STRICKSPOT

From the Mailbox

2011-07-29T00:33:00.001-07:00

Got this in the analog inbox on Monday. I was going to share an electric bill but second guessing myself, I went with this instead. Starting in September I'm going to be heading to Blue Sky for temp work on Ice Age:Continental Drift! I've never been to New York or any part of the upper east coast before so I'm excited to get out there and check it out. I've heard great things about the people at Blue Sky as well. It'll be somewhere around 4-6 months of what I'm expecting to be a great experience! Between meeting new people, awesome animation, and exploring the town I'm sure the time is going to fly by. Now I just need to find out who's playing poker and where...

I'm definitely going to miss my DreamWorks Animation family but hope to squeak my way back in eventually! You have all been amazing coworkers and friends so it'll be a pleasure to work with you again! -deuces

In case you didn't piece together the word puzzle from my last post, it was - Cross Country Trip. :)

Future Modifications.

2011-07-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

How To Train Your Dragon interview with AM

2011-03-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

About 6 months ago four other animators and myself took part in an interview with Animation Mentor to talk about working on How To Train Your Dragon. They shot two lengthy interviews, one with two animators up at PDI and another here in Burbank with three of us from the Glendale campus. The first video, A Toothless Dinner, released back in October was cut down to a 9 minute clip but here are some more videos they've cut from the interviews. I had a lot of fun taking part in this and enjoyed hearing what Mike Stern, Tyler Phillips, Ron Pucherelli, and Dane Stogner had to say about their experiences on the film as well! I'd like to thank AM for asking me to be a part of it and hope to see them continue these interviews with others!

Lookout over Burbank

2011-02-26T20:01:00.001-08:00

Lookout over Burbank, originally uploaded by shreds900.

At least on the days with good weather...

"Murder" Dialogue Test - render

2010-11-15T06:22:00.000-08:00

"Murder" dialog test from Adam Strick on Vimeo.

TP!

2010-10-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

My friend Steve recently put up some fake trees outside his cube and in my mind, that's just asking for it:) So an unnamed friend, only because I can't pronounce it, helped me tp(toilet paper, for those that don't know) it.

Number of nights trees lasted before getting tp'd...zero.

"Murder" Dialogue Test

2010-10-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't posted any personal animation here in a while I figured I'd post an update to an old shot. I'm getting close to calling it quits and parting ways with this one, hopefully.

Dragons Give-Away Game over at Speaking of Animation!

2010-10-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

Be sure to check out the riddles/word games over at Speaking of Animation this week to win a signed copy of "The Art of How To Train Your Dragon"! It's currently signed by the directors, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, the head of character animation, Simon Otto, and a few of the other animators. We're still adding more signatures! Check out the link for the details!

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/2010/10/dragons-give-away-game/

Busy!

2010-08-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

Hello! Just wanted to do a quick post on what I've been up to lately since blog posts have been so scarce! I have mainly been spending time with a few hobbies outside of work, old ones and new ones. I bought a Canon T2i in April and have taken up photography and messing around with the video functions as well. I built a dolly and it seems to work out decently overall.

Here's a video test I put together with it:

Dolly Test 2 from Adam Strick on Vimeo.

I went down to Hollywood Boulevard for about two hours shooting some footage and put together this video. I also took the time to write the music for this one.

Hollywood Blvd from Adam Strick on Vimeo.

I'm really enjoying exploring and experimenting with the camera right now and hope to create some narrative short films in the future. It's nice to have a little "instant" gratification when doing the video tests. Being able to go out and shoot the footage, edit it, throw some music on top of it and be done with it in a day or two doesn't happen much in the world of animation, so even if it's just a small montage like the above clips, it's a fun process!

I'm also still playing guitar when I have the time. Took some time a few weeks ago to learn the solo from "Bark At The Moon".

Bark At The Moon-Guitar Solo from Adam Strick on Vimeo.

My friend and fellow DreamWorks Animation animator, Alexis Wanneroy, is jumping in to the world of dslr's as well with his Canon 5D MkII. He shot and edited this to help advertise the Mixed Martial Arts Madness class. The client wanted the music to be a bit heavier so he asked me to add some guitars on top of it to see if that would work so I was happy to give it a try and help out. They seem to be happy with the results and kept it in the video.

Mixed Martial Arts Madness from alexis wanneroy on Vimeo.

I'm currently taking an advanced creature design sculpting class at work one night a week for the next 5 weeks with Jordu Schell! This guy is an amazing sculptor that's been working in Hollywood since 1987. If you don't know his stuff you should definitely go check out his HUGE gallery of work at http://schellstudio.com/. He's a pretty entertaining guy too so I expect the classes to be fun. I took a figure sculpting class a few months back so this will be a fun and difficult step into creating my own character. We'll be sculpting with super sculpey, which I haven't used much so hopefully I don't hit to many road blocks while working with it.

I've been staying busy with the podcasts for Speaking of Animation as well. We have some great ones coming down the pipe in the future that I'm sure you all will enjoy!

I try to spend time animating some personal stuff in there when I have the time and am feeling up to it but it's definitely tough to do. I have a personal test that I've been working on for the longest time that I hope to eventually post. My focus is going to start pulling in on this in the near future so there should be more posts about it!

Anyways, if you've decided to read this far, I will now apologize for this long update post! I guess when one holds off on posting this long this is what tends to happen.

Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival (GIRAF)

2010-07-07T06:02:00.000-07:00

Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival (GIRAF)
Wednesday, Nov 3-7, 2010
at Plaza Theatre, Calgary, AB

Call for Submissions

The Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival is the only exclusively independent animation festival in Canada, with a focus on experimental and self-produced animated film. GIRAF plays an essential role in the promotion, education and appreciation of independent animation from around the world, exposing hungry local audiences to the best animated content from at home and abroad.

Important Note: Submission deadline August 2nd, 2010

Visit

http://www.giraffest.ca/

How To Train Your Dragon Podcast

2010-06-14T22:18:00.000-07:00

We posted the podcast this morning so if you haven't seen it yet, go check it out! There's a ton of great info in there from those guys.

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/2010/06/podcast-how-to-train-your-dragon/

How To Train Your Dragon Podcast Promo

2010-06-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

How to Train Your Dragon Podcast Promo from Speaking of Animation on Vimeo.

I wish I could post more often but unfortunately there's always so much to do. Jacob Gardner and I collaborated on this promo video for the next Speaking of Animation podcast. I wrote the music and he took care of the awesome imagery! Look forward to the podcast to be posted next week!

Ted Ty Talk Back podcast

2010-04-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

we just posted the Ted Ty talk back podcast over at Speaking of Animation. This one covers questions sent in from the listeners that clarify or go into more detail about what was mentioned in the last podcast with Ted. Hopefully you all enjoy it and thanks again to Ted for coming back for another round!

Here's the link:

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/2010/04/podcast-ted-ty-talk-back/

How To Train Your Dragon! This Weekend!

2010-03-25T22:45:00.000-07:00

The movie I worked on for about the last two years comes out tomorrow so be sure not to miss it this weekend!! The consensus all around from people that have seen early screenings of this film is that they really loved it. A lot of people feel it's the best DreamWorks Animation film to date and I'm glad to hear that they really enjoy the experience they have while watching this film. It was an interesting experience animating crowds and cycles through the film and am grateful to have been a part of Simon Otto's(Head of Character Animation) animation team and glad I was able to be a part of How To Train Your Dragon.

Waking Sleeping Beauty Podcast has been posted!

2010-03-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

Check it out here:

http://www.speakingofanimation.com/2010/03/podcast-waking-sleeping-beauty/

New Speaking of Animation podcast!!

2010-03-03T01:24:00.000-08:00

Listen to it HERE!

We were very fortunate having the opportunity to speak with Richie about his experience on Avatar. Thanks a ton for doing this and thanks to Marek Kochout for setting it up!

New Dragon Trailer!!

2010-02-25T14:47:00.000-08:00

One Month away! March 26th!!

New Podcast on Speaking Of Animation coming soon!

2010-01-30T23:47:00.000-08:00

Skywalker Ranch shot by Philip Bloom

2010-01-20T22:46:00.000-08:00

Skywalker Ranch from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

This is some gorgeous footage of the Skywalker Ranch shot with the Canon 5DmkII and Canon 7D.

You can read about it on Philip Bloom's blog here:
http://philipbloom.co.uk/2009/12/12/the-tale-of-lucasfilm-skywalker-ranch-red-tails-star-wars-and-canon-dslrs/

He has some more great stuff on his vimeo channel so be sure to check it out!

Speaking of Animation

2009-12-10T02:24:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

A couple of us from work have put together a site where we hope to provide various animation content ranging from random thoughts, tips and tricks, and podcasts. We just launched today so go by and see what you think! The first podcast is with fellow coworker Ted Ty.

www.speakingofanimation.com

How To Train Your Dragon Trailer

2009-11-02T10:52:00.000-08:00

How To Train Your Dragon clip

2009-10-13T01:55:00.000-07:00

Not the best video quality but watch while you can!

http://softtalkblog.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/idf2009-dreamworks-premieres-%E2%80%98how-to-train-your-dragon%E2%80%99-clip/

Knife Fight!

2009-04-02T14:09:00.001-07:00

Here's a video that my nemesis, Stephen Melaehagraknow, made using the xtranormal site. I thought it was pretty funny so I figured I'd share. (Language not very kiddie friendly)

EDIT/UPDATE:
(Unfortunately, it seems this video no longer exists)

Shot Update

2008-12-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I went ahead and put a little more time into this clip so I could push it off my plate. If I do anything else to this clip it would mainly deal with texturing them up so they're dressed. We'll see.

Another unfinished 11 Second Club entry!

2008-09-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

Well, this time I entered my unfinished 11 second club entry for fun to see what would happen. I like to think of using the 11 second club for animation sketches more so than what I would put on a reel so I probably won't be going back to finish them. This time I tried to create a story that could stand on its own regardless of the dialog clip.

It was also sort of an inside joke between a few of us here at work to find out different ways we could actually get around animating the actual person that says the line. I placed an impressive 41st! haha WOOO! If I can promis you one thing, this won't be my last crazy entry to the 11 second club! Obviously no polish on this thing but it was fun piecing it together in my spare time through the last two weeks of August!

Brandon Beckstead also had a very fun entry that he has posted on his blog.
(You were robbed Brandon!)

Unfinished 11 second club -July

2008-08-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I was working on this for last month's 11 second club but didn't end up putting much time into it. So here's where I left it. Pretty much a blocking pass, haha, and I'm not very confident about some of the acting choices since I have yet to flesh it out but some of the guys at work wanted me to post it so here it is:

(Sorry to all who that I was going to make a worthwhile post!)

