Crazy AniMINTees

My schedule for the past week did not work out. It's my "fault" I went to SF Friday night to party with classmates, but I had allowed for that in my plan. Stuff got kinda out of hand at home Friday and Saturday and my AM assignment suffered. Those kind of things that I have no control over are what mess me up. Still, I did put some serious time into it at the last minute and managed to get most of my mentors changes in. The past 4 weeks have been murder for getting any homework done, and it's been bumming me out turning in poo week after week. Even though it wasn't as much as I'd planned I think I made more progress this week than the weeks prior. The shot is (finally) starting to come together.

Last Friday night's party at The Mint was extreme-to-the-max-ridiculous-cool fun. I hesitated at first driving all that way, but glad I did. Aside from the crazy ani"Mint"ees that made it out, some of our favorite AM staff, Becky, Luis and Taylor, plus mentor Bret Parker and Carlos. I didn't get faded enough to perform and the one time I was requested as backup the kj stopped me and everyone behind me from going onstage. Very small stage, I guess there was a limit. Often when I go to these things I forget to take my camera out. This time I tried to take as many photos as possible. Though I wouldn't exactly call them Kodak moments, there were plenty of photo opportunities with everyone--onstage or not--hamming it up. All the incriminating pix are here.

You Think You Got Too Much Turkey!

HTD Sounds Worse Than It Is. I have a habbit of abbreviating things. I guess I just like acronyms. This year I shortened my Thanksgiving greeting to HTD. Just swap the H with an S and my not-oft-used acronym for Happy Turkey Day takes on a whole other meaning.

Thanksgiving went well this year, mostly because some of my family came to visit my parents, including a long lost (almost literaly) great-grandchild. My mom and dad were happy, and all the more thankful, and when they're happy that makes my job easier. One relative brought some turkey and waaaaayyy too much stuffing to go with it. Plus other goodies. Later my brother brought us an entire turkey along with all the usual extras. It was one of those you heat for about an hour, and I ended up saving it for the next day instead. So our After Thanksgiving meals (ATMs) have been more of a feast than the actual day. But there's only 3 of us here, two are seniors who don't eat that much anyway, and I'm not much of an overeater. I have half a mind to try donating the vat of extra stuffing (VES or VXS if you prefer) to some charitable org. Do they take prepared food? Maybe I can freeze it.

AM homework for last week (week before Thanksgiving) was bumpy. There was so much going on around home I barely had time to touch animation. I turned in some serious poo. So with my assignment in a state of suckage I'm not posting any pictures or playblast files here. Hopefully I'll have something interesting to show after spending a bit more time on it. I've got to pull this one off at least as well as the last assignment, wherein luck played a large roll! Some classmates who have seen my reference and blocking have been reciting the line from my shot saying, "It's the tv guru guy!" when they see me in Q&As and the Flashmeeting "Digital Dailies" that have become popular with AM students. It's funny that people associate me with the scene, and I don't want to let them or myself down. I've gotta turn in something decent in FINAL.

Last Sunday after the homework was turned in some of us in NorCal met up at Rex's place to give him a nice send off party. He is one of the recently hired AM students and will be moving to Washington for his new job. Most of my classmates at the party seemed to have the same situation with their homework...not quite enough progress to turn in something that looked good. Of course, we are learning that transition between stepped blocking and linear or spline is often bumpy and takes a lot of massaging to get it looking decent. Experience helps but it's still part of the process. Some glitches in the school Web servers this week resulted in the decision by school admin to restart week 10, which buys us a bit more time to refine the assignment we turned in last week. Hat's off to our school president Bobby and his support staff for putting in some serious extra time getting things working again right in the middle of the holiday. They all go the distance for us to make things right and we're all very thankful for that. I wonder if any of them would like extra stuffing.

Monkeys On An Island

Okay, geez, I haven't had a chance to blog anything lately! We've had home visits from IHSS case workers, nurses and other professionals checking on my mom because of her recent hospital stay. I've taken my mom to two medical appointments in the past 8 days. The landlord has finally acted on my request from 4 months ago to have the tile and tub in my parent's bathroom repaired, so there's been workers here 8 or 9 every morning since last Wednesday. I almost didn't have time to finish my AM assignments the past two weeks, but somehow got 'em turned in. It's been crazy 'round here lately and I'm backed up on a lot of stuff. Gotta find the time!

New Animation Shot. A few weeks ago we chose brand new audio clips for another assignment at Animation Mentor. Basically, it's the same assignment again using what we learned from the first one and new lessons from our latest lectures. I had narrowed my choices down to a coupla Jack Black lines from Shallow Hal, Sean William Scott arguing with The Rock from The Rundown, a Christopher Walken line from the same movie, and a few selections of Ross and Rachel's famous fight from season 4 of Friends. Most of my classmates seemed to like the two Shallow Hal lines best, and in the end Bill recommended I go with the first of the two. Happily, he picked the one that was my favorite.

I had edited all my clips back to back into a single sound file, looped it and acted them all out over and over about a million times. It was kinda fun. Once the final selection was made, I looped that one a thousand more times, so by then I had some decent ideas about how I wanted to act out the line. I filmed myself for reference and got good stuff on takes 7 and 15. The rest was crap. I sat on the reference for a coupla days, and with so much going on around home I didn't have time to do anything else but think about it, anyway. I started feeling like I was running out of time to get the first blocking pass done by deadline. Then I finally got a chance and spent nearly two and a half hours drawing thumbnails. By then it was early Saturday or Sunday morning--I can't remember which, result of a fried brain--so I made the decision to turn my sketches into a pencil test. Rather than take all the time to do it in 3D, this is what I turned in for rough blocking:

Week 07 Rough Blocking (1.4MB, QT MPEG4)

Blocking in 2D has become a common practice among classmates, especially using Jason Schleifer's Grease Pencil Tool, because it's much faster than posing a character in 3D. I messed around with GP once before, but need learn how to use it better before I can put it to good use.

