Animation Mentor

Another semester is gone...

2005-12-12T18:11:00.000+01:00

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

2005-11-27T19:00:00.000+01:00

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

2005-11-13T20:29:00.000+01:00

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

2005-11-06T20:34:00.000+01:00

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

2005-11-05T15:28:00.000+01:00

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

2005-10-31T00:51:00.000+01:00

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

2005-10-19T15:50:00.000+02:00

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

To infinity and beyond!

2005-10-10T00:06:00.000+02:00

Class 3 just finished and I'm really excited about what's going to come. Last week I was carried on by a violent fever and haven't had the force to work on my assignment. So I decided to post my first rough tests in Grease Pencil.
I was really prepared to start over from the beginning but to my surprise Randy was happy with my work, the initial idea was good!

WOW! this week has been really fun. I studied my mom and my sister at the telephone or taking care of her finger nails. It was great, never thought of analyzing such a simple yet powerful action.

What you are seeing here are both the GP tests and my final week 3 assignment.As usual you'll need QT7 (H264). I've yet to decide what to do with the last phrase. I have a couple of ideas but I really want to discuss them with Randy.

See ya!

London

2005-09-28T22:26:00.000+02:00

After having drived in London for so many years to study, I've finally returned as a tourist. It's a lovely city, I'm always fashinated by all the parks and the tradition.

I've had the opportunity to visit all the Museum (I'm going to post a full photo reportage later), but I've found something really interesting at the Science Museum.

On the 3rd floor there was this maquette of Antz with all the details of the production...

WOWWWW, I wish there'll be a Pixar Museum sometime in the future...

Week 2: Phrasing

2005-09-27T10:46:00.000+02:00

WOW, both week 1 and week 2 were really AWESOME lectures. Even though I've done a lot about phrasing during my dance period, there's always something new to learn, and that's one of the main reason, for me, to be an animator. You'll never stop, and you'll never get bored and there's always something exciting happening.
I can clearly understand why Bobby and Carlos and Shawn are so energetic and why they wanted to start this school.

There's one other thing that always comes to my mind from a while. I've read some lines from Jason Ryan...he wants to die animating...ME TOO!

A new class and a new Mentor

2005-09-25T19:16:00.000+02:00

...and my new mentor is:

tadaaaaaaaaaaaa RANDY HAYCOCK

"Randy has worked in the animation industry for 14 years and at Disney Feature Animation for the last 12. He worked on Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, and Treasure Planet as an animator and supervised the character of Baby and young Hercules (Hercules), Clayton(Tarzan), and Princess Kida (Atlantis). He is currently a CG Animator on Chicken Little and is slated to supervise several characters on the upcoming Disney film "A day with Wilbur Robinson". He has lectured on animation at California Institute of the Arts and Brigham Young University."

I have had my first Q&A on Friday (local time) and it was a blast. Even though it was mainly talking about each other, I think Randy is going to "rock'n roll" us as he's very clear and his communication is simply perfect.

Can't wait to start!!!

Some handy tricks from Mike Walling

2005-09-24T17:50:00.000+02:00

Last semester I've had a very detailed conversation with one campus mentor Mike Walling. He gave me some really dandy tricks and I thought it would be useful for the other students to share them.

Hey Gianmichele!

Sorry for not getting back to you until now. I never get e-mail at my animationmentor address so I never check it. I guess I better start checking it more often. Thanks for the comments. I'm glad I was able to help some. Yeah hitting walls is a challenge when using the blocking method. You have to put more time and energy into making it flow and feel natural. One thing that helps me and those around me is to shoot footage of myself doing the action. There is always going to be subtle movements in your torso and head that you may not be aware of. Especially if you are doing a dialouge piece. If you have any kind of attitude in your performance your going to have rythum in your body that is hard to come up with on your own. Your might want to look at some of the pixar films and really look at some of the better shots for example. You will be able to look at the shot and try and figure out where the poses are, how they are getting from pose to pose and mostly what they are doing once they get there so that it doesn't look like it's hitting walls; or as I call it pose to pose looking. I think it's also a mind set that you have to get past. It's easy to block out the poses and then spline them, but it's another thing to do those same poses and then be able to look at those poses as just moments in an action and not necessarily the pose as a destination. Anyway I hope that helps some. Most of the problems your having will impove with time because you are developing your eye as you do this stuff. I guarantee that when you look back at your stuff in 5 years you will be amazed, so make sure you keep all of your stuff around for reference to the past. I hope we will talk again! Keep it up! I think what you guys are doing is awsome and you will reap the benefits.

