Newsflash!

Wow, it's been quite a while since I made a post here. I've been mostly enjoying my break, so there's not a whole lot to tell just yet. But I'm slowly gearing up and getting in shape for the big job hunt. So here's a quick news flash about what I've been up to in the past weeks:

Website! 
First off, I've got a brand new website! It's not the fanciest one, but hey, it works! Check it out and let me know what you think!

Monster Bash! 
Recently I've participated in a contest hosted by the Greyscale Gorilla blog. I've been following the blog for a couple years now, as it sports great Cinema4d related tutorials and tricks. If you're a C4d user, I highly recommend checking it out. So the idea of the contest was to create a five second piece of animation which has to do with the theme in some way. The theme was: Monster Bash! This sounded like a lot of fun and I saw it as a great chance to get my mind off doing animation only. It was good to complete a 3D project from concept to rendering all by myself. Even though I do want to specialize in character animation I think it's important to step through the whole process every once in a while to keep an overview. It makes you want to become a faster animator so the guys at lighting have enough time to let your shot shine. Literally, ha! And it's just plain fun to create something from scratch.
So enough of that blabla, here's the clip:


I already have ideas for a little short, maybe someday I'll have the chance to actually make it happen! But first:

Plans!
And what about plans?
Well first off, I'll start to complete my demoreel next week. I want it to be ready by the end of November, so I can start sending out my reel by the end of the year.
And... I have applied at Oktobor Animation in New Zealand! Now, that would be an adventure, hm? Let's see what's going to happen there, I haven't heard back from them just yet.
They're are working on great projects like The Penguins Of Madagascar and Robot and Monster. Now, I haven't heard of that show before, but when I saw a first picture of the characters on facebook I instantly fell in love. The early designs look drop-dead gorgeous! 
So Oktobor would be my absolute favorite company to step into the world of professional character animation. Wish me luck!



Ok, guess that's it for now. Thanks for reading and take care
C

Animation Mentor: Over And Out!

Took a while to get this post up, I know. My Animation Mentor studies have come to an end last week and I guess I had to relax and reflect a bit before writing down anything.
It's been a great journey, fun times, tough times, a ton of input and inspiration and I've met so many great people along the way. Congrats to everyone who finished the program! It's hard to describe the collaborative and supportive environment AM provides for their students. I'm certain without the ongoing support of fellow students and mentors I would never got so far in a mere 18 months.
So here's a humble 'thank you' to everyone, be it at school or in real life, who kept supporting me through my studies, provided feedback and encouragement.
Well ok, this starts to sound like a cheesy oscar speech, lets better move on...

Lets briefly talk about news and plans instead:

First off, I've updated my homepage with resume and demoreel. Feel free to check it out HERE! (This is an order!)
My Reel is still not entirely finished, I need to polish different parts and especially the last shot needs some more love. So I'll plan to finish my reel by the end of the year; add a couple new body mechanic shots to it and refine the ones I already have.
However, the unfinished reel didn't keep me from applying at Disney Animation, ha! It's not like I seriously expect anything to happen, but the goosebumps when I hit the 'apply now' button felt great!

Oh yes, so here's the reel:


Ok, so I think I'll leave it with that for now. I didn't post often during the last three months, so I hope I can make up for it in the future. Thing is, that when you're polishing your shots, there's not much to show or tell. So I hope I'll be able to finish up the existing shots and then come up with some new shots to show very soon.

Ok, thanks for reading & take care
C

Whaaa... only four weeks left?

Wow, class six keeps me on my toes even more than I thought it would. I'm sorry for not posting as often as I'd like to. But there's, to be honest, not too much to show either. I'm learning a ton though, have a lot of fresh food for thought, new workflow approach... Just tons of new stuff to learn and digest.
We've been working on our pantomime shot (remember the smoker?) and the monologue shot and now finally we're tackling the dialogue shot. I'll be sparing you all the weekly updates, but for now, I'll present you the finished monologue exercise:

Pretty sweet, hmm? Guess this is easily the best piece of animation I've produced so far!

