I've been looking over my background designs lately. I got help from two people yesterday and today. Darren Kiner is a professor here and is helping my set up rendering for my scenes. I'm not even close to the rendering part of my thesis but he is showing me how to set up the scenes for the optimal look. I'm going to be rebuilding the backgrounds soon and I will organize them the way he told me.

A friend good with design, Ashley Armstrong, looked over my design and gave me some good sketches of how I should set up the shots. I will probably be setting up the background differently for each shot so that everything looks good. It won't make sense continuity-wise but will be better looking.

Busy month! I've been putting in ten hour days almost every day since my last post. Got lots of done though.

I've been working on background design. Haven't found a background designer but I've got some interactive media major friends who have agreed to help me out a little.

Motion capture is finished. I cast my actors which was a bit of a pain. I was able to cast two really good ones. Last week I shot my thesis in six hours. Since then I've been cleaning up data. I'm about halfway done.

Dragon Screenshots

Got some screen shots of the dragon character last week from my modeler Erik Walker. I worked with him over the summer at The Third Floor. We've been going back and forth over designs and I think we are really close at the final version.

Today was the first day of classes at USC. I didn't have any classes today. My only class is on Thursday afternoons. I got some screenshots from my modeler for my thesis project. Things are going along really well. I hope to have it all finished by October.

I spent the day making a stupid cartoon reviewing a movie trailer.. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_QivRs4mc&feature=youtu.be

Today I had a booth set up for SCFX at the school of Cinematic Arts orientation. There were a lot of people interested in the organization. I hope we can get some new enthusiastic members this year.

Saw the movie Cowboys and Aliens. Lots of explosions. Story was kind of weak. Entertaining but not one I'll go out of my way to see again.

Finished buying everything for my apartment. I've got a respectable kitchen set up and a good living room area. I've laid out all the furniture so I've got plenty of space. Overall I'm satisfied with my living arrangement. I'm missing a few things from my cubicle at school but the building was closed this weekend for repairs. I have some extra sheets and my granny cart.

I went to Goodwill today in hopes of getting an old globe I saw there last time. It was gone though. I'm upset about that. It not only had the Soviet Union on it, it had Rhodesia on it. I only learned about that country last year. Horrible, horrible country but a good collectors item.

Moved into my new dorm room today. Its the same room as last year but lots of work has been done to it over the summer. Their is new floors and furniture and everything is painted and new. They took out the buildings pool but no one ever used it last year.

I've been doing a lot of post viz shots this week. On a couple different shows, we've been getting back live action footage and have been doing simple visual effects on it. The one I worked on today looks like a pretty cool movie. I can't wait until it comes out.

On Saturday morning I am moving back to the USC dorms. The place I've been staying the last week and a half isn't too bad but I'd really like to move into a place of my own. Somewhere I can hang out on the couch in my underwear.

Been without internet at the house in Pasadena. I'm at school for the day working on a prop for Slash and Burn and doing some style tests. A lot of the plug ins for After Effects don't work so I may have to use some budget money to buy them.

Got an email the other day from the film festival Shark Cop was in. They sent me Laurels which are a little icon I can put on promotional pictures for the film. It makes it more fancy I guess.

I moved yesterday. I'm living for the next week and a half with my friend Justin while he is house sitting in Pasadena. The guy whose house it is is a stop motion animator. There's lots of crazy models and puppets everywhere. Also there is several hundred movies scattered all over the house.

Had my last internship class today. My internship is going on for at least a couple more weeks though. Classes are coming up pretty quickly.

A film I was working on at my internship is in the middle of being shot. We got some scenes back this week for post viz. Post viz is when we make a rough version of the special effects the shot will have. It makes farming out the effects easier. Seeing the shots with actors makes me feel that the random shots I've been working on are part of a bigger movie.

Had my second to last internship class Monday. Passed in a paper and discussed our companies decisions. Someone in my class is interning at Mirimax and apparently they are making their own TV channel.

Sometime over the weekend The Third Floor got a big contract. They took this contract from another previz company so I was going through the work from the old company all day trying to see if it compatible with our system. It mostly is. They have an odd file naming system though.

Busy two days. Thursday the demonstration of the new Mocap system happened. It didn't go according to plan. We had a bunch of new technology that we were trying out. The new things did not work too well. Sensors were off, computer errors occurred and random stuff just happened. This is frustrating when trying to figure it out but when a client is there watching it all happen...

Friday I had a variety of tasks like archiving, sending videos to clients and changing file types for future work. It was all tedious but not too difficult. I've been listening to books on tape the last few weeks so I'm never really bored. I finished Heart of Darkness today and got through most of the Invisible Man. There's a whole society of people recording public domain books for free on the internet called librivox.org

Yesterday at the Third Floor I spent most of the time archiving old files.

Today I was supposed to help out on a mocap shoot for a demonstration for a new client. I arrived around eleven for it but the client ended up not showing up. I'm a little upset about this but I only ended up staying a couple hours. I spent that time reading Heart of Darkness. I got home around two and worked on a paper for school.