Slight "Film Industry" update

2008-06-01T04:33:00.000-07:00

Well, here's an update to the latest personal animation that's on my plate. I still have a lot to do on this thing but hopefully it won't take to many more sessions to finish it up. We'll see...
As always, it's free for comments and crits!

If you have trouble playing this video in your browser then you might try downloading from this link.

Kung Fu Panda!

2008-06-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday night DreamWorks had a Kung Fu Panda and after party for its employees. The show started at 7pm but due to traffic and, from what most people have mentioned, me not having GPS I didn't get to the show until 8. So I think I caught about an hour of the show and from what I saw, it was freaking awesome! It really has a great style and feel throughout. This was the first time I had seen so much of it edited together and with final sound. This is definitely one to see in theaters!!

Cool Photos!

2008-04-28T06:11:00.002-07:00

Smashingmagazine.com has posted some amazing photos! It's pretty awesome to be able to see the world from so many different perspectives. Just thought I'd share the link and hopefully let the photos brighten or inspire someone else's day!

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/04/28/really-stunning-pictures-and-photos/

Having Fun!

2008-04-22T02:10:00.003-07:00

I'm in my fifth week at DreamWorks and so far it has been amazing! The campus is great and the people have made the place feel very welcoming. If you haven't heard about it yet, Jim Hull has posted the notes from the James Baxter animation workshop that they had here at DreamWorks on his blog sewardstreet. 3 days of my first week were spent going to that workshop! I think that will be a hard first week at a new job to beat in my animation career!

On the subject of good people, I saw a few of the Avalanche guys out here the other day! Here's a shout out to all my friends at Avalanche Software!

I'm still going in and working on the "Film Industry" dialog shot when I have time and also working a few things at DreamWorks, outside of the regular work that is, so I'm not sure when the next post will be with actual animation in it. Hopefully soon!

Thanks again for all of the congratulatory comments everyone! I appreciate them!

Oh, one other thing. Kung Fu Panda is pretty awesome stuff! Definitely one to catch in theaters! The project that I'm on, "How To Train Your Dragon" has some amazing looking stuff going on with it and I'm excited to be a part of it.

New Wall E Trailer!

2008-03-12T00:56:00.001-07:00

Can't wait!

(click image)

or go here:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/walle/hd/

Film Industry - WIP

2008-02-27T01:34:00.003-08:00

Something I've been working on here and there-

Still needs a lot of work but I figured I'd post something of my own since it's been a while.

Creature Comforts podcast

2008-02-25T01:05:00.002-08:00

Transform.org has a podcast with the executive director, executive producer, and the interviewer for the show. They also have a link to a making-of video!

Check it out here:

http://www.transom.org/guests/review/200801_creature_comforts/

Heading for Feature!!

2008-02-14T22:55:00.004-08:00

I'm making the jump to features with DreamWorks in Glendale, CA!
My first film will be "How To Train Your Dragon" and I'm hearing that things are looking awesome on this project. I can't wait to get out there and be surrounded by so many animators. It'll be great to be working with the other AMer's there and also meeting up with Brandon Beckstead and Hyrum Osmond again! Hyrum's at Disney Feature, not to far from DreamWorks. The start date is March 24th.

Disney Interactive/Avalanche Software has been a great experience. You really get the feeling that the company wants everyone to strengthen their skills when you're here. Some cool projects to work on and great people to work with. I've met a lot of great people and am glad I had the opportunity to work here.

More animations to see up on the Avalanche Animation Blog!

2008-01-15T06:21:00.001-08:00

Some of the animators, current and former, of Avalanche Software have posted up some animations done in the spare time. Andy Conroy just posted some new ones the other day! Go check 'em out!

http://avamation.blogspot.com/

Unfold

2007-12-03T18:02:00.000-08:00

Good Dialog

2007-11-10T23:01:00.000-08:00

Well written dialog can add some nice spice to a film and sometimes make you think.

But bad dialog can really pull you out of the movie you're watching.

So try to appreciate well written dialog when you can.
Oh, and go buy Ratatouille because it is an AMAZING film!!!

(This post was created because of the superman clip-I had to share it)

MUD

2007-11-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, here's another dialog. This one's a bit more finished than the one in the previous post. Hopefully I'll bring you a finished version of that one soon!

ANIMATE IN A DAY!!!

2007-11-04T16:01:00.000-08:00

So Andy, from work, and I decided to go in yesterday and try to animate a dialog piece in a day! We had Brandon pick out a dialog clip and put it in a network folder and neither of us heard it until we got in. Maybe it would have been better if I arrived earlier than 11 and started animating before 4? So here's the result:

Maybe I shouldn't have spent so much time on the stupid costume and set. I might have gotten a little more animation done. So go check out Andy's clip!! It's funny stuff!

Oh btw, I found out that Blogger and youtube was cutting my video's short because the audio track was shorter than the video so it was stopping where the audio ended. So I'll have MUD up shortly!!!!

MUD

2007-10-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I wanted to post my new dialog test but apparently youtube/blogger video doesn't want that to happen. It seems to play through part of it then cut off the last second or so even after I added an extra second of time to the video. It stops at the same frame, not showing the full anim. So once I figure that out or buy a domain and some bandwidth I'll be back!

Box Jump

2007-10-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

It's not as polished as I'd like it to be but I had some fun putting it together. I'm working on a few dialog pieces also, so hopefully I'll be able to post one of them soon!

