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Posts Tagged ‘Animation’

Official Megamind Trailer!

May 20th, 2010 jason 4 comments

As most of you know, for the past two years I’ve been working as Head of Character Animation on Megamind.  We’ve been working hard, and it’s been a lot of fun.  Animation is cranking away, and I can’t wait to see people’s reactions to the film in November!

The latest trailer has come out and is available online now..

This has been a real epic journey, and a real learning experience for me.  It’s a joy to be able to now have some of our film out there for people to see!

enjoy!

-jason

Categories: Animation Tags: ,

Animator Friendly Rigging – Part 3b available

May 19th, 2010 jason 8 comments

Whew! Part 3b is up and available now! I’m finding that it’s taking about 2 hours or so to convert each section to be available for download through lulu, so at this rate hopefully I’ll be done by the end of the week! :)

Go straight to the page, or check out the preview video:

Jeffrey Katzenberg Plans on Living Happily Ever After

November 24th, 2009 jason No comments

Jeffrey Katzenberg Plans on Living Happily Ever After | Fast Company.

This is a nice interview with JK, our main head honcho at Dreamworks Animation.

The first time I ever spoke to Jeffrey was when I was applying for a job at Dreamworks.  I was actually still living in New Zealand finishing up on The Lord of the Rings.  I believe it was a saturday morning, and I was at home showering before heading in to work.  I heard the phone ring & my wife poked her head in the bathroom to say “There’s a call for you.”

“Who is it?”  I asked, massaging shampoo into my hair.

“Jeffrey Katzenberg?” She said.

I nearly slipped in the tub and cracked my skull.

“WHAT?!?!”

“Yeah, some guy named Jeffrey Katzenberg.  Who is he?”

“KATZENBERG?  JEFFREY KATZENBERG CALLED HERE?”

“Yeah.. and he is….”

“KATZENBERG!  SPIELBERG!  GEFFEN!   DREAMWORKS!  SKG!  KATZENBERG!”  I sputtered and slipped and rinsed and threw on a towel and somehow managed to answer the phone.  “Mr. Katzenberg.. *squeek* Hello sir, how are you…”

We spoke for a bit about the company, what Dreamworks was doing, how exciting it is here, and other things.  I think the conversation lasted all of two minutes, but in that time I was immediately impressed with Jeffrey’s passion for animation, his excitement about the studio, and I knew I wanted to work here.

I’ve been fortunate to have been in meetings with Jeffrey a few times in my nearly 6 years at Dreamworks, and have to say that even though it’s nerve-wracking at times (he IS the big boss, after all), he’s always been really engaging, intelligent, honest, and 99.9% of the time completely correct.  I really value his notes and love the dedication he has to his staff.

Anyway, the article great read & really gives some good insight into his head.  Enjoy!

Categories: Animation Tags: ,

On running a successful and creative team..

September 13th, 2009 jason 14 comments

As our production has begun, I’ve been talking to our animators about my goals in running the animation department for the show. It’s been an interesting process, one in which I’ve learned a lot about myself, my values, and how I feel our department can be most sucessful.

I’m not going to get into specific tricks and techniques for what we’re going to do (this is a public blog, after all), but I thought others might find it interesting at least to hear what I feel are the 3 areas of focus that are important to having a creative, successful, and happy team dynamic. I think that these values probably apply to almost any team dynamic.

You’ll notice that I’ve labeled each area A, B, and C, not 1, 2, 3, because I don’t think there is a hierarchy as to which area should be considered first.  Each area is of equal importance, and while not every decision one makes can have each area “win”, I believe if each area is considered while making decisions, in the long run you can achieve growth and success in all of them.

Area A: The Best Quality Product

This area of focus is on making the best quality product (whatever it is you’re creating.  In my case, the best animation and acting we can produce).  Here, all of your decisions should be focused on the good of the product.  This include things like – who do you have working on the most key components of your product?  Have you done your research?  What is the end goal?  What tools do you need to reach that goal?  What are the possible pitfalls that can get in the way?   When I started on this show I pictured the end result of what we would need to have a successful show.  What would our rigs need to do?  What specific tools would we need?  Who knowledge would I have needed to have?

Picturing the end result allowed me to work backwards and ask important questions about the features we needed.  If the rigs had to support “x”-feature, then what do I need to do to ensure that could happen?  How much planning do we need to have?  Are the tools even available to support this feature?  Who do I know that can create it?  How much time would it take?

By asking these things at the head of the show, I could build a path and plan on how to ensure we would be ready once the show started.  Knowing that it’s impossible to foresee every eventual hurdle and hiccup, we also created a plan for how to handle problems we don’t know about yet.  It’s important to realize that something will happen that will try and keep you from reaching this goal.  Instead of being surprised and reacting to it, create a plan ahead of time so when it occurs, you have a method for dealing with it that keeps everyone sane and “happy”.