Got great feedback on the pencil test from classmates and mentor, and after a bit of a bumpy start the following week I turned in this shot for first 3D "blocking plus" with some breakdowns and a few changes.

Week 08 Blocking (1.9MB, QT MPEG4)

Bill had liked how I'd sketched the shot full-body and was a little hesitant when I told him my intention of shooting the scene in a medium shot. Fortunately, we seem to be on the same page with this shot, and he didn't mind the tighter framing once he saw where I'm going with it. He also gave me some great ideas which I'm sure a thousand monkeys on an island animating this same exact scene would never have come up with. Me either, for that matter, so I'm glad he thought of them. Obviously, some parts need lots of help. The biggest note from both mentor and classmates is that I could really push the poses much more. On this pass the camera is locked down, but knowing the poses would be pretty broad, I planned from the beginning to have the camera follow the action a bit, like a live action shot would. I'll probably start making tweaks right away, pushing the poses and gestures as much as possible, not worrrying much about camera framing until I get the motion just right. I need to be out of "stepped" mode by the next deadline, and that usually requires a lot of finessing switching over to "linear" and then "spline". The sooner I get the next pass done the sooner I can start getting feedback from other students.

Oxymoron of Sorts

It's odd, really. Anyone who's read much of my blog, or friends who understand in even more detail just what my life presently entails, knows I am faced with tremendous, often overwhelming daily challenges. Whoopdee-doo. But what has been bending my mind lately--in a good way--is that despite the difficulties, I've been experiencing brief, profound moments of peace, and seriously positive emotional highs. It seems out of place. The situation I'm in, the responsibility I have taking care of my mom and dad do not leave much time or energy for enjoying life, or laughing hysterically about something, or on some days even sitting down and having any peace of mind at all. Yet, in between tasks, stresses, etc., for the past 3 or 4 months I've been increasingly having inexplicable bursts of euphoria. The closest thing I can relate it to is like being a kid again, and knowing I'm getting a shiny new bike for my birthday, the anticipation is driving me nuts, expecting something so fun and good is on the way. But I am not currently expecting anything out of the ordinary. It's strange because I've never had feelings like this come up while I'm in the midst of the kind of turmoil I've been through lately. I don't want to question it, but it makes me extremely curious; where is it coming from? and could there be a way to make those moments last longer?

I know part of it is that I have made a ginormous effort in the past year+, as things with my parents have gotten harder, to really look for the good, funny, happy in every possible place. I've sort of had to because otherwise I'd be really, really depressed! Studies at Animation Mentor have furthered my pursiut of the good in things because we are taught to actively engage and observe life, and that in every moment we might find some kind of artistic inspiration. A side effect of this kind of attention to the detail of life seems to be increased appreciation of the stuff as well. Ask any of my AM classmates, or any animator for that matter, and they will tell you they find amazing, cool, funny, mind-blowing ideas and inspiration just about anywhere at any time. You begin paying attention to things in the way we are taught as animators and you end up taking great pleasure in stuff that before seemed unimportant or uninteresting. I find myself geeking out about some stuff now that would have never even caught my attention before. All this is good, but it doesn't by itself explain what's going on.

The past week has been very stressful for my family and me. I had to take my mom to ER Sunday and she stayed in the hospital until Wednesday. Luckily she seems to be improving as of today. Stressful, scary, depressing stuff has been going on. Yet, there I was a coupla nights ago, digitizing sound bytes for our next animation assignment and laughing my ass off at some of the dialog I found! On one hand I've got some depressing things going on and on the other I'm laughing myself silly! It's like I'm a real life oxymoron! Kind of an odd place to be, but I'm enjoying it and it sure beats just being depressed about stuff.

Last week my Animation Mentor mentor, Bill Diaz, asked me to get Bishop's feet moving more broadly during the small shuffly "walk" that have in my animation shot. In my mind, and in my reference I shot of myself acting it out, it's supposed to be just a kind of foot and body repositioning...not very big at all. I think Bill is seeing something different, which mostly just means I haven't properly conveyed my idea through the animation as it exists. The mentor is our "director" for these assignments, and just like if this were a real job I gotta just make it happen the way he says or else! Well, unless I can pitch an even better idea. I was having trouble understanding what he wanted at first, and an unfortunately timed sound glitch on my computer kept me from fully discussing it with Bill in last Tuesday's Q&A. But I think the tweaks I've made are on the right track and should be fine by the time I turn it in.

Since this is the final week of this assignment, I've also been experimenting with lighting and rendering my shot. I do know a thing or two about lighting, and though I'm certainly no genius it sure does look a lot nicer rendered than straight out of playblast!

Let's Put In Twirly Arms

I've got a lot to do for this week's animation assignment before the Sunday deadline. I should be doing my first refining pass now, but I'm reblocking some areas based on my last mentor eCritique. Bill made some more suggestions last time, plus I totally spaced on Bishop's weight and balance; he takes two small steps and was way off balance! Ridiculous.

