Film Completion is For the Birds

In other words... I FINALLY FINISHED MY THESIS FILM!



Destiny is For the Birds from Michael J. Ruocco on Vimeo.

Yeah, I know... it's a little late... 1 year, 4 months and 22 days late, to be exact. But hey, who could blame me? A lot has happened in the last year that needed my attention, while poor ol' thesis-y here sat on the back burner, like a half-baked piece of humble pie. I guess my reasoning was "Hey, it did it's job! It showcased what I could pull off as an animator, I graduated... hell, I even won an award with it! What's the point, then?" . And for a long time, yeah, that was my excuse. Despite some coercive nagging from friends, colleagues, and especially my dear ol' Ma, I stubbornly stood my ground and refused to budge. But over time, I really began to feel guilty about it. This short wasn't a one-man show, a lot of great people helped me get it as far as it did. I mean, just look at the credits!

Josh Tomar  and Chris Zito did some really excellent voice work for the film. Andy Scherman provided wonderful music accompaniment and sang the credits song. My girlfriend Shannon did the color styling and colored every single background (except one, which my friend Cory did the flat colors for). Many wonderful underclassmen, first and second year students, took time out of their busy schedules to help color a lot of these shots for me when I was scrambling for time. Even fellow thesis students gave a hand with coloring shots too, despite their own deadlines they had to meet. Not to mention countless students, teachers, classmates, friends, and family members who gave me a lot of support throughout my final year of school. And I wanted to be a selfish, lazy so-and-so and stow this thing away in a digital trunk to never be seen again. It was unfair to them. So I finally broke out the ol' thesis folder (which I fortunately did not delete), took out the shots that needed to be finished and started finishing them.

But before I go any further with the "finishing the unfinished thesis" part of the story, let me go back and talk about the genesis of the film:

I started thinking of ideas for my thesis back near the end of my third year. The first thing that popped into my head was using these two characters for something, but I held myself back. "No, no, I've drawn these characters a million times before over the past three years... I want to do something different for a change. Something original". So I thought of a bunch of different ideas that I wanted to do. One was animating to a piece of classical music like in Fantasia, another was resurrecting an unfinished film from my second year, and one was just a little too gruesome, even for me... but after every idea, I would always ended up falling back to these characters. Out of desperation, and time, I decided to use them anyway. But what could they do? What should the story be? Would it work? The one good thing I had on my side was that I knew who these characters were completely. They had been cemented in my mind for a long time by that point, and I knew what they could and couldn't do. In a way, I let the characters dictate and tell me what they ought to be doing, rather than forcing something upon them.

At the time, I had just chosen Howard Beckerman as my thesis advisor, because we had a pretty good relationship up to that point (and still do!), and I felt we understood each other on the same level. He came up to me on the last day of class and asked me something:

"So, how do you feel about thesis preparations for next year?" 
"Anxious."
"Good! Good! That's a good sign!"
"Why's that? What's so good about being anxious?"
"That means you're seriously thinking about it! You're nervous and scared because you know this is important, and you care about getting things done and doing a good job on it! If you didn't care, you wouldn't be anxious!" 

Reassured by Howard, I left for the summer and focused on my film. Thinking of the story, throwing around relative gags or lines, laying out shots and boarding, all the while throwing things back and forth with Howard for advice and clarification. In many ways, Howard was the perfect guinea pig for my film. If Howard could understand it and follow the story, then everyone else who'd see it would be able to as well. Howard kept me on the right track.

By the time classes started again, I had everything planned out and was ready to start production. And at exactly the right time, the trailer for the new Winnie the Pooh film just came out on Youtube. It was that final inspirational push that got the creative juices flowing again.

But there was a big hiccup. I originally started animating the film traditionally on paper. But by the time Christmas break came around, I only got a little over a dozen shots completed. One day near the end of the break, I was spending hours on one small shot and not getting anywhere. Then as a test, I animated that shot in Flash in about 20 minutes. I realized at that point that I wouldn't get the film done if I kept animating on paper, so I switched to Flash, only because it was quicker to clean up, color and composite, rather than have to scan every drawing in. So I went back, scrapped everything I did up to that point and started over.

So I only had a couple months to animate, clean up and color my whole film, and it definitely shows, especially in the clean up, which I had only about two and a half weeks to do. I was originally going for that sketchy 60's Disney Xerox style, but in the end it just looks like a scribbly mess. I feel that I had some decent animation throughout, but my rushed clean up sort of butchered it. And to top it off, it made the coloring a heck of a lot harder to do. A lot of broken lines, gaps in the artwork... it was a pain. Luckily I had a few really patient underclassmen helping me color those shots while I rushed to get others cleaned up.