So there are only four weeks to go until my Animation Mentor Journey comes to an end and no demo reel in sight... With Kenny Roy providing so much great input there's really like no time to apply it to all the shot's I've done so far.

When school's over I'll be taking a short break and then get to work on some more shots. First of all I'll be finishing up the Vader Shot and then I want to come up with one or two new body mechanic shots. The acting shots I have so far are quite physical and the body mechanic shots I've done so far don't really show something that isn't executed in the other ones already.
So I want to do something really extreme, like climbing a tree or something along these lines.

So my plan is to have a sparkling shiny reel ready by the end of this year and then start looking for a job. Well, we'll see what's going to happen, wish me luck;)
It's probably going to take another four weeks until my next post.
When my 18 months of Animation Mentor training are over.

Wow, this is going way too fast!

Take care
Christoph

Subtle vs. Low Energy - Part 2

Ok, now we're up for part two. Back in part one of my venture to solve the mystery of low energy vs. subtle I didn't really know what to make of the notes my mentor gave me for the Darth Vader shot.

Now I at least got a slight idea. Last week we started polishing our monologue shot. Check out the version I finished back in class five:



So, I really like this shot! It's fluid, smooth, good looking animation (on a student level, at least). And it has some sort of believable touch to it, it looks sort of casual and like something a person would do in this sort of situation.
Here's the thing though: Kenny asked me to lower down the volume and look at the animation without sound. When you do so, you'll find that you have no idea about what is going on in the shot. He even went so far to speak over the muted shot. Try it, it's fun: Mute the clip and go "Hey! .. You know what?... I think everybody blahblah" and so on. It totally works as well, right?

So I reblocked the whole thing in a matter of days. Which by the way made me feel super confident; I took the shot to this stage in 3 days, whereas the same took me four weeks just half a year ago!
I tried to really make the body language go along with the dialogue. Not to say that the body has to express what the character's saying, but it has to be related to what he's feeling! If a character tells one thing but his body language tells the exact opposite you have some great opportunities for interesting acting choices.
Anyways, here's what I came up with:



This is a lot more expressive and has so much more energy. Maybe even to a level that looks all cartoony and overdone, I'm not even sure if I like this version better or not. But I know it's communicating a lot better, and in the end I guess this should be all about communication. I think I'm on the right track with this. Even though it might feel a bit too snappy-happy and all over the place, it's a huge step when it comes to learning process and I'm really really satisfied with it.
In subtle animations, it's a challenge to get the emotions to stand out and vibrate when you have to stay in the boundaries of a character who's not moving a whole lot.
The thing I will have to try to work on in the future is blending: blending my feel for subtle animation with the newly discovered communication skillz (and yes, they're so mad, they come with a Z!).

If I'll be able to make this happen, the Vader Shot will stand out! Can't wait to get to work on it once AM's over.

Take care
C

Subtle vs. Low Energy - Part 1

Hey there, how's it going?

Class Six keeps me very busy, so I probably won't be posting as often in the upcoming two months.

You might remember that I worked on a brand new shot during break week and I was looking forward to hear what my new Mentor Kenny Roy thinks about it, as I feel like it's my most intense shot in the acting department to date.



Pity, I'm not allowed to work on it at AM as we are supposed to work only on the assignments we worked on with a mentor.
That's by the way the reason why the shot didn't progress, it still needs a lot of polish. But it looks like when I solved this riddle about Subtle vs. Low energy, I'll be starting over anyways, so I'll just leave it for now;)

Well, anyway, Kenny was kind enough to leave me with some notes. One thing he mentioned is still stuck with me and I haven't been able to wrap my head around it so far. He said that the shot is rather low energy than subtle. Whaaat? Isn't subtle the same as quiet and still? Apparently not! I'm still diving into this subject and I'll be sharing what I come to understand about the subject in the coming weeks.

