Class 6 REEL

I have officially finished the Animation Mentor 18 month program. I apologize you to all and myself for not always being up to date with posting on here. It was easy at the beginning, but as time passed, things got harder and hours got longer. Overall, I really enjoyed learning from such amazing people and animators, while also making life long friends. I thank AM for everything it has taught me and the opportunities it has given me to reach my dreams. I will continue to strive to be better and learn as much as I can…. FOREVER…

With that being said, I am still in Animsquad and will continue my further studies there for the time being. I will post my shots from there asap… but in the meantime here is what I was able to polish up in class 6 🙂 CHEERS!

 

Class 6 Week 5

This has been an up and down week for me. I have learned a lot though and that’s all that matters.  I have reblocked my little girl shot, trying numerous different suggestions and posing. I am turning in this one this week in hopes I hit the mark as much as I could. Also, I have furthered my Animsquad shot with Jack and Jill. I will try to have vimeo links for both up on this post by tomorrow the latest.

While working on my shots for class and watching lectures are learning. I am trying to learn in other way too. I have received “homework” from a kind sir 😉 to watch some of my favorite movie scenes and study the actions, break them down, and think about how to go about animating that same scene. I hope the constant study will help develop my eye faster and get me on my way to being a better animator. Try it out with me! Hope everyone is having a good week! Stay Inspired!

Class 6 Weeks 1-4

Hello!

These past 4 weeks have been very busy. I am currently juggling 3 shots, two which are brand new.

    At Animation Mentor I am polishing some of my old work, along with choosing a new shot to enhance and round out my reel. I chose to do a shot with a child. Children are always fun to animate to me. Last term I did choose a shot with a little boy, but I feel this new shot will give me opportunity to get the child feel right. The little boy was in a pool and a hypochondriac, where this little girl will be refusing to clean up the mess she made. 

    At Animsquad I chose to do a shorter dialogue shot (2 words: “Okay..Open”) in order to really focus on body mechanics. The new rigs are far more detailed than I am used to, so simple for me was better. In this shot Jack will be proposing to Jill, but I won’t give away it all. You will have to watch when it’s finished to see.

 

Both James and Brian have been amazing mentors so far. James really brings it to class with detailed lectures about different topics each week.. including tons of live drawing while he talks. Brian, although we’ve only had one class, has a great attitude towards teaching this class and gave great critiques to our shot ideas, even throwing out a couple ideas to enhance the story. After three hours of straight critique, some people might say they’re tired and bored. I was so pumped and ready for another class. I will get that tomorrow!

Overall, I feel I have been getting a better overall feel for what I need to do. Not only in animation but in my life. This job can be verrrrry stressful at times, but you need to continue to make it fun or else you’ll burn out. I like to think of it like a challenge! I get excited each time a mentor or student says to go back and fix something. Our shots will NEVER be done; There is always something more you can do. So, I make it my challenge to myself to get it as close as I can and give it my all each turn in. Luckily I am just working for learning and not a studio yet, cause I have the time and opportunity to make these mistakes and learn.

To all those students just starting out:

– DONT STRESS OUT, just learn! This is the time to make mistakes and try things over and over

– Listen to your instructors! Sometimes you’ll have to “kill your babies” or take your idea and twist it somehow. This is a very collaborative industry. The best pieces aren’t just ones person’s ideas; They comes from bouncing ideas off others and taking away from things you’ve seen in life.. sometimes things you havent seen and others have 🙂

-Start thinking about your reel early. Don’t stress completely about it, but know that each shot you will want to be reel worthy. So try your best with each assignment!

– START FRAME BY FRAMING NOW! This is super important! Start studying everything. Seriously everything you can get your hands on. Animated, real life, look at it all.. And within this keep studying life not from behind the computer.

– Live Life. Work hard, but don’t forget to give yourself a break every so often. Even if its just a walk here and there. It’s important to refresh your eyes and not completely disappear from your friends and family 🙂

 

I am very happy I chose such an interesting and fun industry to be a part of, Cheers!

Animation domination

Here is the part where animation will dominate my life almost entirely for the next 3 months. I have official become both an Animation Mentor student along side an Animsquad Intermediate student. I am so excited but a bit weary about this, but I am going to do whatever it takes to reach my dream. So here I am.