So earlier this week I switched all the keys back to stepped mode and started tweaking. At first it was not going too smooth but Thursday I was able to put in close to 7 hours and made good progress. Of course, while I was working some new ideas came to me. I decided to try to do some "twirly arms" stuff going into the pose for "suposubly". That meant I had to shoot some more reference. Above you can see 4 frames from the best take, with red arrows indicating motion direction. I also made a new set of planning sketches. Later I decided to have the screen-right arm spin the opposite way from my reference. I think that will look more fun. My concern is that I have a total of four ideas for two spots in the shot, and I can't get my mentor's feedback on either before the assignment is due. I guess I just have to use my own judgment and it will just be a surprise to Bill when he does the critique. I'll email him a headsup and maybe he'll have time to advise me before Sunday.

Life outside of AM has been pretty crazy this week. I'm not sure what to do about my mom...none of the current options are pleasant. Just gotta do whatever I can to make things better for her and my dad. And try to stay positive and keep myself healthy and sane. And finish AM homework. Ha!

Lemons, Lemonade and Acting

Sunday many AnimationMentees from Northern California met up for yet another AM BBQ. It was our fifth AM gathering and 2nd hosted by classmate Brian Nicolucci and his family. Thanks again Brian, Sue and Dakota! The bummer of some old friends not being able to make it was made up for by a number of new faces being there, including some brand new Level A students, and at least a couple who are considering enrollment. AnimationMentor Doug Dooley made it out as well. I remembered Doug from an enjoyable Saturday makeup Q&A I'd been in (it was Doug's first Q&A and he was great!), and it was sooper cool to meet another of our mentors in person! It was another time of great fun for all.

I almost wasn't able to go at the last minute. My mom's health has not been good, and Sunday morning seemed off to a bad start, but luckily she was okay and well enough to take care of herself while I was gone.

Today I wasn't so lucky; it was a rather stressful day. Aside from my mom needing continuous help, I had an extra 40-minute wait at the pharmacy for some meds that were supposed to be ready Sunday (Thanks again, MediCal! You complicate my life!). Later, the tube in my 22-inch Viewsonic monitor went out, accompanied by a serious burning wires scent. Yikes! But the good news is the 3-year warranty is still good--for 2 more weeks! Talk about close-calls. So it's going back to Viewsonic for repair or replacement. You know what they say when life gives you lemons: Call and get an RMA#! :)

I got last week's rough blocking assignment done slightly early, partly due to a serious multi-hour Maya session that ended at 6am Friday. It was fun, I just couldn't stop animating! That made it possible for me to meet Brian and his clan to see SERENITY Friday night totally guilt free! It was my second time seeing it but their first, and knowing every one of the Nicolucci fam is a mad Browncoat, it was awesome seeing it with them! Shiny! For anyone considering seeing Serenity who isn't already a Browncoat or fan of the TV series firefly, I recommend renting the DVDs before seeing the movie because it will make it even better, trust me.

Earlier tonight I got my eCritique from my mentor, who gave me some great suggestions and ideas to improve the blocking for this week. I've really been having a good time with this assignment, trying to get comfortable with the idea of acting out a line in front of a camera for reference. It's a lot easier if you're not being filmed and there's no audience.

And The Audio Clip Will Be...

Our current multi-week assignment is to animate Bishop doing a line of dialog of our choice from any tv show or movie. Sunday we turned in our 3 or 4 selects so our mentors could help us decide which of them would be best suited for this assignment. The goal was to find a line that has interesting variety of inflection, pauses in the delivery or a change of mood; something that would inspire us when we get into animating the shot. I don't have that many DVDs, but I was able to find some decent clips:

1. Mayor Vaughn, speaking to Chief Brody from Jaws
2. Hooper frustrated with Vaughn, also from Jaws
3. Chandler, worried he's being too picky about dates from Friends
4. Laura speaking to Rob from The Dick Van Dyke Show

Here is an mp3 of all 3 (319k).

I like the subtlety of clip 1, the intensity of 2 and the delivery of 4 makes it my 2nd favorite. But my mentor and many of my AnimationMentor classmates seemed to prefer the clip from Friends, and I agree it is the best of the group, and it will be fun to animate.

My next few tasks will be to break down the dialog into main beats or phrases, figure out operative words which are like accents of the line, and do some sketches to develop ideas for important poses. I'm hoping to borrow a video camera from someone to shoot some reference of myself acting out the shot, too. I might have to just plock down some moo* and buy a MiniDV camera soon. Gotta work fast because after all that I'll have to figure out the frames that each part of the dialog falls on and do a quick blocking pass to turn in Sunday. This is a fun assignment and I think all of us are sooper excited about it!
*moo - kenism, short for moola.

It's Bishop!

The model for the new character we'll be animating in Class 3 was made downloadable end of last week! His name is Bishop and he's our first fully "skinned" character. Some of his rig is identical to Stewie's, but Bishop is a bit more sophisticated. He has controls for opening and closing his mouth and moving his jaw side to side, upper and lower eyelids, pupil and iris dilation, a simple unibrow, neck stretch and 3 actual fingers instead of just 2. In the quick pose I did testing him out, Bish is looking up, perhaps pondering what dialog I will make him act out in the upcoming assignment.

Not Exactly a Break

This past week has been a break between classes at AnimationMentor, a chance to catch up on personal odds and ends, de-stress and get ready for Class 3, Introduction to Acting, which starts Monday. At least that was the idea.

The week started off okay enough. My mom seemed fine on Sunday, well enough she wanted me to take her to the store. Her health problems have gotten a little worse over the past two weeks but Sunday I thought maybe she might be improving again. She had a lot of trouble the rest of the week, though. I never know what to expect. Thursday my parents got into a big argument that I had to break up. Jeez, this is kinda like having kids. I thought everything was settled when I stepped out with a friend later in the afternoon. While I was out, I missed a call from my mom on my cell. When I checked the message she left the first few seconds were all I needed to hear; my mom was frantic and it sounded like she and my dad were arguing again. I told my friend we had to go and ran to the car!