Basics

2007-08-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't posted in a while I guess I'll show a basic animation I did not too long ago to have some fun. I was going to go with a different ending but a friend suggested I go this route- you know who you are! lol Anyways, I had some fun with this thinking more about how to keep the timing interesting. Crits are always welcome!

New Job!

2007-05-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

I have recently been offered and accepted a staff position at Avalanche Studios! They're pretty famous for their Tak game titles but were purchased by Disney in 2005. So now they handle the Disney feature animation game titles, recently finishing "Meet the Robinsons". It has been an interesting process and taken some time to go through, and is still ongoing. I sent my reel about mid-April and heard back from them the next day. I then had a phone interview the following week, which was followed by an in-person interview the week after that. Then both Avalanche and I waited another week for Disney to go through all the paperwork so they could make me an offer. Don't get me wrong though, I didn't mind all this waiting or how long it took, all of it actually feeling quite fast, because it allowed me to ease into the whole issue of moving.

My start date is June 11th and I am excited to see what I will be starting on. They clued me in on the projects they were working on during the interview but I'm not sure what they're going to start me off with. From the animations that I've seen come out of their, they seem to have some great talent there. They even have some strong traditional artists. You can check out some of their digital paintings at avalanchesoftware.blogspot.com. Some of the animators post some personal tests on avamation.blogspot.com.

I am excited to be working along side another AM alumni, Brandon Beckstead! I've watched his work for quite some time now and it's always been inspiring. He's been offered positions at Dreamworks, Blue Sky, and Sony Pictures Animation! He's got some great work so you should check his stuff out sometime if you have a chance(brandonbeckstead.com).

The animation director said that the animators do personal tests and get together each week to critique each other. This alone tells me SO much about the company and really makes me feel good that I am going to be working there. It sounds like they all want to constantly improve and learn new things, so it really seems like it will be a great place to grow as an animator, and hopefully through talking to the other traditional artists, as more of a well-rounded artist too!

I would like to take the time to congratulate all the other AMer's that are landing jobs at some great studios as well! Some of the studios alumni are recently getting into include Dreamworks, Blue Sky and Rhythm and Hues! Congrats everyone and keep up the hard work!!

I've been working

2007-05-18T00:46:00.000-07:00

As the title states, I've been working as a character animator in Kansas. Yes, I said Kansas! I've been working on a children's dvd at DXD studios. It's been an interesting job and I've learned quite a bit from it. It's a place that requires a fast turn-over rate so I've been able to produce a LOT of animation in a short amount of time. I started working there on February 12th, one month after attending the Animation Mentor graduation. Within two and a half months, one other animator and I had produced between 12-15 minutes of animation on 9 characters which included talking cars, people, a fire extinguisher and fire alarm. It has gotten better recently since the company has finished working on some of the other major projects, which was preventing more people from being able to animate on this one. Now instead of having to animate every character each scene I touch, they've divided them up between the animators so we can go in and focus on one, which means less work on a single shot.

I'm happy to say that there are a lot of great people working there making it a fun environment to be in. It's also cool to be working with guys coming out of different animation schools: AAU, Ringling, VFS, Art Institute, Full Sail, and of course myself being from Animation Mentor. That means some interesting conversations about animation!

My entry for AM's weekly sketch

2006-12-29T10:42:00.000-08:00

Well, this week's topic is "superheroes" so I thought I'd throw something together for it. Here's what I ended up with, the body is fairly rough as you can see but oh well. I hope to enter into this weekly sketch more often.

Michael Caine acting videos

2006-12-10T13:15:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone, I just wanted to point you all in the direction of the guy that uploaded the Caine videos to youtube. His name is Dan Caylor and he's an animation student also! He's currently attending AAU and you can check out his blog HERE! Thanks for the upload Dan, the videos are a great watch!

Michael Caine acting classes!!

2006-11-29T08:39:00.000-08:00

Matt Kelly found these videos on youtube and they were such a great find that I decided to post them here. Waiting on the last video to be uploaded by the user so only 5 out of 6 are here for now.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

PS3

2006-11-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

I've underestimated the people's lack of patience.

Another one sold for $10,000 yesterday just before this one but now they seem to be averaging out to around $2,500, still a good profit.

Spiderman 3

2006-11-13T01:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a video some might be interested in seeing. Has previs stuff in it and also reveals Venom at the end of it. Definitely waiting for this thing to come out!

EDIT: video's been pulled down

My animation disc and light box

2006-10-30T10:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm getting closer to finishing this thing and figured I'd post some images with everything kind of pieced together. I decided to make it a box rather than a full desk because it will be easier to move if I ever have to. I went with Oak, which is a more expensive wood, so one can be made even cheaper than this one. A lot of cheaper furniture you might buy and possibly even the light boxes online are made out of MDF, medium density fiberboard, and then covered up with Formica, which is the slick covering on most counter tops. The sheet of oak plywood was $42 and I have enough left over to make another disc and desktop. I've stained and applied 2 coats of clear to both the box and disc. I left the back of the disc and the inside of the box unstained since it won't be seen. The inside of the box will probably have a layer of tinfoil to reflect the light. I did apply the two coats of clear to the bottom of the disc though, just as a basic sealer to the wood.