Here's the notes I took from his feedback:
"Shot has some fundamental problems: It looks like low energy or subdued instead of subtle. A chair usually cuts the energy in half, you would have to go a lot broader with his movements to get high energy. Advice: have him stand up, put secondary action in there, i.e. have him hold his helmet and maybe have him rub over a dent with the thumb."
The shot was a candidate for my one person acting piece back in class four, so I had done all the preparation already. I had a first pass of taking reference where I was to include secondary action while he was holding his helmet and fiddled around with it. But then I decided to boil the performance down to it's core. The core to me, is this man, who is not able to see his kids anymore and how he's devastated about it. We have a huge story unfolding there. This man IS low energy! If you take a look at the original acting footage in the Wallstreet sequel (I couldn't find any footage online, unfortunately), you'll find that although Michael Douglas may be standing at the window, he doesn't move an inch during the whole scene. He keeps his hands in his pockets, maybe a shoulder shrug here and there. One pose.
It's the second time I'm getting a note that I should avoid a sitting character in shot. Well, if he's having a hard time, he most likely won't have the energy to move around and do stuff while expressing his emotional state. It's like cartoons aren't allowed to rest and be still at all!
I do understand that a cartoon's purpose is to entertain, but why would you turn a quiet moment into hyperdrive-mode?

I wrote an e-mail to Ed Hooks, the author of Acting for Animators about this and asking for his opinion and advice as well. I'm looking forward to hear from him and hopefully I'll be able to share some parts of his answer with you in a future post.
Meanwhile I'll be trying to find out myself and do some research. I'll get back to you as soon as I know more ;)

I'll be glad to hear your comments and thoughts!
Thanks & take care
C

Three months to go!

Wow, guess I got lucky with my Mentor this term!
I just had the first Q&A in Kenny Roy's class and by the looks of it, its going to be a great term! He seems like someone who knows what he wants from his students, and he seems to get it too. He's very keen on teaching (in fact he runs his own website with lots of learning resources) and seems to want to push us really hard and get his students up to a pro level work attitude.
So I expect it to be supertough but I think that he is the perfect mentor for my last term (sniff..) at AM. I'll be pushing through these three months and come up with a shiny reel by the end of it. Can't wait to get to see my own reel!

Oh, and I just came across this! I love Adam & Joe and I love animation. Guess I couldn't ask for anything better:



Take care
C

Deathstar Single Dads update

Voilà, here's the first pass of my break week project. I think I pretty much nailed the performance, I'm really happy about how it turned out.

Next up is cleaning up and a proper lipsync/face pass and then hands & fingers. Feedback and critiques are most welcome, as always!

New shot approaching fast!

Hey everybody, how's it going?

I'm in the middle of my break week (I spend most of it saving Hyrule from Ganondorf) and I was planning not to make one single animation-related scratch and enjoy my time off.
Nice try! Of course yesterday I started with another Bishop 2.0 mod for a shot I want to finish in class 6. There's so much polishing to do with the rest of my shots, I don't even know if I'll have the time to approach another one. But just in case, I wanted to get a little ahead of myself.
I just started working on the animation today, so I'm only halfway through with the first pass. I took a more open approach workflow-wise: rather few poses in steppend, went into splines very early and am now working on the details and fix the final timing. Check it out:



Funny, eh? Your feedback and comments are most welcome, as I'll be working on it for another day, before Class 6 starts.
I really feel like I should put another, more subtle shot in my reel. I think this is actually one of my strong suits, conveying the emotions and feelings of my characters. But my mentors always pushed me to make something more dynamic compared to a rather quiet, subtle shot.
And they were right, of course! The Vader shot is relatively uncomplicated from a technical point of view. There's not a lot going on, whereas my two person dialogue is really challenging with a lot of physical stuff going on, and I'm happy that I'll be able to complete it under the supervision of a capable animator;) The learning effect is so much bigger than if I had just two guys sitting on a table and casually talking to each other!

So let's see if I can make this one happen while working on my reel in the following three months. If not, I'll just complete it afterwards.

Take care
C

Feinheit Showreel!

Here's some work related stuff for a change! A couple weeks ago we produced a showreel at Feinheit, my employer. It's not strictly animation, but also some scenes from an iPhone Game and website content, as we produce all kinds of multimedia stuff.
Was a lot of fun putting it together, and I certainly learned that putting a showreel together is an art in itself.

