The End of 2008

Christmas and hannukah ahve come and gone now and reflections on the past year and cristal-balling for the new are underway. It's a shame really... the calander has to be thrown in the bin (this past years' bought from a street boy in a small run down ex-tourist town in India... 2007's was my fave... illustrations of birds fromt he erboleria - or is it erbolaria or erbolaio?), at least a few weeks need to be spent getting the date wrong on anything and everything and people resolve for things they want to do to change themselves. They never do, so the end of January is always full of disappointment.

I've noticed that this month there's been a push to sell lottery tickets... even I tried to buy one... they were all out. Why does everyone think it's easier to win the lottery in the holiday season? Good on the marketing staff though. I bet they made a fortune.

And everyone's talking about the financial crisis. I feel so stupid and ignorant. I have no idea what's going on and I'm sure it's something simple like 'Oh, everyone just spent more money than they had and now they need to pay it back, but they don't have any.' or 'Some guy did something bad and robbed some other guy, but that guy was already robbing someone else and that guy was too... and in the end so was the govenment and even little kids with the toothfairy money and now everything's all tangled up and no one knows what to do.' but the truth is I don't know if that's what's going on and there's no one who's talking clear in the way my first-grader brain can understand. Oh look! A shiny rubber ball!!

Got lots of booka dna DVDs for Hanukmas... all animation related. Yay! Everything's connected... and I know this cause Giulio and Alessia bought a picture book for Fabri for his birthday and it's by Shaun Tan... and then watching the credits of 2 of my new movies (Horton and Wall-E) I glimpse the guy's name again... and then reading my new book on animation Production Design by Hans Bacher Shaun's name comes up again. Anyhow, needless to say he was already becomming one of my new favorite illustrators/artists/industry dudes. This is one of his paintings.

Shaun Tan 'Footpath, Fifth Avenue' 2004, oil on canvas, 110 x 120 cm.

Stairs Project for the New House

These are examples of the new staircase we'd like to build int he house. Underneath the stairs would be storage.

I like SketchUp.

Finnian & Flynn Layout

Finnian & Flynn Animatic

Maccaroni

Pre-Pitch

Mr. Goldshoe's very standard and non-personal room on the 28^th floor of an old people's nursing home on a very small island in the middle of a river, about 300m far from the mainland.

Mr. Goldshoe is 102 years old. His hands shake and his back is not so good but other than that he can't complain. The doctor says he's going to live to be 200.

Pitch

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe retires back into his room crowded by birthday balloons, streamers, confetti and noisemakers. He waves to the other partyguests he squeezes the door shut, kicking a balloon out of his way.

As he turns to his bedroom the smile runs from his face. He shuffles over to the desk while taking off his party hat. Placing it carefully on the desk he gazes over to his collection of photos. Nestled in the middle of the photos of his 70^th, 80^th and 90^th birthday parties at the nursing home is a photo of MARGOT, his wife, when she was young. She is beautiful and smiles coyly at the camera.

Lightly, Mr. Goldshoe touches the edge off the frame.

Grabbing a box of maccaroni from the desk and a bottle of white glue he scurries on his hands and knees out the window.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

MR. GOLDSHOE's POV

Mr. Goldshoe's hands flutter at an amazing speed as he glues pieces of maccaroni to a giant maccaroni structure. On his ring finger he wears a wedding band. On his pinky he wears the matching, female band.

ON SCENE

Mr. Goldshoe continues his backbreaking work glueing the pieces onto the structure. It is a ski-jump poised for a launch over the torrent river below.

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe inspects himself carefully in his mirror. He wears a navy suit and formal bow-tie. He plucks the flowers from the vase on his shelf and turns nervously towards the window. His movements are restricted by the plywood skiis he has attached to his feet.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

At the top of the ski-jump Mr. Goldshoe is waiting with anticipation in position. His face is tense with nerves. He has a brief look around and checks his skiis. He's full of concentration. With one deep breath he lunges himself down the ramp.

