7.29.2009

Some new movies...

That are getting me inspired and excited. I went and saw Up and Ice Age 3. Up was truly amazing, I can't wait to see it again! The story, animation, effects, environments, everything was mind numbing! IA3 was their best yet and the fact that 51 students, Mentors and alumni worked on it says a lot for Animation Mentor. Enjoy.

Here are a couple trailers for movies coming out that I can't wait to go and see:
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs:



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Toy Story 3:



Despicable Me:

Slacking on my Blog...

Okay, so I'm already in week 5 and haven't posted any updates. It's moving right along and I graduate in under 60 days! Wow, I honestly can't believe how fast the time is flying by! I'm sort of sad that I'm not going to be a student at Animation Mentor no longer, but it sounds like you still get access to the site as an Alumni. So that's pretty cool. But, it will be nice to get my life back in order, spending more time with my awesome family and friends.

My mentor is awesome. Sean Sexton is his name and he's been animating at Dreamworks for some time now. He's worked on all the big-time movies they've produced over the past decade: Shrek I, II, and III, Bee Movie, Over the Hedge, Kung Fu Panda (by far their best movie yet), Sharks Tale, and Monster's vs. Aliens. He showed us some shots that he worked on in Over the Hedge and Monsters vs. Aliens. What an amazing animator. I couldn't imagine working at a company like Dreamworks or Pixar and animating these amazing shots everyday, all day!! That would be awesome.

My short film is coming along, I made some great progress and was ahead of the game coming into class 6, so I'm still confident that I'll finish up by week 12. There is still so much to go, but baby steps is the key. I converted it from blocking to linear this past week, trying a method that I've picked up since attending AM. Sean said that I should have more breakdowns before I convert the keyframes to linear. So I'm going to go back this week and go back to blocking, add some more breakdowns, then hopefully next week it will be ready to go to linear and I can start polishing the sucker! Then the plan is to start putting together my demo reel, art work,resume and website by December and start looking for work in 2010. Now that I'm in class 6 and graduation is right around the corner people are asking 'what next?'. I've thought about it and yes, I'd love to work at Pixar, Dreamworks or Blue Sky (any big time studio) but realistically I don't think that I'm ready... I know that I just want to animate, whether it be video games or movies. Spending a couple years in the video game industry would be great to learn more about physics and body mechanics. The thing about that is you don't get much experience in acting shots, and if you want to get into the big studios you have to be a strong actor (well, at least your characters do). So I'll have to keep up on that with the 11 Second Club contest each month. Still trying not to think about the future too much, focusing on the present. Finish up my short film to the best of my abilities, polish up my previous shots for my demo reel, and then I can worry about where I'm going.

It's a long journey, stressful at times, but a fun one none-the-less. I plan on posting my progress for my short film soon.....

Till next time.