Here you go, hope you like it:

FEINHEIT Showreel 2011 from FEINHEIT on Vimeo.

Later
C

Class 5 Weeks 10 and 11

Class 5 is almost over, can you believe that? Time's running when you're in Animation Mentor, I still didn't get used to it!
This is what I submitted this week:



Arghhhhh.... This is nowhere near finished and I even feel sort of embarrassed to submit this as a final assignment! Well, I guess frustration is just as much part of the learning experience, so I will just have to deal with it someway. I mean in the end, after some more time spent working on it, this thing will shine. I feel like this is a really fresh piece of animation and has the potential to stand out if it's executed properly. So, cheer up!

I CAN ALWAYS MAKE YOU SMILE by Shaun


I worked the entire week on the bosses performance after trying to get the writer to work. Didn't get anywhere with him, so I decided to put his performance on the side for the moment. We will get some time to wrap up the shot in class 6 so I can work on him with a set of fresh eyes and new ideas and energy.

I'll write a more detailed post next week to wrap up the term and my learning experiences.

Allright I'm off to the weekend, talk to you next week!

Have a good one
C

Class 5 Week 9 at Animation Mentor

What a week! We were supposed to be in splined mode this week and I was already struggling getting my mentors feedback adressed. So I ended up having a superbusy week, occasionally doing school stuff in lunchbreaks, nightshifts and whatnot. Oh yes, lot's of junkfood, too! (Note to self: Need to go to the gym more often!)

So, this is the current state of the shot, two weeks left to get it done:



I can already tell this is not going to end up being the most polished piece of animation you have ever seen. But I'm pushing myself with this one on so many levels, that I will benefit so much more from it than if I had chosen what I first intended to do with the audio. Doing lot's of bodymechanics, walks (two characters walking and talking to each other at the same time is not as easy as you might think! Or as I did, for that matter;) and lots more.
So even if the shot might not turn out being the best animation I could do, it's probably one of the shots I can learn most from.

So now, let's enjoy what's left from that weekend!
Take care
Christoph

Class 5 Week 8 at Animation Mentor

You might have read in my previous post how I came up with an entirely new idea for my dialogue shot. This is how the animation developed over the past two weeks:



I'm having a blast animating this, I feel this might turn out quite nicely. Three weeks left, so let's just see.
It's a real physical shot and very time consuming to animate. I really hope I will get time to work in all the subtleties in the face and hands, and get those smooth arcs. If not, there's still class 6 to work on that.

Take care
C

Super Great Blog Post by Jason Schleifer

Found these blogposts by Jason Schleifer via Spungella.

Check them out, they are a great read:

• Animation Quality vs Quantity - The Great Debate
• Animation Quality vs Quantity - Learning To Focus
• Animation Quality vs Quantity - What About Quality?!
• Animation Quality vs Quantity - Intent

This is just the right input before getting back to work on my dialogue piece. Will update you on that soon too.

Have a good one!
C

how to get more out of your shots: learning process reviewed

Ok, so as I wrote earlier, I have come up with an entirely new idea for the current dialogue exercise.
I gained a whole lot of insight at Ed Hooks' Masterclass and Bobby Beck's lecture while I was at FMX, so I wanted to share that as good as I can and tell you about the thought- and learning-process I was going through..
Ok, let's jump into it by looking at the first version of the shot I submitted:



I love that audio! It's full of energy, has great contrast between the two characters and is just plain entertaining. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone with this one and really push myself with my last exercise at Animation Mentor.
I wasn't happy with what I came up with as I submitted the layout pass. Two guys, with a desk between them, one is even sitting and the other barely moves during the whole piece? Come on! Where's the energy? But I wasn't able to put my malcontent in words.
Then came FMX and I've learned a ton there. Let's check it out:

Basic lessons learned by Ed Hooks and Bobby Beck:

1. Acting is doing!
The character needs to be doing something all the time. It's not like you have to let him jump around all the time though. Waiting is an action too! But then ask: "who is he waiting for?" A character waiting for a first date acts completely different from a character who's waiting for his girlfriend he is about to break up with!