His small form gathers speed with surprising ease. Mr. Goldshoes' teeth are clenched with fright and determination. The end of the jump approaces and he becomes airborne. His form is perfect.

Relieved his face changes from distress to delight. His eyes are fixed tight forwards but his gaze is glazed with anticipation. A tear is sweeped from his eye by the wind.

EXT. IN AIR – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe speeds through the clouds. As he begins his decent he checks that the flowers are pert and fluffed up to perfection and smooths his hair.

MR. GOLDSHOE'S POV:

The cemetary appears in a clearing of white fluff an approaches rapidly.

EXT. CEMETARY – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe is 60 years younger and shares a stone bench with Margot. He takes her hand and they sit in silence, both contented. Suddenly Mr. Goldshoe realises he hasn't given her the flowers and reaches down to grab them.

They're on the ground, behind the tombstone the couple are sitting on, still clutched in the hand of his dead & squished old man's body. He prys the corpse's hand open and snatches the flowers, presenting them to his wife. She blushes and recieves the flowers with glee.

-END-

The moral of this story is that true love never dies.

Finnian & Flynn

Pre-pitch

Small condominial block of houses in small suburban neighbourhood in mid-1970's Montreal, Canada. Mid to late afternoon.

Finnian & Flynn, twin boys, infants and later, toddler age. Finnian has blonde hair. Flynn has red hair. In all other ways they are identical except for slight alterations in colouring of their clothing.

Pitch

We open to a shot of a nursery with two identical blue cradles as our focal point. It is snowing outside the window. The boys names are written on the wall above the cradles. Finnian & Flynn. This should also be the title shot of the work. Our camera dollys in towards the cribs until we have a medium shot of the two babies.. They are both sucking upon their pacifiers. Flynn sucks his like a normal baby, but Finnian is sucking like he's just drank 12 cups of coffee. Flynn looks over at his brother nervously.

We fade to a shot where the two boys are on their playmat. Finnian no longer has the pacifier in his mouth. He's already grown out of it however Flynn has not. The twins are having their first attempts on learning how to crawl. Both boys are a bit wobbly at first but then Finnian is up on his hands and knees and speeds off out of the shot. Flynn is can only stop and watch. He collapses to the floor, unabe to crawl, desperate, left behind and alone.

Fade to the boys on the playmat again. Finnian is happily playing with a racecar, zooming it back and forth with gusto. Flynn's only toy is a wooden duck, he trys to speed it along the ground like a racecar, but one of the wheels is broken and it just wobbles along the carpeting. Clunkity clunkity clunk. Almost frozen with boredom, Flynn watches Finnian have all the fun, again. He sucks his pacifier.

Fade to the front door of the house opening and the boys, a bit older now, rubbing their eyes to the sunlight that hits them. In the courtyard are a brand new radio-flyer tricycle and a pink plastic pully-worm toy. Flynn sees the toys first, does a quick calculation in his head and looks over at Finnian who's grin has just begun to crack with the prospect of playing otside. Suddenly, Flynn shoves his brother off the step of the house into the bushes and rushes over to the tricycle... he hops on and begins to peddle around and around the flowerbed, his little grin peaking out from behind the pacifier. Finnian meanwhile is crying in the shrubbery. Shortly, Flynn realises that he's been cruel and pulls up alongside Finnian, dismounts and helps his brother up onto the bike. He sits himself down on the stairs, and feeling like he doesn't even deserve his favorite thing, his pacifier, for the way he behaved, soberly takes it out of his mouth and places it beside him on the step. He kicks the pull-worm and has an idea.

Cut to Finnian driving the tricycle at top speed with all the joy in the world. Zoom out to reveal the worm pully toy being dragged behind, and atop it, bouncing up and down like a rodeo rider, is Flynn with the same expressiong plastered all along his face.

-END-

The moral of the story is that there is no reward in acting upon envy of other people's talents. The real route to happiness is in developing your own.

Well Done

Pre-Pitch

Suburban backyard, late afternoon when the sun is turning everything blue and orange.

