Class 5!!! Story time =)

Wew! A year into AM already! Despite all the hard work, this year has flown by fast! I guess I'm having fun =)

Here is My class 4 assignment as it stands now.Hmmm. I think I need to find a new video file time. Photbucket seems to play back a bit chunky.
I got a chance to work on it after taking a few days off, and that helped me to see it again fresh (or at least fresher =).
Class 4 was tough!!!!! Having Nick Bruno as a mentor was great because he kept me motivated throughout the whole project, and his critiques and advice were important to finishing this. I really learned alot from this assignment. It was much harder than I thought it would be, and a big part of that was a time issue for me. I don't know how I could've squeezed anymore hours of the day into this project. If I wasn't sleeping or at work, I was animating! I realized early on that time was going to be a tight squeeze for this. Going back, I wish I spent another week on blocking. I was trying so hard to do the schedule that AM set up, but getting the blocking down is so vital. I ended up having to block alot of it over as the project went on, and I think that was my biggest goof up and time suck on this project. If you're reading this, save your vacation days for this assignment! That is the only reason I was able to finish. I found out the hard way that pulling a week long allnighter is not a good idea =). You do need to take care of yourself.
Class 5!!!!!!
We had our first Q&A of class 5 last night. My new mentor is Jed Diffenderfer. He is currently at Dreamworks, and worked on the upcoming Kungfu Panda movie. Too bad the movie isn't out yet. I would love to see his work on it, but it obviously can't be shown before the movie is released.
Jed seems as fun as his name is to say, and I am looking forward to this class. I have a couple story ideas already. My two ideas that I had coming into the class were kind of shot out of the water. THe first idea I found a new commercial with a similar theme, and the second idea would cost me thousands of dollars because of a particular song used. Ahh well. I have a few more which I will tell next week. We have some cool new characters to use in our short films to choose from. I really wish there was a set of cartoony animal characters (you know, human acting but animal esque looking) for us to choose from. It would be cool if there was another woman in the group, to.
It's weird how you look at a character and already have an opinion about their personalities. The woman just seems a little to babe-alicious to me, so unless my short calls for a really pretty girl, I think I'll opt for the class 3 & 4 rig with a wig again. It's an exciting time, and I am eager to get started!

Other stuff- I travelled out to western Massachusetts with my sister and brother in law to visit my old roommates (2 out of 3 anyway) and go apple picking, THat was really fun (and delicious!). I had a good week break and got to see alot of people that I don't usually see while busy with my AM work.
Saw a new podiatrist today. She happens to be right across the main street from me, so I hobbled over this morning. I fractured my foot months ago, and my current doctor was not helping. He told me to wear crocs (those ugly plastic shoes) to help my foot. Wrong!! Crocs?!!! are you kidding me?? I didn't know what they were at the time, or I surely would've protested. It's a couple months later, and I have since got rid of the crocs (the doctor as well as the shoes) but my foot is worse off then ever. My new doctor said it should've been immobilized from the beginning, but now it's too late for that. I can't tell you how frustrated I feel. It's been years since my feet have been right, and this latest problem happened because of orthotics given to me for a previous problem with my other foot.Gahh!
I start physical therapy for my foot in a couple weeks. I sure hope it helps! I miss doing stuff.
goodnight! =)