2. The magic formula: Action ---/Obstacle/---> Objective
The character takes action in pursuit of an objective and is interrupted by an obstacle/conflict. There are three types of conflict:
- conflict with yourself
- conflict with the situation
- conflict with the other person

3. The scene takes place in the middle!: 
Know what the character was doing before your shot and what he/she will do after the cut.

4. Acting has almost nothing to do with words!
You can tell the audience one thing with words and show them another thing. What the audience sees overrides what they hear.

5. Goals of an animator:
- communicate your character to the audience
- make your character feel present in the scene

There's a lot more you could and should consider when thinking about your shot, but let's keep the list brief for the sake of easy reading. I'm currently reading Ed Hooks book and there's so much more info that will help you create better performances. Go get it!
Are you still with me?
Ok, let's go back to the clip above and cross check it with the list. The first and second points are more or less covered: Both characters have their objectives and obstacles (will describe them below), but it's provided by the audio and sort of given in this case. Number 3? I give away no context at all to what has happened before or will happen after.
Let's put 4 in other words: Turn off the sound and there should be a story unfolding on your screen. If it's not happening, you obviously failed to use your character to communicate a story or their character traits. It's just moving puppets to sound.
As for 5, they go along with the other points: As long the characters don't have an objective to follow, a story to tell, backstory and emotions, there's no way you can make the character feel present and real in a scene.

When I came up with the idea for the clip I wasn't aware of any of these things and just made up something random that felt like fun to animate. Now here's what I submitted after going over my notes and with the checklist in my mind:



First of all I wanted to come up with something that was up to par with the energy in the audio clip. So there should be movement and action in there.
Then I tried to describe the characters actions, objectives and obstacles:

Writer:
Action: write the script, get help from other scriptwriters
Objective: Write a great script, that satisfies producer, audience, critic and stands out as a piece of art
Obstacle: Can't find a middleway between producer/deadline and his artistic expectations

Producer:
Action: Delegate tasks (script to writer), organizing and overviewing the production
Objective: Get the movie done
Obstacle: Writer is unable to work in a production environment because he thinks he's an actual artist! can't work with people like this!

Point 2, check!
So I had this idea that there should be movement. And the characters' schedules and objectives are never in sync.. basically the writer is unable to keep up with the producers pace.
Movement. Unable to keep up with the producer.. see what I'm getting at? Easy! They are walking towards the producers office while discussing the writers work -Point 1, check-, and the producer sets the pace! Even without the audio we now can read this relationship clearly! Point 4, check! To stress the fact that the producer is in a stronger position than the writer, we put the scene into the building of the production company.
In the end the producer shuts the door in front of the writer. There's a producer tag on the door. So basically he shuts himself, he's not open to the writers suggestions anymore. The writer failed.

Guess we have covered points 1, 2 and 4 so far. But what's with 3 and 5? Aight, let's have a look at 3 first:
Even though we don't have an explicit indication about where they came from, the fact that they are quickly walking through the hallways gives us a sense of context. The producer looks like a man who's hard to get a hold of, so the writer might just had to wait for him to come out of the conference room and intercept him on the way to his office. The end is obvious: the producer is back in his office and keeps on being busy. Whereas the writer.. well he's going either home or straight into the next bar..
Opposing to this scenario, two men sitting in an office isn't exactly rich, right?

Point 5 seems like a culmination of the other points to me. If you managed to create a scene that contains those four points you will most likely be able to communicate your characters to the audience and the will feel present in the scene and context you've created.

Wow. This is easily the most elaborated post I've wrote so far. I surely went through a huge learning process during the last few days and I wanted to make shure I'll share my thoughts. Hope you enjoyed reading and could take something away for yourself. Let me know if I left anything open or unclear, or if you have anything you'd like to add.

And right back to work! Have fun!
C

FMX Diary Part 2

Wow, was that a week just passing by?!