Jim is a big, heavy beer drinking-kind of guy. He overexaggerated in everything he does. He is selfish and arrogant. Sparky is Jim's dog. He's quite afraid of Jim's authoritative nature, but is not in control of his actions all of the time. Especially when he's hungry.

Pitch

We start with a bbq. Jim walks into frame followed by Sparky jumping and yapping and trying to grab the meat. Jim scolds the dog violently several times until Sparky cowers behind the BBQ sits down and behaves. Jim places the meats on a shelf beside the BBQ out of sparky's reach and smiles at him cruely.

He starts to squeeze out lighter fluid onto the coals. He struggles to get out every drop. He goes through multiple cans, dropping them onto the ground. Sparky notices the cans, and looks up at Jim with concern. Does he know how much he's using? He begins to yap again, trying to get Jims' attention. Jim ignores him, scolds him, then kicks him away. Sparky has a short attention span and his focus keeps switiching back and forth from the mounting danger to his desire for the meat sitting on the high shelf.

Jim goes for the matches now. Strikes one, but it doesn't light... tries another and another, gets frustrated, then he finally gets one. Sparky's attention turns back to the impending explosion of fire... he backs off a bit.

We get close ups of Jim's eyes, the flame, the flammable warning on the discarded bottles.

He drops the match onto the coals and it lights it perfectly, no explosion. He throws on the meat. Sparky sits down patiently now, relieved. His tail is wagging happily... maybe he'll be offered some scraps.

Suddenly an anvil falls from the sky and lands hard on the ground barely missing the dog. He jumps up in alarm. Jim and Sparky look at eachother confused and concerned. As Jim looks back at the anvil another one falls from the sky and crushes him.

Sparky is shocked and confused. He makes a motion towards his dead owner and quickly realises that without his owner, he won't be able to get the meat. He looks back up at it with longing. It's so very far away.

And then the bbq blows up. Plates, bbq tools, meat, veg, etc. get thrown up into the air.

-Titles-

The mess lands and as the dust settles we see that all the items from the BBQ have landed perfectly on the anvil in front of Sparky in such a manner that he now has a gourmet meal in front of him cooked to perfection complete with a vegetable side dish and cutlery. He eats.

-End-

The moral of this story is that good things come to those who wait and are in the right place at the right time.

Maccaroni

Pre-Pitch

Mr. Goldshoe's very standard and non-personal room on the 28^th floor of an old people's nursing home on a very small island in the middle of a river, about 300m far from the mainland.

Mr. Goldshoe is 102 years old. His hands shake and his back is not so good but other than that he can't complain. The doctor says he's going to live to be 200.

Pitch

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe retires back into his room crowded by birthday balloons, streamers, confetti and noisemakers. He waves to the other partyguests he squeezes the door shut, kicking a balloon out of his way.

As he turns to his bedroom the smile runs from his face. He shuffles over to the desk while taking off his party hat. Placing it carefully on the desk he gazes over to his collection of photos. Nestled in the middle of the photos of his 70^th, 80^th and 90^th birthday parties at the nursing home is a photo of MARGOT, his wife, when she was young. She is beautiful and smiles coyly at the camera.

Lightly, Mr. Goldshoe touches the edge off the frame.

Grabbing a box of maccaroni from the desk and a bottle of white glue he scurries on his hands and knees out the window.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

MR. GOLDSHOE's POV

Mr. Goldshoe's hands flutter at an amazing speed as he glues pieces of maccaroni to a giant maccaroni structure. On his ring finger he wears a wedding band. On his pinky he wears the matching, female band.

ON SCENE

Mr. Goldshoe continues his backbreaking work glueing the pieces onto the structure. It is a ski-jump poised for a launch over the torrent river below.

INT. GOLDSHOE'S ROOM – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe inspects himself carefully in his mirror. He wears a navy suit and formal bow-tie. He plucks the flowers from the vase on his shelf and turns nervously towards the window. His movements are restricted by the plywood skiis he has attached to his feet.