I got a call from my boss later tonight. Everything is set for a shoot tomorrow afternoon. I'm coming in tomorrow anyways.

Had my internship class today. I only have two more classes. The final paper is due next week though.

I have work for the next four days. I'm not sure how long I'll be there on Wednesday though.

More archiving today. Next week will be better though. I'll have more relevant work to do.

A friend and co-worker is going to do the modeling for my thesis project. I've spoken to him for a couple weeks about him being a modeler. I showed him my concept art and today he said he could do it. Said he'd do it for free but I'll most likely throw him some money from my production budget.

A big presentation of one of The Third Floor's newest big project was due today. This resulted in me not having a lot of work to do. I ended up just working on some archiving.

Next Wednesday a new client is coming by and the higher ups have asked me to help demonstrate the Moven mocap system. Its pretty flattering that they trust me as an intern to help them out. I'm not too thrilled about coming in on my day off though. Overall I'm happy about it though.

Worked on the new Spielberg movie yesterday. It was really cool to look at the storyboards and think, "That's going to be a Spielberg film in a few years." I remember two months ago when they got the contract for this show. I was coming in for an interview and heard them reviewing the style tape (a collection of clips of other movies to describe what the film will be like.)

I can't talk about the film but it looks really cool and it was fun working on it yesterday. We were using Mocap to capture some animation for the movies first big action scene.

Worked on four shots today. Four! Of course the first one was just finishing up the one I started yesterday and the others were alternate versions of other peoples shots. I'm still counting this as a victory for Ian. So far there is almost a minute of this film that I have worked on.

Two of the companies founders know my name. Only three actually hang out at the office so this is a good percentage. The other still calls me "Hey" but I think he knows who I am, just not my name. I'm learning the company has a pretty high turnover but everyone who leaves, leaves for a better job. This is giving me a lot of hope at the Third Floor.

Busy day today.

Tuesday I had finished archiving all the old models and sets from previous jobs. My supervisor informed me that he would give me some basic modeling to do. Today I modeled two swords for one of the newer projects. With only a couple revisions I was able to make them. Andrew was impressed.

After lunch, I worked on a Mocap shoot. It quickly turned into a photo shoot. Apparently, the studio is being featured in Animation Magazine and they were taking some photos of it for the article. I'm in a couple of them but from the back only.

After that I worked on another shot. I didn't get to finish it due to some technical problems but its looking good. I'm not sure I will actually finish it though.

A lot more archiving today. On a side note, it was the last day for the woman who hired me at The Third Floor. She is moving to Oregon for a couple years to teach. She lived in LA for ten years and decided she needs a break from it. It seems pretty common from what I hear.

The game I worked on last year had a wrap up party. It is coming soon to PS3. I had a lot of fun working on it.

Worked on two shots today... and... AND... finished them! Every other shot I've worked on was touched up by another artist. This is the first time I've ever had a shot been reviewed and deemed suitable for final product. The shots were started by another animator but I ended up replacing a good chunk of the character animation and most of the camera movements.

I'm beginning to soak in some knowledge about cinematography from this internship. I've been going over some of my old storyboards and my reactions are "No... wrong... move this... center that..." I'm about a third of the way into my internship and I already feel that I've gotten my money's worth out of it.

Bought my first suit the other day. A tailor near my house is going out of business. Got an Italian made suit for $120. It was originally about $500. I'll probably wear it three times a year so I feel it was a good investment.

Worked on a shot today. It always feels good to be able to do that. The shot was originally someone else's but he had to work on a different shot so I edited his work. Basically I adjusted the camera move and altered the background a bit.

Being able to study a veteran animators shot in detail is very helpful. Working on the shot I was able to see what a well crafted shot looks like. On top of that I have two very talented animators working on either side of me. When my computer is loading slowly I'll sometimes watch them work.

The internet in my apartments been down for the last couple days. Its been pretty bad for a week before. There was a power surge a week ago and my housemates and I believe that is what caused the problem. We're probably going ot have to buy a new router and install that.

I have my internship class today so I am writing this in my studio. I am finishing up a paper on a profile of the Third Floor.

Spent the day at my internship working on Mocap. It was fun despite the fact that motion capture programs are more often than not filled with bugs. We had a lot of problems putting two people in suits at the same time. In the end though the shots were made.

Its is satisfying to help work out the plot of a movie. The script is pretty much done and most of it is storyboarded. However, when we act out the movie there always a moment when you realize that something doesn't make any sense. Such as picking up an object and then having it disappear the next moment or a character making a daring escape off screen.

After work I went to the Laugh Factory in Hollywood with some friends. It was really fun but long. It was scheduled for 2 hours but ended up going 4. That's a lot of jokes.

Long day at work today. I was putting together stuff for the archive and most of the files were scrambled throughout the companies database. Around noon though the company had a Learn at Lunch event. One of the head animators discussed some tips on how to take mocap data and use it effectively in a scene. This is pretty useful information.