Luckily, when I got home I got my parents calmed down and no one had been physically hurt. But it is clear I might not be able to leave them alone with each other when I go out on errands or such. There's no immediate solution, and it's very likely one of them might have live elsewhere, which sucks. I'll have to start making phone calls Monday, right when classes recommence.

Early this week I also had to stop interacting with a longtime friend whose recent behavior, though primarily supportive, was inadvertently causing me a lot of extra stress that I am not able to deal with right now. The final straw came this week when s/he deliberately caused a rift between me and another person. This is not something I am happy to do--every friend I have is highly valued--but this person's actions were inexcusable and at this time I'm at a loss for any other solution. I don't know if this is a permanent change or not, I just know it was interfering too much with my staying positive with everything that's going on around me.

BBQ @AMHQ

The bbq Saturday at AnimationMentor headquarters was deluxe! It was great to see everybody again (this is the fourth SF area hangout) and meet so many others for the first time...in person! Bobby's wife and mom were there, and it was nice talking to them, I finally met Carlos, Nancy Kato...so many people and mentors made the fest, but with my semi-retarded social skillz I didn't get to everyone. I don't get out much. Plus it was a pretty big crowd! I did get to meet über Disney animator Mark Henn though, and that was sooper cool. I tried chatting in the live Q&A, but I think I was logged in as Luis and no one on the other end knew it was me. The mentor camera was at the other desk. Wish everybody could have been there though! It rocked! Can't wait 'til the next one!

Apparently I've Learned Something!

Like many of my AnimationMentor classmates I often find it a challenge to get homework done by deadline. Doing that freelance job last week did not help, and that was a little too challenging with everything else going on. There's a reason I try to spread out freelance jobs. So sometimes it seems like I'm not progressing as much as I would hope.

Class 2 on body dynamics is winding down and having completed in last week's assignment on time I looked forward to not having any assignment due for this final week. This gave me a chance to revisit my 4 Emotions assignment which I had delivered partly polished. I could have just left well enough alone, since it doesn't affect my grade at this point, but it's a matter of principle. Plus, I hadn't put anything in my Revision slot (in my workspace on AM) in weeks because the main assignment was taking all the time I had, and I wanted something in there for Charles, my mentor, this week.

So I spent several hours last night into early this morning, working on the arms, which I hadn't even animated in one section, counter animating problematic stuff (I had a knee control that was going nuts for some unexplained reason. It was NOT the dreaded "gimbal", this was something esle.), and fine tuning stuff. While it's still what I'd call "In Progress", it's looking much better. I'd post it here except that I ran out of ftp space.

The big thing I discovered from this morning's session is that, apparently, I've learned something during the past 6 months!

I noticed a bit of "overshoot" on Stewie's foot that caused it to go through the floor as it moved from one key to the next. I had Maya's Graph Editor open and amidst the tangle of splines running every which direction I immediately spotted the problem. I could see that the spline for the foot's xRotation "bubbled" up instead of staying flat like it should. Not only that, my first instinct on how to fix it was correct; change the first key tangent to "Flat" instead of "Smooth". Problem solved. 3 or 4 months ago I know I wouldn't have spotted such a problem quite as quickly. Kinda exciting and fun to realize I'm learning, despite the fact that much of it seems to just whiz by. Cool!

Sugar Rush

Is it wrong of me to do this? I've been known to do some"fun" things with foodies, like I never grew out of childhood habits of putting potato chips or Doritos® on sandwiches. Even though I've been an adult for oh, 2 weeks now, it still seems to improve the taste of the sandwich.

My latest food experiment (foodsperiment) involves Rice Kripsies Treats®. Rice Krispies Treats of course, are those delicious snack squares made with Kellog's Rice Krispies®, marshmallows and margarine. You can make your own but I recently found a giant box of 40 pre-packaged bars at Costco. 40! My parents love them after all. (Sometimes my dad eats ice cream or some kind of pastry instead of a regular meal. He's 97.)

I like to eat cereal for breakfast and sometimes I have a nice bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats® with Almonds. Just last week I got a bright idea: Since Rice Krispies Treats are made out of cereal, why not break up one of those squares and toss it in the bowl with the Honey Bunches of Oats? So I tried it and it was delicious! It's my new cereal treat. I know they already have Rice Krispies Treats cereal. I havent tried it but I bet that boxed stuff doesn't have nearly as much sugar! So now I have a new cereal version to add to my morning menu. Oo! I bet this same idea would work great with Reeses® Puffs®!

This week at AM I refined last week's blocking. The assignment was to do 100 frames of Stewie going through a single change of mood/emotion. I had some cool ideas for a "devastated" Stewie, mainly some cool camera stuff, since we're starting to get into lessons about camera use, but I decided I would need more time--to do the assignment as well as more frames. I settled on having Stewie react in jubilation after reading a letter. Not that creative, but all I felt I had time for.

The past two weeks have been extra busy because I've been working on a freelance motion graphics job. I worked on it Wednesday thru Tuesday, which is extremely short to develop a show open, but it turned out okay and the client seemed to love it. Without any changes! When does that ever happen? I got lucky. Oh, crap I just remembered I have to send an invoice!

It's good to have work once in awhile but man, that sure adds to the stress of an already tight schedule. It's enough that I've contemplated dropping AM because I just don't feel I'm putting enough time into it to get the maximum out of it. But geez, when in the future would life be any less complicated than now? I wish I had more time for school, but I'm learning too much to quit.