EXT. NURSING HOME - 28^th FLOOR LEDGE – DAY

At the top of the ski-jump Mr. Goldshoe is waiting with anticipation in position. His face is tense with nerves. He has a brief look around and checks his skiis. He's full of concentration. With one deep breath he lunges himself down the ramp.

His small form gathers speed with surprising ease. Mr. Goldshoes' teeth are clenched with fright and determination. The end of the jump approaces and he becomes airborne. His form is perfect.

Relieved his face changes from distress to delight. His eyes are fixed tight forwards but his gaze is glazed with anticipation. A tear is sweeped from his eye by the wind.

EXT. IN AIR – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe speeds through the clouds. As he begins his decent he checks that the flowers are pert and fluffed up to perfection and smooths his hair.

MR. GOLDSHOE'S POV:

The cemetary appears in a clearing of white fluff an approaches rapidly.

EXT. CEMETARY – DAY

Mr. Goldshoe is 60 years younger and shares a stone bench with Margot. He takes her hand and they sit in silence, both contented. Suddenly Mr. Goldshoe realises he hasn't given her the flowers and reaches down to grab them.

They're on the ground, behind the tombstone the couple are sitting on, still clutched in the hand of his dead & squished old man's body. He prys the corpse's hand open and snatches the flowers, presenting them to his wife. She blushes and recieves the flowers with glee.

-END-

The moral of this story is that true love never dies.

Progress

Things are going well with the house. If I could find the cables to download the photos from the camera I'd post them, but no one knows where they could be. I'm sitting in the empty rental as I write this surrounded only by the 50 year old modular furniture we have to say goodbye to this weekend. Even my primary computer is pack and away.

In the new place there's a mountain of stuff in the middle of the downstairs space. Everything we have. The move went well and in the truck from one place to the other we smiled knowing that even without all that stuff behind us banging around the cabin it wouldn't matter. Takes the pressure off. I dropped the bed down the stairs in the main hall here and broke the wall, but the bed seems to be ok.

We had an IKEA fiasco which ended in our defeat and a change of tactic. We were loading bits and pieces of the far too large wardrobe I planned onto a zillion of those pushy carts when we realised that we couldn't possibly navigate the cash area and all those people who stand far too close to you. We asked to have it delivered. We left the zillions of carts in the middle of those sky-scraping aisles and ran away.

Ale & Ele came to help with the move, and so did Max. Max had to head off afterwards, but we went with A&E to eat at a crazy dark trattoria, (or is it osteria?) around the corner when we were done. I had cornetti, which I've never had before and really liked, and cotoletta... which I should never have and hardly ever like. The owner/cook is an old bearder beer-swilling guy and even though it's just turned autumn there was a raging fire in the fire pit. The service was angry-family-biz style. The son wore a cape and squeezed glue and sprinkled packets of sugar into the fire.

The floor downstairs won't be arriving till the end of the month and therefore we're delaying any of the furniture we've bought. Most of it comes from our weekend hunts for 'antiques' from the turn of the last century. I believe it's called liberty style here. I'm mostly attracted to it's sturdy, durable, lasted 100 years and still going nature. I just really like the idea of wood.

The harmonica playing is going ok. I'm a little diappointed in myself for not practicing everyday and I think I'm using the move as an excuse. The truth is it's not taking up so much of my time and the not playing is down to my laziness and non-commital nature. It's one of my 'shoulds' at the moment. Yesterday I woke up early and then worked on my short stories for the short film I'm starting and then went back t bed at about 11. I stayed in bed till after 2:30 and had to rush to get ready for work. How can anyone sleep that long? Today I have a few more things to do for the final move, but before I'll practice for a half an hour.

The stories are coming along great. I'm going to upload them to the AM site and talk about progress there.

Links to Resources for Learning

IRA GLASS ON STORY TELLING:
http://www.yourdailyawesome.com/2007/03/02/ira-glass-on-storytelling/

ILLUSION OF LIFE (Disney Special 1981):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFhqEupQviU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCMyRtLfhag&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iin1q7MjyXw&feature=related

Class 5.1

Heya! Started class 5 today... managed to get through classes 3 & 4 without writing anything here... but oh well right?