Ok, so lets try to wrap this up:

1. Animation Mentor

Wow, finally: real animation mentor folks, and lots of them! And it was a real fine crowd too. When you arrived at the Festival site in the mornings, you could just walk over to the AM booth and have a chat with everybody. Then we would go to the panels together, have lunch, go see more panels or just kept hanging out. And then it was dinner and beer til late. It was great to see how the community stuck together during the festival.
Bobby Beck was there, and took the time to give extensive feedback on students' demoreels, which was really cool. I was looking forward to meet these folks and I couldn't be happier with how the whole week has turned out. Can't wait for next year!

2. Input Input Input!

As I said in Part 1, I attended Ed Hooks' Acting for Animators Masterclass. So much interesting stuff about the acting side of animation! Did you know that when two people talk to each other, the one talking will look into the opposites face about 40% of the time whereas the listener looks into the talkers face at about 80% of the time? No? That the person listening is most of the time busy to think of what to say after the other person is done talking? Guess you knew that one! But for animators it's specially important to know and be aware of. If you can make the listener display believably that he is in a thought process, you can add so much to your shot!
If you're an animator make sure you go get his book, it's filled with gold!
Then there was Bobby Beck's school presentation. I was expecting him to simply just introduce the school and what it's all about. but instead he gave a lesson in acting choices, where to draw inspiration and reference for your shots from and so on. Totally unexpected and really helpful as you can read in part three...

3. Inspiration

Last week's assignment was to come up with the layout for our dialogue shot exercise. I worked something out, but was never really happy with what I came up with. Well, after Bobby's talk and Ed Hook's class I was aware of what I've done wrong and went right back to my place to think my shot over. And I think the idea I came up with is really worth the trouble I'll be getting myself into now:) Since I was busy with the festival and brainstorming, planning and stuff, I now have two days left to create the new layout AND make a first blocking pass..
Well but it's totally worth the extra effort -I went home a day earlier than planned and even missed the closing party-.  The shot is going to be a lot more entertaining and believable and, well... just plain better. Once the superhurry of the next couple days is over, I'll try and write a post where I compare the two layouts and analyze why I made some of the changes. So look out for that one!

So, is that all there's to tell about last week? No, certainly not, but if I kept writing about all the good things that happended, I'd still be sitting here tomorrow and I really need to get going with my shot;)
I really had a blast at FMX and it was great to meet the Animation Mentor folks and staff, listening to great panels and enjoying the occasional 7 beers.. I'm all charged to tackle this last assignment at Animation Mentor and looking forward to see how it develops over the next weeks.
I'll keep you posted, thanks for tuning in!

Christoph

FMX Diary Part 1

It's FMX time in Stuttgart. I just arrived at my cozy bed and breakfast place, quite close to the festival site. Well actually it's bed only, even coffee is charged separately, but it's cozy nevertheless. Perfect to do my homework in the mornings before heading over to the festival.


It's my first time here at FMX, so I'm really excited about being here and finally meet some of my fellow Animation Mentor students! Phew, I've been in this school for about a year now and never have met anyone in person (from AM that is, although I haven't seen lot's of my friends during that time either;)
Time to change that!
So tomorrow is going to be day one and I have quite a schedule going. First in the morning I'll be attending Ed Hooks' Acting for Animators Masterclass, a three hour workshop. Friends of mine have already been to one of his classes and told me only great things about it, so... Yay!
Then I'll be helping out at the Animation Mentor booth, talking about my experiences during my time at the school. Bobby Beck, co-founder and president of AM will be present too, which is really exciting, since I see him on screen every week but (again) never in person. Time to say a 'thank you' for that wonderful school he and his buddies founded.
Well and then later on I have my regular tuesday evening Q&A. And as a special treat, two classmates and I are going to attend together. Usually I'm sitting alone in my room or the office and talk via webcam to classmates and the teacher. It's going to a blast, I'm really looking forward to that!


Well that's it for now. The title says "diary part one", so I'll be shure to post an update later this week. Might not be tomorrow though ;)

Take good care y'all!
Christoph

Teaser Trailer for Heart String Marionette is out

Animation weirdo M dot Strange's new film. The guy worked four years all on his own to create another feature lenght animation movie. Looking forward to watch the whole thing when it's out.

Acting Test done!