I'm About to Become World Famous! (US Only)

Well, not really. And only in the US. And only if you read the credits.

After more than a year of sales meetings and several months of post post-production "enhancement" tweaks by the distrubutor, my friend John's movie "Fugitive Hunter" (which has nothing to do with the game of the same name) is about to be released on DVD by Lion's Gate Films! Woo! And thus my first ever feature film screen credit is realized! Yay! Plus, woo!

Originally titled, "End of the Law" and renamed by LGF's marketing, the micro-budget film marks John's feature directorial debut, and co-stars my other friend, Roger!

The movie is available now for pre-order on Amazon.com, BestBuy.com and dozens of other online retailers, and will be released September 13! We found the best pre-order pricing on DeepDiscountDVD.com.

My screen credit for the movie is titles designer; I designed and produced the main titles and end credit crawl. I also did a simple but essential visual effect for the film, creating a series of muzzle flashes that were composited with the live action to enhance scenes with gunfire! BANG!

As if that wasn't cool enough, barring any last-minute snafoos (I have not seen the final DVD master), my short segment of the audio commentary made the DVD! Yay! I'm right on there with the composer, director of photography, producer and director! For some reason, LGF marketing material doesn't mention the audio commentary, or the 5.1 DOLBY DIGITAL mix (only the 2.0 mix is listed). But they're there!

The only bummer is all the marketing graphics I made were completely redone by LGF. Looks like they just wanted a bunch of color, and a helicopter, which my versions of the posters didn't have. Seems like they stole some elements of my concept, using the same main photo I used for the teaser poster, and putting the badge in the background (mine) (theirs). Oh well.

Be sure to check out Fugitive Hunter when it arrives 09/13/05!

Credit Just Got Scarier

This morning I was doing bills at about 2-freakin'-AM, inbetween (get it?) watching eCritiques on AM. I don't appreciate APRs higher than 4%. Like many people with decent credit scores, I get a bazillion credit card offers in the mail every month (yes, bazillion; I counted as I put them in my "To Be Shredded" bag), usually with some kind of teaser rate that's still too high and for too short a time period (less than 1 year). I always keep a look out for offers that are actually good and one recently caught my eye: 0% for a full year, NO annual fee and NO FEE for balance transfers.

So early this morning I applied for the card online. Hopefully it really is secure as they say. I entered balance transfers from 2 other credit cards with rates that I don't like. The scary and downright dangerous thing is how fast the process was...I was approved in about 8 seconds (the site said "within 60")! It's scary that they're handing out credit so readily these days...maybe I wouldn't have been approved if I were less responsible, but it's not like I need another credit account, I'm just doing it for the balance transfer. But a person could conceivably apply for waaay too much credit in a very short time this way and then actually use all that credit--like some credit rookies often do--as if it were actual cash. Yikes.

Well the 0% APR will save me at least $340 over the next year, maybe even more if purchases are also at the same rate. Tuition is coming up again soon. (If not I'll just use my lowest rate card to pay for school). In another year I'll have hopefully had numerous other offers and when the 0% expires I'll transfer again to another low-interest card. Hey, as long as they keep making me offers I'm gonna save whatever way I can. Of course, if I somehow come up with real money to pay for school I'll just use cash. Until then, eveyrthing over a few hundred has to be credit. Still, it's just scary how easily they approve people now.

c207 Pencil Test

I made my planning sketches into a pencil test (avi, 5MB) to look at the timing, see if I might want to change something.

Four Emos

At 9:15 this morning I returned to the reception counter at my mom's doctor's office because of the sign that said, Please inform the receptionist if you have been waiting for you doctor longer than 10 minutes. The receptionist informed me my mom's appointment was actually supposed to be at 3pm, not 9am...and she appologized for not telling me when I checked in. Grr. The doctor was in meetings this morning so they couldn't just fit us in, and the next available appointment would be 1 or 2 months out. WTF? 2 months out?? So after waiting there for a useless 30-minutes, I helped my poor mom back to the car and we will have to try again later today. Grr.

It woldn't be so bad except I had about 40 minutes of sleep since the morning before. I was up until early this morning doing AnimationMentor homework. Then my mom was having one of those bizarre, as-yet-undiagnosed attacks, so I gave her some meds and had to watch her status for about an hour. By then it was 6am. I was stressed and couldn't sleep so I played DRIV3R on PS2 for about thirty minutes. That made me hungry so I made myself some Eggos(R) and then tried to get a few minutes of sleep before leaving for my mom's appointment at the incorrect time. Grr.

This week's assignment at AM, which we started last week, is to block out the timing of our short scene showing Stewie (the model we're given) going through four emotions; relaxed, alert, engaged and our choice of either disgusted or dejected. Since I'm always making up words and abbreviating them, I call 'em four emos (EEmohz). I had been inspired by two great new videos on AM, a shot walkthru by Jason Ryan, and last week's video lecture on force by Wayne Gilbert, so I had plenty of motivation for this assignment. I shot some reference, then sat on the idea for a day or two. Last night I went thru my reference footage and drew planning thumbnails, studying how Stewie will move to get from each pose the the next, each feeling. I'm spending time thinking about the thought process he would go thru as well, and how to animate that. It should look like he's experiencing those thoughts that correspond to the four feelings in the scene, not just indicating them. Wednesday I will start adding in the many key poses that happen between each emo and hopefully get something decent to turn in come Sunday.