Ok... so let's start with IDEAS:

Everyone is unique. All ideas are valid. Following ideas will take you someplace, and hopefully to a place where a story can grow from. What if factors. There are no bad ideas.

My mentor this term is Jed Diffenderfer. He works on story at Dreamworks and did loads on Kung Fu Panda. In the Q&A today I was in the dark, no because I didn't understand, but because I had no lamp. Next week (lamp pending) will be my big reveal... bear head or lamp itself are 2 ideas that Jed came up with right away. I need to find a bear lamp.

Personal History Moment

We signed for the house today. Nutty job that was. I was in the Advocate's office for a few hours as he read out the different documents at warp speed and I followed along, flipping pages as he rambled off the numbered clauses & articles. 3976859302 Then after an unfortunate parking ticket (which, as usual, ruined the following 3 hours for me) we had to go down to the bank to kill the previous owner's mortgage. It was on the other side of town. We've got the keys now. 032472889371

Starting class 5 of Animation Mentor as well today. In fact, just finished my class with Jed Diffenderfer. It's the start of Story. Hoping to be able to document the progress on my little-used AM blog. By the way, it's before 7am. I've got the early morning class this term.

In the process of buying furniture for the house as well. So far we've got Fabri's desk and desk chair, a bookcase, the table, the other bookcase, a lamp and have ordered the couch. Everything so far fits into the early 1900s. It's only once every few days I worry about the place being too themed... but then I remember how very odd I actually am and I don't worry about it too much. I'm choosing things I love to look at whic have some history to them to add to my personal history, so I can't imagine that that could be too wrong. Friday evening I have to truck off to IKEA to pick up the things I don't really want to invest any heavy money into... my office space, the wardrobe and a matress.

Been trying to convince a carpenter or general fixit guy to build us storage under the stairs before we put the floor down, but it's an upwards climb. I don't know why, but the quotes keep coming back at scary prices and the handymen don't seem to have any creative solutions for the space at all. It makes no sense to me... you get some wood, you cut it to the right shape and size, you paint it white and stick it under the stairs. I know, seeing how I'm not a carpenter that I may be simplifying things a little (any job you can't do yourself is presumed 'easy' right?) but seriously, it's meant to be what they do right?? Anyways, the alternative is to wait and see what happens and maybe get a big storage chest instead for the space. In the end that might look nicer anyhow.

I'm looking forward to the first few days after the bixes are in and everything is crazy and messy and nothing's unpacked yet. I can see candles and a bottle of wine and an open box of pizza on the floor. Ok, I'm romanticizing the idea a bit, but hey, nothing wrong with that.

The dentist cancelled on me again so I'm still hanging onto my wisdom tooth, at least until September. And a kid came over yesterday to buy the TV so since I haven't reattached the littler one I'm not watching anything.

I'm ahead on my animation stuff for this week, so i'm not doing anything to do with that. I think I might go read a book in bed. It's hot outside. There's no one to talk to anymore and I'm lonely. (Today the postman did ring though! He even had a raccomandata I had to sign for so I had to put clothes and shoes on and go downstairs and everything! I felt like a slug coming out from under a rock...the light was so bright)

In other news I saw the new batman movie last night and I have to say it wasn't my favorite, but I loved the contrast and similarities between the batman character (who had a terrible personality) and that of the joker (who was equally if not more terrible but definately more appealing). The scene in the interrogation room made me really think about my entire psyche and personality. I could have done without seeing the rest of the film though.

Tonight, dinner out someplace. Tomorrow Party. Saturday Party.

Not too shabby.

Yesterday wasted att he computer again. Searching YouTube for tracks for an animation, fighting on MSN, trying to not feel quite so lonely. The post man doesn't even ring (how I miss the sweet melodic sound of his voice 'Posta!' he calls out). It's hard work doing nothing. I feel guilty when I don't have the permission I need to sit and stare at a wall or watch crime shows on TV. At least sometimes I find an old friend there (Jen Finnegan being on 'Closer to Home'...). Sometimes.