Cheers!

-Mike

Howl's moving Castle

2005-09-14T23:09:00.000+02:00

I'm just back from the cinema.
Went to see the latest masterpiece from Hayao Miyazaki.

There are no words to describe the wonderful world and characters that master Miyazaki created. The story is one of the most beautiful and it's narrated with such a poetry that everyone in the room went just, well I don't know how to say it.

Every little detail was created as a function to the story, to its rhythm. I still have in my mind the wonderful waltz of the main theme. And the characters were dancing to this theme, and acting in music, it was spectacular.

At a certain moment I understood that I was really involved in the film, I felt just like a character in there. It's a feeling that I wasn't experiencing since long time. I've tried to ask me what was that generates that feeling, but it was all so perfect that I immediatly stopped thinking, afraid that I could loose all that...

IT'S MAGIC, THAT'S REAL MAGIC!

Animation Mentor Class 1 works

2005-09-09T20:49:00.000+02:00

As I've promised, here is my Class 1 recap. Hope you like it, since I've had a blast doing this section. Looking at this work there are many errors that I cannot see at the time, but I also think I'm sort of proud of some of them considering how much I know about animation when I started.

During this class I've had Jason Schleifer as mentor and he was just...WOW! Guys, you really had to know him since I think he's the real one doing the voice for Gollum ehehehe (Hey Jason, why don't you record your self for me? :D ).

Just a little note. The videos are all encoded in Quicktime with H264, so you need to download Quicktime 7 (free) to see them. I choose to use this format because it can compress 5 Mb of Indeo into a file of just 300kb at super quality.

Enjoy!

Week 1

Week 2

Week 4 (excited pose)

Week 5

Week 10

Week 11

Videos:

Bouncing ball(no squash & stretch)

Heavy & Light bouncing ball (with s&s)

Bouncing ball obstacle course

Pendulum tests

Tailor

1 Leg jump

Ballie 180° turn

Vanilla walk

Vanilla walk (3/4 view)

Personality walk

Shaping a new life

2005-09-08T15:21:00.000+02:00

Finally I've found some time to update frequently.

Thanks to the wonderful help from Eric I now have RSS feed, which is one of the coolest thing XML gave to the web. I've also changed the theme. This is more like what I wanted to have, but still I need to find time to create one of my one.

I think I'll have all my assignment works up for this week end. I upgraded to Quicktime Pro for school necessities and now I'm converting everything to H264, a wonderful codec.

See ya

Kakurenbo

2005-09-08T00:04:00.000+02:00

It's a little bit that I'm fashinated again with Anime. I'm looking at some anime show (Naruto, Last Exile, Full Metal Alchemist) and I really enjoy and like the stories.
I've come across this short film by looking at a friend page (www.celshader.com).
Well, this is one of the most beautiful piece of art I've ever seen and, it's all made in 3D but with an almost perfect 2D Anime look.

I was always worried by cel shading (anyone remember Spiderman on MTV?) but this has caught my attention completely as it's almost perfect (some ink lines imperfection) and the backgrounds are wonderful.
For anyone who wants to see the trailer look here:

Kakurenbo trailer

I'm going to explore more and more this concept (hint hint).

Keith Lango VTS

2005-09-06T22:02:00.000+02:00

Yup, here writing two times in the same day? Can't believe it...

Anyway, I'm a subscriber for this wonderful project called VTS from Keith Lango. These are very well done video lectures on animation ( www.keithlango.com )
Let me spend two words on Keith. He's an awesome instructor and a incredible MAN.
When I decided to subscribe to his VTS it was because I always loved his shorts and have seen some of his tutorials, and simply thought that what he was doing was simply right for the price he was asking. From day one I have had a lot of useful informations that are complementing very well with the lessons from AM.

Something caught my attention recently though. Keith and his wife are really active helping other people, and we know that some of the money from the VTS are going to help people in New Orleans or in Brazil.
I have no words to describe how people like Keith and his wife look to me. Sometimes you think that people with big hearth are just disappearing..

Go Keith, I and lot of others are with you.We really need more people like you two!

Finally back...

2005-09-06T10:32:00.000+02:00

Ok folks I had to admit this: it had been really a long time since I updated this blog!

The truth is that Animation Mentor is really taking all of my life, and I-m really dedicated to it, but this was a crunch time period at work (not yet finished) and I wanted to spend all of my energy in my animation since I noted that the quality was not progressing.

