Jason Ryan ~ Webinars with a major studio Supervising Animator

Jason Ryan is a supervising animator at major feature film studios. His resume includes working at Disney and Dreamworks.

Australian animators have the opportunity to discuss animation topics and solve animation problems in a series of live webinars.

Second year students at SBIT, just think about it... What a great way to continue building your show reel / demo reel after graduation. Each month potentially having an improved animation piece to replace student stumblings.

Other Jason Ryan posts on the ARC (find out why this bunch of Brisbane animation students are so excited*). Find out more about Jason Ryan.

*Ian said (previously), "I’m chuffed that there is a way we can teach 3D and keep drawing central to the process. Thankyou Jason Ryan. :)"

Spungella

The Spungella blog is probably the closest thing out there in wibbly wobbly web land to the ARC. Its run by a teacher (Jean-Denis ) and is mainly aimed at his AAU students, but for technical reasons has to remain independent from the educational institution (sounds familiar). Its full of great articles, useful links and teachings. In particular I'd check out the critique section where you can see the work of some other students and what Jean has to say about it. Soak it up :)

Animation Employment and Showreels

I found an interesting, top secret document online that I thought I would share with just the readers of this blog. Only you. If you want to stay in your current employment hell, then don't read this.
There's stuff in it that starts off by saying, "You've just finished the course, you're all fired up and want to unleash your brilliance on the whole world..."

For the second years in the SBIT animation course the final semester looms. Some thoughts are turned to what we want to do in 2009. The first years have already built up quite a remarkable store of animation related work in just one semester. Well done. Will some of it appear on your showreel?

Design your showreel using the wealth of knowledge hidden in the ARC.

Video Referencing - add it to your toolkit

"Each animator finds his/her groove when it comes to tools such as video planning. Some shoot their own video reference, and some gather video reference from all sorts of different sources. Video planning is as unique as the animator using it. However, there are some things to keep in mind when it comes to video planning and reference material," says the quote from the AnimationMentor Tips & Tricks blog.

Video referencing links nicely with the Jason Ryan techniques being learnt by the current 2nd years to create and ENJOY better 3D animation.

Ian even went down to the physical movement faculty gym with some second years (Steve and Cassie) to film walks on a treadmill for video reference material. Combining video reference with traditional 2D planning is an empowering (for the student animator) and powerful method (for the animation teacher) to create appealing 3D animation. What do you think of using live action reference?


And just to bounce your brain another way: "...you can learn more about line-of-action and dynamic posing by spending ten minutes in a good comic book than you can by watching hours of movie reference." Who said this? No, it wasn't Terry Oberg.

So what do you use for your animation reference material?
ARC InDepth post: Ian uses video references in a jumping ramble.
p.s. Read the chapter on "Reference Material" in the Tips & Tricks eBook.
p.p.s Remember Eaduard Muybridge? Some great movement reference here. Ref: "The Human Figure in Motion"
p.p.p.s Dr. Harold Edgerton. Ref: "Stopping Time".

Polish

Kevin Koch has just put up a good post about putting that final polish on your animation that I think is well worth a read.

He even uses a variation on the "Polishing a Turd" spiel I give in class. Darn it, and I thought I was being so original :)

Animation Ramble - Intuitive Timing

In the last week of classes before the mid year break I gave the first year animation students at Southbank Institute of Technology a spray about taking their knowledge of timing to the next level. An intuative level. . . . . . read on.

Animation Ramble - The Power of Subtle Changes In Timing

Lets play with some timing....

Richard Williams On DVD

I was lucky enough to see the Richard Williams Master Class in person back in my Disney days, and many of his lessons feature in my teachings now. He talked for 3 days and it cost about $3000 from memory (I could be wrong, I've been to bed since then).

Now he has released a recording of his master class with animated examples on DVD. Its $999 US, and I'm afraid I can't imagine many of my students having that kind of spare cash. For students at our level I would probably recommend some of Jason Ryan's or Kieth Lango's tutorials first anyway (if for any reason you felt the need to seek an alternative perspective to that offered in our course). But the promo is interesting to watch and for me brought back some nice memories.