I pretend to study animation. I read my books. I read a novel. I don't really study. I don't really read my books. I don't really read a novel. I chat online with my virtual army. I exchange insults and information and try to make sense out of 8 hours. I look forward to days where there's more to do, like tooth extractions. I look forward to days when there's less to do. Like Wednsday. I'm not certain you could get more pathetic. I complain when there's too much to do and complain when there's not enough.... and why do I complain? Cause I have nothing better to do!! Hahahaha

It's not all bad. I exaggerate. Today Fabri & I stole a chair from the garbage in the yard of a school. I've got it partially disassembled and am sanding down all the varnish to well, revarnish it. Yes I know I didn't really think it through when I started the project, but at least I'm using a power tool. One day I'll buy a new cushion for the seat and get to use a staple gun as well. It's going to be a nice chair but my lungs are dustfilled and weepy so I'm calling it a day for today.

This is an Anti-Blog

It's an antiblog written by an anti-person. If you're reading this, you're an anti-person too. Congratulations.

I don't say anthing on this blog. It's not about me. There isn't a single piece of useful information on this site since its creation. It doesn't even have any meaning.

And if there's nothing worth saying?

Welcome to the anti-blog.

Never did talk about it

I'm so busy studying and obessing about unimportant things lately that I always forget to comment on what's actually been going on on a day to day basis.

Before I went to Xchanges for the stage I was thinking about documenting it in some way, like by updating to blog daily or something along those lines, but then when i started there just wasn't the motivation to do it. Th robot project was good and went smoothly but there wasn't too much else to say. I couldn't very well start writing about the people who work there. It'd be unprofessional... and anyhow, you never know how these things go. When animation mnetor's done in March I'll ahve a think about going back there and asking if they'll still have me.

India is another thing I never really talked about. I was thinking about when our car got a flat tire and the people we met there. Begging for cookies and shampoo- I remember the girl with the twisted eyes and skin problems. I remember the fish with no eyes. I should write all that stuff down before I forget. but I probably won't. the same way i spent more than 4 hours a day in the car with ramesh Raman as our driver and promised I'd mail him when we got home. The same way I always say I should keep a journal.

After a long time not using any web messenging software I'm back on MSN alot these days. It helps to numb the fact that I rarely leave my house. I feel more connected this way. I guess I'm the type of person they study in psychiatric wards to see what the affects of technology on society are. Case studies and the like.

I have a look now and then at other people's blogs, especially artisits and I see how comitted they are to their works. I see how the blog is often updated with new sketches and inspirations and the links to other blogs are of other artists with inspirations and sketches... And it gets me down a bit. Like when I listen to the Beatles and I think of how much I'm not going to do in my life. But then I remember I'm me, and I feel a little better.

So this post is about all the things I'm not going tobe and the things I'm not going to talk about.

Pure Contour Drawing

Three more drawing to proceed with the info in the book. The first two are pure contour drawings where you study just the details and can't look down at the page. They are of an Orchid plant and the wrinkles of my left hand. The third is on a piece of transparent plastic with erasable marker (also of my left hand). Incidentally the plastic is the window that i stole from the bankomat back in 2005.

Upside Down Drawing

47 minutes till my Animation Mentor class and I'm uploading more excercises from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

The excercise is to redraw a Picasso image (original shown here) which is upside down without turning the image and without turning one's own drawing. I repeated the excercise two times.

On the second I thought I was getting somewhere until I got to the face and head and then I lost my train of thought. I'm pretty impressed that the arms of the chair are in perspective and that it actually looks like he's crossing his legs. Things get al little funky around the shoulders, but it might be because I was lying on the bed when I was drawing and wasn't really in the best position for drawing that far down on the paper.

