Check out the cool example show reel from RMIT graduate Avner Engel who I met at the 11 Second Club.
There's been much discussion on this blog and amongst the 2nd years about show reels and narrative films as methods to show off a student's skills as an animator to potential employers.
Read more in depth, including 10 top tips for your successful show reel and the chance to win chocolate (Mmm chocolate).
Carlos Baena has a webinar up for Animation Mentor that is all about the best way to make a demo reel. A must see for students so drop by and watch it here!
Recent ARC post about show reel design with links to all the ARC resources on creating show reels.
I’m going to do my best to back up all of these posts with opinions and advice from other (perhaps more respected) folk. I cant imagine finding a more respected point of view than that of the great Ward Kimble, in this amazing letter he wrote to present day animator Will Finn back in the 70s.
Here is another one from the Temple Of The Seven Golden Camels blog, run by veteran storyboard artist Mark Kennedy. He has a two part post entitled Advice for Students on his Blog that is all gold (part 1, part 2).
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. :)"
Ok so in case you haven’t been following the drama, after much deliberation the plan is to have all second year students in our course at Southbank making a narrative this year. Even if it’s just a very short one that makes up a larger show reel.
I’m anticipating a hand full of students who are going to be determined to make an epic, so I have been scouring the internet for information about keeping short films short. Its something I can anticipate because it is one of the ever predictable, guaranteed student short film flaws. There is always at least one student who is going to be convinced to the point of total conviction that more is better, or that the 15 minute long story they have come up with is so perfect in its design (after just a few drafts and with no feedback from anyone else? Amazing!) that not a single shot can be cut from it. I hate to sound cynical, but it always happens, and I can relate. I remember coming up with story ideas that were way to long when I was a student. At one stage I even started writing a series of 30 min long TV episodes, and the major student film I ended up making was way to long. I think there were probably two scenes (that’s camera shots for any new 1st year students reading…hi!) in it that I was actually proud of because it was so rushed. You should be proud of every scene in you film, its obvious when you think about it.
Anyway, following a link on Cartoon Brew I found the blog of Kevin Koch (animator at Dreamworks and Animation Mentor Teacher), and after some rummaging around found this great post about just how much information you can convey in a single scene, and how many students try too hard to convey a characters setting and background. He even goes so far as to suggest that MAYBE the great Brad Bird over cooked the character backgrounds in the Incredibles, or at least that the film was just as enjoyable without them.
Here is one of my favourite quotes from his article, “The time required to set up your characters and situations is often far less than you imagine you need. Again, think of being clear and specific. Expect to do some hard work here. Hammer away at your ideas to come up with something so specific and definite that the audience understands immediately. This is why we find bad storytelling so annoying. It takes the creator so long to clue us in on the situation and character, or they keep inadvertently misleading us with useless information, that we disengage.”
All of this information is of course window dressing, before coming around to the idea of narratives for all students I knew it was only worth doing if we were going to keep the films short. I’m just highlighting the information in the hope of getting some to come around of their own accord instead of colliding with me head on. I’m afraid I do not accept that a longer story is necessarily a better story .
The bottom line is I won’t be letting second year students animate stories longer than 1 and a half minutes, and that’s that. I mean it, no excuse will make me budge. I wish someone had told me to slow down and make the best animation I could when I was a student and I think I owe it to my students to address the issue when I see it.
One of the comments posted by an anonymous student that helped to kick off the whole films V’s show reels discussion featured a quote about the student film being a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, well I can tell you that in my 12 or so years of commercial experience I have never again experience such a luxury of time to hone and finish a scene as is afforded to students. Once you’re in the industry you will have ample opportunities to have to rush through your scenes in order to get something finish on budget (on time), the “once in a lifetime opportunity” is to do the best possible animation you can achieve right now. I’m not going to let my students miss it.
Here is another point of view from Temple Of The Seven Golden Camels blog, run by veteran storyboard artist Mark Kennedy. He has a two part post entitled Advice for Students on his Blog that is all gold (part 1, part 2).
"Many students seem to want to make some sort of grand, epic statement and so they try to make a longer film with a lot of scale and heft to it. Every medium has it's own inherent strengths and weaknesses and a short student film is not the best form to make an epic sweeping drama. The most successful student films of all time are, for the most part, short and simple. "
Another post on Kevin’s blog that I just loved and had to highlight was this one about leading the eye from cut to cut. Great advice and also related to efficient story telling.
Well I herd today that yet another old friend and coworker of mine Andrew has joined there Krome fold. They are still advertising positions for senior animators and I must admit to feeling a little pear pressure. snu?!?!
That aside the great thing is that the reel Andy used to get the job is up on youtube so you can see exactly what it takes to get a job with Krome.
Things to note include:
This is all done with free download rigs and models I think, which is a bit different to what I suggest a graduate should do. Andrew has years of impressive animation experience behind him, he is obviously a specialist. If you're fresh out of collage I think it would be good to include at least one character that you made yourself.
The other day I found a great blog with heaps of free Maya Rigs on it. Its called Animation Buffet and while many of the rigs are the same as those on Highend 3D its great because you can search for rigs by categories (male, female, cartoon, realistic, creature etc).