Animation Ramble - Appealing ARCs = Happy Animator

No matter how ambitious or good you get at animation you always have to keep one eye on the fundamentals.....

Milt Kahl

A great series of Youtube clips about my favourite of the Nine Old Men. In clip two Milt gives some fantastic advice on using live action reference that I think is timely for some of the Southbank 2nd year animation students who have been using it recently.

Animation Ramble - The Power Of BLOBS

Improve your drawing for animation by unleashing the power of blobs.

Animation Ramble - Drag

Gardening and physics come together in this ramble about animating drag.

Ian's Rambles - Hands Part 2

More on Hands.

Ian's Rambles - Hands Part 1

Some tips on drawings and posing hands.

Time to Think

This is a great article from Spanish born Pixar animator Carlos Baena about using timing to imply that a character is thinking. Its one of a selection of Tricks and Tips to be found on his web site. Check out his Personal Work section too, where you will find some awesome showreel examples.

Keeping it Fresh

Here is an interesting article in which Brad Bird is interviewed about keeping his work and workers fresh and innovative.

Brad - "Involved people make for better innovation… Involved people can be quiet, loud, or anything in-between—what they have in common is a restless, probing nature: “I want to get to the problem. There’s something I want to do.” If you had thermal glasses, you could see heat coming off them." GOLD.

Found at: The Thinking Animation Blog

Animatic ~ Jigsaw Falling Into Place ~ Radiohead

This week second year students were given a one week reprieve on the storyboard animatic deadline for their major project (due to the Institute's new Internet safety policy of banning the world wide web, which made it a bit difficult to access online resources).

Make like a slice of cheese... Now we're on a roll because we can improve our ideas after watching this excellent example animatic by local Brisbane animator Mark Osberg. "Ahhh Man, this is so good!"* Note at the start how we get a colour scheme idea but from that point onward we leave the more detailed layouts into the 'rough' art work that tells the story.

I know that Mark works rough using a graphics tablet straight into Flash. I'm pretty sure this is the approach most of the second years are taking as well. But we'll work from initial paper and pencil thumbnail roughs... or did we? Here's some extra storyboarding info for you, yeah you!

I'm not going to be shy about this next bit and neither should you. Sign in and vote for Mark's animation for the Radiohead Competition on the Aniboom site! If you love it give it 5 bombs, if you hate it give it 1 bomb.

*Someone somewhere said this about something.

Webcomics Podcast

Here is something a little different. A podcast about the art of Webcomics, and how to make money from them. More great inspirational stuff to listen too while you're animating.

Something cool I only just learnt is that if you use Google Reader or similar to follow your favourite blogs and fellow students blogs, you can also subscribe to podcasts. Just open the RSS page on the site, copy the URL and then paste it into the subscribe window in Reader. A cool way to keep up with you favourite podcasts.

Found at: Drawn

Pixar - A Human Story of Computer Animation

Ahhh some days I could just give the Internet a big sloppy wet kiss. This youtube vid (recorded some years ago now) is an interview/discussion with 4 legends of modern western animation.

Its over an hour and a half of inspirational animation goodness, especially in the second half where Brad Bird and Andrew Stanton get quite fired up. So grab some snacks and a drink, settle in and enjoy. Its all soooo goood!

Found at: The Thinking Animation Blog

Animation Tips - Hands & Acting

'I hear that there’s a common refrain among beginning actors when they first get onto a stage or in front of a camera. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my hands!”' Find out more @ Animating Naked.

Ergo, if animators are actors, do we have the same problems with what to do with the hands?

'"An animator is an actor with a pencil", goes the oldest and truest animation cliché... Believable acting means that the audience feels that the character's actions are the result of (the character's) own inner motives, and not the animator's inner motives; that the character feels, thinks and reacts consistently according to its personality and mood.' More @ Animation Acting.

Our homegrown thespians, Mitch and Zac, will be wondering what all the fuss is about. And it is widely rumoured that Daniel gets his classmates to act out the sequences he needs to animate. But what do the normal people think? Do you need to be a good actor to be a good animator? And what do you do with the hands!?

Acting in the ARC