James Chiang was a great mentor choice this term. He had granted us the opportunity to reach back to our previous shots and learn which areas we need to focus on individually and he provides lectures on his way of going about different principles and overall workflow of animating. I am really enjoying and continue to be inspired by him. I feel like he is already another favorite mentor of mine, and it’s only week 3. I won’t say he isn’t tough, but I really like that the most. I am learning a lot and hope it, as he said, will create big leaps in our work by the end of the term.

Also, Brian Scott seem great as well! We had out first workshop last night. I feel this workshop will not only teach me a lot and provide me opportunity to learn from a Disney Supervisor, it will really help to train my eye watching everyone’s assignments being critiqued during our class. I feel like I try to train my eyes by framing through various movies, but this will help a lot in thing I don’t normally see or realize.

I am really excited about these next 3 months. Hoping to keep you all updated as much as possible. Later this week I will try to get some blocking on here to show you a sneak peak of what I’m working on.

Cheers!

Class 6 & intermediate!

That’s right! I will be doubling my animation studies this term. I will be taking Class 6- polishing and portfolio with James Chiang AND Animsquad’s intermediate online workshop with Brian Scott. I am so excited! It will definitely be a harder term than originally expected, but I am always up for a challenge. Plus I get two amazing mentors who will help me gear my reel towards my goals and dreams.

I will keep you all updated the best I can! Cheers!

CLASS 5 OVERVIEW

So, my vow to myself to blog more during this class obviously didn’t happen. So to make up for it. I thought I’d share my progression of the shot. But, first! A summary of my class 5 thoughts:

I thought when people were calling Boola Robello: “nick 2.0” That is was going to be an intense class, but this was beyond my imagining.. AND COMPLETELY WORTH IT! Boola has become another great mentor to add to my list of wonderful teachers. He has great knowledge on the industry, but even more for what us student need to achieve to get into the industry.. and to improve our work. He Mr. Miyagi-ed all of us! From taking in into spline already by the first few weeks, he pushed us to our extremes and made us all better because of it. By week 4, I must say I questioned why he wasn’t following the syllabus, but looking back now, I wouldn’t have wanted him to do it any other way. Although at him I was angry, frustrated, and questioning if I could do this, Boola was always our cheerleader sending us inspirational e-mails throughout the week. As we were calling him at the end SUPERMENTOR (he really likes superheros) That is exactly what he was! I cannot begin to thank him enough for all he has taught me. THANK YOU BOOLA!

 

So here we go into my progression of my scene.

My Final Turn-in:

 

 

 

I shot some reference trying to mimic what I wanted the scene to look like and capture the basic mechanics I would go for.

 

 

 

Now, Here is how I started my shot, by creating a rough layout of what the characters would be doing and where the camera would be in each shot.

 

 

 

Then we took it into blocking. Here I focused on getting in key poses with some breakdowns and basic mouth and facial poses.

 

 

 

After blocking we went into blocking plus, where we started to add a jaw dropping pass and  get our poses down to 4’s

 

 

We hit spline much quicker than any other class I’ve been in.

After a few weeks of tweaking our scenes, we started to polish. And eventually I ended up with the turn in shot.

I am very excited and proud about my progress in this class. Feeling like I worked very work to be where I am, I still recognize there is a lot still to fix, learning, and bring into my animations. All that my mentors have taught me so far go into my work. I feel like I constantly hearing Aaron, Martin, Mike, Nick, and now Boola, while I sit behind this computer. I never wanted to do any other job. Scratch that. I don’t even consider this a job. You don’t give up hanging out a weekend or two to polish up stuff for just a job right? This is a passion and the deeper I get into it, the more I love it. It continues to teach me about the world around me and myself.

Anyways, Now that I am on break. I do plan to spend time away from my computer to see friends and family that I have had to put on hold while busting my butt off in this class. But I will also take a bit of time here and there to keep up my skills and work excitedly until class 6. I am very excited to announce I will be mentored by James Chiang for Polish and Portfolio class. I have heard wonderful things! Get ready for me James!

 

Cheers!!

 

 

 

 

 

Class 4 PROGRESS REEL!

Sorry guys that I haven’t been keeping up with this blog. Animation gets crazy the harder your work and the deeper you get into the process. I am learning so much from my mentors and really enjoying this school. I am currently in class 5, but here is my class 4 progress reel to see what you missed out on last term.

