Cool clip of how the stop-motion puppet is being made. Just like pencil tests, there's just a certain awesome look and quality to stop-motion. So good.
Watch it at the iTunes Movie Trailer site, look for the Making Norman clip.
14) Don't be a fucking idiot. Nobody wants to hire a fucking idiot. In our industry, the successful people are generally those who people want to work with (because they're not fucking idiots). Be interested. Be eager. Be humble.
Oh yeah! Teaser trailers for Pixar's Mnsters University! The original is one of my favorite Pixar movies, so I can't wait for this one!! Head over to BigScreenAnimation for three more teasers.
Sounds silly, but I'm a huge fan of head turns. Head twists, tilts, etc. A line of dialogue can have a totally different meaning with a slight adjustment of the head (like the head moving up in "True Blood"). Or there's also just an non-typical way of delivering a line. Like Joaquin Phoenix in the new "The Master" teaser trailer. Go to the 36s mark. Might just be me, but I love how he says "What do you do?". The head move, the squint, just love it. I'm so curious about the whole movie.
A lot of times maquettes have a cool body pose, but then the face just ruins it all. Enter these two from Star Wars.
The Grievous/Shaak Ti could have been really cool, but look at Shaak Ti's facial expression! Same with Asajj. It's so emotionless, what is going on?!
At least this Anakin one has an expression, but then the eye line doesn't match. Why is he looking above the Tusken Raider? No connection there.
What a bummer!
Now that's a lot better:
Looking at the Dianoga would have been cool though, but at least his pain is clearly visible in his facial expression.
Isn't there a saying that you need to get a thousand crappy drawings out of your system before you get a good one? Well, the same is true about computer animation. You have to practice and not be burdened with the pressure that every shot or sequence you start will end up on your demo reel (more about this in a later post). And my plan is to do just that.
But give me every option available and no deadline and it's going to take me ages until I decide on something. Deadlines and restrictions are one of my favorite things at work. I love finding the most creative solution within a set of restrictions. It's like a puzzle! ("It's like a big old mammogram!").
One of the things I've wanted to do for a while but never had the time for, was submitting entries for the 11secondclub. It's perfect for what I need. A DEADLINE! Each month!
So from now on I will do just that, enter a clip each month using every spare minute that I have. And it doesn't matter how much time I spent on it, how crappy it is, it's all about practice, practice, practice.
So here we go! This is my entry for the month of May. For this month, I had a day where the stars aligned and I was granted 10 hours of free time (sort of). I dove right into it and submitted the work about 2 minutes before the end of the deadline! HAHAHA! Better start practicing and improving my timing for that as well!
The clip was fun to do, especially the ending, where I totally went overboard. I just wanted to practice and have fun. There's a good mix of reference and imagination, pose to pose and straight-ahead animation in there. I loved it! And the Malcolm rig from AnimSchool is fantastic! So many controls, but never confusing! Btw. the stairs were built using this kick ass tool: Davveys Stair Generator 1.1.2 (maya script)
The clip here is zoomed in and rendered, which was not what I submitted but I prefer this one.
Can't wait to start the next clip!
Here are also the usual suspects of formats: Vimeo and Quicktime