Dog Fudge Surprise

If your dog pooed in the house, where would you want him to go? My first choice would be the actual toilet; minimum fuss, all you do is flush! (Was that a false rhyme? Neato!) Actually, if my dog was smart enough to do that he'd probably be smart enough to flush, too. Even better!

I went to great lengths to house train my dog when he was a pup, and he never goes in the house unless something goes badly wrong. Something must have gone wrong because today I woke up to dog fudge surprise. Cisco didn't use my first choice of place for him to go, but he did "doo" "number 2" in my number 2 choice of place for the dog to go inside the house; the bathtub. I know, I know, it seems so gross. But it is much simpler to clean poo in the tub than poo on the rug (hey there's another one of those almost-rhymes-thingies. I'll be freestyle rapping in no time!). By the way, this is one of those times I am glad I have a small dog, if you know what I mean. Apparently the poor pooch was sick because, he also barfed on the carpet. I guess he felt it was somehow wrong to barf and poo in the same spot. Dog logic.

It was a stressful day and by this afternoon I was exhausted from cleaning the house, doing a little laundry and taking both my parents to early back-to-back doctor's appointments. I didn't get much animation work done today, though I did watch this week's eCritique again and got some questions ready for the video Q&A with mentor Charles Alleneck who was in Star Wars. Okay, he wasn't in Star Wars, but he did animate characters in Eps. 2 and 3...same difference. Even though I was tired I tried to bring a little energy to the session so my questions didn't put the other kids in the class to sleep. I always enjoy the Q&As because I enjoy the privilege of interacting with the mentors. They all just seem like cool people you'd want to hang out with besides giving us expert animation advice. Plus my mentor was in Star Wars.

Critical Mass

This week in Body Mechanics at AnimationMentor.com our assignment was to do a heavy push up an incline. I looked forward to the assignment with glee. (No really, I was excited to get started). Of course, we are oft advised by our lecturers and mentors not to just jump in and start animating. First we must plan out our shot. A long time ago I delivered pizza's part-time for Domino's; they always told us to look on the big map on the wall and know where we were going before we left for a delivery. Same kind of thing.

So the first thing I did is I went outside and, wearing my Napoleon Dynamite ringer t-shirt, captured some reference of myself pushing an object. Again I used my Nikon 880 digital, which takes great photos but is crappy for video. It's all I got, so 15fps 320x240 heavily compressed video had to do. I posted a clip of my reference on the AM message boards, and later in my workspace on campus. I enjoyed getting comments from fellow students, most of whom enjoyed the footage. If anyone found it useful or amusing I'm happy.

Later I sat down and studied what I'd filmed (even though it's not film, we still say it that way), and drew thumbnails for the important poses. It took quite a while to block out the shot once I got into Maya, but it came together much more readily than my previous assignment had. Still, I wanted to do more with it, come up with some additional "business" as it's often called, and make it more entertaining. Without the time or the skill with Maya, I had to keep it pretty plain. I was kinda bummed.

Speaking of bummers, a cloud is looming on the horizon. The credit card I use to pay for school has just about reached critical mass, the point at which any increase in the balance will raise the minimum monthly payment beyond my ability to pay it. At that point I will have a decision to make; either to drop out of Animation Mentor or figure out some way to pay down my debt.

Job? Any decent paying job would do. It wouldn't be that tough to come up with the $2,000 in tuition every three months with regular full or even part-time employment. Compared to no job, that is. Unfortunately, for the past few years even a part-time job has not been even remotely feasible for me. It's just not possible for me to work away from home while taking care of my parents 24/7, even part time. And this past year I've had to give up all but the tiniest freelance assignments because it is impossible to predict my availability. I do have a job, as caregiver, just not a paying one. Don't know what I will do to stay in school so I'm just trying not to get too discouraged.

Luckily, my mom has been in better health and spirits in recent weeks. So much so that I have had to reconsider placing her in custodial care. She really improved that much! This past weekend, however, some other issues came up. I'm hoping those are now under control or at least manageable. Regardless, my mom's improvement in wellness and mood is no small thing...it has been the longest stretch in many months that she's had more than 1 good day in a row. Even with the other things that have come up, that is an enormous relief and I am immensely thankful for it.

All Hours

One thing I've learned about animation is it's an all hours kinda thing. Not only because I've been working on this week's assignment all hours of the day and night, but also because even when I'm not animating I'm thinking about animating!

One could take this to be a bad thing. There are many activities and endeavors you would not want to think about all the time, like taking out the garbage...once you've done it you don't want it back in your thoughts until next week. Animation is different. It's so complex, yet fascinating, once you start thinking and living like an animator you begin to observe nearly every little detail of life in a certain way. So even when you aren't sitting at you desk animating you might be looking at a thing and wondering, how many frames was that movement? how much does it weigh? how could that be made more entertaining? An animator does this in any given situation and then files notes away in mind or draws a quick sketch or three, and files it all away to refer to later. Sometimes we do this quietly in a way no one would notice, and other times--like if it's something we're really excited about--not so quiet. We become hyper-observant of the nuances of things in motion in our every day lives. And this goes on all hours of the day or night...if we're conscious, we're likely observing and taking quick notes.

Before I started classes at AM I already had oddball hours. Since my parents don't require much care once they've gone to bed, night time is the best time for me to get anything done of my own. I'd often ended up working on projects through the night. And then I'd have to take frequent, short naps whenever I could find time, and I was always tired. Now that time is often spent doing animation homework. Luckily my mom's health has improved slightly this week, which has freed up a lot of time during the day as well. I'm better rested, and the few extra hours spent animating aren't going to hurt my grade any.