Tough day at the internship today. Without getting too technical I basically had to track down images spread throughout the company's database for a project. After a long search they ended up being in the database's folder marked for deletion for some reason. I was able to save them and get everything done though.

During lunch I had a good conversation with some of the artists. The company has a lot more generalists than I expected. It is a fairly large company with maybe 50 or so people at the headquarters and thirty or so abroad at shoots. However, I only know a few people with a dedicated job there.

I bought a dart board today. Not a fake cork board one like I had last year but a real one. I got a great deal on it and ended up walking away with a dart board and three sets of darts for $50. I played for about two hours before my arm started hurting.

Had my internship class today. We discussed bosses from hell and how to deal with them. I've been pretty lucky and haven't had any really bad bosses yet. At least at the level that some of my classmates spoke of.

My friend Matt is leaving for Japan tomorrow for a month. He's taking a Japanese language class there. He's also going to meet with some of the Tokyo animators I've been working with. They sent us a photo of the team last week.

Tomorrow at The Third Floor I should be finishing up my second shot. It uses the Animation program Motion Builder. I'm one of the few people at the office that's good at using it.

I've been working really hard at my internship this summer. The other intern quit so I've taken an extra day. Including my Monday internship class I'm busy four days a week.

I've been archiving material from previous shows the Third Floor has worked on. A few films have already come out like XMen First Class. Others are a couple years away still so I can't say what they are. Between archiving I've been learning the software the company uses in hopes of animating actual shots.

Today I got the chance to animate my first shot. It wasn't a complicated one but I did my best to impress my supervisor with it. Hopefully this is what I'll be doing the rest of the time at The Third Floor.

Had my first day at the internship. I am pooped. They had me archiving old materials the first day but the woman in charge of interns promised me that I'll be doing something more interesting soon. I've spoken with the old intern and he says that they put him in charge of real work fairly quickly.

I finished up my Mocap project this morning. Tonight we showed all our projects to the class, dead Daily and Robert Zemeckis. He's a pretty cool guy and liked all our work. He asked us a bunch of questions about our films. Being the sole focus of a multi-oscar winner's attention for fifteen minutes is an awesome feeling. After we got to ask him some questions and we all had a good dialogue going.

I put together a cool style piece for my thesis. Basically it is what I want my final film to kind of look like. I'll post it tomorrow. On Friday I have my thesis review. I could probably go tomorrow with the materials I have now but

Signed up for Internship class today. I want to find an apartment near my internship some time in the next few days. I've heard from my friend Justin that Miracle Mile is a dull neighborhood but there are a lot worse adjectives to describe a neighborhood than dull. Especially in LA.

Book fair was today at USC. We stole it from UCLA who hosted it before. I'm not sure how many booths there were but they numbered well into the 600s. Not every number represented a booth though. I saw a few books I wanted to buy but didn't today. The fair goes on tomorrow though so I'll go back and buy them then.

I got an internship at The Third Floor this week. I'm really excited about it. They are a pre-viz company in Los Angeles. I've been trying to get in contact with that company for an information interview for months without luck. They've been very busy with a number of projects. When I interviewed them I overheard a sound track from Steven Spielberg's latest film. I don't know what it is about but there are plenty of explosions.

Worked on my Mocap project for a few hours today. I'm almost done. Tomorrow should do it. It's really goofy but it will turn out to be a good pre-viz piece.

Yesterday I had my final business of animation class. I had to pitch my thesis to them in a mock pitch. I got some good notes and feel that I am better prepared for when I really pitch my thesis in two weeks. From that class I feel that I have a good website, resume and the skills to network better and write cover letters.

I still haven't heard from Nickelodeon for a while so I've been looking at other internship opportunities. By sheer luck I stumbled upon a company that I like called The Third Floor. On their site they stated that they had an internship program. I wrote a quick cover letter and sent it in and a few minutes later got a call. I have an interview tomorrow with them.

The DP at Total Fistbump Destruction emailed me about a few changes to the storyboard. I have a meeting tomorrow and need to get the final boards in by Friday night. They will have area scouting this weekend.

My friend Matt sent me his script for thesis for my opinion. Also tomorrow I'm meeting him about it. Tomorrow will be a really busy day.

I woke up this morning around 7am. I got up and ready like I usually do but then realized that I don't have to go to school today. After a few moments of internal debate I decided to spend today doing nothing. It was great. I hung out in my underwear, drank some cheap wine and played computer games.

At 6pm I left my apartment. Visions and Voices was happening at USC. It is a mixed media art show organized by some of the SCA faculty. It was really cool. I knew some people who had work in the show.

Also, I finally got my new glasses. I had ordered two pair from Zenni Optical for $30. I now have a titanium rim pair like my old broken one and a thick plastic one. I took an informal pole from some friends and strangers and people are overwhelmingly in favor of the plastic ones.

