Alice Opening Weekend

I just had a chance to see Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland in Imax 3D. I thought it was a good movie. The story flowed well and I really like the characters/acting. What I really enjoyed about it is that they took a lot of lines from the book and scatter them through out the movie, especially "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" I felt it brought a nice touch to the film. They really played on Alice growing and shrinking a lot too, which I really enjoy because so much of the film is CG and there needs to be a reason for it I feel.

It was great finally seeing the shots I work on with all the CG elements and audio tracks :) When I was working on the film, I was working on a lot of green screen shots of the White Queen, Alice, and a few Mad Hatter shots as well. I'm glad to see how the 3D stereoscopic turned out over all as well. I had no clue how this would look on the big screen since it was my first time doing stereoscopic on a job, let alone a feature film. There was so many things we had to do and rules to follow to make sure it was going to look correct, and it did. It funny to see a shot that would take anywhere from 3 days to a full week just fly by in a matter of a second, I gave up trying to show my family the shots I work on about 15 minutes into the film.

Congrats to With A Twist Studios and all the people there that help make Alice 3D stereoscopic!

-Tim

Here's a link to a interview that Channel 7 did at the studio about Alice and 3D stereo work in Michigan. http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Local-Studio-Helps-Create-Wonderland/ydPnZDksgUq__quxuq6m-w.cspx

UPDATE:
I just found out Alice in Wonderland beat the premier of Avatar and set the record for biggest winter opening. Crazy stuff! http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-boxoffice8-2010mar08,0,2858446.story

The Fox, The Weasel, and The TP

1st entry of the year, and I'm giving it to the 11 second club competition. A group of friends and I always say were all going to do the competition for that month, and by the end of it no one found time to haha. Well I'm happy to say this month I pulled it off finally...barely. It was definitely tough finding the time and energy to come home from work just to work on another project. Not to mention I don't have a down shooter to keep testing the work as much as I want.

The test isn't were I want it to be at the moment. I don't mind the weasel animation as much as the Fox's. I did the Fox first and figure out a few things while animating him that made the Weasel easier to animate, especially the face. The main thing that bothers me about the Fox is where he places his left hand on his leg, I want it to be kept there a little longer. I like the funny gag in the story but since its not compete well the video doesn't show it. When the Fox tells the Weasel "So I borrowed it...." he throws a empty toilet paper roll back to the Weasel. I think seeing that and having the outhouse in the background would help sell it really well. Oh well, I'm thinking instead of trying to go back and tweak this test to make it what I want, I may treat it as a "welcome back to hand drawn animation" and move on to the next one.

-Tim

UPDATE: I got 57th place out of 142th. Not bad, not good, it is what it is :). A lot of people seemed to like it and thought the TP joke was funny. There was one or two comments about acting on the fox which I agree with but I didn't have time to really change any animation after the first pass I did. I think I'm going to compete in the March competition and hopefully by then ill have a downshooter set up so I can test the animation as much as I would like to.

Why Is A Raven Like A Writing Desk?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow the years keep flying by quicker and quicker, and this one isn't any different. I've been really busy at work these past few months, that I haven't been able to update this blog at all. I have tons of sketches laying around just waiting to be scanned in or taken to the next level. Hopefully I'll get around to uploading them. I feel very blessed that I've been able to keep landing jobs these past few months after my contract with Kinetic Post ended in July. In August I went to a studio in Detroit called One Of Us Films, and help with a After Effect educational animated film for children. In September I was in Royal Oak working at a studio called Pixo Factor on some motion comic stuff, once again using After Effects. Since the beginning of October I've been working at a studio called With A Twist, their Rochester studio, on Tim Burton's film Alice in Wonderland. Which explains the riddle in the blog title. I find myself for the first time using Maya on a job instead of After Effects or Hand Drawn Traditional haha. Never thought that would happen at this moment in my career. Usually I use Maya for my own personal animation tests and that's it. Alice should take me up to the end of the month, and starting in January I'll be back at Kinetic Post working on the Wonder Pets again. Its crazy that I can say I have worked on a feature film now in my career, hopefully next year and the years to come will be as amazing as this year!