Stunt Animators

Monday at AM was our highly anticipated Star Wars Episode III Global Q&A. Close to 300 of us logged on to participate with ILM animators Delio Tramontozzi, Kevin Martel and Charles Alleneck (listed left to right as they appeared in the video chat window) and moderator Shawn Kelly. It's always great to interact directly with pro animators we admire, to get their insights and all. Delio and Charles are both mentors and though Kevin is not a mentor he appears on many of the class lecture videos we have from week to week.

Speaking of the lecture videos, this week's lecture, about advanced anticipation, featured a bunch of clips of Shawn and Kevin they'd shot of themselves for reference. Some of the shots were of them starting a run, or a jump and a few were of actions that looked like they might have been painful; Shawn fell over a low fence (intentionally, for art) and backwards off a swing (it was deliberate!), and Kevin leaped several times into some shrubbery. So I asked in the Q&A if they ever injured themselves filming reference. Delio, who was apparently the mocap stuntman for a lot of shots in Ep. 3 told us he hurt his neck while doing mocap of an all out run where he gets "shot" and falls to the ground. None of them said they had any stunt training. I had thought about injury during filming of reference from watching the lecture video and doing my own reference the other day. Sometimes the shot calls for an action you just can't safely act out for reference. For example, I would have liked to film myself tripping and falling, but I had no stunt mattress to fall on.

Last night I had a chance to animate for 3 hrs straight. It's been a long time since I've been able to spend that much time in one session. I was getting sorta what I wanted with this week's assignment and it felt good to be able to just sit and work on it without worrying about anything else. The shot still needs tons of work, but I made more progress than I've been able to make on any recent assignment. You can check it out with this link (AVI, about 1MB).

Walk On Grass

The party at Brian's was great. There was a great turnout and Brian and his wife Sue made some delicious eats, most notably four flavors of homemade ice cream! Woo! It was great to hang out with fellow Spring 05 mentees face to face again, and meet some who missed the last gathering at Pera in April, or who I didn't get to talk to last time. Again I felt myself wishing everyone from AM around the world could have made it! The weather turned out to be great, too. Too bad I forgot my camera...I was 30 minutes from home when I realized I didn't have it. Luckily Brian and Niem (I think) had cameras, Brian's already got some posted on his blog.

Glad I was able to make it to the party in Antioch, about 70 miles from Sacramento. My niece, Darcy had agreed to stop by to check on my parents sometime in the afternoon. Another family member also agreed, but never showed up. Luckily my mom and dad made it okay with no disasters.

Sunday I had to get up early to make some adjustments to my assignment and upload it. My mom had an appointment for a CT scan and mixing and scheduling the barium liquid she was required to drink for prep cut into my time. Is it really OK to drink barium? Guess so. Around the same time my brother showed up and I had to talk to him about our plans for our mother. My mom was having serious problems as well and I missed the noon assignment upload cutoff by just a minute or two. I posted it to my Public Review area instead of the Assignment slot, and also emailed it to my mentor. I hope he got it.

In between the two medical appointments my mom has today I had a chance to shoot some reference footage of myself for this week's assignment. My little dog Cisco followed me along the mow strip...he doesn't like to walk in the grass anymore for some dumb, doggie reason. Check out the crappy-rez picture my digital camera does for movie files! At least it's better than my web cam. Next I'll sit down and sketch and time it all out. I needed to see some actual reference since acting it out didn't give me the whole picture. Much of what I'd done for last week's assignment was based on guesswork. The reference should help out quite a bit.

Why doesn't my dog want to walk on the grass?

Gotta get away

We're almost through the first week of the class 2 at AM, "Body Mechanics". I was at least able to get a rough blocking done for my assignment, which is better than my last two weeks. Hopefully I can get it refined by Sunday's deadline.

My mom does not have Alzheimer's or dementia or anything the elderly get, but she's beginning to show symptoms of...something. Her doctors don't yet know what it is but she's scheduled for tests. She seems normal most of the time but gets upset easily and that often leads to some hyperactive, out-of-control behavior that is difficult to diagnose because it's unpredictable. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy to settle her down, and lately, efforts to calm her are futile.

I'm now faced with the difficult, emotional decision of placing my mom in custodial care. My mom realizes how hard it is for me to care for her, and hates herself for being a burden. She has asked repeatedly if she can go somewhere else to live and my older brother and I have tried to discourage her because we know that's a last resort. But her condition has worsened and when she stayed in the hospital a few weeks ago I was making arrangements along those lines. But when I told her what I was doing she became deeply saddened and wanted to come home instead. On the day she was discharged I had to call and notify her doctor and the discharge planner of our change of plans. By the next day my mom was crying to be placed somewhere again.

As you can imagine this is affecting my studies at AM. I've had to seriously consider dropping out, and that's still up in the air. I need to take a break from caregiving duties, but that just isn't possible. You would think, since most of our family lives in the area, someone could take over for a while. But they all have families of their own to attend to, my parents and I rarely see any of them. Besides, taking care of someone like my parents is not something anyone can just do. It might even be more difficult than babysitting a child because there are medicines that have to be given and older adults have needs that most people would never realize unless they have experience or special training.

The AM students from Northern California have a party planned at Brian Nicolucci's place tomorrow that shouldn't be missed. I have not been able to find someone to elder-sit and time is running out. It's a pretty long-day commitment for whoever stays with them because it takes so long just to get to and from the Bay Area from here. (When I went to the last AM meetup in SF my nephew Matt willingly stayed with my parents as long as he could but my mom freaked out before I got home.) My mom and dad could manage to get through the day on their own but there is a significant risk something could go wrong. It seems selfish and irresponsible for me to leave them without care, but at the same time I'm long overdue for a break. I'm still not sure if I should go, so I'm calling my status a "game time decision".