Had the final meeting for the video game project. Signed some secrecy papers. Until further notice I can only refer to it as USC Game Lab Untitled Project. The project totally has a name though, I'm just not allowed to mention it for some reason. It should be called Secret Project or Project X. That way it sound's a lot cooler than what it really is, video game animation.

Not much news for today. Spent a few hours chipping away at my projects. Got some good progress. I think my mocap project is going to look really good when it is finished.

Had another 10am meeting with the DP about TFD today. We went through the final three scenes. I have to say that I really want to see this movie now. The tipping point was when he looked at one of my panels and said "Ok have them high five each other and put a pile of dead bodies over there." This is a great industry. Where else do you hear such things?

After the meeting I spent the next five hours redrawing them. The approval meeting is tonight and I hope I don't need to redraw too many of them.

I've decided that I need an intern. I've thought about it and my life requires someone who will follow me around and do my busy work for resume fodder and school credit. I spent about two hours scanning and formatting storyboard images for the TFD today. There really should be someone taking care of this sort of stuff. I needed to be at school at 10am today to meet with the DP for TFD. We walked through four scenes this morning and I've been storyboarding them all day. Tomorrow morning we are going to do the final three and present them to the director. I really hope they are accepted. This project is getting a bit TOO intense for my tastes. My friend James asked me to play test his video game today. It still has a few bugs but it is a fun game. Its a lot about strategy and negotiations. Also, this was my first time playing with the IPad. I like it. I don't see myself owning one though. Here's one of the boards. The quality isn't what I'd like but the amount of boards I'm pumping out requires a faster sketch.

Slept in today. Southern California is getting how fast so I woke up sweaty around ten and made some coffee. Nothing in my apartment looked appetizing so I ended up just getting a chicken sandwich at the Wendy's down the street.

I got an email stating that the film students I'm working for need a rough draft of the storyboards Monday. So early tomorrow I'm going to rush through the final scene with the help of the DP. Today I finished up the second scene, scanned and sent them to the film students.

Apparently Robert Zemeckis is making a new Mocap movie. Who would have guessed?

Here's a shot that I think sums up the entire film. This army guy just smashed the masked guy in the face with the butt of his rifle. The masked guy just shakes it off and shoots him. The army guys reaction is less terrifying and more "Really? This is happening right now?"

I met with the DP of Total Fistbump Destruction today. He approved the first scene and we walked through the next one. I'll probably have it done by Saturday and get my next scene Monday. I'm starting to think that this project might get done sooner rather than later. My other projects were slowly worked away on. I ended up having some free time today. Not a lot but enough. I went to the campus bar and attended a lecture with Ralph Egglesten. He was the art director for Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Wall-E. Basically he desides what the over all look of the film is. If you study some great films you'll see that some scenes are different color depending on the mood or plot. An art director does that. Here's a couple storyboard pictures from TFD. Its such a violent film that the people in the Jason hockey masks are the good guys.

I've settled into a good routine for projects that I hope I can continue until the semester ends. I'm working on every project about an hour or so a day. Every time I switch focus on one project to another I have a big burst of enthusiasm that can carry me about an hour. After that I tend to lose focus. With my method I'm getting a lot done. With some luck I'll have some time off to vege at the end of the semester.

I finished off my revisions of the first scene of Total Fistbump Destruction. I'm meeting with the DP tomorrow to see if I should move on to the second scene. I'm actually learning a whole lot from this project. I don't have much camera experience so drawing out complicated camera angles is a good way to learn. Also, I'm getting really good at drawing guys with machine guns.

The Tokyo project seems to be on the verge of ending. They hated our original idea but our revised one seems to be working. It has a nice message of togetherness in it. My friend Matt is doing the storyboards on it. We should be able to send it out Saturday or Monday depending one when he finishes up layout.

Found out about this cool independent no-budget special effects movie called Project London. It should be coming out soon. Everyone working on it is a volunteer and it looks professionally made.

For the first time in weeks I can honestly claim that I have moved forward on my motion capture final project. I've figured out how to progress on this part of the timeline and I can say modestly that it looks pretty good. I have to thank my actors for doing a great job. If you don't know I am recreating an imfamously bad fight scene from the original Star Trek show in motion capture. Here's the clip I'm working from.

I met with the DP of the live action film I'm working on. Everything about this show is really intense, especially the people. I had some questions about some of the shots and my friend Alec started acting out all these battle scenes. I took down some notes and will meet him with revised storyboards Friday.

At seminar today we had USC alum and animation producer Barry Weiss. He's worked on such films as Starship Troopers, Stuart Little, the Spiderman movies and recently Yogi Bear. It was interesting to hear from the managerial side of animation. He had some good stories about being the intermediate between the studio heads and the animators.