The glass was $8 and the Plexiglas was $6. I wanted to size it out so I could use 16 field paper if I wanted to, so it measures in at 12" by "18. The glass was cut to that exact size from a local glass company and my dad was able to get one of the scrap pieces of Plexiglas that we ended up cutting to size. The only problem with it is that it is 1/4" thick when we I was looking to get 1/8" so I could place it directly underneath the 1/8" piece of glass in the disc. So I'll end up screwing the plexi into the underside of the disc, and inset the glass to draw on into the top of the disc.

Because of this thickness difference in the Plexiglas I was kind of worried about how well the light would diffuse overall and didn't want to run into dark spots so I went with two florescent bulbs with a higher wattage to be safe, since the circular bulbs that most people go with are only around 32 watts. You can find the circular setups with the fixture at a Home Depot for $20. The way I'm going will also make it cheaper, but with more wattage there is more heat, so I'll soon find out if I get any issues from that. I don't think it will be that big of a deal, but we'll see if the paper I'm drawing on goes up in flames :) I should also note that we made the circle cuts with a router and an attachment that allowed use to set a pivot point in the center, so the router will cut it out nice and clean.

Here are some more pics:

Here's an image of just the disc with the router work for the glass and pegbars:

And the last few images are of the box and disc where you can see the edges have been routed so the disc will fit inside of it and sit level with the top of the surface. We did the same with the back of the disc, routing it halfway through the wood.

Once I finish it all up I'll take some more final pics and give a summary about how much everything cost.

Lecture about storytelling!

2006-10-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

Anyone that wants to hear how important storytelling is should watch this video! I found this link on AM alumni, David Martinez's blog. It is 45 minutes long but I didn't find it difficult to sit through at all. Andy Goodman made some great points about what makes narrative so powerful, what makes a good story, and how you make a lasting storytelling culture. Check it out, it's definitely worth a watch!

Storytelling Lecture- Keynote Address: Storytelling as Best Practice

He seems to have some type of online classes and workshops too.
http://www.agoodmanonline.com/purple.html

Drawing time!

2006-10-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Well everyone I just got some of the stuff to get a 2d animation setup going and I'm pretty excited! I've never done 2d animation before so I'm probably going to be pretty disappointed after the first few(hundered) tests but I'm still ready to give it a try. I bought an acme pegbar, 12 field punched acme paper, a lightfoot pegbar so I can punch my own crappier paper for some quick tests and getting use to the whole process, and I'll be getting the glass and plexiglass cut tomorrow for the disc that my dad and I are going to be making! It won't be a professional setup of course but I figure I better not shell out $500 on the disc alone for soemthing that I'm trying for the first time. So far I think I'm going to be able to put together the desk/light table and full disc together for less than $200 but we'll see.

Pete Docter at Hallmark

2006-09-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, Pete Docter was here in Kansas City and gave a talk about animation and the process Pixar goes through when making a film. There were some interesting things that he showed that I thought I'd share with you.

One of the first things he did was show this commercial to show why animation works.

Even though it has no animation in it, it shows that people are always personifying things and that half the work is done with them just walking into the theater.

He showed another video of a study with salamanders and video images of crickets and rectangles. They put the salamander in front of the computer screen with various videos which had the cricket moving in an abnormal way and the rectangle moving in a way the cricket would move and each time the salamander would follow whichever object moved like a cricket, regardless of what it looked like. This example stressed how important our jobs as animators are! Also he was making the point that characters can be as stylised as we want, rather than completely life-like, and as long as we include movement that we can relate to it will work.
I couldn't find the video for this but I did find a pdf over the study.
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/205/2/241.pdf

This last video had to do with lip sync. He said that many animators think that they have to have perfect lip sync but the fact is that you need to have the body working properly and performing proper body language for that situation.

He also showed Pinocchio's "I've got no strings" pointing out the lip sync wasn't there at all really and just basically an open and close puppet mouth.

AM Student Showcase Reel! New link to the video.

2006-08-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Animation Mentor has made a page for the Student Showcase reel in a QuickTime format with a downloadable link. So if you haven't seen it yet go check it out and if you have seen it but want to hang on to it for a while, go save a copy of it for yourself!:)

AM Student Showcase Summer 2006

Animation Mentor Student Work!

2006-08-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

If you haven't checked this out yet go to AnimationMentor.com and look at the new student showcase reel! There's some very impressive stuff on there and is very entertaining to watch.

More Ralph Eggleston

2006-08-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

There's an interview done here with Ralph Eggleston for MoMA. Boy do these kids look excited about it.

Speaking of Character Design

2006-08-07T08:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a pretty sweet blog on it! It just so happens to be named Character Design. Definitely something to check out! Quite a large list of interviews with various character designers! That's actually where I found the Chen Yi Chang images posted in the previous post. They've interviewed him themselves. Here's a link to that as well.
Chen Yi Chang interview.
And yes, there are more images of his artwork there than just the few I have in my previous post.

Chen Yi Chang video

2006-08-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

I know this is an old video that a lot of you may have seen and already know about, but just in case anyone hasn't seen it or need a link to it I figured I'd do that. He is a Disney character designer and discusses some of his thoughts about working on Mulan, Tarzan, and a bit about the Batman cartoon series.

Chen Yi Chang Video

A few Pixarian Signatures

2006-08-07T07:08:00.000-07:00

This one is from Pixar animator, Angus Maclane-

Storyboard artist, Mark Andrews

And finally one of the head honchos, Andrew Stanton

I found them on this blog post, the person that owns the actual signatures on paper. There's a nice little story about when he got them too!

Splinecasts!