Anyway I-ve made some key points just to be in touch:

1. I want to post all my animation from this and previous semester

2. I really need to update this blog cause it's done for all the people out there to let you know that AM can really change your life.

See you soon (very soon)

Gianmichele

Sneaky-tiptoe-dancing walk

2005-06-08T11:34:00.000+02:00

Ok I'm at last time server again ehehehe...I know I shouldn't be installing video software on a server, and I know I shouldn't be using it for browsing internet and all the other things, and yes I know the rules for a secure server, but you know what? Rules are here to be broken :D

The machine is doing a backup and I've just watched Jason's critique without audio. It's hard to tell what's going on but I see that last week's assignment was all about fun and that distracted my eyes to see what was happening on the screen. I'm not worried though. I'm not at AM to take good grades (almost not only) but really learn how to give life to characters!

Week 10 was about personality in walk, our first try. I went for a sneaky-tiptoe-dancing kind of walk eheheh. At first it was really intimidating. I planned out on paper and acted out (man I will never show my videos to anyone!). Mmmm maybe I'm trying to push myself too much, maybe I should go with something simpler. My main poses seems fine or near fine to me, but everytime I decided to go spline with the keys the motion and the feeling where completely wrong. Sooo, back to planning and studying reference. I've made almost 20 revision of this walk before I was satisfied and then went to bed. The next day I woke up feeling that my mind was completely in that animation, so I phoned work and took the day off :)

I have seen that the main problem was that the computer was completely stupid doing inbetweens. I stated so to break the movement down more and more until I was satisfied. When I went to spline everything seemed much more like I wanted, it was only a cleanup thing to do.

Boring job!

2005-05-25T12:41:00.000+02:00

Ohhh man, don't you know how it's boring to do a job that you only need to do because you had to pay for AM? I know others that are in the same boat as me, but this is becoming really boring.

I've been a professional dancer for a loooong time, but I had to stop due to physical problems (I'm still teaching but a lot less than before). To pay for AM now what I'm doing? I'm a SYSADMIN !!!! Bleah! All this things like network cables, routers, firewalls, servers!! Ohhh man I was lucky to find this job thanks to my knowledge of this things (I've made a scientific school) but even though I really love the thought and logic part of the work, I really miss the organic part!! Everything is soooo lifeless!!

Well, I'm using my work time to write here, which is not correct, but I really need a break.

CU All!

Week 8 and reference...

2005-05-18T12:46:00.000+02:00

Hello guys,

this week will be one of the most exciting for me! I'm doing the first walk of the course. I guess there will be a lot of walks just like I've been animating a lot of balls.
Anyway, what I find pretty damn cool is the energy of every lecture. I'm amazed by how they're keeping the lectures interesting, but maybe that's just because I love animation.

I'm also continuining to experiment with different approaches to animation. While in the Tailor assignment I went almost straight ahead, with the Jump assignment i choose to stay in stepped key as long as possible and really plan out things deeply.
What I've found is that with the animation jump, everything was much more manageale, while the tailor anim soon became a mess to work with. I've found though that my jump was lacking that spontaneity...I think the solution could be to do a full straight ahead pass after everything is good, just to give it that little touch (that's my experiment for this week assignment).

I have some ideas in mind but at the moment I haven't had too much time for them..

I'd love to make a web community, where all the animators can upload and download reference videos, all for free of course.

Bye!

Week 4 and 5

2005-05-06T20:19:00.000+02:00

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. Time had been and issue for me, as I have lot of work to do and also lot of animation ;P.

Well, week 4 and 5 have been super interesting. We learned about squash and stretch in detail and anticipation! These are all term I already heard about, and are also concepts I have used a lot during dancing. Yes dancing...

The more I study animation, the more I hear things that sounds familiar to me. Probabl the most physical things are lacking in animation, or are too difficult to do, but there's this great baggage of tricks to generate emotions that we also used in dancing.

Eyes, tension, break, twists, fluidity and rigidity, acceleration, rhythm, contrast, timing. During my dance days I always thought that these were only related to dance. Now that someone is directing my eyes, I see these things everywere. I feel almost flood by these, I can no longer talk with someone or watch television and see all these things done by a multitude of people in a multitude of ways.

WOW WOW and again WOW!!!

I feel good guys and even though I have not all the time that I want to dedicate to AM (for now! ihihihih), this is something totally great! I love this feeling!

Now I have to come back to work on my Tailor (you will know who he is next week!)...

Week 3

2005-04-15T23:15:00.000+02:00

Our week 3 lecture had been something phenomenal. Guys that's not something said by a fan..this is the school you should do if you really want to be an animator. The energy going through a campus is something absolutely unique !!!

