Goodbye and Hello

It's been awfully quiet over here lately, hasn't it?!

Over the past months I separated my professional and personal online appearances, which resulted in the creation of two new websites.

To take a look at my current portfolio, resume and get in touch please visit www.christoph-angehrn.com

To work on my personal projects I decided to create a little indie animation studio. It's called the Blindspot Archives, and you'll find it's website here.
Been very busy freelancing lately, but I'l hope to complete my first shortfilm this year!
You can like the page on facebook to stay up to date or subscribe to the rss feed in the news section of the blindspot website.

Thanks a lot and take care
C

...and now to something completely different:

Another Update

Hey there! Been working away on my short on my free evenings, and I thought I'd share another small teaser image:

Take care
C

Short Film Update

I've been hard at work modeling most of the assets I need for my short. Still lots to do, but I'm about ready to make a layout pass on the film. This will be the first time I see the story playing out with some crude 3D and animation. Can't wait!
I'll be a bit quieter about the production as I move on from now on, I don't want to spoil the story for you guys.

As a little appetizer, here's the almost finished Norman. Still some issues with the hands and other details, but you get the picture.



































Take care
C

Short Movie Progress: Meet Norman

I've been working away on my short film and today finished the facial rigging part of the character. Meet Norman:




He changed quite a bit from the first draft, didn't he?
Easily the best character I've modeled so far. I'm super excited about moving on with the short, I hope I can finish the body this week and move on to the set scenes next week.
I should have started creating my own films way earlier, I'm having a blast doing this!
I'll keep you posted.

Take care
C

Short Movie Progress

Remember that short movie I was writing about in the other post? Just wanted to post a brief update about that. Preproduction is almost done, got the storyboard and production checklist ready and I started working on the design of the protagonist. Everything is going quite smoothly and I can't wait to actually sit down next week and get started properly.

Here's the almost finished head of the main character:

I'll try and share some more insights on the production checklist and how I approach the whole thing when I've got some more time available. In the meantime, feel free to ask questions or post your opinions about the design, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Take care
C

GIF Invasion!

I used a draft of a cg creature I made a while ago and to create a gif animation. Pretty sweet, going to try to make more of them!

(might take a while to load since it's a rather big file)

Kicking off 2013: San Francisco and Short Film Pre Production

It still feels kind of unreal: We're actually moving to San Francisco!

There, I said it.

2013 is going to be a roller coaster! Right now I'm spending my days on the beaches of Koh Lanta in Thailand, trying to get rid of a cold that stuck with me for weeks.. I'll visit Australia and Hawaii in the coming month and in late march me and wife will land in San Francisco. I've never been a big traveller or took long holidays, so the coming two months are a welcome and fresh breeze and help me recharge before we hit the US.
Phew, and once we're there we'll see what'll happen. If my best case scenario plays out (as they always do, don't they?) I'll be able to get to work on a few freelancing gigs and tackle some ideas of my own. I've got lots of projects lined up, but they might have to wait in line until our new life is set up here. And that might as well take up the whole year.. And there was something about a healthier lifestyle... well, let's look into that later. Let's talk about short films first!

After playing around with a few ideas for animated shorts, I settled for one that I thought was worth pursuing. It's about three minutes long, stars one character, three simple locations and all in all sounds pretty doable.
I aim to finish the storyboards and animatics during my holidays and I'm halfway through at this point.
Got an iPad? Get an iPad!
For the longest time I thought of it as just another toy, but eventually I decided to get a mini for my travels to check e-mails and whatnot. Meanwhile I've got a neat workflow going with Paper 53 and iMovie to work on storyboards. Paper lets me quickly scribble down some thumbnails (get a pen though, like the Bamboo Stylus) and the interface let's me see them in quick succession. This way I can quickly check if my camera layouts work and look for mistakes and fix them quickly.

flip left or right and see if your camera work, errmm... works!

Once I'm happy with my drafts I'll import the drawings into iMovie, where I can already rough in the timing of the shots. It even allows you to import music from iTunes, which might help to set the tone.

Import the drawings to iMovie and rough in the timing of the shots. Add some music and  your animatic is finished.

So, once I'm done I already have a precise idea of what I'm going for, right down to the last shot. I might even make a shot and asset list with numbers, so I can dive right in once I've got my computer set up in San Francisco.

Come to think of it, I love pre-production, you can play around with ideas, cut or add things, and once you're done, it gives you the (deceiving) feeling of being in control. The voyage to the completion of your film is clearly laid out in front of you and everything's in order.
And along comes production, things get flipped upside down, new ideas need to make it in the film, things don't work out as expected, and so on..
Which is just as exciting!

Well that's it for now, now back to enjoying the sunny weather..

take care
c

animation is not a genre, it's a technique for telling a story

Just a quick post about Rango, one of my all time favorites. I love it for being bold in a lot of ways, be it the looks and designs, the (somewhat weird named) emotion capture or it's refreshing ways to tell the story.

While watching a short making of I came across this quote by Director Gore Verbinski: "animation is not a genre, it's a technique for telling a story". This really resonated with me and I think it's something that gets lost in a lot big budget productions a tad too often. I really hope for more future animated features to approach their stories with this mindset.

Take care
C

Updates

After almost three years of working at Feinheit I quit my job to concentrate on my animation work. I have learned so much, worked on cool projects, and in the later stages was able to put my character animation skills to use on several projects.
I met some very fine folks there and many of them have become close friends over time. So that's the sad part about leaving the company.
On the other hand I'm really excited about taking the challenge to find my way into the animation industry and I'm looking forward to what the future may bring.

