Episode 2: "Some New Hope"

So the first week is down and dusted..... Sorted out my electives, went to a few classes, shaded some balls, began some rough sketches for my character design. Most importantly managed to get out for a fish.
I ended the week with helping out at "The Flicks" film festival, which was great, always good to see everyone's hard work from last year!
Yesterday I thumb nailed my storyboards maybe a bit too soon as we haven't even pitched our ideas yet, but  might as well get a head start while the ideas are a flowing.

So the basic idea so far is like a Wizard/alchemist type guy who's a bit of a miss fortunate character (lots of bad luck, like Wile. E Coyote) who looks a bit like a homeless short Santa. While walking in the woods he discovers some Mandrake growing, he excitedly tries to pull it up but it's firmly rooted. So using his superior magical skills he casts a levitation spell on the plant to uproot it. Joyful in triumph he grins... but his victory is short lived, the plant begins to violently shake before it blasts off like a rocket, leaving the man disappointing. After the credits the plant falls back down hitting the man in the head.

I had the idea of this character for a while so it's nice to be properly formulating him.
Here is a rough sketch of "The Alchemista"

And here are the rough thumbnails

So yea.... 

Looking forward to the coming week! We have our first meeting with the film guys to talk about script ideas for the group project.

Here is my link for the day......"BEAT" by Or Bar-El

https://vimeo.com/31423544

I really enjoyed this, very funky, had almost a stop motion feel to some of it. Good lighting and great use of camera angles and a great pace. Nice to see a simple idea done well, and soo much emotion out of essentially a box!

Hope you enjoy it too.

Episode 1 "Return Of The Graduate"

Yesterday in a galaxy right here..... 

So here I am back for another year of punishment at the Southern Institute of Technology. This year I'll be doing the Graduate Diploma in Animation, to accompany my Degree in Film. This time the punishment and long nights will be dished out by Rachel Mann. 

So as a part of our course this year I'll be keeping a Blog instead of a personal diary. So yea!  This is IT! 

Read along as I attempt to learn the secrets of animation, hopefully there won't be too many "fatal errors" as I attempt to make a couple of animations as well as work on two group assignments. 

The Live action Compositing group assignment will be interesting, as I was on the other side of the team with the filmmakers last year. But this year I'll be pushing and pulling Polygons with the animators asking "why the hell didn't they get a clean plate!"

below is my Link of the Day:

https://vimeo.com/58531940

A very funky stopmotion, Enjoy!