating this film by scanning in the final drawings as old school as it can get.

The Door has been opened...

2009-07-17T14:31:00.000-07:00

And then there was light! Thru millions of years of human history, man has always drawn out his thoughts onto some material like stone, clay, canvas, paper and today onto Blog. This is a Blog which might change the history of mankind and propel human kind into new thoughts of the dark future ahead. To rethink our values and to change the future, so that future societies will have a planet as good as we have it right now.

"What a bunch of catpoot, I thought I was gonna learn some animation stuff on this thang?"

Ok let's start at the beginning. Decades ago I had an idea for a short film and through out the years I have been debating which medium to create it in. At the time, 3D animation was just starting to be the next big thing and Traditional animation was wondering if these were its final years. Back and forth, tick tock: 3D or 2D, 2D or 3D, round and round we go.

My background is more 2D, using a pencil and paper is like a Chef preparing a new recipe with food. Its fun and I get enjoyment out of the process. I have had to learn the computer and in all the years of learning, I've discovered that it is really just another tool to work on to create with. However I find a lot of technical things that don't make the process enjoyable. I can't get excited by the process of creating particle effects. Sorry, its just me.

So, for me to do a 3D film by myself, I would have to go back to school and learn all the stuff that I don't enjoy. It take time to learn and longer if you don't like that stuff. And so, after years of debate inside my mind and working on the idea for this film, I've decided to go with 2D and add as much computer sprinkles as I can.

And so, to keep myself honest and on track, I thought I would keep a production journal with all the gorey boring details all in one place. I also tend to work better when I have a deadline and a hint of pressure. I hope to also add a few animation tid bits when I find them to keep this blog from becoming a tech manual. I also invite your comments, suggestions, credit card numbers, and anything else you want to send to make this Blog turn into its own TV show, Best Selling Book, Feature film, VideoGame or Celebrity Icon, that is if that is possible??

So enough talk, let's get this idea out of my head and into my computer. Are you ready? Let's Go!

Jimr