Last term I had Nick Bruno as my mentor and for those of you that know Nick and his teaching style, you’ll forgive me for not blogging haha. I LOVED Nick’s class. I took away so much and hopefully I can blog a bit about it later.

In class 5 we will be working on one shot all term. I think it would be cool if I could bring you all through my process and it progresses through the shot. I will try, but no promises 😉

Hope everyone has been seeing the new animated films that have been coming out… you know I have!

Cheers!!

Class 3 OVERVIEW

BOO! 

I bet you thought I forgot about you all 🙂

I didn’t! Last term was a completely different challenge for me than the other AM classes. Being a collaborative class, there was some really cool stuff I got to be a part of. Firstly, I got to be part of a team, which I always love because you get to meet new people and learn from them. Also we really got into trying to make our sequence the best! Secondly, We had to focus on what the shots in front and after us were doing. This was a challenge at first, but with the great communication and enthusiasm in our class, we got it going rather quickly and nicely. I am so happy I got the chance to be part of the team and work with them and Mike Stern.

TEAM STERNIO FOR LIFE!

My top tips for the in-coming Class 3 Collab kids:

1. Be Proactive!

I feel like what helped me the most was trying to be involved and in constant communication with my mentor and team members. You’re not only making friends and creating great work, but you can develop some great leadership skills and personable skills while working in a team.

2. Know where you are strong and weak in your work

Discussing what my focus and goal were for the quarter really helped my mentor and fellow students push me to challenge my animation.

3. Time Management

I tried to be a peer buddy this quarter and it was very difficult to give them the attention they deserved because of the work load involved in this class. There is a lot of time you will want to spend outside of class with your team enhancing the overall sequence and building the story. Make sure to make yourself a schedule that allows you to work, meet outside class, and most importantly have a life/ take breaks. You don’t want to over work yourself and burn out by the end. 

 

Overall, this class will be missed and I thank AM, my mentor, and my fellow teammates for the awesome experience and fun times had. I learned a lot about animation and myself throughout this class. Can’t wait for another awesome term in Class 4 🙂

 

Cheers!

 

MY PROGRESS REEL:

 

Week 9 and WEBSITE UPDATE!

Hey everyone!

I have some exciting website news. Joree.com is officially under construction to be built into my portfolio site. So happy! And I am loving the design of it so far and can’t wait to share it with you.

In the meantime, it is week 9 and we are heading into more blocking plus and bits of polish. I am so excited each time I see our class update the sequence on our page. Mike even mentioned that some of the mentors really like the story we put into ours 🙂

Well, back to work! Cheers!

Class 3: Update!

Hey guys!

Sorry I haven’t kept up with the blog so far during Class 3. Class 3 Update!

Class 3 is amazing! I am loving having a team of animators putting together a sequences. It reminds me a bit of team animation class I had taken in college, but even better. Why? because there is no stress of having to come up with new model and textures. We were given everything, or found online, what we needed to start animating. We did however put a lovely texture on our character to differentiate from the other Stella animations going on in the other Classes.

Our Idea: Young Stella has gotten into a fight with her parents, throwing a tantrum in her bedroom, she decides to runaway. She packs a suitcase and heads out her bedroom window, across the roof, and down a tree. Sneakily, Stella crosses her backyard, hiding in bushes, and climbs over her back fence, after throwing her suitcase over first. When she gets over the fence, The suitcase is open with her belongings all over her lawn. She reaches down to one of the item, a picture of her family. Feeling guilty for running away, Stella packs back up her things and walks to the front door. After a knock, her (parent) opens the door and takes her inside. TA DA!

I am so excited to be working with Mike Stern as my mentor! We always have long classes, but THE BEST classes. I love being able to look at our shots in class through the AMP pipline. Its so easy to get confused and lost in a shot without an extra pair of eyes in your maya scene. Mike does this whenever we need him too, along with our in class critiques. I guess we are the only class doing the LIVE critiques version of class 3….I LOVE IT!

The next few weeks, we each will be working on our two shots of the sequence. I won’t post anything until the end. I had a hard week last week and have lots to do to catch back up, but I will get there 🙂

Hope everyone is having a nice start to summer! I try to get out as much as I can on my breaks…. Cheers!