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

And incase you were wondering the riddle in the title originally didn't have a answer, but after fans asking Lewis Carroll what the answer was to it, he came up with this - "Poe wrote on both"

-Tim

Demo Reel

Here's my latest reel, I'm hoping that ill be able to throw a larger version on my website tomorrow at some point, which brings me to my next topic..... I need to redo my website ha. So it will be Under Construction very soon. I'm still thinking about changing the reel up a bit, mixing up the shots instead of just having them in order, not sure though. Also may take the stop motion completely out. who knows.

-Tim

iPhone Game

Here's an animation from the iPhone game I was working on. It was the "Special Move" for the character. It's ment to start during the idle and end at the beginging of the idle. Unfortunately the game isn't being made anymore :( But I still got paid :) But the game isn't being made anymore :( and I spent allot of time working on these shots, actually probably more then I should have. I learn allot working on this game, mostly that in gaming animation, you cant do all the easing in and out of the poses you wanted to, because the moves have to be fast pace since its a video game. Think about Punch Out! or any other boxing game. The character throws the punch and brings it right back so the next move can be simulated.

Right now, the stage the animation is at is known as "Tone Matt's" which is why there are all those bubbles around him. I took the clean up animation, frame by frame, and added a line on another additional piece of paper to show were the shadows on the characters will be. I plan on finishing this test completely up and adding it to my reel.

Either way, it was a great experience that taught me allot when it comes to trying to freelance two gigs at once haha. Hopefully Ill be able to work with that group of animators again, and who knows maybe will get the call back to finish up the game!

-Tim

Alittle Concept Art

As I promised, here is some concept art from one of the pitches were working on at work. I don't want to talk about the story of it at all, but you can get alittle idea of it from the art work. The last few months I've been helping my buddy Carl with the environments for the pitch. It was a lot of fun! I forgot how much I like designing environments. It was a real nice change from the character work I do during the day. Hopefully I'll keep running with this and designing some more stuff for some of my own projects.
Working on this show was a real big change then what I usually work on. Anyone that has seen my work knows I'm more into comedy and family animation, like Pixar, Blue Sky, or some of the stuff Ive been animating on like the Wonder Pets. This is completely different. the show is still funny material, but different audience age range. Haha the first environment I did, I ran it by Carl for the final say and he said "Sweet man, make it more destroyed."The environments always started off so innocent and by the end there was complete death and destruction. I've posted two versions of the Navy Pier to show what I mean. Either way it was a lot of fun to switch up what I'm use to working on and trying something new! The Characters are done and ready to rig. Then the next step is to animate a short to send along with the pitch.

The process on these environments I would do is first thumbnail sketch a few different versions of the environment before I started building it in Photo Shop. After I decided on the composition, I found the resources I needed on the Internet, and some of my own pictures as well. The Photo Shop part of it, actually went by really quick actually, probably since I missed working on environments and it was something different than animation.

-Tim

Attack of the Grey Monster!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once again I haven't been up dating my blog as much as I should, BUT here's an animation for ya to make up for it! :) I started this back in February I believe and then it got put on the back burner for awhile. I guess that's what happens when you have a job, plus trying to do concept art for pitch ideas. Who would of thunk it. I found some time this past week to tweak somethings I wanted on the animation and now its ready to destroy creates, lots and lots of grey creates.

I'm hoping to do a few posting this month of things I've been meaning to post, but haven't had the time to. Thumbnails, concept art, etc. Also now that more of my animation of the Wonder Pets and 3rd & Bird have aired, I can finish cutting that new reel of mine! Plus I figure out the converting of 24 fr to 30 fr or 3:2 pull down as they call it.

Hope you'll like it!
-Tim