2006-08-07T04:33:00.000-07:00

The Spline Doctors have been doing some great podcasts with various artists from Pixar so I figured I'd have a link station to all of them in this post. If you've never been there before be sure to check out their other posts. They have some useful and interesting information there.

Spinecast 1:

To Spline or Not to Spline

Splinecast 2,3, and 4: Andrew Stanton

Andrew Stanton part1
Andrew Stanton part2
Andrew Stanton part3

Splinecast 5: Ralph Eggleston

Ralph Eggleston

Splinecast 6: Nate Stanton

Nate Stanton

Animation Timer

2006-08-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

Can you think of the beats you want for you animation in your head and click the mouse at the time the beat happens? Then this nifty little tool just might be for you! I found this a while back while surfing the web so I thought I'd link you to it. It's an animation timer application put together by Paul Van Gaans. Thanks Paul!

Animation Timer

(PC only at this time)

A small car show

2006-08-05T23:05:00.000-07:00

Well, it was fairly small but there were some clean cars there.

Hand Sketches

2006-08-05T22:29:00.000-07:00

Here are a few hand sketches I did of my own hands. The open hand I did more recently roughing it in with General's pastel chalk, wanna be Conte. It was a bit larger than my scanner so there were a lot of dark areas that I had to clean up. I left the forearm uncleaned though. :/ The other hand I did a while back and it was smaller on newsprint.

New Blog

2006-08-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

Well, atleast for me it is! A blog that I've recently been checking out quite a bit with some inspirational stuff is a current student at CalArts. Lots of traditional work to check out since he posts quite often. His name is Steven Macleod and the name of his blog is Clockroom. He has a large list of links to other blogs that contain a lot of personal artwork of other artists. Just some stuff that has definitely been getting me back into the drawing mode. Hope to post some stuff up soon! Again, here's the link to his blog:

http://clockroom.blogspot.com/

CONGRATS!!

2006-08-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

I've recently heard some great news about my former mentor, Scott Lemmer. He was working at DNA studios on The Ant Bully and the studio is closing after that so he was going to be out of a job but he got into Pixar! WOOO! Congrats man! Awesome to hear. Get this, on the Jimmy Neutron tv series he was doing anywhere between 800 and 1,000 frames a week!! Sometimes more, and the quality of the stuff was pretty darn good for that kind of a timeframe! Lots of entertaining stuff there. Anyways, just wanted to say congratulations Scott! You deserve it!

WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!!! Hold everything!!

2006-07-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I was just looking over my blog and realised something! I haven't given proper introductions for my past 2 mentors and my current one!! WOW, I can't believe I let that one slide! Well, for term 3 I had Scott Lemmer from DNA studios! It was an awesome term and my breakthrough into acting, where I started the Robin piece that is shown below. Term 4 I had Dave Vallone from Blur Studios! Man, this guy can talk! And most of it had to do with animation! lol I had a great time working on facial animation for the Robin piece with him and doing a complete 2 person dialogue shot. He gave some very great and detailed crits. Now, drumroll please!

The mentor I currently have for term 5 and 6 and for undertaking a short film is!:

Doug Sheppeck!

Here's a list of his stats-

Cars (2006)

The Incredibles (2004)

Finding Nemo (2003)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) - senior Animator

Toy Story 2 (1999)

A Bug's Life (1998)

Toy Story (1995)

I'm in week 4 right now and so far Doug has been great. I'm really excited about these final two terms at AM and know that he'll really push me to and beyond my limits!

Dialogue

2006-06-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Well, here's my first dialogue test. Still could use tweaking here and there but it's time for me to move on! No final quality render on it just yet. Just a plain old playblast. Thanks to a friend supplying me with bandwidth I'm able to put this up here! Thanks again man! Always good to get comments and critiques!

Over the Hedge

2006-05-24T17:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen it yet but I've only heard good things about the new release, Over the Hedge, from Dreamworks. Some of the things I've heard was that it was the funniest animated film that they've seen and the animation on the animals was phenominal. I heard that the movie is up to par with the Incredibles! Definitely a movie to catch in the theaters! So I'm hoping to see it this weekend and enjoy it as much as everyone else have been.

Trailer

Listen to a Movie

2006-04-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

So have you ever been searching for dialogue out of a movie and just gone through countless dvd's, taking them out of the case, putting them in the dvd player, letting them play through and so on? Well there's a site that actually allows you to listen to a movie from start to finish. They have quite a selection to go through too. The site is listentoamovie.com. Now the audio quality isn't the best but just create yourself a user name and it's free to listen. They even have a few tv shows up there.

Incredible!

2006-03-13T04:58:00.000-08:00

Since I'm in the process of posting images, here's something that is pretty awesome that a friend sent me a while back.

Dialogue preview

2006-03-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I don't have any space to put my animations right but I figured I'd give you a bit of a preview on what I'm currently working on for my first dialogue test. Yes, that is Robin.

Long Time, No Post!

2006-03-06T17:10:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I see it's been a while since I've posted here. I've been pretty busy with Animation Mentor, currently in term 3, with V2 of their site! Which is still rockin'! I've also been going to community college for traditional art classes and have recently been attending some aacting classes. I just finished up my second pantomime assignment for AM and am currently working on my first dialogue shot! My mentor this term is Scott Lemmer from DNA studios and is definitely keeping me on my toes, so free time is hard to find. I hope to purchase some bandwidth sometime in the near future so I'll be able to present my work here. I would also like to add that I am coninually astonished by the improvement of the work that all the students at Animation Mentor continue to make! It is just really inspiring to cruise around the campus and see what everyone is doing in their assignments! If you haven't seen any of their stuff then you can check a few of their pieces out on the home page at Animation Mentor

Fellow Students of AM get hired by Disney!