Area B: The Happiest and Most Productive Team

Of course it’s impossible to create a great product without a great team behind it.  This second area of focus is all about your team and how it works together.  You have to think about what THEY need to achieve this goal.  What can you do to help the team morale (always an issue when people are working hard and putting their hearts on the line every day in dailies).  How can you help them grow together, learn to trust each other, and work in harmony?  How can you remove any of the political back-stabbing that can happen in group dynamics and help them nurture each other instead?  How can you ensure that perception of your team is one of compassion, cooperation, and inspiration?

Area C: The Individual

Of course, each team is made up of unique individuals, and if every person isn’t feeling satisfied and creative, then it’s difficult to have the team work successfully.  And if the team isn’t working, then there’s no way you’re going to achieve the best product you can.

I like to think broader than that, though.  I’m not just trying to help animators be great so this particular film is great.  I want the animators to be happy, creative, successful, fulfilled, empowered, and passionate because that’s the kind of environment that I feel is a great place to work.  I want every animator to feel like they’re growing, that there is a future for them, and that they “control” that future.  I know that I always work my best when I feel like I have a personal stake in the results of what I’m doing.  I want every animator to have goals that are greater than their current abilities, and know that they’ve got a team of people supporting and encouraging them to achieve those goals.  Knowing that it’s okay for them to reach and fall, because we’re there to help pick them up and allow them to reach again.  If your team doesn’t feel safe reaching and failing, then they’ll never reach and achieve.

Growth.. personal and professional are important to me.   That’s why we’ve asked each animator to create a list of goals for themselves.. for the show, for their careers, for their personal lives.  They can share it with me or not, but I want them to at least think about it.  Then, they should think about what the next physical action they should take that would help them achieve the goal.  This is actually something I did a few years ago when I was animating on Shrek the Third.  I had a goal to become a supervising animator, but I felt like I didn’t quite have the acting chops to achieve it.  So I thought about what I needed to reach this goal.  I wrote to my Head of Character Animation and my Department Supervisor and said that I had an eventual goal to be a supervisor, but felt like I was lacking in subtle acting ability.  In order to achieve my goal, I wanted to focus more of my animation time on subtle shots so I could learn and grow.  I wrote about what things I would be doing personally to become better in this area, and then asked for their support and the opportunity to try these more challenging shots.   Sure enough, I was given more subtle shots and was pushed beyond my comfort level.  I knew I had their support to grow, and felt okay failing because they were behind me.  It was hard, but I worked at it, and I soon became a supervising animator (and now a Head of Character Animation).

Making Decisions..

As I mentioned earlier, not every decision we make can support each area of focus.  Sometimes we have to give certain shots to animators we know can achieve the level required in the short time we have.   Sometimes we can’t afford a training class for the entire department even though it would be incredibly useful and in the long run would help everyone become stronger.  Sometimes an individual animator’s goal on a particular shot or sequence will not work with our current schedule and we can’t accommodate them.  However, we are always thinking of each area of focus with every decision.  We try hard when there are conflicting goals to find a way to still achieve a desired result by looking at things over the course of time.

Maybe this particular shot can’t go to this particular animator, but we can give that animator two simpler shots, and then on the next sequence we’ll give them the shot that will really push them, and in order to support them in their growth, we’ll make sure the supervisor has extra time put aside to help them and work with them so they’re supported and not just left dangling in the wind.

Maybe once in a while we’d have to work saturdays during crunch in order to get the show done on time, and maybe that means that parents won’t get to see their families as much.. but what if everyone in the department took a few bucks every day and put it in a pot, and then we took some money from the department morale budget and set up a family picnic one saturday every month with food and drinks and games for the kids to play?  And what if we personally thanked all the family members for their understanding and patience?

Maybe we have to make hard decisions that make some people unhappy, or it may take longer to achieve their goals.. but I firmly believe that by focusing on these three areas with every decision, and letting the teams know that we’re actively doing this, we can really help create a creative, supported, artistic, professional, forward-thinking, engaged, successful team that will produce the most amazing work possible.

At least, that’s my thought.

I’d love to hear yours! :)

Fear of Moving Past Blocking posted on 11Second Club

May 18th, 2009 jason 5 comments

A few weeks ago my friend Eric Scheur asked if he could re-post one of my posts about the Fear of Moving Past Blocking to the awesome website http://11secondclub.com.

You can see the repost here:
http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/the_fear_of_moving_past_blocking/

I thought it was a great idea. I hadn’t actually re-read my post in a while, but was very happy to hear that it had a great influence on him & other animators he spoke with. I just read through it now & realized how much relevance it actually has on my latest “obsession”.. trying to better manage my time & prepare for production.

