Animators don't know how to be funny.

Uh oh, no he didn't. :)
Get the full Seinfeld scoop here and on James' site.

"Instead of being funny, which is what my whole career has been, I'm now describing funny to someone who, in most cases, is not a funny person. It's like describing a bris (a Jewish circumcision ceremony)."

At least one of those animators was not amused.

"I wonder if I’m in the 'most cases' category," wrote DreamWorks animator James R. Hull, who worked on Bee Movie. "I mean, I’m not a hilarious person, but I think I do know what funny is . . . and isn’t."

pic source

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The Pixar Story by Leslie Iwerks

We were very fortunate to get a screening of Leslie Iwerks' "The Pixar Story" here at work and she was on site for an introduction and a Q&A after the movie.

The documentary was very well done and brings across the golden age of Pixar in an entertaining and humorous way, without glorification or bypassing their mistakes and problems. It makes you wish you were there during the founding and the early successes, during the move to their current location in Emeryville, basically up until around the time of "The Incredibles". After that the documentary makes it look like Pixar has grown up and the innocence is gone, which happens to any company (like ILM, Aardman, etc.) after multiple successes and growth, there is just too much at stake.

Thanks to full access to Pixar's and Lucasfilm's library you get to see a lot of home videos and behind-the-scenes footage which gives the documentary a very intimate and personal touch. Leslie Iwerks mentioned that she hopes to include a lot more unseen and archival footage on the DVD (especially from the early Lucasfilm era), which should see a DVD release early next year (she has 600 hours of footage to go through, so early next year might be very optimistic).

What sets this documentary apart, to me at least, was the inclusion of Lasseter's wife and her commenting on how hard it is to share John with the company. You rarely get to hear comments from family members and the sacrifices that come with this job, so that part was very refreshing and I wish you'd see more of that from different employees (but that's difficult because not everybody wants to be in the spotlight).

So visually it was great, but if you are an avid Pixar and Lucasfilm film fan, there isn't any new information to be found. Especially if you read Droidmaker: George Lucas and the Digital Revolution, which is by far the most comprehensive and nerdiest book out there (right down to the description of who and how and when they created the name "Pixar"). It's impossible to condense that book into "The Pixar Story" running time, so I recommend watching the documentary first and if you want to go even more in depth, then check out Michael Rubin's book.

Theater and TV screenings are coming and of course the DVD, so make sure you get to watch it somehow/somewhere, you won't regret it.

I also recommend: The Hand Behind the Mouse - The Ub Iwerks Story

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Awesome Wall Animation

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New Animation Mentor Newsletter

The new AM newsletter got the usual goods (and I hope your subscribed to it), here are a few:

Shawn's Tip & Tricks (Recharging your Animation Batteries)

Animation short by Isaac Hingley

Great Character Design

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4pm - student film by Mark Oftedal - great hands!

I saw this a while ago and Cooked Art has it up now. Fantastic hand animation! The poses and timing are great.

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Autoplay on DVD Reels

Hopefully you've gone through the "Demo Reel Dos and Don'ts" post, but I wanted to clarify the "autoplay" issue. In her lecture Pamela Thompson mentions that DVD reels should be set to autoplay, meaning that the DVD will start playing automatically after it has been loaded.

I asked around and it seems that the majority of recruiters and people who look at reels actually prefer the DVD to NOT autoplay and instead load into a menu. It can be irritating for them when the reel starts and they are not ready. Or they have to fiddle around with the TV input setting and they miss the start of the reel.

So just have a menu where the "Start Reel" (or whatever button) is CLEARLY visible (and already selected so that they just have to push enter or play). - pic source

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Academy’s Fall Animation Festival

I got this in the mail to pass on:

Greetings all!

The Academy’s Fall Animation Festival is coming up. Please share the following info with your students. You’re welcome to attend, too. J

AAU Fall Animation Festival

November 19, 2007
7pm
491 Post Street
Morgan Auditorium

This is a screening of short projects and works-in-progress by AAU students, showcasing 2D and 3D animation, Visual Effects, and Stop Motion.

Guest Speaker:
Tom Bancroft
Animator on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, etc., etc.

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New Alvin and the Chipmunks Trailer

New "Alvin and the Chipmunks" trailer. Gotta have a fart joke in that movie... sigh.

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Performance Capture is not animation

Zemeckis has been quoted as saying that he doesn't see performance-capture movies as animated films. "To call performance capture animation is a disservice to the great animators," he said at the International Broadcasting Convention in September.

found through a Cartoon Brew comment @ Yahoo! News

If you want to have a good time then head over to that post on Cartoon Brew. Some of the comments are just too funny.

A few gems:

"Animation, it's giving life to characters." - Uhm, okay, sorry to be dismissive but the characters in the Ten Commandments movie are as dead as some of the Beowulf characters, but it's okay to call THAT animation?

Or (about mocap):

"Animation does not factor into it at any level. Mo-cap is not a frame by frame process, and by definition it is not animation." - That person clearly hasn't visited the mocap data wrangler nor the animators that work with mocap.