I havent posted any updates since I'm in class five of Animation Mentor, so lets fix that right now:

If you read some of my older posts you might have seen the early stages of my acting test assignment. We had six weeks to get the body language right. Now, in class five, we got access to the full facial rig and had three weeks to get facial expressions and lip sync done. Wow, what an update! Check out how it looked before and after:



And the final version (I removed the glasses so the facial expressions are easier to read):



Facial animation and lipsync are a pair of brand new shoes. I'm at a point now where I feel quite confident in my understanding of body mechanics and am able to apply them to my animations without having to painstakingly wrap my head around it each time. But then with the whole facial stuff, I feel like I'm thrown back to class one. This is brand new stuff to learn.
Until now, almost everything we've learned has built upon the previous experiences and lessons. But with lipsync it's different. There's of course the technical aspect and it's really fun to learn what shapes the mouth actually produces when we speak. There's definetely some unexpected stuff going on. Ha! But I will eventually get to understand that too, just as it happended with body mechs. It's but a question of practice, practice, practice.
What's really interesting and gets me excited about animation, is that we now have the full spectrum unlocked and are able to create full body/full facial performances. Which means proper acting. Put all the technical things and challenges to the side and think about the character and what we need him to convey. This is the thing to master; breathe life into a stiff puppet, make his actions believable, his thoughts visible and make the audience empathize with the characters feelings and emotions. You can think about Megamind what you want, but this scene blew my mind. That's exactly what I'm talking about:



Man, I love animation..

So next week we start our two person dialog shot and I'll keep you posted on how it's coming along.
take care
Christoph

Class 4 Progress Reel

Ok, so here's all the stuff I've done at Animation Mentor properly lined up from newest to oldest. It's far from being perfect, but looking at this reel still gives me a boost and tons of motivation. I mean, I started out making a bouncing ball, and next week I'll already be lipsyncing!




Weird thing is, despite the workload and new knowledge that you have to apply each week, I felt that I really got a lot better this term. It feels like I'm already twice as fast (and three times as confident), which allows me to get to work more on details.
I still need to work on my polishing skills. I still feel kind of lost when it comes to this. But hey hey, there as a whole other class dedicated to the subject, so I'm cool ;)

Animation Mentor Weeks 9 & 10

Here's the work from the past two weeks. I went from blocking into splines and made a first pass of polishing and cleaning up. It's not where I think it could be, but still, guess it's coming along quite allright, mainly lacks polish and attention to detail.





I had a little struggle at work in the past couple weeks, so I wasn't able to invest as much time as I wanted, or when I did, sometimes simply didn't have the energy to give it that extra love it deserved. Well, but for an exchange I should be able to show some cool stuff I'm working on at Feinheit sometimes around the end of april.
I still have another week to work on the body performance, and I guess I should pay extra attention on hands and eyes as I go. And then we're already done with class four. crrraaazzyy..

Animation Mentor Week 8

Wow, week 8 already! Now, it feels kind of emberassing to put this out on the internet where it will be up for everyone to see for errm.. forever!! Well, but this blog should serve as a document of my progress at Animation Mentor, so whatever. Here's how far I got with the monologue shot so far:

It's still very rough around the edges, but I'm happy with the overall performance. The next steps will be all about working the arcs, adding more poses and really get the body language to convey what the character is saying. So this is what I'm going to work through the next few weeks.
After that -at the beginning of class five-, we're getting to do the facial animation.

Ok, time to watch this week's lecture.
Cheers C

fantastic shark movies

Beeing sick has it's good sides after all. I'm still able to browse around the youtube site (it can't be that bad then), and I didn't even realize how many gorgeous shark themed b-movies exist! I should start a weekly shark movie screening followed up by a series of ninja movies from the 80ies at home (a set of dedicated trailers will follow). Give a shout if you want to join in. And check out these lovely trailers:









These sharks can even roar like lions!

Animation Mentor Week 5

Wow, I finally finished my pantomime shot. Overall I guess I'm quite happy about how it turned out, but there are still bits and pieces I feel like I could do better. Well I'm still a student after all, so no hard feelings..