I can't really say that I felt anything different than I regularly do when drawing except that it was a frustrating excercise and I felt worried about the details. I felt I had to check and recheck the angles of lines from one to the other and it was driving me crazy. It paid off where I didnìt get too lazy and the areas where I got lazy really show.

Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain Excersize 1

As one of my birthday presents Fabri picked me up a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. I'm planning to follow the lessons in the book in an attempt to improve my skills as an illustrator and hopefully, animator as well.

The first excercises in the book are to be undertaken before reading ahead and learning the techniques that the author reccomends. The student is to do 3 drawings at their current level.

1)Self Portrait
2)Portrait from memory (I picked Fabri)
3)Drawing of left hand (or right hand for lefties)

I haven't drawn anything in a concentrated state for a long while. I think that the self portrait and the hand drawing were the most rewarding right now, but I don't think I did too bad on the image of fabri either, even if it doesn't look like him. I'm pretty sure the book leads you to draw these same subjects when the course is done another time so we'll see how I progress.

I'm also studying a bit of body language and acting from 2 other books. I tried an experiment at the post office today with the clerk, you know, smiling more and making more eye contact and I realised that those little things really do help.

More Photos

Mouse Loading Boxes

Here's an excercise I did in my last few days at XChanges with a rig they let me play with. I struggled with the elbows a bit but eventually got it to seem like there was a little bit of weight involved.

I'll Light the Fire

Well, here I am posting some photos of the loft for your viewing pleasure.

OUTDOORS & SITE

MAIN LIVING AREA

KITCHEN AREA
To be continued in the next post with bathroom, office, stairway and upstairs!

Mid-June

We just bought a loft. It's pretty awsome. It's in an old factory. I should put up photos or something. 80 square Meters and I'm going to keep it pretty much all white with 40's furniture and weird junk all over.

I've been throwing out all my clothes and I still have more to get rid of. I want to have a wardrobe like a uniform... everything goes together and there are hard fast rules.

Hate to complain but it was 30 degrees in my bedroom when I went to sleep last night at 11:30- how is that possible? Doesn't the sun have something to do with the temperature? I've taken to rolling around in a bathtub of baby powder before I go anywhere... is it worse to be sticky and sweaty or get heat stroke cause you're preventing your natural cooling systems from working?

The stage has been great and I'm still there for a few more weeks. I really like the group of guys the place has brought together and lunch-times are always alot of fun. I've learnt alot too and my robot project hasn't come out too too badly. I wasn't really keen on the modelling or rigging or animation or materials etc. as individual items, but all together I think it's looking prety decent. I have a few weeks to polish it up.

I'm on a break from Animation Mentor which lasts only a week and then we get into facial animation. Man I'm excited, but also nervous for it. I feel like I struggled quite a bit with my last shot and I'm still a bit insecure. My mentor Dana Boadway was great at reassuring me though and I'm hoping my next mentor will be as awsome. I learnt LOADS. I tried my hand at drama-style acting and hope to be able to attempt a comedy shot next term. Maybe the shot with the 2 characters side by side. I don't know.

We've been to loads of weddings lately. 3 in June alone. I'm all wedding-ed out and exhausted from all the hanging out with strangers and travelling to far off places and all the primo,secondo,dessert-buffeting. Man. Hard work. All the brides were lovely though... really.

Struggling with Finessing and New Favorite Movie Contender

I'm having a bit of trouble finishing the work I need to get done for my shot this week. I keep hitting procrastination and misinspiration. I think the best thing to do is go in via arcs one by one. I'm going to take a break now and get back to it this evening.

But in terms of generalised inspiration I saw Horton Hears a Who last night (albeit in Italian - Orotone e il Mondo dei Chi) and I absolutely loved it. It was fantastic. Great story, characters acting and the animation was super exaggerated and fun. Apparently 22 graduates from AM worked on it so that's something to aspire to.

In terms of aspirations, jobs and the like, news has it that my phone's been ringing off the hook with interviews and offers recently. I don't know what it is... spring fever? Anyhow, starting a stage on the 5th of May and looking forward to it.

