Time flies...

Time flies, or so they say, but I've never felt it go by as swiftly as it is now.
It seems like a week ago that I got the news that Tippett was hiring me. Since then time has been sprinting forward at an incredible pace, and I am determined to enjoy it while it lasts.
It is strange to be starting over again career wise. It seems just when I was getting comfortable with my Illustration/ Flash work I decided to go switch it up. It's all about following your heart.
I love it at Tippett. It's one of those places that has a really good vibe to it. It's a happy place, and I feel very much at home there.
I love being an animator. I think that's why time seems to be in fast forward because I am having so much fun. I really love it! I feel like I am back in school again because I am learning so much everyday. Every new shot is a challenge and an opportunity to grow, and I am so very thankful for this experience. I remember a mentor of mine, Nick Bruno, saying that you work hard in school to try and get your foot in the door. Once you get your foot in the door the real learning begins. He was so right. There have been bumps (lets just say I am no longer worried about embarrassing myself because I already checked that off my list) but I am saying truly that I am happy. Happy to be doing what I love, happy to meet so many new friends, and happy to be learning from people I truly respect.
Outside of work has been pretty awesome too. A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with a mentor of mine who works just a short distance away. It was very nice to be able to talk to him and I only regret that my lunch break has a time limit.
I bought a used bike for cheap and have been biking to work, and on the weekend I've been dragon boating. My body is in shock from the sudden burst of exercise, but over the last week it has forgiven me and I am feeling better already. I've neglected so much while studying, and it's a nice change to get out again. Balance is good, but it's sometimes easy to forget that. :)

A new start!!!!!!!

It has been a crazy last month, and an even crazier last two weeks. I am very happy to say that I've gotten my very first 3d animation job!!! On Monday I will be starting work at Tippett Studio!! I will be working there on the movie 'Cats and Dogs 2' for the next few months. :)
A week ago my father and I started a 5 day trip driving my car across the country from Massachusetts to California. It's all happening so fast that it doesn't seem real. I am really excited and am very much looking forward to working and learning from the awesome animators that work there. I am also a little nervous, but I think in a good way.
I am so thankful for my mentors and my friends who have helped, taught, and pushed me to work hard. Honestly, without Animation Mentor and the wonderful community it created I don't know where I would be. I really mean that. I am so thankful.

"Moments"

The end of another year. I hope that everyone is happy, healthy, and excited about what's to come. :)
Last night I was talking to a good friend of mine. We are both graduates of Animation Mentor and met while taking classes, so a good portion of our conversations relate to animation. Last night we were talking about what we found fascinating about animation... what was our real draw to it and why do we want to do it. We started talking about 'moments'.

We kind of struggled to define a moment, but that's just it.. it is hard to describe. It's that little magic moment when you connect with the character, when the character is alive, gets swept away in their actions. When YOU the viewer are uplifted and inspired because of what is happening on screen. When you think about it long after it's through. And, sometimes, when it changes you. That's what we want to be a part of. As my friend said, "the who and the why instead of the how". It's a weird thing, and like a dream, sometimes the grasp of it escapes me.

Ratatouille. I was asking myself why did I find this movie so appealing, so moving. Why am I able to watch it again and again. I don't particularly like rats, and I don't like cooking (except cookies and pies :). On paper the movie has nothing for me, but despite of that I find myself able to relate to Remy. The movie has many 'moments' for me. The one that sticks out first is when he first starts to fix the soup. I love that scene! He gets so swept away into what he's doing that he can't help himself. What's more is I always get this great uplifted feeling just seeing this rat doing what he loves and enjoying it so much! He is cooking with his heart and bounds of joy and you canFEEL it! What I love about animation is that it is so powerful. Throughout that whole sequence Remy doesn't say a word, but there is no doubt at all what is going through his mind. When Linguini discovers him I am startled right along with Remy because I was so absorbed by that moment. I was able to escape into Remy's world for a moment. Why? It's like a little bit of what made him tick leaked out for all to see. Same with Ego when he takes that bite.