My new website is up and running. You can find it at www.ianmccormack.net There might be a few bugs in it still so let me know if you find anything wrong with it. Its nice to know how to update a website now. Before I felt really helpless when it came to upkeeping it. I don't know any web designers to my site wasn't updated for years. Had a Skype call with two USC alumni now working at Pixar today. It was for my pre-thesis class. We all spoke about overcoming obsticals on thesis. I feel better about my film now as I believe that I am on the right track. Ordered some glasses over the internet via www.zennioptical.com today. I bought two pair for $30. My friend Sara suggested the site. I needed to enter in my Pupil Distance though and my perscription sheet didn't tell me. My friend Matt and I took a half hour trying to figure it out.

Didn't do a whole lot of thesis this weekend. Mostly worked on my report for the informational interview, played around in Mocap a bit and started out on the storyboard project. Mocap is getting a bit frustrating. I think when I figure out a couple technical problems, things will go much more smoothly. Until then it is a lot of looking through my old notes and trying stuff out. Everytime I think I've gone forward I find that I need to start over. I have almost a month though. I'm not too worried. The storyboarding is going fine. The director of photography has given me a list of shots to draw out. I've done some rough thumbnails for about a third of them today and will send them over tonight for review.

Today I traveled all the way to Santa Monica to meet with David Rosenbaum, head of story at Illumination Entertainment. This was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. I was required to meet with a person in the industry for my Business of Animation class. I spoke with some people via email about going to Illumination and found out last night that I was able to go. At the studio they are still doing some work on Hop which came out last Friday. They are planning out theme park rides and other stuff to capitalize on Hop's financial success. This was mostly marketing though. Production was working on the Lorax which is coming out on March 12th of next year. Danny Devito is playing the Lorax. The director of Dispicable Me and the French animation company that made it will work on this film and the Dispicable Me sequel.

I met with the critical studies students today about storyboarding their film. They want the storyboards to be done by May 22 which should make the project a good end to the year. This should turn out to be a good learning experience and help me find out if I'm into being a storyboard artist.

The film's working title is Total Fistbump Destruction and is based off the Army of Two video game. This will be an intersting project.

Finished off the day by working on mocap and studying an old Yogi Bear storyboard.

Here's some more life drawing:

I've had a couple meetings about SCFX over the last few days. One at the SCA graduate council meeting about getting a website. The school won't directly fund it but they will give us gift cirtificates to the USC bookstore. This might work out, especially if we get a student to run it. Another meeting was this afternoon. A freshman is creating a new social network site for USC groups. It should be useful in getting people to the SCFX events.

Last night I had a website building class. The professor wanted a volunteer to use as an example website. I volunteered and he pretty much built my website for me. It looks good but now I don't know how to make a website. The site should be up in a week or so.

I'm working on Mocap all day today. I helped out a classmate yesterday and today I'm cleaning up the data on the footage I took Monday. There's a lot of bugs but I think I can get through it all today and start the next step tomorrow.

I'm thinking about taking a new job. I spoke with a critical studies student today about an independant project he is putting together. It is a short film based on a video game. I'm going to meet him tomorrow and discuss if I'll be storyboarding it. It should be good portfolio fodder.

Here's some more life drawing:

My intention today was to work on compositing. However, I needed to drop off a motion capture suit off at the Zemeckis Center first. When I got there my friend Eric was setting up a mocap session for his final project. I ended up helping him for about four or five hours. It was a lot of fun and I ended up learning a bit too. Eric is in production so it was good to be around someone who knew how to direct.

After I helped my classmate Jordan with auditions for his thesis. This was another area where I'm not good at so the practice was appreciated. It was wierd seeing grown woman doing voices of an eight year old girl though.

The Disney trip is tomorrow so I printed out color versions of my Slash and Burn. I hope to show it off to some Disney storyboard folks.

Here's some more life drawings:

Had a 14 hour day yesterday. That was pretty exhausting. I got in around 10am to work on prep for a Mocap assignment. It was all good until I read an article saying that Mars Needs Moms is going straight to DVD in Europe. That's not a good sign for Mocap artists. I messed around with storyboards as well. Disney Inspire Day is Thursday and I want to update my storyboard portfolio a bit. In Business of Animation class the mad who helped bring the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to America was our guest. I don't know how much he is worth but he helped out on a few multi-billion dollar deals. After class I spent several hours in the Mocap room. Matt, Allen and Laura helped me out on recreating a funny fight scene. It went fairly well despite some crashes of Blade. This morning I sat in on lecture from a mad auditioning to be the new animation professor. His name was Matt Wallin. He is a vfx guy. Some say we have too many of them already but I welcome anyone who can get me a job after graduation.

Career day went well this week. I was able to get some good information on internships for the summer. I spent the next couple days after following up on the contacts I've made there. There is a production internship at Nickelodeon that I'm going to pursue. My friend Matt took it last summer and had good things to say about it.

I've been working on new layouts for my storyboards. Using Maya I'm trying out a variety of new views. Its led to me realizing I have a few continuity errors. I think this is going to be a method I'll use from now on.

I'm going to Disney on Thursday for a tour. I went last year and had a lot of fun.

