Thursday, April 9, 2009

Bale rant Animation process: 'Planning' - 1/2

PLANNING PART 1
When Spline Doctors presented this challenge I got pumped right away with the audio clip and the idea of being able to have feedback and critique from them… awesome!! so I put some extra hours after work to start thinking on how I would approach this animation challenge…
AUDIO:
I came out with the “swearing at the computer” concept, inspired by the amount of times 3dsmax crashed on me at work and at home… hehehe… so I opened the audio editing software I have (Adobe Audition) and start trying things out with the audio parts that I could find more interesting from the 4 min Bale rant… I also added a kind of “farm-ish” environment background sound, so the cuts of the parts I selected were blended with it.

Considering time for the animation (I didn’t want to do more than 15 seconds) and trying not to pick the same concept or audio of other contestants… this is what I came out with:


THUMBNAILING AND CONCEPT:

I tried to listen to the edited audio as much as I could at work and at home… and tried to sketch the concept or the situation of the character on the scene… try to find the right pose or inspiring facial expressions, composition, staging of things on the screen, etc etc.




I also did a break down of the audio on paper so I could relate better with attitudes and the character performance through the shot. At this point I had a list of a few questions and answers for myself to make this process easier for me… this are the ones that had a more relevant role on the animation:

Where is the character?

- He is inside of his farm house working on his computer. It’s a nice day around 11am.

What was the character doing before the shot?

- He was working on the computer (typing, browsing, doing taxes, checking or paying bills, etc) and suddenly everything started to slow down (jerky mouse pointer, webpages taking too long to load, the little sand clock appeared for too long on the screen).


What is the character’s personality overall?

- He is an average farmer on his 40’s, grumpy most of the time… tired and stressed for the routine of dealing with a computer which is the object he doesn’t feel the most comfortable with.









Thursday, April 2, 2009

Won 2nd place in the Spline Doctors Challenge :)

VIDEO:
(http://www.danimating.com/bale_web_low.mov)

Just wanted to say that I am very happy to have won the 2nd place in the Spline Doctors Challenge... it was very fun to animate the Christian Bale rant... and as a prize I got some Pixar swag that I will be receiving in a couple of weeks.. YAY! :)

you can check the rest of the entries at the spline doctors website: www.splinedoctors.com...

In a couple of days or so I will be posting my animation process on this animation for the people who are interested... so stay tuned!.

Thanx to Andrew Gordon and all the doctors for making this fun contest.. I hope they keep doing this!... :)

Disney Master Classes (WALT STANCHFIELD BOOKS)





Just for a quick update to say that I got the WALT STANCHFIELD BOOKS today!!! :)

I just took a quick look and they look awesome so far.... great resource and inspirational stuff.. I can't wait to read them both!

thanks to my wife Christina who ordered them for me! :P




Saturday, February 21, 2009

AM Progress Reel....


Hey guys... I know it's been a long time since the last post but i promise i will keep it up :P

I just wanted to let you all know that I stopped AM after Class 2 for personal reasons and even if they were only 6 months in campus.. i had a blast there.. learning.. overlearning.. and getting inspired and challenged every day... I also wanted to upload my progress reel... which "almost" got me a gig at Blue Sky... it was a BUMMER that the US work permit only was allowing Canadian Citizens.. and not permanent residents... well... I will be citizen in about 2 months so I won't stop my "feature film" goal! :D

Thanx for watching and reading.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

My Last Animation Mentor Assignment

Hello there... this is my last assignment at AM for Class 2 and I really wanted to push it a bit more so I could put it on my reel....


I learnt a lot at Animation Mentor, refining and reviewing my animation principals.. and met a lot of great people and animators... but for economic/full time work and travel reasons I think I won't be able to continue with it..
I had a blast doing this animation of Fern the farmer (character of chevisodes.com) jumping off a diving board... I tried to explore a bit more the Layering method.. and even if it was very messy at the beggining i could manage to set my ideas on it.. (it took a lot of brain power though)... I basically layered the body in stepped mode from the root out (I call this experiment "layering in stepped mode method" hehe) that started animating a cylinder to a close to final level.. and then translating that info to the root of the character.. and start layering the rest out! :) ... very fast and no much to do with the Graph Editor.. but a bit confusing to your eye and to receive critique.

I hope you guys like it... see you around.. as always! :D

Quicktime version here: http://www.danimating.com/3D/FINAL_AM_SOUND06.mov