Attitude is everything, in life and in animation. So I'm just doing whatever I can to maintain a good attitude, reminding myself this is not a permanent thing. It's a challenge, and being enrolled at AM helps, knowing I'm proactively pursuing dreams and having the support of fellow mentee classmates who all have challenges of their own.

Time

They say time flies when you're having fun. The past 12 weeks of school at AnimationMentor.com have just zipped by and we're about to start the second class, sometimes referred to as second quarter and second semester. Whichever is correct, it starts next week and I'm ill prepared!

It's not so much I'm slow and lazy. That's true sometimes. The reality is my time is not my own. Caring for my disabled, geriatric parents is a full-time job with at least 20hrs of overtime per week--not that I actually get paid, that is (more on that in another post). Every day I am literally overwhelmed with tasks, tending to my parents' needs especially my mom who can barely walk sometimes. The last two weeks have been especially bad. I dare not go into it too much here lest this blog becomes all about the trials of being a caregiver rather than AM student as it's intended. Suffice it to say my mom has had to be taken to ER 3 times in the past 4 weeks and was in the hospital for 5 days last week. I'm currently faced with trying to get her placed in custodial care, a decision the rest of my family has left me to decide all on my own. It's not something I want to do but my mom's condition has long been beyond my ability to adequately care for her--she needs professional care. It's extremely stressful and time-consuming trying to manage it all without any help.

This leaves precious little time for myself, let alone for school. Last week (week 11, supposedly my lucky number) I wasn't even able to touch my homework. The week before I got my lowest grade so far at AM. I sent a message of explanation to my mentor and AM prez Bobby Beck, who responded with understanding and encouragement. I went ahead and paid tuition for Class 2 hoping that I will not have to cancel. Hopefully I'll be able to make it all work.

The Mentors Are Coming!

Many of us Animation Mentor students in the San Francisco bay area and Sacramento just met in person for the first time at a cafe in SF over the weekend. It was all fun. Bobby Beck, one of the founders of the school and super ninja animator from PIXAR, stopped by and hung with us. We are all still buzzing from our get-together Saturday and now the school is already beginning to buzz again.

This time it's because our first ever Mentor ECritiques are starting to appear! These are video reviews of students' work by their individual mentors. The mentors make suggestions by actually marking on our assingment images that we upload for each week, while they describe their thoughts on how to improve. Since everyone is able to see all the other student's critiques, we all benefit from the critiques of all the mentors. I've viewed a few of some other students' critiques and this is way too cool! My mentor will be giving his critiques very soon, too, and I'm anxious to get his advice and see what he has to say about the other students in my group as well.

Of course, with a forum that already has more than 3,500 posts, lecture videos, assignments, Ecritiques, and many of us chatting and blogging, I don't know when I'm going to get any sleep. But it's fun, and the energy of the mentors and founder-mentors is contagious, as is the buzz of excitement we all seem to share about the level of learning we're getting from this school.

Simple Decisions

I don't know about you, but sometimes I have a hard time making decisions. For example, I couldn't immediately decide on what to write today, so I chose my very lack of ability to decide as the opening topic.

A couple of weeks before school at AnimationMentor (AM), I had to decide whether to use the recommended 3D application (Maya), or figure out a way to use the one I've used for several years (3ds max). I like max, but using max for class assignments would mean building and rigging my own characters to animate, something I do not do exceedingly well (read: at all). Since budget is of great concern, I avoided buying Maya. In the end it seemed the best bet and by the time I actually ordered the program it was on backorder. When my order finally shipped the first week of school, apparently--according to UPS tracking information--a late train prevented it from being delivered today! That means the earliest it will arrive is Monday. Luckily, there's no assignment due this week, or I'd be in deep doo. I wonder if the driver of the UPS train decided to stop for a bite to eat on the way.

AnimationMentor is blowing away expectations of all the students. There have been serious glitches in the software, extreme enough to make most people get really ticked and demand a refund or something. The amazing thing is that none of us seem to mind to much. I mean, it's the first week of a system that is just now being tested In Real Life (IRL) with around 300 students. There are bound to be snafus. Maybe it's the realization that we're part of something really new and important, or the fact that we're interacting with so many talented animators and other students from around the world who are also very talented. The other amazing thing is the speed at which problems are addressed and fixed. I don't think the staff at AM sleeps.

There are other would be students who decided (or had no choice but) to wait until the Summer or Fall terms, who many of us interact with online. When they read posts from us Spring Mentees about how much stuff we're learning in just this first orientation week some of them claim to be jealous. But the later-term students are going to benefit greatly from us "guinea pigs", as many of the tech glitches will be resolved and improvements made by the time they start. Personally, I'm glad to be among the first ever, there's just something exciting about it that I knew I had to be a part of. Signing up now instead of waiting is a decision I made, without wishy-washyness or overthinking, that I hope to look back on as the right choice. It's early, but so far so good.

Back 2 School

It's been years since I've been in school of any kind and this week I started classes at AnimationMentor.com. It's a school run and taught by top industry animators and although financing my tuition is going to be tricky, there's no way I can pass up the chance to learn far more than I ever could on my own. I will also be juggling class and assignment time with caring for my parents, which is 24hrs a day. I think AM is going to be a great opportunity and an enormous amount of fun. At the end of this 18-month journey I should have a good start in the never ending process of learning the art of animation.