While making a storyboard portfolio I shot some of my lifedrawings here's a page from it:

I spent a whole week not thinking about thesis. It was great! The next couple weeks aren't going to be that fun though as I am aware that a huge chunk of the storyboards I've drawn out are going to have to be thrown away. After not seeing it for a week I'm noticing some slow parts in the story that need to be sped up and some funny parts that could be milked a little more. I don't think it will shorten the length of the film overall though.

Career day is tomorrow. I'm rushing to put together a good storyboard portfolio. One of my friends has a good one and she is going to help me out today.

I'm taking a break for a week on working on my animatic. After studio day I got some good pointers and have shown the revisions to some classmates and professors. Overall I've worked on it a few hours a day, every day for about a week. I'm tired of it now and want to step back and degest the story before touching it again. I have a feeling that there might be major changes when I get back to it.

Compositing going good. I'm surprising myself with how much of it I'm actually understanding.

Here's the latest version of the animatic. Quick note, the man in the hat and the man without the hat are the same person. I haven't finished redrawing all the panels.

After Studio Day I worked on some suggestions Illumination gave me yesterday. They seem to think that I could use the animatic as a portfolio piece so I'm recutting it to be showy. I'm introducing some better angles and layout. I've also cut it down about a two seconds today. Its not much compared to the five minutes I've already cut out but any amount of time is good.

Worked on Nuke for a few hours today as well. There are a few things that I don't really understand at the moment but I'm learning it fairly well.

Here's the last of the Slash faces for now. It's his face when he falls for the princess.

Studio day was today. It was fun and I enjoyed showing my work to some great studios. Out of all the studios Illumination was most interested in my work. They said I had the talent to be a good storyboard artist. That was very encouraging.

After showing off my demo reel I was able to show off my thesis animatic to some great artists. They gave me some advise on how to cut the film down. I spent a few hours working on it and have reduced my animatic by about ten seconds. This makes the pacing a little better and will reduce the work I have to do.

Here's slash in laughing faces:

I bought some clay today and started making small sculptures of Slash. Someone pointed out that he is looking a bit like Shrek. I'm torn between rethinking the character design and not caring. I'm also starting armor designs. I came up with some cool ones but I think I like the chain mail design the best.

For Seminar tonight we had Max Naparowski. He's one of our computer animation professors. I haven't had him as a teacher but he seemed cool. He was very technical but I was able to get a lot out of the class.

Here's sketches of Slash in angry faces:

Spent the morning doing character designs for thesis. My teacher suggests I start building models out of sculpy. When that is done I'm going to start looking for a cinematographer to help out with layout. Layout is my weakest area and I'd like to hire someone who is more experienced.

I figured out a new node on Nuke today. Multiply is simple and only seems to work for flickering candles but is a cool trick.

Here is my daily character image; Slash with a happy face:

Sent in my Nick Fellowship Application this morning. That is the end of another major project in a short window of time. I'm starting to dream up new projects to do. The one I'm most interested in is a re-edit of the new Tron film. I think it has a good movie buried in it but is surrounded by about 45 minutes of crap.

They listed the people accepted for pre-screening for Studio day. My name was not listed. I made a story reel though and I don't believe they were screening for story artists. I signed up to speak with WildBrain and Lucasfilm though in the morning. They are supposivly sending some story people over.

Here is another character design. This is Slash in scared faces:

I've been scrambling to get my fellowship application done. I finished it today but the post office was closed. I need to get it to the USC post office Monday or I'll be inelligible.




Friday the director of Toy Story 3 came by. He gave a good speech and showed some cool behind the scenes looks at the movie. There was one part where they showed how much they editted a few lines from Tom Hanks. Almost every other word was from another take. I tried to speak with him to get a trip to Pixar but he wasn't able to help much.

I've been working on making concept art for Slash's various emotions. Here is concepts for his serious face:

Here are my character designs so far for Slash and Burn. For the knight I started by drawing actors who would be good in the role for Slash. I chose Jack Black as the best one. Later on I tried simplifying and exagerating him until I got a good design.

I spent a few hours today on character design. I'm starting to get a good, unique design for the knight Slash. I started from a picture of Jack Black but slowly simplified and exaggerated his face. He doesn't look too much like him now but has a cool cartoony look. I haven't done any modeling yet though.

I'm still struggling a bit with Nuke but I feel like I'm getting better. I know a good amount of the basic functions but some things like 3D cameras are out of my comprehension right now. I'm going to ask some classmates for help this week.

SHARK COP!!!

Shark Cop is done... kinda. I have added music, finished off the shots, edited it and finalized the after effect looks on it. Its a complete film but I need to do titles, archiving and pay my composer. This is why I don't like post-production, the film is made but you still have to work on it. I don't care though. Its done, I like it, time to focus fully on a new project.

Nuke homework today went well. Its mostly guessing and asking my classmates what to do. I've gotten advise from four different classmates today on the project. Class is at 7 tomorrow so I'll probably just experiment on it a bit before then.

