Spotted my own drawing all blown up as part of the SVA thesis screening advertisement. Horray. Jeremy's an aluminum light in SVA theater. XD (My legend lives for one more year?)
What sucks is that I did not have my camera so I only have this crappy photo to show as proof and memory. :/ Awwww...
There were several films I like this year, 3 of which I think should try for student academy award:
Redress by Chris Ortiz - a story of father and son's revenge and death
11 minutes of pure cinema, he's one of the few 2D animators who pulled it off, timing was good, lip sync was detailed, the overall sound worked, including 3 layer shading on some shots and solid layouts. (nearly killed himself and others doing it. XD Good job.)
The story is heavy stuff right after all the laughter but it was strong, and powerful enough to help me adjust to it, Chris' done it. Horray~ :D
(Note: Chris Ortiz also formed a studio identity, Howdy Studio with a few others, altabe studio might network with them in the future for any larger projects.)
The Man who once owned an eternal garden - by Celste Lai - a man keeps trying to make his plastic garden look perfectchasing after the ever changing seasons.
the message, story, and stop motion filming is unique, and unforgettable, I think this person really would be able to win it if entered.(just because most voters in academy are older and I am guessing they will like this subject better...)
Egyptian Holiday by Spencer Katz- It's like a paraody of old west adventure film.
GREAT film techniques, great use of the camera and stop motion action.
Getting into those colleges means you have more network with Pixar, more chance.
But unless you are the top of your class, chances are you won't get hired right away, try somewhere else for more experiences first.
Random facts and stuff i learned from this screening... for those who couldn't go.
Andrew, a SVA alumni 10-12years ago. First person from SVA to enter Pixar with a cold reel and no recommendation. worked on Toy Story 3 as technical director for 2.5 year, and got moved to other projects. Now he's working on teaching at several colleges while still participating in Pixar productions. Two kids, and his oldest son is 4, (who loves Cars) and another one coming.
Pipeline: The basic pipeline is about the same as other feature studios such as blue sky, dreamworks.. etc, but Pixar has some extra details to their work. They have their own rigging system which is their industry trade secret, claimed to be the most advanced rigging system in the world of animation.
A SVA alumni Chris, who's now their rigger, said he can't go back to Maya rigging anymore after rigging with Pixar's system. (So they are not rigging with anything we know about)
I'm really curious about the system but I don't know the proper name, Andrew didn't cover it too much, their cloth simulation has also advanced, but I only got to see tests renders, where Andy bends and clothing moves on him more realistically. I will try to find more online later. (Their policy is no filming the screen, no pictures to show you here)
Edit: Marionette is likely what Pixar is using to rig according to feedback comment.
They also have a department called "Set dressing" which I am not familiar, usually "Layout" department takes care of placement of items on the shot as well, but Pixar has a dedicated team just for set dressing. It's a separated step from simply layout, modeling, shading and lighting. It's people making decisions on how to tell the story best with the set, and how to frame it.
Pixar is still expanding, a new building is about finished in April. The building is tall enough to see the whole city. (sounds cool enough, another random fact)
TS3's whole production time line is 4 years. Only a few crew members such as director and producer might stay the whole 4 years, most others get to work on the project for the period they are needed, for about 6 months to 1 year. (as usual)
Pixar's salary does not different from other studios, but they do huge bonuses, Steve Jobs' style, such as 10 months bonuses after a movie is done, to everyone in the studio, including the lunch lady. ;)
Pixar is certainly at its golden age right now, much like Disney in the old days. They are the attraction of every good talent out there, working at Pixar is now the dream job of many.
On the scale of 1-10 of wanting to get in, you need to have 12 to get into Pixar, and have someone at Pixar helping you out. Andrew got in with a cold reel, which is something he's still proud of to this day. It's worth praising. He's now SVA student's link to Pixar.
Andrew's advice on thesis/demo:
keep it short but add story/personality to it - make the watchers feel something
Use camera to tell a story will make your thesis stand out
I met Don Hahn, Peter Schneider, omg. (insert fan girl scream here)
The Crowd- First shock, the crowd isn't large at all, which is nice, less groupie/mob competition, more chance for a personal conversation. I suppose it have to do with the Monday, noon, the weirdness of the timing. But I can tell the school tried really hard to get this screening for us for free, from such popular guests I can only imagine. I am SO glad Eiser let me take my break to go to the screening, it's like once in a life time chance to see these famous people on my home turf!
The Screening- The documentary is so honest, I was moved to tears, I can't remember when I cried at what point, but I might remember if i watch it again.
The story was a human story that shared everyone's ups and downs at Disney feature making from 1984-1994.
