Monday 25 July 2011

Class2, Week4!!...

Ok so this week was pretty crazy!

I can't say I didn't see it coming, my plan in week 3 to take my assignment past Blocking plus turned out to be a godsend, without doing that I very much doubt I would have been able to make the deadline with a finished piece.

As always our lecture was great, this week it was hosted by Ethan Hurd, prior to the lecture I had never heard of Ethan but after a quick background check it became clear this guy has some serious animation skills. He has worked on an awesome variety of films and currently works at Disney Feature Animation.

My plan for this week was to polish up my shot in the first half and then work on the planning for the next shot towards the back end of the week. As expected things didn't quite turn out this way. It was more like polish 90% of the week and spend 10% on planning for my next shot, which is NEVER a good thing.

One thing I have learnt at AM is that the planning of a shot is seriously important, it builds the foundations of the shot that will follow. If I went to work and put down a 25mm layer of hardcore and covered it with 100mm of concrete and then stuck a house on top I would have some serious explaining to do when the owners woke up in what was left of the kitchen.

Most of my time was taken up going back and forth from polishing my shot to receiving feedback and then going to polish my shot that little bit more, I just wanted it to be the best I could!.

On Saturday I got around to the planning of my next shot and first of all chose which picklist shot I was going to try and animate. Initially I was going to go for Parkour because it would involve some really awesome movements and had potential to look really cool but after some thought I decided to step out of my comfort zone and go for something a little more subtle that wouldn't involve such fast paced action. "Step on sticky gum" was what I opted for in the end and my first task was to obtain some reference footage.

After I shot my reference footage and arrived back home I had received some more feedback on my Triple Jump shot and I just couldn't resist tweaking it so my planning got placed on the backburner and I found myself back in polishing. At about 10:30pm I headed off into town, it was my Birthday afterall.

Planning resumed on Sunday and after a bit of a last minute rush I managed to hand in before deadline. I have definatly learnt from this experience.

Thanks for reading everyone! Heres what I came up with - Adam




Monday 18 July 2011

Class2, Week3!!...

My post titles are now officially lame :( and I apologize for that.

Have to make it quick this week, got a pretty busy week ahead and I am kind of stuck on my current shot at the moment and need to get it sorted ASAP.

This week we had to take our shot through blocking plus which is basically finely tuned blocking and one step before taking it into splined. Our mentor said we could take ours into splined if we so wished.

As Week 4 would involve both finishing our current shot and planning for our next shot I decided for me to survive at AM I would have no choice but to take my shot into splined this week. I didn't quite get as far as I would have liked but for the most part I was happy with what I had got done.

Anyway as I said I have to make it quick so heres what I came up with, thanks everyone - Adam

Monday 11 July 2011

Class 2, Week2!!...

Well AM really isn't showing any signs of slowing up. It has continued how it began, fast!!!

Our assignment was to take our planning into Maya and work on blocking out our shot. This week really has hammered into my head that good planning make things so much easier when moving into blocking! I maybe should have known this already but this week it really seems to have clicked.

Its great to see more familiar faces around campus aswell, I maybe should have mentioned this before but just as I was about to start AM a fellow applicant (Pascal Zirn) started a facebook group called the EagerBeavers which is basically a hub for AM applicants to share ideas/thoughts and just about anything animation related. It's an awesome group and it really has taken of since day 1, it has over 100 members now.

This is how I already know a whole bunch of people who have just started Class 1 including Pascal himself. I highly recommend anyone who has applied for AM to join the group, I wish it was how it is now before I started AM it would be an awesome place to solve any worries or thoughts about all things AM!.

Anyway heres what I came up with, thanks everyone - Adam

Monday 4 July 2011

Class 2, Week 1!!...

Here we go again!,

It only seems like yesterday was week 1 of Class 1, its crazy how fast the time went and even more crazy that I have managed to keep this blog going!, if it's of use for just one person I will call it a success.

I have to say I am totally gutted that my time with Anthony Wong is over I really could not have wished for a better mentor to kick AM off with, any future students who have the pleasure of being mentored by him are extremely lucky.

I found out who my new mentor was this week and I am happy to tell you that it is Chad Stewart. Chad has been an animator for the last 19 years with half of that time bieng 2d traditional animation and the other half bieng 3d. He recently ended his time working in the studio system and became a fulltime freelancer in order to spend more time with his family. He has an extremely impressive portfolio of work which includes Surf's Up, Open Season 2, Fantasia/2000, The Simpsons, Tarzan, Stuart Little 2 and The Polar Express to name a few.

We had our first Q&A on Wednesday and I have to say Chad seems like an amazing guy, I cannot wait to learn from him over the next 12 weeks.

This weeks assignment was to upload our progress reel for our new mentor to view and choose what our next shot would be that will be worked on over the next 4 weeks. We were also required to gather reference and plan for our chosen shot.

I would just like to say it's much appreciated to those of you who have followed my blog throughout Class 1 and I hope you continue to follow me through Class 2, that is providing that I manage to find the time to keep it updated, I understand a blog with no updates would suck! ill try my very best!.

I will save the embarassment and keep my reference to myself but I am more than willing to share my planning :), heres what I came up with, Thanks everyone - Adam