Right now I'm freelancing as a Character Animator, so my plans worked out quite nicely so far.
After years of working mostly on one man projects it's great to finally work within a team of 3D Artists and it's super rewarding to see your animated shots making their way through the production pipeline and come out a little shinier with each step.

I use my spare time to work on my reel, adding new shots and polishing the existing ones. For that purpose I'm taking an online workshop with ILM Animator JD Haas over at Spungella, and he has been great in giving me advice and pointing me in the right direction to improve my reel. I hope I'll be able to post an update in the near future.

And if I'm not animating, I'm working on a couple script ideas for potential animated shorts. Nothing fancy, but I am learning a lot about story structure, character arcs and all that stuff. It helps a lot in terms of animation and getting behind the motivations of my characters. You know subtext and all these fancy words. And who knows, maybe I'll get a Kickstarter going one day;)

Guess that's it for now

Take care
C

Making it

Here's an article on animation addicts well worth reading for any aspiring animator out there:
http://www.animation-addicts.com/2012/09/17/making-it/

"Long ago, when I went to school for traditional animation, it was expected you could/would spend 3 to 5 years either in the clean-up department, then work up to the breakdown inbetweener ranks, before become a fully fledged feature animator."

Take the time you need and stay determined!
Also, might be worth thinking about the equivalent of clean up and inbetweener in a 3D industry. How about aiming for a tv show as a starter?
Lots of work, working with the same characters throughout a show, high output rate... Sounds good to me.
Might not necessarily be all demoreel quality animation you'll be doing, but after a while you'll surely know how to animate quickly with a solid quality and have a bag full of tricks, plugins, are used to a studio environment and whatnot. I think this might be a possible way for a student or recent alumni for easing into the industry.

Or you could always just go all in:

hihi;)


take care
c

Knights Of A Bold Republic

A little something I felt like sharing. After playing a lot of Sword & Sworcery lately, I thought it would be interesting to play around with minimalistic 3D Designs.
I find the results pretty interesting, and I'll make sure to play around with that style some more in the future.

Take care
C

Light your shot

I recently took part in the Light Your Shot Workshop at Animation Mentor. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to participate as much as I wanted, so it took me a while to catch up and get the vader scene to shine. I still think I learned a lot during the workshop and I can't wait to get to work on the lighting of the rest of the reel. 

Et voilà:

Take care

C

Starting out in Animation? Workflow!

I can't stress enough how much a good workflow will help you in your animation. It will speed up your work, your scenes will be easier to manage, the animation's going to look better and you'll just have plain more fun during the process.
I found it one of the most difficult things to develop a workflow I can rely on. There's a ton of tips and tricks on the subject out there, it's kind of an overload. When I was starting out I had so much input from the Animation Mentor lectures, I didn't really know which pieces I should adapt in the first place.
In the end, your workflow it going to be your personal workflow. You'll design it after your needs and preferences and you'll be tweaking it depending on the kind of shot you work on. It will be an organic process and you'll keep adding new pieces and drop others on your way to become a animation ninja (or pirate, which ever you prefer). But it's hard to find a place to start.

With that said, let's take a look at what I would suggest for anyone starting out in animation.

It helped me when my mentor in class six, Kenny Roy, pointed out to me that I should be aware of the phrases in my shot. Take a look at the smokers shot:



If you take a look at the second part, the phrases are:
run in - come to stop - look at cigs - grab the box- grab a smoke - put it in mouth - hop on desk - grab the lighter - light the smoke - lean back - smoke..
That looks like quite a lot but in the end, breaking down a complex shot to manageable pieces is key to keep the process fun and smooth.
Once I'm clear about the phrases, I start making a checklist. Each phrase needs certain ingredients, so a typical phrase list would look like this:
(This is taken from another shot I worked on, so don't get confused by the naming of the phrases. It's just an example for the general approach)

I'm using Notebook for all my AM related business by the way, it's a great note taking app for the mac.

Every phrase needs it's own Anticipation, Action, Overshoot, Settle and depending on the shot a Hold. Sometimes and overshoot might blend into the anticipation of your next phrase, but it helps to keep your animation clean if you make separations as clear as possible

So once my planning is finished and I start blocking my scene, I simply have to follow this list and I can concentrate on creating great poses. It's hard enough to keep all the principles of animation in mind and the character under control when you're starting out in animation. With this workflow it might just get a little easier.

I should point out that I wouldn't have got to this point without the help of my former mentor Kenny Roy. He runs a website where he offers more information and lectures on workflow related stuff. Be sure to take a look around and get your workflow fix. Check it out HERE!

Take care
C

Interactivity and Newsflash

Gee, everytime I come back on my blogs site I feel kind of bad for being lazy with updating and posting...

But anyway, quick newsflash: I officially graduated! Went to beautiful San Francisco at the the end of January to receive my diploma and had an absolute blast over there meeting all my fellow AMers. And I fell in love with that city, what a beauty!
So my Animation Mentor journey has officially come to an end, but my journey as an animator is just beginning. As we speak I'm sending out tons of applications all over the world, got New Zealand, Canada, America and England on my list so far.

And here's another thing I'm really excited about: Recently I started picking up on Unity3d, a game engine that allows you to create your own video games. So after a bit of playing around with it I came up with the idea to create sort of an interactive music clip.


So this is a screenrecording of a test I've been working on for a while now. The idea is to move the passive music video format to an interactive experience and by enhancing the music's mood with a visual and interactive layer create a more immersive connection between music and audience.
Software used: Unity 3D, Cinema 4D and zBrush
Music: The XX, Fantasy. The music is only temporary for this test, final version will work with a different song.

Thanks for reading and watching
Take care
C

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