I was shocked to learn that Little Mermaid's theme song was once considered being "removed" due to it not selling at a test screening. O_o I'm glad Glen spoke strongly for it so it ended up in the film. The story between the 3 executives too were interesting. I think the man who had the most growth shown in the film has to be Jeffery, though unpopular to some degree from top to bottom, the top thought he wanted to take over too quickly, the bottom staff thought he was too intimidating, but no doubt under him there were the greatest classics of all times produced, Don mentioned while he was at Disney, he completed more film than Walt himself!
From this screening I come away with one message, "behind every successful, or even seemingly failed project, there's at least 1 passionate soul fully believing in it, pushing for it, retaining it's soul." That one passionate voice will gather, and move to the rest of the team to complete this seemingly impossible task despite all unfavorable conditions, and that's how ground breaking work comes.
Recollection of the Q and A. Q: "You can't say a film failed exactly, right? After all they do come out in VCR, DVD, they have a long life ahead of them to make back the money."
A:"Well when you put it up in theater and the other film is racking in hundreds of millions and yours barely made a few hundred thousands, yeah you consider it a failure. When Pocahontas was released the first week, it was doing so poor the director literally curled up in fetus position in his home wondering what he did wrong. After the screening though, as time goes on people forget the box office and really appreciate it's artistic quality."
(Just thought that box office fight in the theater is very interesting.)
Q&A-Portfolio-
Another lovely thing Don and Peter mentioned is that they are not looking for a particular style in the portfolio. One doesn't have to target at their production, they mention just being honest, and show lots of foundation, be able to tell stories, and show quick sketch (gesture drawings) is enough.
"One time I interviewed a guy who has a sketchbook of frogs, I asked 'so you like drawing frogs a lot huh?' he answered, 'no, but I heard you guys are doing a movie with frogs.'" -Don
"You can never catch up to the speed of the production anyway, when you got ready something, the production already moved on to the next." - Peter.
(still I think its better not to show adult material to pre-school productions... finding a balance and show that side of you that fits to the puzzle is key.)
"You can fool anyone with a beautiful drawing, but it doesn't show whether you can finish it quick enough, in a quick sketch you can't hide anything." - Peter S.
I had the opportunity to chat a little with Don later after he assured me that he's a normal person just like us. I brought out one of the comment he made about NYC telling the students to "take advantage of what NYC has to offer" because people around here usually tells us to go to LA. "Yes, LA does have more jobs, but it's all industrial. Here you have galleries, museums, try to look at more things while you can."
And the lovely signature he did for a few of us the groupies:
They also encouraged diversity, "it's still early, you have your whole life to work, don't decide too early that whether you want to be a rigger, modeler, or animator... Diversity in skills is important."
The mission- I discussed with Liron before about this chance of seeing the two most important people in Disney feature, and promised her to bring some attention to them about her film, in the form of postcards.
Yeah, I took Liron Peer's post cards and handed it to Peter, realizing I was so *beeep* nervous I couldn't talk straight and explain about her like I could with my professors.... but he looked at it, kinda had a "oh ok/ oh well" face and put them in his coat pocket.
I am confident in the way I prepared the post cards, it included her most passionate online introduction as an animator, a hand written personal address directly to their names, link to her youtube account, and her stills of animation, which printed beautifully.
From now on I can only wish they would take interest in her and check her out, if these two guys end up not being interested in hiring her, I really really don't know what else we can do. Have herself fly to LA, walk into the studio with her portfolio? It's all up to them and her now. I did what i could as a new friend.
My prof David is even saying I could be an agent and wished he had someone to believe in him like that. lol
Best of wishes Liron, I hope your dream comes true.
Today we SVA students get to have a special screening "Coraline" at the Theatre in Union Square, NYC. The new stop motion animation is nothing less than ground breaking, from the director of "The nightmare before Christmas" and "James and the Giant Peach", Henry Selick.
We got to be in the same room with these industry legends doing Q and A after the 30 min screening, and one idiot freshman had to ask "Why did you pick a similar style to Nightmare before Christmas to do Coraline? ...That Gothic theme seems to go from one film to the other."
I can tell the director and the crew members were puzzled by it, and almost don't want to answer... but they answered nicely "Art is in the eyes of the beholder, but I think there's nothing similar between Coraline and Nightmare before Christmas..."
That's right! There's nothing similar to Coraline compare to Nightmare before Christmas, the character designs are different, the color palettes are different, the story telling is different, the techniques are different. The only thing the same would be it's a kid-tale that has some darkness to it with the same director!
I can't believe an SVA student asked that question, and further more he wouldn't stop and think and shut up. All of us were sooooo embarrassed by that one stupid question! (Ideally no question is too stupid to ask, but this one sure sounds like one!) Wasting all of our time! A good 5 minutes! Other people could have asked better questions!