I spent a few hours today drawing the knight in my thesis film as Jack Black and Jim Carrey. The results were frightening. I realized by researching the two that Jack Black always faces the camera. Meaning that not only is he looking at the camera, you can also see most of the front of him. Also, he keeps his arms out and waves them alot. Pretty much it is his goal to take up the most amount of screen space as possible.

I've given up on my Fan Boy and Chum Chum script. I can't waste any more time on it and I need to have more scripts by the 28th. I have another idea for a Spongebob script. I've learned alot from the first one and I think this one will be easier.

I spent a good chunk of the weekend working on Shark Cop. I finally was able to get in contact with my composer and he says I can have the music on Tuesday. I really want that project to be done by Friday. Its more extra baggage that I don't need right now.

My spec script hit a road block. I wrote about half of it and I don't know where to go from here. On Saturday I spent about an hour staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what to write. I wrote two lines, deleted them and then gave up. I'll try to write something today.

I'm re thinking alot about the characters in my Thesis. Today I'm re-drawing some boards to make the knight a more wild character and make the dragon more reserved. I think it brings more humor to the film.

I'm writing a spec script for the Nick show Fanboy and Chum Chum. I'm not too familiar with this show, I've only seen about ten or so episodes. Its a tough show as the main characters are difficult to find differences between. Mostly I'm making up the characters traits in my script.

Life drawing was good today. I had a good model and overall I was drawing fairly well. I need a few hours a week of drawing.

Variety

My first issue of Variety came yesterday and apparently it is a daily magazine. Pretty cool. It came with a DVD about why I should vote Inception for best picture. There are a few articles about animation in it. Overall, it is a good tool to keep up with industry news.

For thesis I'm finished with story. At least for a while. Now I'm focusing on character. My professor, Mike Patterson, has asked me to research comedy actors to see how they would take on a specific scene. I'm going to show my research next class.

Had a pretty productive weekend. I finished my Spongebob script, I'm thinking I'll do a Fan Boy and Chum Chum one this week. Saturday Matt and I had a director's meeting for the TUT project and finished the story and basic storyboards for the film. I'm confident we can move forward steadily from now on. I also finished a good draft on my animation reel. Right now it is only stop motion but its pretty solid. I edited it to under a minute.

I've been able to keep up with the rest of my projects as well. I often get the urge to neglect one while I work on others but I've been good lately.

Fellowship

This month I am going to attempt to get the Nickelodeon Writing Fellowship. If accepted I'll be an assistant writer at Nickelodeon for a year in Burbank, CA. My goal is to have a few good spec strips by February 28th, the due date of the application. I've started writing a Spongebob Squarepants script. I think it is turning out alright but I won't post it until after the 28th.

Compositing is tough. My class is very technical and mentally draining. I'm learning a lot from it though and can see practical uses for the class later on.

Columbian Animation

Today was fairly long. I had a meeting with a video game student I'm doing art for. The meeting was at noon so I was in my studio at 10am finishing up work for her. I had previously done mostly robot animation with a set model but this week I was able to do frame by frame hand drawn animation. Its been a while since I did it so it was fun. Here is what I showed her today.



I worked on thesis a bit after lunch and at 630 for seminar we had Columbian Experimental Animators. While it wasn't my favorite type of animation, it was interesting to see.

Here is the script I wrote earlier this week.
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_uqQ1LjPndlZWFhNWJlZWEtYmM3YS00YzgyLTkyOGYtMjBhNzhjZGUyODNk&hl=en

Resume Workshop

There's a bug going around the undergrad floor so writers club meeting was kind of cancelled this week. I hope everyone feels better. I forgot the thumbdrive with this weeks script at school so I'll upload it tomorrow.

In Business of Animation Class we went over our resumes. Mine was more or less in order but needs some revising. I'm going to try to send it out to Nickelodeon with it is done.

SAG awards celebrity watching

The screen actors guild awards were today across the street from my school at the Shrine. My friend Cecilia and I stood out there for some good old celebrity watching. We recognised Tracy Morgan, Alex Baldwin, Christian Bale, Stephan Corell, Warren Beaty and Steve Buchemi. Also I think I saw Danny McBride. I've been in LA for a year and a half and haven't seen any celebrities yet. It was cool to see all of them today.

For work I finished a few storyboards and wrote a rough draft of a cover letter and resume. I finished a script for writers club tomorrow. It is based off of three random words I picked out of a hat last week. The words were "Rabbit", "Police Officer", and "Priest". I ended up writing a script about a Rabbit Cop. I couldn't fit the priest part in there. I'll post it tomorrow.

TUT Update

It is in my understanding that the story for the project we are sending to Japan is more or less done. A few edits and details may come up but the overall story is there.

For those who haven't heard it yet, it is this; There is a rodeo championship. A young rider is a bit nervous while waiting to go. The gate opens and he is riding a bucking horse that he easily defeats. The second round is about to start and he is a bit more confident now. The gate opens and he is now riding a bigger horse but once again he wins. Now it is the final round. By now the rider is pretty cocky. The gate opens up but this time he finds himself riding a truck. The truck bucks him off after a few seconds.