Most of the body mechanics work pretty fine, but here's the major thing I'm not happy about. Check out the second part where he runs in: It's all; run in - grab smoke - light the smoke - stand up - sight down - smoke/breathe/relax. These are really separated actions whereas they should work together as a unit.. I think I succeded in the first part to create a believable set of movements as they are the result of what the character's thinking. In the second part though you can really "hear" the animator behind it. "Ok, first I have him run in, then he grabs a smoke and lights it. Next I'll make him stand up, and then he sits down on the drawer...etc".

Jeez, so this means week 6 is going to start, already half of class 4 is over. Now we're entering the real acting stuff, a monologue piece. We'll have to pick a line of a movie and make our character act accordingly. Wohoo, this sounds like fun, right?
Check out this example made by fellow Animation Mentor student Albert Barba:


Albert did a really great job on this, hope I can keep up with him;)

ok, back to watching the lecture now. See you around
Cheers
C

Class 4 Weeks One and Two

Two weeks of Animation Mentor have already passed and I barely even noticed. It's so good to be back and working on my shots.
Our first assignment is a pantomime shot in which the main character experiences two different emotions (and acts accordingly, of course). Here's what I've come up with so far:

Week 1, Planning:

Week 2, Blocking Pass:



I know, I keep telling it over and over, but the break I took was great and definetely the right decision. I can see now that all the animation principles and teachings of my previous mentors had time to sink in. At Animation Mentor they fill you up with information and knowledge (and motivation!) right until you can't take nothing more. Well, at least that was sort of my experience.
But during my break in which I didn't care to read too much about animation or did any studies on the subject (except for the usual forum zapping) everything sunk in just nicely. Now as I did the blocking I was thinking about a lot more things then I did before. "Oohh, don't forget to add that overlap! Ah, where's that arc going?!" and so on. Lots of things that I would spend time on fixing/polishing later on in the process I sort of naturally include in the early stages. Now that's a welcome progress!
Ok, I'm back to watching the video lecture now, new animation weeks starts in five minutes.
have a good week, cheers
C

Time to act!

Aaaahhh, I can finally return to my studies at Animation Mentor! I just had my first Q&A, where I got to meet my class and my new mentor, Jason Martinsen. He has done some awesome work, including Iron Man 2, Horton Hears A Who! and Ice Age 2 and 3. Check out his Demo Reel!
Fantastic, isn't it?
I'm really happy to be back at this inspiring place, inhabited by great folks. Looking back, taking my 3 months break was definetely the right decision. I could work on my body mechanic shots and take it a little easier for a while and now I'm back and fully charged for all that acting goodness that's coming up now.
That's right, acting! The subject for class 4 is "introduction to acting" and we're getting to do a pantomime shot as well as a monologue shot (without facial animation though, that's going to be done in class 5). So lots to learn, lots of work, lots of excitment coming up!

Talking about lots of work; I'll probably go dark for a while now and won't be able to post as often. You wouldn't believe how time flies at Animation Mentor. Must be some different time-dimension-thing or something, you literally sit down and start working on your shot and before you know it, four weeks have passed.
Well but anyway, I'll give my best to keep you guys updated on a more or less regular basis about Animation Mentor or work related news.

Allright, let's go back to planning that pantomime shot now.

Cheers
C

these ten minutes of film have changed my life

It was in 2006 when I saw Jojo In The Stars at a local film festival and was blown away by it. I had never thought that some computer generated film might be able to touch me as deeply, to convey the characters feelings so convincingly. And they barely had faces. So much for effective character design.
Back then I was selling guitars at some store and was all devoted to music. But this short film turned it all upside down.
I came quite a long way since.
I was able to get an internship which lead to my first 3D job some months after the screening, went to school, learned and learned and learned. Then I got my job at the company where I'm still working today, Feinheit. I'm still learning new stuff every day working on the job.
And then of course there's Animation Mentor. Best school ever. Short, focused, hard animation training with great people and the best teachers you could imagine.
Tomorrow the new term is going to start and I can't wait for it. The batteries are recharged after my three month break and I'm ready to dive back into my studies.

It's crazy to think that these the minutes lead me to all that change..
Enjoy.




Happy New Year
C