While there I found one rig that I like in particular called TSM Guy, he strikes an excellent balance between stability, ease of use and flexibility. He is very easy to use, has fully scalable body parts, IK to FK and even bendable limbs so you can really push that Line of Action through the pose.
There are some great video tutorials on using him provided by his creators too, check em out: Stretchy Bits...Spine Controls ...Smart IK to FK...Arc Control...Proxy Parenting (this is cool)...Anti Twist Control
This is an excellent rig for creating the broad physical animation you would typically produce for a games show reel. The scalable nature of the rig means you can make him fat, thin, muscly, short or tall, you just scale up or down the body controls and there are input values for arm and leg width and length in the channel editor when you have the hand or foot controller selected. Its is a shame he doesn't have a face for dialogue, but we could rig up something simple I think. Enjoy.
Ahhhh, a new month and a new allowance of broadband downloads. Mmmmmm tastes good. I actually had to rely on TV for entertainment to a few nights there.
Thanks to my new gig at QUT I'm seeing Motion Graphics everywhere I look at the moment. Here is the show reel of Barbara Di Pasquale
I found the blog of 2006 graduate Clay, and it has a new show reel on it. Nice to be able to see some of what he has been getting up to down there at Blue Rocket studios in sunny Tasmania. GO Clay GO!
I was chatting with 2006 Graduate Sam earlier today on the wibbly wobbly web, and he mentioned that he had updated his online show reel. You can checkout some of his best work from the last year. He was telling me that each of the scenes with the 3DS Max Character Studio Rigs (the ones that look like they are made out of blocks) were animated in a single day. Nice work Sam, you make an animation teacher proud.
Last week Terry, Jane and I schemed up a way to have our cake and eat it too. We have developed a plan for having second year students animate a story that MUST also contain the basic shots required for a show reel. This addressed one of my basic misgivings about letting the students spend most of their second year on a single story, namely that the story would often allow the student to avoid animating scenes containing fundamental principles.
Another issue I had was that when a student embarks on animating an epic story the animation is often rushed or half baked to make sure the story gets finished. This defeats the purpose of doing anything at all in my opinion. I've always been a supporter of quality instead of quantity. So Jane and Terry have been kind enough to indulge me with a pretty tight time limit for the student major projects. They (or you) will be aiming for 1 minute.
So I expect the idea of how you can tell a story in such a short period of time to become and ongoing issue. I thought I'd post some clips that demonstrate efficient story telling, while still demonstrating sound animation techniques. If anyone else is aware some good examples I'd love to see them in the comments.
Shape Your Desire - Job Joris and Marieke (I can't find a direct link to it, but you should also check out their short film 'Het is niet grappig, het is Kunst' its on their site)
Roo Dou Dou - Planktoon Studio
The Ultimate Break - Studio Akama
Note the way they don't take separate time out for character development, in a film this short that has to be overlapped with the delivery of the story. I think this is a great discipline to be thinking about, because really, the same rule applies to longer films too. The story should always be moving forward. That's one of the traps Disney fell into in the late 90's taking time out from progressing the story for a song, zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I think another good question to ask yourself is, how far into the story are we when we first become aware of the conflict. In my opinion student film screw this up all the time, get to the point people!
And CHECK THIS OUT, a festival for 1 minute films! and it looks like they just added an animation prise last year. Mmm how convenient. Their screening is in November which is promising, but I can't find a closing date for entries. I've emailed them to find out, could be interesting.
This is a cool idea for a site, completely devoted to animated movie titles. I have a troubled relationship with students and titles, what you need to bare in mind as you watch these is that the job the artist had was to make the actual titles. Often students choose to invest disproportionate amounts of time and energy into their titles when the job at hand is to make a film or show reel. It particularly bugs me on screening night, when we are watching 30 or so short 2 min pieces of animation each with 5 minutes of credits on the end. YAWN!
All that having been said, when an animator is specifically charged with the job of creating some credits there are some fantastic opportunities. Many of the standard rules about character development and continuity can be bent, and it seems to make a quick impression there is a larger focus on stylized art direction (in general). There are many pieces to rummage through here, nice way to pass some time on a lazy Saturday or Sunday arvo.
Check out this cool show reel. There is some very slick Flash character animation here from animator Stephen Levison.
The 11SecondClub is a good online resource for animators gone rusty or those wanting to enhance their show reel with a dialogue/ character acting animation sequence.
OK the pic is a hook. But I had to capture Zac's and Cory's (SBIT students) combined attentions. The film shot is from a student show reel at the VFS. It looks a lot like what many in my class draw. But can you animate it? It's worth a look to see what they produced.
It's interesting to me, as a student, to see other student work and how the courses are structured compared to ours. And I like the tune in these words, "No matter the potency of today's technology, the core elements of animation remain constant: character, environment, and motion."
You can see more of the VFS animations here and 3D animation here.
VFS traditional animation facilities and equipment (pictures) How does your school compare? Where is Vancouver?
Click the pic or HERE to see the Liquid web site, they have a show reel up there that will give you a good idea of some of the stuff they do. The Multimedia (where SBIT friends KT and Rob work) section is worth a look too.