2005-11-14T17:26:00.000-08:00

So there are 2 students of Animation Mentor that recently got hired by Disney! They are Anthea and Rebecca from class 3! (I don't want to post any last names without them knowing it) Congratulations ladies! In case any of you are wondering, class 3 is one class ahead of the class I am in. Paul, who was in my class last term, but had a different mentor, is now at Blue Sky working on Ice Age 2!

PIXAR animators blog!

2005-11-14T17:08:00.000-08:00

So there's a new blog out that most of you probably already know about. The name of it is Spline Doctors. Those of you that aren't character animators, or bad character animators that don't know what the graph editor is, you might be wondering why they call themselves spline doctors. My guess is from the extensive use of the splines in the graph editor during the clean up process of character animation in the computer. All of the animators that created this blog teach at The Academy of Art University, which seems like a very nice school! Stephen Gregory, one of the spline doctors, was my mentor last term at Animation Mentor and was a very good teacher. Since having him, I know a bit about his workflow method and he is definitely graph editor friendly.

If you go to splinedoctors.com you can find a list of thier students from AAU, which have some AWESOME demo reels to check out! One person's demo reel that I seem to be watching almost daily now is Nick Rasario's! His work is very inspiring!

My mentor for this term!

2005-11-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

If anyone was curious about who my mentor is for this term, it is Brett Coderre from PIXAR! He's a great mentor and has been really pushing the idea of seperating actions! It's been something that not a lot of other mentors seem to be talking about but I find very important. It seems that when I mention this subject to other students that are studying character animation nod and say they know about it but when I view their work they seem to really miss the mark. (bear in mind that I'm sure that I am guilty of doing that very thing with many different parts of animation) My suggestion would be to pop in a PIXAR movie and frame by frame their work and see how they are moving the different parts of the body at different times. Everything shouldn't move at the same time!

Here's a bit about Brett Coderre!

Brett has been working with PIXAR Animation Studios since A Bug's Life. He is currently working on PIXARS 2006 CARS. Brett won The Visual Effects Society Award for Oustanding Character Animation with his fantastic work on Finding Nemo, for the Dory Whale speaking scenes.

Ok, Ok! So I haven't updated.

2005-11-14T16:32:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I didn't put up my work from last term. Sorry guys. One thing you must all know about character animators is that once we so-call "finish" a piece, we always see many improvements that need to be made! As far as last term assignments they were mainly foundation assignments and nothing really there demo reel wise so I don't really think it would be worth the time to really go in and polish them up and because of that, I don't plan on posting them. I'm really only posting this now that I see some of my fellow AM classmates seem to be starting come here, lol.

So I don't think I'm going to put up my work from last term but here's something that may tide you over. I am currently working on a four emotion pose test and am in the middle of cleaning up a heavy push assignment. There are quite a few things in it that I need to tend to so it's not a finished piece by any means!

HEAVY PUSH ASSIGNMENT

Any crits and comments are always welcome!

Updating My Blog!

2005-09-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone and anyone who has been waiting to see new things! Someone, a very generous friend from Animation Mentor, has given me space and unlimited bandwidth for my animations so I should have all of my Animation Mentor assignments up within the next week! If I don't, then feel free to post here and complain about it. Later!

Animation Mentor Assignment 3 - Ball bounce

2005-07-04T12:47:00.000-07:00

Here is the animation I've been working on and making progress with the help of some awesome Animation Mentor students. We are to animate a ball bouncing without squash and stretch with the bounce similar to a basketball or soccer ball.

Ball Bounce A
Ball Bounce B
Ball Bounce C
Ball Bounce D
Ball Bounce E
Ball Bounce F
Ball Bounce G

Let me know what you think!

Animation Collection

2005-06-24T02:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a collection of the animations I've posted about so far. You can read about them in previous posts.

Ball_Bounce_test

Ballman_Backflip

Backflip Revised

Jump and Roll

So there's a summary of them. I hope to have a short skip animation done tomorrow, since I've been critiquing someone else's at AM, it has inspired me to do one on my own. So I started one an hour ago and it needs some refinement. When I get it to that point I'll be sure and post it.
Thanks everyone!

Animations Up!

2005-06-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

OK guys, it looks like the site that I uploaded my animations on is back up so feel free to check em out!

Animations Down!

2005-06-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

My animations are currently not working because the blog site that I uploaded them to is down. It is telling me that:

The blog system is currently down for maintenance to improve the service.
Thank you for your patience - please check back again soon.

So as soon as it is fixed or I find another place to upload them, then I will let you know.

If you are a part of Animation Mentor, then you can see the current animation I have uploaded in the my Puplic Review area. Or if you just can't wait to see something than, you can email me and I will send it out as an attatchment. Thanks for you support!

Jump and Roll animation blocking

2005-06-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

Hey again! Just though that I would post another animation I'm working on. It's done using the character "Stu" that was given out to the Animation Mentor students. It includes Stu leaping out forwards and ending in a roll. This is just the blocking right now so still kind of rough. I'm just trying to figure out the timing, and see if my poses are OK. As always if you've got some time, feel free to check it out. Any comments are appreciated, even if you don't know anything about animation, you still might see something that just doesn't look right to you. Go ahead and tell me!