See the show I’m currently Head of Character Animation on starts animation production pretty soon & I’m in the last stages of making sure everything is ready for our crew so we can just kick butt the moment we get our first sequence. There are a lot of little loose ends to tie up, threads to follow, and loops to close and if you take a 40,000 foot look at everything it can become pretty daunting.

alexJust like trying to move from blocking to spline animation can appear daunting at times.

So I’ve been investigating various task management theories.. the one that’s sticking with me the most is the Getting Things Done methodology that was started by David Allen.  It’s all about creating a process for handling all the various forms of “input” that you get, and then managing that stuff systematically.

What I love about it is that you can take a seemingly daunting task.. say, getting your email inbox to zero, and approach it a step at a time until it’s done.

The other thing I really like about it and this method of moving from blocking to first pass of animation I wrote about is that once you fully commit yourself to this method of working, it totally relieves all your stress about the task you’re working on.  Now that I have this method of animating that I completely adhere to, the only stress I have about my shots is whether or not the animation and ideas are any damn good to begin with.  Not whether or not I have the chops to take them from blocking to first pass, which is where most of my stress was before.

So with this method of handling my inbox, as long as I completely follow it and stick to it religiously, I won’t have any stress about there being any loose ends I’ve dropped, or balls I’ve left untied.  Instead I can focus on the pure excitement of a deadline coming up that we can’t change & the knowledge that my team and I are getting ready as best we can.

For someone who likes to react to things emotionally and intuitively, this systematic stuff is actually pretty cool.

*note:  in case you’re wondering what that picture is.. It’s Alex Wong from the group “The Animators”.  He and I went to elementary school together & is an awesome musician who also likes to draw.

Your kung fu is MIGHTY!!

January 31st, 2009 jason 2 comments

Huge congrats to everyone at Dreamworks who worked on Kung fu panda.. It cleaned up at the annie awards Friday night!

11 for 11 I believe!

Congrats all!!!!!

Categories: Animation Tags:

Kevan Shorey – Using Contrast

January 5th, 2009 jason No comments

Animation Tips & Tricks.

My good buddy Kevan Shorey posted some great content on the http://animatinotipsandtricks.com website today.  It’s about using contrast in animation.

For me, contrast is best used when trying to heighten an emotional beat.  For example.. if I’m trying to animate someone being “sad”, what do I do?  How sad do I go?  Does “this” pose represent sad?  What about “this” one?  It isn’t until I show a change from one pose to another that the real emotion comes out.  Sad is only sad when it’s compared to a previous pose.. or contrasted against another emotion all together.

I mean honestly.. if you look at droopy dog, one of the gags is his depressed saying “you know what?  I’m happy..”  Well, maybe to him.. that IS happy.. imagine if he were depressed!

Categories: Animation Tags:

Amazon.com: Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1

January 5th, 2009 jason 1 comment

Oh wow.. talk about a great book that every animator should get.

Amazon.com: Drawn to Life: 20 Golden Years of Disney Master Classes, Volume 1: The Walt Stanchfield Lectures: Walt Stanchfield, Don Hahn: Books.

As a 3d animator, I’ve had many people ask me what software they should learn, or what school they should go to, or what skills are necessary to be a “3d animator”.  I respond time and time again that the biggest thing they can learn is to observe others, and translate that observation.  Whether it’s acting it out, drawing it, or speaking about it we must be able to create a picture that represents the idea or emotion we are trying to represent.

Sketching is one of the fastest and most effective ways to communicate an idea.  I don’t sketch as often or as well as I should, but I can’t tell you how helpful it’s been to be able to draw to communicate over the years.  Even though I don’t draw my animation, I do use sketches and thumbnails to think about it.  I also will draw a quick eye pose to try and get across an idea to an animator when I’m giving them notes.

Even if you “can’t draw”, you should try and learn some of the tricks and tips that Walt Stanchfield talks about in his notes.  They’ll really help you communicate your ideas!

Categories: Animation Tags: , ,

Repost: Walkcycle timelapse video

January 2nd, 2009 jason No comments

Originally posted: Tuesday, 05 June 2007

So after finishing recording of the videos, I decided to record myself creating a walk-cycle with the AFR rig.

Enjoy! :)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zrObqm4Fm0

Repost: Parkour Video Shoot

January 2nd, 2009 jason 4 comments

Originally Posted: Monday, 12 June 2006

We’re making the most rediculous video of all time.. it’ll either be great, or.. well.. stupid.

carlos puertolas

Edit:  I finished shooting the video & editing it together.  It’s available on youtube.. and if you purchased the Animator Friendly Rigging DVD series, you’ve seen it. :)   Enjoy!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvHG0OkCWJ4