"Moments" aren't unique to animation by any means. They happen everyday, big and small. I was telling my friend that there is a clip on youtube of Sarah Hughes skating in the Olympics back in 2002. No one expected her to be a contender. Going into the Olympics she was certainly not the best skater. Good, but not the best. While others were duking it out for the gold, Sarah had the skate of her life. She knew that a victory was unlikely, and skated with joy and passion and life. She ended up surprising everyone (including herself, I believe) and won the gold. I have watched that clip several times looking for the 'moment'. The moment she knew she was on fire. She was so caught up in it. Stuff like that. What made that skate more special than any of her others? Why was it contagious to the audience? Why do I care about it? Why did she win when nobody even thought it possible? I believe that nothing that night could've stopped her. It was her moment.

Stuff like that fascinates me. It's so amazing what people are capable of. Animators who create them obviously put so much of themselves into their work. I can't see any other way they could do it.
I am really glad my friend brought it up. I think moments can be different for every individual. Personal, almost. But it was really eye opening to break down what it is about animation that we love. It's not the moving stuff around. It's the ability to capture a moment and make people care, and the potential that we too will be able to do that one day.

Have a wonderful New Year, everyone! Take care.

New animation

Well, after my last post I got really motivated. For the past few weeks I've been working on a new animation. I have been wanting to try another 2 person dialogue for a while, so I decided to give it a shot. The line I chose was one that I was considering for my 2 person during Animation Mentor, but it ran a little long so I ended up picking something else. I like the line because I had a clear picture of the characters and what I wanted to happen within the shot. I also have been itching to animate kids.
Here it is so far ..


One of my former mentors was very kind to look at my demo reel. One of his comments was to give the pieces more of an environment, so for this piece I tried to think of that right from the beginning. I do not know how to model beyond squares and circles, so I found a photo I had taken awhile ago and used it as the background. I wish I had thought of doing this before! Youtube muddies it up a bit, but I am happy with the environment.
I hope soon to be submitting my reel again. I want to add new stuff and weed out some of the old. It's easy to get down after having a couple close calls, but I'm choosing not to stay down. I really want to be an animator and I am willing to work to prove it. I really enjoy this animation thing =).

Rejected

Just got a rejection today from a cool studio I had an interview with.
It wasn't the first, and won't be the last, but it always hurts a little.
Maybe next time =).

Graduation, Siggraph, and more cool stuff!

It's been a busy couple of weeks!
I flew to San Francisco two weeks ago to attend the Animation Mentor graduation. To sum it up in a few words, it was pretty awesome!It was like the Animation Mentor BBQ times 100. I got to meet so many of my classmates and friends, and my best friend Gail was able to attend to. I also 'won' an award for 'most entertaining video reference' for me and my father falling off stumps doing reference for the post to post jump.
To top it all off, my mentor, Michal Makarewicz from class 3 was there! I had a strange feeling he'd be there. That's us below.

He also offered to take hid former students ... me, Kimmy, and Vanessa on a tour of Pixar!