House Hunting and Other Hunting

Fabri and I have been looking at apartments lately, on a whim really to see what's out there and if we'd be willing to buy. So far we've seen alot that we like but every place has a catch. One's too expensive, one's too far from public transport, one opens up onto the garbage disposal. i guess with patience we'll find what's right for us.

I'm meant to be starting a stage this week at a post production company but I haven't heard back from the boss since last week. I uess I just have to truck along and see what happens. I had a phone call for some other work last night but it was from a client who is pretty unreliable and always contacts me at the last minute.

It's been pretty rainy lately, but I'm not letting it get me down. I'm too busy to be sad about anything and anyhow, things seem to be going great!

I'm working on a face in Maya for animation cause I need to get my skill-set back up if I want to have a job. Here's the progres after a few days on it. Slowly coming along and definately better than anything I've done previously. I'm following the workfolow of Jason Osipa as in his book 'Stop Staring'. Hopefully it'll turn out pretty decent.

In terms of the Cola assignment, I'm working on simplifing the blocking and getting everything nice and clean for my next upload. Dana said I need to simplify and I'm finding it easier said than done. We talked about it a bit more in the live Q&A yesterday and I thnk I'm getting the hang of it. I've gone into splining cause I feel I can understand what's goign to happen better from there. Hopefully everythign seems to polish up nice.

Week 3 - Coke Machine

Things are going well so far with my first assignment for acting. I had struggled the first week with the video reference and getting all my ideas to fit into the allocated timing. Blocking is done now and I'm heading into refining the blocking but I'd like to head what my mentor Dana Boadway has to say about what I've got so far first.

Well, I'm not going to feel bad that I'm a bad blogger. I have other things to do. Most of them relating to animation anyhow. I'm currently reading 'Timing for Animation' by Harold Whitaker and John Halas and listening to Clay Kaytis' Animation Podcast on my ipod. I'd really like to get a copy of Desmond Morris' Manwatching, but it's out of print and quite costly. I found used ones on amazon, but I haven't got the money right now and I guess it's best to read one book at a time.

Inproving at Animation Failing as a Blogger

I know just look at my other blog to see how bad I am at this. Class 3 has begun now and I didn0t even update on class2 in all this time! Dimos was a fantastic mentor and i got over some hurdles with planning and blocking. Now I have Dana Boadway as my new mentor and am already immersed int he 2nd week of my first project. Here's what I have so far: It still needs work during the blocking pass but I'm waiting for feedback from my peers on the site. I'm feeling pretty good about the acting so far though I did struggle with my video reference last week.

Months and Months!

Well, I'm just awful. Since I've been gone I've been to Canada, India and got married. What kind of unreliable blogger goes off and does all that without an update? Halfa year has gone by.

Okay. Montreal and New York at christmastime was awsome. Fabri's whole family came along and it snowed and we saw all the sites and did loads of shopping and eating and hanging out.

The wedding was last month and I still haven't even gotten around to talking to my friends yet and telling them all about it. It's cause I'm always so busy with the next thing. Which at the moment is Animation Mnetor again, finding a job and an apartment. Anyhow, the wedding was really lovely. I wasn't stressed at all during the day and I thourally enjoyed myself. I wouldn't change a thing except having more of my girlfriends there but that wasn't in my hands anyhow. It turns out the place we had the wedding was Sofia Loren's old house. Crazy stuff. Small world too cause my mom's friend ran into her at the airport on the way back from the wedding and that's how we found out.

India was crazy. A mishmash of colours, sounds sites and smells. There were animals everywhere and people so so so many people. It really was a wonderful adventure. We met some great people too; our driver and the folks in the little villages. here's where we went:


When I get the photos I should post them and then it'll inspire me for more details. We've been looking at apartments to buy and have seen some interesting options but I'm concerned about finding the money for the deposit. i guess we have to go through the process of finding one we like enough first. The money is somewhere!

That's all for now and I hope not for the next 6 months! I have animation stuff to get back to and other things going on and I don't want to forget to eat lunch.