I'm drawing up a few quick sketches for how each story beat should look and to finalize some good gags for it. With any luck the whole story shouldn't be too much longer than a minute.

For Pre-Thesis I've scanned my rough storyboards in and I am now drawing them digitally. I really don't like this part but I need to have clean storyboards that other people can read.

Thesis Advancement and Virtual Camera

Today during Pre-Thesis I showed my revised animatic. I got some really good feedback from it. Now, I have a good ending and the relationship between the two main characters is easy to understand. I've already started revising my storyboard and a new animatic should come in the next couple weeks.

During Motion Capture class today we learned more about the virtual camera. The thing is really cool. All it is, is a small monitor attached to an XBox controller with some tracking markers on it. When using it though you can scan around a virtual scene. It's hard to explain but trust me its cool

Writing Club and Business Class

A good amount of people went to Animation Writing Club today. I'm very happy about that. I'm going to talk to the grad council this week and see if I can get some sort of funding for the club. Perhaps we can get free food for our meetings. We read a couple scripts that we had written; a fake ad for the Fuggie, a Snuggie designed so that you can have sex in public, and a script I wrote about a man trying to but a toaster. I'll post the toaster script but I got some good notes and will rewrite it sometime this week.

Business of Animation is a good class. The teacher is really pushing us to go out and get connected in the field. We also spoke about how shows are pitched and funded. The professor knows alot about the subject and I'm very interested in what she has to say.

Finished a first pass on the Aquateen script. It has potential I think but is still not very funny.

Toaster Script
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_uqQ1LjPndlZWUyMzUzNTMtY2JhZC00NjVmLThhY2UtZDFhYmI5ZDlhMjg0&hl=en

Lazy Sunday

Today was a really light day as far as work is concerned. I finished voting for the Annie Awards. Toy Story 3 got my vote for best animated feature. How To Train Your Dragon was good also. It had a better design and layout than Toy Story 3 but the story and animation was not as good. The animated shorts this year were a bit weak. Night and Day was interesting at first but got boring once the premise wore off. The other canidates were pretty forgetable.

The catagories for best childrens programming made me realize I haven't been keeping up with my kids cartoons. I ended up watching a bunch of episodes online. The Regular Show is really funny. I can't believe I hadn't heard of it until today.

I finished up my script for Animation Writing Club. I'll post it here tomorrow. Also I started writing a fan script for Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

TUT Meeting

I had a meeting today about the story for our Tokyo University of Technology project. Basically some of us are going to do the pre-production on a film and have Japanese students animate it for us. Right now we are developing an idea I came up with. I'm pushing to simplify the story. Others want a more complex storyline. Its a good writing exercise. I'm used to writing whatever I want but now I have bosses telling me what to write. Frustrating but I'm learning a lot from this.

Wrote another draft of my script for Animation Writing Club. The first real meeting is Monday at noon. I hope it turns out good. I got a lot of interest in the club but I don't know how many people will actually show up.

VFX Bake Off Review

I went to the VFX Bake Off last night. Basically it is where seven movies that are up for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects get to talk for a few minutes and show a reel of the work that was done on the film. Tron, Inception, Hereafter, Alice In Wonderland, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Iron Man 2, and Harry Potter 7 were the nominees. I wasn't eligible to vote but those who were got to narrow that down to four choices.

My vote would have gone to Inception. The effects were pretty amazing but still felt real. Iron Man 2, Hereafter, and Harry Potter did a good job as well but I was too aware of the effects and it took me out of the film a bit. Tron, Scott Pilgrim, and Alice were essentially animated films with a couple people thrown in there. All these films were great though.

I still don't have any major project to work on. I'm working a little on writing and will try to cut down my thesis story board by a few seconds today. I bought a new controller today for my Wii. I'm going to try it out on Mario Kart. I tried talking to ITS about hooking it up to the internet but with no luck.

Reviving My Blog

I decided that I wanted to make a blog this year and it turned out that I actually had one for about three years and didn't know it. After deleting the old posts which were pretty much. "Hey, this is my first blog post" and "Wow, its been a while since my last blog post" I'm starting over fresh.

School was pretty laid back today. My only class started at 630 and I can't work on Shark Cop again until music arrives. That should be tomorrow or Friday hopefully. All I really accomplished was writing some notes on scripts and playing Tiger Woods Golf on my Wii for a few hours.

At my seminar class today we had Vicky Jenson. She was the director of Shrek and Sharks Tale. It was really entertaining and helpful. If I had to complain about it at all I'd have to say she never really hit any roadblocks. She slowly but steadily rose the animation food chain over her career.

Here's a script I wrote last week for Animation Writers Club. Its not good but fortunatly it is short.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_uqQ1LjPndlMThlOTg1MDUtZmQ3My00ODFiLWE3NjItMTRiNTFlNGI5NDM4&hl=en