It's such a nice feeling to meet one of the people whom you admire and helped to teach you. I found it very heartening over the whole week that animators as a whole seem like very nice people.
After a couple days in San Fran, many people headed down to LA for Siggraph. Kimmy, Eduardo and I took a Greyhound bus down to LA. YOu would think I would've learned better from taking the Greyhound across the country a couple months ago, but I came back for more punishment. The price was right, though. Only $40. It wasn't such a bad trip. We just got in at almost 4am Monday morning.
We stayed in a hotel with a cool group of people. Kishore, Tobi, Eduardo, Kimmy and I all stayed at the same hotel room for various lengths of time. For some reason we lucked out and had 3 double beds in our room!
Siggraph was a great experience. My only complaint is that it felt too big. There really wasn't much time for talking to recruiters in person because there were always lines and mobs of people everywhere.
On Tuesday morning, somehow Eduardo and I ended up with passes that had blue at the bottom, marking us as exhibitors. We didn't know what the blue went until we were let in the exhibit early before the big mob. We went straight to the AM booth where we met Mike Walling and Bobby Beck! Bobby offered to look at our reels, and of course we said sure!
Tuesday night we had an AM party at the top of a pretty cool hotel. It was a great place to talk to people, and I met some nice folks. I even met Mike Stern, who graduated AM 2 years ago and whose blog helped inspire me to join AM. He had his short film 'Distraxion' shown at the film festival at the Nokia theater. It was so neat to see his short on the big screen!
Every day was full and there were parties on most nights that by the end of the week we were kind of sleep deprived =).
On Thursday I got a call for an interview from a pretty cool place! I haven't heard from them since, and my hope is slipping by the day, but I was so excited to get the call! I am still hopeful for it. It seems I am always coming close, but not quite getting the job for various reasons, but I gotta keep on trying.
Friday I left LA for Boston.... by train. I flew out to San Fran, but darn it, I dislike planes! The train ride wasn't nearly as eventful as the Greyhound trip across the country. I actually got to sleep on the train, but it was kind of a lonely trip back compared to the friends I made on the bus trip. I got home late monday night and have been sick ever since with a cold I caught along the way.
It has been a great trip, but I gotta get back to work. After seeing my classmates and mentor, I am more excited than ever to become an animator. I see what I am working towards.

New Demo Reel!

So much for being able to relax on the weekends!
Animation Mentor announced a few weeks back that they would be having a job fair in Emeryville , CA, so I decided to go!
I have been working on more animation tests and was able to complete one to put on my new reel.
The job fair was really fun! I got to talk to alot of studios, and it was a great opportunity to meet alot of cool people. After fumbling over my words at the first booth I felt more comfortable the rest of the day. After the job fair we hung around at Animation Mentor headquarters and I got to meet alot of my friends from school in person for the first time! It was incredible! It felt very natural talking to everyone because we really did already know eachother. There's nothing like talking to friends in person, though. I met alot of people too from previous classes. It's so cool to be able to put a face to the work I've been admiring. I even met a couple of students who were about to start AM.
That evening we all went and saw Wall-e. Man, the animated movies are on a roll this year! I saw Kung Fu Panda a couple weeks ago, and of course Horton. I was actually lucky enough to get to see Horton again on my flight to CA.
The next day AM hosted a BBQ where I got to see everyone again and meet even more people. My friend who I was staying with lent me a jacket, and it was quite the conversation starter. Apparently it was a prototype for something and it had buttons on the front. Not clothing buttons... Ipod/ dvd player buttons. Ya. weird. I looked bionic.
It was great to see my friend again too. She was actually my roommate in college. Another college friend happened to be visiting at the same time, so that was even cooler!
When Gail (my friend) picked me up from the airport, she brought me straight to an indoor rock climbing place. She even had a change of clothes for me! It was really fun! It was kind of like American Gladiators. THe floor was springy like a trampoline, and it was challenging to try and stay on course on your way up the wall.
The few days that I was there turned out to be quite the workout. On Sunday we went dragon boating. What is dragon boating? It's kind of like a big long canoe with many people paddling. Everyone had a paddle and paddled on one side. Gail races with a group so I went to one of her practices.
On Monday we played tennis. I am really bad at tennis, so it was more like a long game of fetch for me, but it was really fun. We were supposed to go rock climbing again, but my foot started acting up again from the tennis. Ahh well.
For my trip home, I was supposed to take a train, but due to flooding in the middle of the country, I booked a last minute ticket on Greyhound from San Francisco to Boston. I don't know what I was thinking. 3 and a half days on a bus. It was only supposed to be 3, but I should've known better. Despite being extremely tired and rather stinky at the end of the trip, I don't totally regret it. I made some good friends along the way, saw alot of the country, and had the ultimate people watching experience.
I also learned that rather large people look for rather small people to sit next to on the bus...