Thoughts were racing in my mind, "Someone shut this stupid guy up!"
One stop motion major senior was so angry about it afterwards saying he should have gotten beat up for it.
(On the note, some of our stop motion people did ask very very good technical questions, like how to animate doll hair, it turns out their secret is to put wire into the clumps of hair in the main character; the details to the fabrics- they hired some nutty knitter for the clothes, and all patterns on clothes are hand printed, designed, wired differently.... constructions-they used about 400 expressions for Caroline alone, 600 mouse dolls, and 40+ dolls for Caroline; and kids from NYU did ask some good script writing questions, like how to adopt a screen play from a book, what are the challenges etc.
The director mentioned something interesting about adopting a screen play from a book: "A movie is a movie, a book is a book. When a movie is too true to the book, it doesn't work. My suggestion is... if you need to adopt a script from a book, don't talk to its writer for the first year..... the better the book, the harder it is to adopt it into screen play...... there's nothing different from writing a screen play for live action compare to animation."
A stop motion student asked whether it was a pain to get investors to let them do stop motion since CG is the trend right now, boy, did they have an reaction. lol~ Apparently, those investors were not easy to deal with.
I stayed after with some of my stop motion classmates and my friend Jackie to listen to more talks from those pros, it was a very exciting time. We got to leave our contacts with them, and saw them pack away their dolls. lol
I'm excited by this film, I will go see it when it comes out next year in Theatre. 2009, Feb.
Ben Li's "Alive" made me cry. It was a story about a documentary film maker losing his family, I think he will be happy to know that I shed tears for it!
Jacob didn't finished half of his film, but his entry was also just as awesome. "To the Moon" It didn't even look like flash.
I really liked "Garden of Weeden," by Fernando Chen A very original plot and it's very entertaining. What did he say about "not the smoothest animation there is" !?! The whole thing looks fine to me!
"The moment of Trial" had me laugh out loud, with a Catholic Priest trying not to laugh at an ugly woman in the congregation while she's doing all sorts of stupid actions, it has the best lipsync out of all the entry I have seen.
"Masque" I think it's the high frame rate flash piece on a guy wearing different facial expressions like a mask. It's a very lovely story, it leaves an impression though it doesn't do the knock out punch like some other films.
Then... the little, most colorful surprise film "Untitled" (in Chinese title.... it means: The memories of Taiwan/The clock that goes background) That one has a beautiful artistic touch with a lot of... Taiwan flavor in it. XD the film is by Kevin Shen. My reaction to that film: "Taiwan has never been so beautiful."
Bio-hazard was a good one, it will probably do well in TV series. The subject is less original compare to the films above. That's the only thing.
I liked "Shoo-fly" it has that Pink Panzer's classical style and approach.
The story of one-eyed Ophelia Jackson was interesting, the lucky sailor lost his right eye to a sea witch, later when s/he (I can't make out whether Ophelia is male or female.... I thought it's a guy, but the narrator kept saying she.) beat the sea witch, he took back other things but his right eye.... and I like the last line: "And she looked increditably bad-ass with one eye anyway."
The stop motion entries were awesome too, there were only 3 titles, but each of them quite a knock out. I Zombie was an easier to relate title, it talked about a Zombie trying to make friends but faces the injustice from live human. lol~ I missed a good chunk of Beach Bound, but it was a bad ass Penguin getting arrested.
The Fatal Glass of Fields... I didn't get the story.... because of the english tone-singing that goes through out the show... but I liked the animation, and the set.
They were all excellent entries. :D
This year thesis made me realize even clearer than ever, if I want a strong entry.... I need an emotional story people can relate to. But that's really tough to achieve.
I may expand from my original plan of 2 mins to 3-5 mins. *despite what Eiser might say...* I might stay around 3 mins... that seem like a good length.
Anything over 5 mins is just way too much, they either have limited animation or stay unfinished.
I have a problem coming up with a proper story that can show off all my abilities at the same time. Some subjects just Don't call for all the skills, if you don't have a story you can do whatever the hell you want with skill, but then that's usually not as memorable.
I know I want to show a journey of my growth in SVA, thus the word "journey" becomes my main theme. While experimenting with the film, and still tells a solid story that can move the audience........
I wonder whether I can achieve all of them. It seems like most cases you need to sacrifice one over another.
I want to redo this scene in the picture. (It's kind of funny because on my final from my previous college I did the exact same scene.... it looked much rougher back then.)
Current script is: A letter to Father
Synopsis: Jeremy writes a letter to his Father, who will never get it, in the end when he finishes it, he tears it up and sends it into the wind.
This script has a lot of room to add to, so right now I am thinking what else can I add into the letter content to increase my chance of "showing off" animation skills such as action sequences... emotions... and so on.