These are 2 images of my first pose, and my first assignment (the one with the rings). Jason has been very clear in his critique, and I can clearly see his points (now!). I'll work on a revision in the week end.

That's all for now, I have to go back and...sketch, pose, animate everything I can think of :)

STU Soul

2005-04-10T22:32:00.000+02:00

Well, I've submitted my final work for this week assignment. I was asked to do a pose of STU, one of the AM character based on some sketches previously done.
I decided to do a STU pose based on a position on rings (gym). In the first revisions I was working on it and on my eyes it was almost right, I know I had to exaggerate, and keep weight and balance, all that "academical" stuff.

You know what? IT WAS ALMOST BORING!

Well not, it was not boring, because ANIMATION is the most fun thing in the world but...it was too mechanical, yes that's the right word!

I stopped, and went out with my girlfriend talking with her about my feelings. She said that things will become smoother with time and that now I need to concentrate on information, and be like a sponge. I know she was right, but I also needed to not be overwhelmed by this.

I knew I needed inspiration and saw watched a making of featurette on Star Wars Clone War.

And then the light switched on!!!

At some moment George (Lucas) asked Rob Coleman to choose a maquette for a character and the first thing Rob asked was

"What's his personality?"

Man, that's it! The personality. I've tried to make a pose of STU without knowing his personality. So I wrote down some notes about his personality:

Male
Young but not too much muscular, or strong, almost a nerd
When doing sports he's just like Goofy
He feels like Paul Newman but in fact he's like Jerry Lewis

So I tried to rework the pose on the rings based on this notes. And so suddenly his arms streched because he has no muscles, and his neck tried to balance everything with his spine just like he's going to explode, and a lot of other feelings difficult to tell but that are part of his personality.

I'll post a pic next week, after the review of Jason.

Week 2

2005-04-08T17:02:00.000+02:00

I'm near the end of this 2nd week at Animation Mentor. Our assignment is to go to a public area and sketch poses and attitudes and then pose the model (Stu) like one of the sketches.

I have to admit that it feels so intimidating to go to a public area and try to draw something. Everyone is watching at you....brrrr. Anyway after some initial pain, everything went smooth, but I was unsatisfied of what I was achieving. I wanted something more extreme and dynamic, and so I went to a local gym in my city and asked to do some sketches. They agreed and booommm.
There was a guy in there who was training in rings. Man even though I can clearly see he was not perfect, he was such an inspiration!!!

I have now decided to pose Stu with the rings, I need to work on it before posting it in the assignment area.

Meanwhile I want to show you how I keep myself inspired eheheh...just click the thumbnails

See you next time :)

Pope, you're the best!

2005-04-03T12:30:00.000+02:00

I wanted to write about some new experience to AM, but yesterday, 21.37, something in our life happened.
It's hard to describe my feeling in this sad day. He has been the most greatest of all Pope. He believed in us, in all human kind, even the most evil part, and had known down in his hearth that there's hope and good in all of us.
While our busy life moved our focus from who we really are, thinking even for just a moment to what this man has done for us through all his life can really shake us to do better.
Feeling are flowing too fast to be described, but I know that from the place where he's now, he's watching us, smiling...

Now I have my mentor

2005-03-26T17:21:00.000+01:00

I couldn't wish a better one, even though they're all great!
Ladies & Gentlemen my mentor is:

tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Jason Schleifer

I'm so happy.This guy is really full of energy, just like me. Hope to be a good student for him (are you listening Jason?) and don't give him too much headache :)

If you want to see his works go to www.jonhandhisdog.com

It all starting guys, and It's going to be great...

One week to go!

2005-03-20T10:59:00.000+01:00

I've made my payment finally. Now I'm waiting for my student ID. Anyway it's just one week to start the lessons.

In the meantime I'm one of the new administrators at 10 Second Club. For all of you, this is one of the most wonderful community on animation. Every month there's a competition on a 10 second clip to be animated. Come and have a look, there are a lot of great talents there.

www.10secondclub.net

In the next months I'm going to upgrade this a lot, with my good and crappy (a lot) animations.

CU

Here we are

2005-03-05T15:04:00.000+01:00

Well, why have I decided to create this blog?
Today I've received a confirmation e-mail by my new on-line Animation school. I've been accepted !!!! I'm going to be an animator !!!

I'l try to post here as much as I can, but I'll be a little busy with the school. It's going to be great.

In the meantime have a look at their site: Animation Mentor.