Excited and motivated...

Well, the fall term at AM started today!! And I am super excited for all of my AM peeps. Starting a new class, meeting their new Mentor and all of the new classmates, re-uniting with old ones.... a new syllabus to peruse, new characters unveiled. It felt kind of weird, and strange to not be a part of it. I was thinking this morning, that a new term is beginning, then the excitement kicked in for a minute, it quickly dissipated when I realized I don't have a new class to start today. Its finally sinking in that I graduated, I'm done, I made it... Still a great feeling, now a little more nervous about being in the 'real animation world'. Being done sure feels nice, I'm really excited to start working on my reel and finishing up my short film... I've been working on little things here and there. Getting a lot of my demo reel artwork done, setting up a new website to view my online portfolio and relaxing with movies and spending time with my family.

So, I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm definitely enjoying being done with AM, relaxing, couching, etc and I realize that I have a lot of work ahead of me... being around all this animation is too motivating to just relax. I'm contemplating taking one more week of 'chillax' time, then start working again.... or get busy tonight! Animation is really hard, and taking time away from it can be exactly what you need. After being away from my short film for a couple weeks, then coming back to it; it's really amazing on how your perception changes, you catch different things, you come up with different/better ideas for the film and you're able to fix the problems that you having before with the animation..... it really is like a breath of fresh air.

We went a saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs last night and it was awesome. The style of the movie was great and original, the animation was awesome, very snappy, yet very 'squiggly' in the limbs, the effects were awesome with all the food falling from the sky, and the characters had tons of appeal. It was by far Sony's best animated feature yet. I recognized a few names in the credits, but I was surprised to see so many names under 'animation' in the credits as well as all the other departments.


One more quick thing. Now that I have access to the Alumni site, it further iterates my feelings on how truly amazing the school is. There's career services that helps you write resumes, cover letters and thank yous. Demo reel help, job boards, chats, forums, your own workspace to post your current reel.


Till then, keep on livin' 24 frames per second.

AM Alumnus Reporting for Duty!!

Well, it's officially official! I graduated from the greatest animation school on the planet! Lots of: sacrifice, hard work, loooong weekends, late nights/early mornings, lectures, notes, filming, drawing, chatting, forums, coffee, 5 hour energy shots, iTunes, key frames, posing, polishing, struggle, QnAs, feedback and animating!! What a life changing experience. I can't believe it's over, one more chapter done, and another one starting!

It's a great feeling to be done, a major sense of accomplishment and pride... now time to relax for a few weeks! Margaritas and Jager tonight!

Till next time.

It's a final!!

Whew... that was a the longest/fastest 18 months of my life! But, I persevered and graduated from Animation Mentor (well, not officially till Friday at 1pm). I pretty much completed my short film. I want to go and add a bunch more to it, and could keep adding to it till I am 80 years old. I want to do an intro scene with the opening credits that I still might do, but then I have to build another set, an outdoor set... we'll see how time permits. I still have some final polish and one more once over to make sure that all the splines are smooth and everything is rocking! Then I get to light it, render it and put it together in post with sound effects...

All in all Animation Mentor has changed my life, I'm so glad that I went. I'm looking forward to relaxing for a few weeks, then hitting it hard again! Got to get that demo reel done by January!

My Mentor (Sean Sexton) last night for our last QnA showed us his student work and told us his animation story. It was an interesting one to say the least, but a great one none-the-less. Then he showed us his current reel.. Wow. He's an amazing animator. It really inspired me to work hard to get my reel as finely tuned as I can to get an amazing job doing character animation all day long! I probably wont get to a major studio out of the gates, or even work on motion pictures... but that's my goal for the next 5 years. I mentioned before that I have a connection to a pretty big studio out in California... I'm going to start there and see what happens!!

It's been an amazing journey with Animation Mentor, but this is only the beginning. I'm planning on posting the progress of my short film, once it's all finished to look back at the creation process of it and see the transformation... stay tuned.

Till then.

Whew, one week to go!

Man oh man... where did the time go!? Well, I have one week left at Animation Mentor and can't believe how fast the time went. Looking back I learned so much, and looking forward, I still have so much more to learn. I guess that's a good thing, it will keep me on my toes, fresh and inspired. Going to AM I have met so many wonderful and inspiring people I will never forget and hope that I never lose contact with! Even though I have accomplished a major goal by completing the program I am far from being ready to begin my quest as an animator. As far as the animation goes for my short film, it's pretty much complete. Now I have add some final touches/polishes. Light, render and then put it all together in post production with the audio. Then I'm going to begin construction on my demo reel. I pretty much have all the artwork done, I just have to get the content. I'm going to put between 5 and 8 shots so I have to go back to some older work and clean up and add some more polish. Then in January for graduation I should be set to go.... Wish me luck.