Jump and Roll

Thanks.

STEPHEN GREGORY IS AWESOME!!

2005-06-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

OK everyone, I just finished my first Q and A session with my mentor, Stephen Gregory. Let me fist say that he was very nice and very humble. But here's what was so awesome about our Q and A! We are allowed an hour of time with each of the other students in our class. an hour with the mentor, and an hour after the mentor so the students can talk some more. But Get This, He stayed the whole extra hour after his time was suppose to be up! ( Oh just a sec, Stephen is emailing me!!) Anyways, we stayed as late as possible and then we were cut off just after 11pm. He was so generous with his time! So Stephen if you happen to check this out I, and I'm sure all of the other guys, would like to give a big THANK YOU for your time!

PIXAR in KC!

2005-06-22T01:06:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone!
If you happened to be in the big Q and A on the 20th and showed up early, you might have seen a couple of guys talking about the PIXAR presentation given at Johnson County Community College. Well anyways I thought I'd let you see a flyer that was given out that night! The presentation was lead by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, both storyboard artists at PIXAR. I was able to get both of them to sign my copy of The Incredibles, which was awesome!Brenda didn't work on it but since she was now a part of their team I definitley wanted her to sign it! Anyways I'm going to post the flyer as a photo so check it out!

Fellow Classmates

2005-06-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

Hey there! Just had the Live Q and A for Animation Mentor last night with Bobby "Boom" Beck, Carlos Baena, and Shawn Kelly! Man those guys are awesome! So much energy there. My first Q and A with my mentor is tomorrow at 9:00pm here in Kansas! Anyways, here is a list of my fellow students from Stephen Gregory's class:

SAMUEL	EASTERLING	Birmingham	USA
BENNY	LEUNG	Hong Kong	China
BOON-YIK	LIM	Singapore	Singapore
VINCENT	FLORIO	Melbourne	USA
ERIC	SAPP	Park Ridge	USA
MICHAEL	HADWIN	Austin	USA
WILLIAM	BATE	CAROLLTON	USA
DEREK	ANDRE	Minneapolis	USA
KEITH	JOHNSTON	Leavenworth	USA
JAMES	THOMAS	Amarillo	USA
ADAM	STRICK	Kansas City	USA
AARON	STOCKTON	Joplin	USA
SEAN	MACNEIL	Edmonton	CANADA
MELVIN	MILTON	Provo	USA
DANIEL	BEEKMAN	Scottsdale	USA

This semester is going to be Great!!

My Mentor

2005-06-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

OK, I just checked out the Roster for this summer's classes and my mentor is Stephen Gregory! It seems that he has worked on every one of PIXAR's feature films except for Toy Story 1. Here is his BIO: Since leaving Cal-Arts in 1996 Stephen has had the pleasure of working on some of the most influential animated films in recent years while being employed at PIXAR Animation Studios. At PIXAR Stephen has worked on “A Bugs Life”, “Toy Story 2”, “Monsters INC.”, “Finding Nemo”, “The Incredibles” and is currently working on “Cars” which is due out summer of 2006. While attending Cal-Arts, Stephen had several summer jobs which included an internship at Turner Feature Animation during “Cat’s Don’t Dance.”

I can't wait to learn from this guy!

Revised Animation

2005-06-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

Well it is Saturday night at 10pm and no word from Animation Mentor yet telling me who my mentor is. Anyways, I've revised my backflip animation so if you want to check it out and leave any comments feel free.

Backflip Revised

Thanks.

Adam.

Currently Working

2005-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone out there on the WWW! I'm at work right now and there isn't much to do since the recording studio here at my school is torn apart to install a new air conditioner. So I am currently across the hall enjoying a little bit of the Incredibles. Such a good movie!

To anyone and everyone that has commented on, hell even watched, my animations, Thanks a lot! Christophe, I completely agree that I should find a better pose at the end of the Backflip animation, so I'm going to try and work that in. I'm also going to try and have him doing something in the beginning, as someone suggested on CGTalk. As far as the ball animation, I am still debating on wether or not the timing is right on the balls rolling at the end. I understand the comment about "twinning" but I think that the way I animated it is the way it would possibly look in real life. I also agree that I need to add a texture that will better display the rotation of them.

To sum it all up,
THANKS FOR THE CRITS!
Always appreciate them.

Here It Is!

2005-06-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

O.K. Sorry about the wait but I got sidetracked by my guitar.
Here is the animation I started yesterday and this is where it's at right now.

Ballman_Backflip

Let me know what you think if you've got some time!

Hope to add sound effects to it tonight and replace this one with that.

Currently Rendering

2005-06-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

In the middle of rendering a new animation I started yesterday of the Ballman character doing a backflip over a missile. I'll try to post it tonight!

Animation

2005-06-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

OK here is the ball animation. Any comments and crits are welcome!
Hope you enjoy it!

Ball_Bounce_test

Thanks.

First Post

2005-06-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

What's Up (to whom it may concern)!

Well this is my first post on this new blog site! I had to create a new one because for some reason I couldn't get to my old one. It might have something to do with me not logging into it for a while?
I'm hoping to post an animation of a couple of bouncing balls soon, maybe tonight, so I can get some critiques from some of the Animation Mentor Spring class. They've been through it all semester so I'm sure they'll have some good insight.

Adam.