Another semester is gone...

Well, we're really at the end of this first approach to acting. The experience has been awesome mainly due to the fact that it was a completely unexplored subject for me. I've done some walk cycles in the past but my complete "non education" in this art led to some really bad results.

The approach to studying a problem or a shot and, to a certain degree, the way I now look at my work in relation to the whole point of the scene is something that I feel has really improved. I still think that I need to practice much more on the basics, but I'm really loving this school...

Here is my last work for the semester, hope you enjoy it.


Week 11 (QT7 H264)


Gianmichele

Class 3 Week 10

Well, work is definitely progressing. I've changed the infamous "pointing pose" with a new "yes look" pose (watch the clip!) and also changed the transition on from that pose to the next, with one more dynamic. There's still a lot of clean up to do and also I had to add the lip sync, but I can really say that I'm on schedule.
Plus this week end Animation Mentor has been down due to server problems and so we'll have one more week to work on the shot (yeappiiiii!).

Enjoy!


Class 3 Week 10 (QT7)

Class 3 Week 8

WOW! We're already at week 8! I can't believe it!

After receiving 12 minutes of critiques from my wonderful mentor, I've changed a lot from my previous assignment. We've discussed a lot on the attitudes and what's going on internally in the scene.
So, 3 days spent for the assignment: 1 for the golden poses, 1 for the major key poses and another one for the breakdowns.
I feel very comfortable with this method of work more and more and I'm completely out of FK for the arms (that was a little tabu I had :P ).

Anyway, here is my week 8 works:


Week 8 Golden poses (QT7)

Week 8 Assignment (QT7)


Enjoy!

Week 7 blocking

Well, even though my current blocking seems a little bit too rough, that's a thought thing. I've decided to not touch Maya for this week and really have done a lot of brainstorming. My room is full of little notes on what are internal and external motivations for this clip. I think it's a very difficult one given the rig that we have (no facial expression) so I felt that I really needed a stronger planning.

If you want, have a look here:

Week 7 rough blocking

Reference

One of the most important thing that AM is stressing in planning, planning and planning. It's huge how much you can progress your shot just in the planning stages.
On this week (7) I'm starting a new scene. The audio clip that I choosed is one from the Silence of the Lambs, when Annibal Lecter has been transferred to his new prison and talks with Clarisse. I've tried to really put my self into the moment and wrote down a lot of notes (once they are in a more presentable manner I'll post them). For a moment I really felt in the moment and I have done a lot of takes experimenting different ideas for the main beats I've found in the dialogue.
While watching them I started to see that this three acting choices could possibly be melt toghether in some manner. At the moment I'm thinking of my thumbnails, but if you want to see my reference take a look at the file below.


Week 7 reference (Quicktime 7 required)

Week 5 and 6

Well, I've finally reached the end for this first dialogue assignment. I've really pulled all my hair off to polish it as much as I can, but still I'm not really satisfied and wonder if I'll ever be.
At the very end I've decided to change the last phrase to a different head position and movement. I've had completely opposite comments ranging from "I like that a lot" to "that completely doesn't work". I think it was a little too extreme and a little out of what the clip should have been. I've also changed the timing in the hand when switching the phone.
My last thought is that maybe I've switched off from stepped too early (I could have made more experiment that way), so for the next assignment I will stay in stepped as long as I can, cause going to spline is just a mere technical problem.

Week 5 Assignment

Week 6 Assignment


Enjoy!

Week 4 assignment

The shot is moving through its final stages. This week we were asked to choose where to spend our time (money) in the shot and move it out of blocking mode. What I feeled was right was to smooth it out and try to maintain the general feeling in timing from the rough block. I am still not sure about the very last phrase and pose so that's in stepped mode and I have also decided to just not touch the lip synch yet.
The process is really enjoying and while in the first 2 days of this week I've not touched Maya, I'm thinking a lot on what I had to do next. Randy seemed to be happy of my work in his critique, there are some minor changes to do and something I'd like to try to improve.

In the meanwhile here is my week 4 assignment, in H264 as usual.

Just keep swimming swimming swimming...


Week 4 Assignment