But there are good comments after all:

"Those sea monsters looked more alive than anything else in the film. I think Zemeckis hasn’t hit the strengths of mocap as a tool yet. Beowulf had the potential to have a stylized look, but I don’t think it got there. It’s just a muddle." - Absolutely.

But then it goes back to:

"And by the way “C” we 2D “purists” at least have talent. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to manipulate a few IK handles, or to rotate a manipulator." - Wow, that person has no idea about 3D animation...

But I like Floyd's answer to that: "It doesn’t take any effort to make marks on paper, either."

Good times, the endless debate over the merits of mocap. Strangely enough no one complaints about the use of simulations of Massive in movies...

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Ed Catmull Podcast

Head over to Spline Doctors for the Ed Catmull Podcast.

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Art of Glen Keane

In case you haven't been on this site yet, check out these sweet animation tests (thanks Andrew Shannon!).

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Space Chimp - Teaser

A teaser is out for the space chimp movie. - found Animated-News

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Pfffirate

found @ Cooked Art

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There Will Be Blood - Trailer

Check out the new trailer for P.T. Anderson's "There Will be Blood". Daniel Day-Lewis is always awesome. If you want reference for great acting, watch any of his movies. I love the end of the trailer, how his expression changes before "... people". That's why I love pauses during dialogue clips, it gives you the opportunity to do stuff like that.

Go to Apple for the trailer.

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Homework for Friday/Saturday

Hey guys,

so here a quick recap about the homework and new info for the class ditchers and Pixar attendees :)

For Friday and no later than Saturday, think about a topic or technique or anything else that you need to know about your shots, animation, work flow, etc.

I got a question before about moving holds, or how do you keep them once you go from stepped to linear/spline, how do you keep something alive during holds, how many keys do I set during blocking, etc.

So instead of doing a demo about one little thing, I wanted to hear from all of you guys first so that I get an overview of what you are missing. That way I can prepare little movies and demos for next class.

Depending on the amount of questions, critique might get a bit shorter in class, but bring all your work and drop it into the usual folder. I'll take it home and will continue the critique that night so that everybody gets feedback Thursday night/Friday morning.

Thanks!
JD

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Brad Bird interview about "Ratatouille" Blu-Ray

Great passage from this Brad Bird Interview:

What do you think of the motion-capture films, like Beowulf?

Brad Bird: I think that Mo-Cap is a wonderful tool. Just look at how Peter Jackson used it, to see how affective it can be. I think the dirty little secret of Mo-Cap is that the little things that you really like have been massaged by animators. With Gollum, Andy Serkis did a wonderful job of physicalizing that character. I think that is brilliant. I also know that those scenes were massaged a lot, to look the way they do, by animators. Several of the most emotional moments with Gollum were key-framed. The animators looked at Andy, but they didn't use the Mo-Cap. They key-framed it. The scene that impressed me the most, where Frodo calls him Smigel, and Gollum goes, "What did you call me?" "Your real name." And Gollum thinks, "My name? My name?" And he starts to remember this part of himself that he has forgotten. You can see it in his eyes. And it's magnificent. I found out that it was entirely animated. It was not Mo-Cap. That's what people "don't" talk about. And I think it does a tremendous disservice to animators. There is nothing wrong with animation. Animators are not technicians. They are artists. They think about performance. I would implore actors to consider animators as brethren. We use different techniques, but we are just as much about the way someone stands, what they are thinking, are they hiding their thoughts? Is that depicted in their eyes? So, I feel like, if you don't muck with Mo-Cap, you don't get the performance from the actors, and you don't get the characteristics of anime. The best Mo-Cap I have seen has all been mucked with by animators. Much the same way the best roto-scope in Disney's time was mucked with. I'm not against Mo-Cap. But I think it has limitations if you don't mess with it.

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Jae Ham Reel 2007

Found @ 3Dtotal, go check out Jae Ham's insanely sweet rigging, animation, lighting, etc. reel.

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Reminder: Movie File Size and Audio Clips

Try to keep your movie file sizes small (especially when you send them to me).
Once you did the playblast in Maya, open that .avi movie in quicktime. Then go to File>Export..., choose Movie to Quicktime Movie, then Options. Under Settings use H.264, Key Frames: Every 100 Frames, Quality around 65. OK all that and save the file. Voila.

Audio clips. Please do not use clips from other animated movies and other students (especially in your class), make an effort to be original.

Tata
JD

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Dennis Muren

"The New Yorker" got a clip of Dennis Muren, who's been at ILM for over 30 years, talking about his career. Isn't he the only living artist with the most Oscars?
There are breakdowns of shots in "War of the Worlds" and "Pirates 2", . It's always sweet to see that. Except the part where he goes "The performance comes through. It's not being interpreted by an animator". Riiiiiight.
It's not character animation related per se, but still worth a look.

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Daniel Chou

Sorry for the lack of posting. Halloween parties, project wrap up at work, a (probably) broken toe, enjoying the iPod Touch, geeking out on the Indy TV show, etc. so many distractions...

In the meantime, check out Daniel Chou's site and blog. Very cool! - found @ Cookedart

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