And like the rest of my other thesis classmates, the end got really really hectic. The final deadline loomed and we were all rushing to get everything put together in time for the April 15th deadline (coincidentally, on Tax Day). Since the sound editing labs were booked full by the film department students, I did all my sound editing using Adobe Soundbooth (a horrible program) in the back room of the animation studio the night before the due date. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to get the film 100% complete by the deadline, I submitted a rough-cut of my film, which was complete except for about 10 shots that were left in the rough animation stage. After the Dusty screening, a lot of people came up and complimented the rough animation parts, because they thought it was interesting to see the rough stages of animation before it's polished, so it wasn't too bad. Overall, the film went over decently at the screening. The laughs came where I wanted them, and I was content with that. The biggest one came with Howard Beckerman's caricature on the brochure. Of course most of the audience was made up of SVA students, so it's not that surprising.

After that, I just packed the film and all the related files in my computer and left it to gather digital dust, which is where it stayed until a few weeks ago, and eventually now!

I believe I've improved a lot as an animator since then, so it's kinda hard to look at this now with a straight face, but I'm mostly satisfied with the results. I learned a great lesson from this film, which is to not bite off more than I could chew. Having fluid animation, full color and a film as long as this (clocking nearly at 6 minutes) definitely took a lot out of me. That's why since then I've kept things as minimal as possible, like with NEST and my upcoming short which I'm currently storyboarding. As long as something is kept on simple terms and executed as such, you can always add more on top of it later on. It's best to work with bare bones and build everything on top of it once you got the structure down, like an armature for a sculpture.

I want to thank everybody who helped me make the short, those who supported me throughout the production of it, and to all the people who begged/nagged/stuck a gun to my head to finally finish the thing. It wouldn't be here without you!

To see some early production artwork that I posted during the last year, click on the "Destiny is For the Birds" tag.

Keep on animatin'!

NEST

Hey Blogger... long time no see.

Here's a REALLY short film I just finished, NEST.




Of course, birds... 'cause apparently according to some people, that's all I draw.

Interview with Shelley Low

When I met Shelley Low at SVA as a freshman in 2007, she was already a junior. At the time, she was working diligently on a scene for a class project in Howard Beckerman's third year class, of a horse trotting in a circle. There was so much involved in that one scene; perspective, believable horse locomotion and solidity of the drawings, and of course I was pretty blown away by it all. Over time, I got to see more of Shelley's work. Her drawings have a natural flow and grace, loaded with appealing charm and character. That is something I've always strived for in my own work, and Shelley seems to capture it effortlessly. It was a driving force and inspiration to me for the remainder of my studies and pushed me to hone my craft as far as I could.

Over the course of the following year, I saw bits in pieces of her thesis film in progress and how much time and energy she was devoting to it. The final film (which is embed below) was one of my favorites at the Dustys screening in 2009. And although her education at SVA was over, I continuously ran into her working in the computer lab and the studio. For the following two years, she came back to the studio to give a helping hand to her underclassmen friends and their own thesis films. She seemed to be reliving her final year of school all over again, along with holding down jobs outside the studio. Her devotion not only to her work but to her friends never ceases to amaze me.

Over the summer, I met again with Shelley and talked to her about her inspirations, her work, her time at SVA and what she's been up to nowadays:

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MR: So what inspired you to become an animator? What was it that appealed to you? Was it an early age thing?

SL: An early age... I did grow up on classic Disney and Warner Bros., primarily Looney Tunes. There was a period where I refused to watch anything that wasn’t animated.

MR: So in Singapore, were they subtitled or were they dubbed?

SL: Oh no, they weren't dubbed. My family is English-speaking anyway. Tom and Jerry I grew up on too and that didn’t even have dialog. But yeah, a lot of classical Golden Age stuff I watched as a kid did inspire me. And of course, you know, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc. The Second Golden Age really came up during my childhood, so that was really inspiring for me. I started acting like a cartoon character for a long time. I honestly learned how to anticipate and stuff like that before I even knew what I was doing, just by watching Looney Tunes and such.

MR: So even before you started to say, "I want to be an animator"…

SL: Well, art was the one thing I knew I was good at.

MR: Oh, so you already drew?

SL: Yeah, I was drawing my whole life, but it was just a hobby for a really long time, and then I actually started to pay attention and try and get better, and realized, "I'm actually improving! Wow, I'm actually pretty good. I should keep going with this," and so I did.

MR: Did you just think, "I want to be an artist", and then it kind of followed up into animation?

SL: What's odd is that my other love is science.

MR: You love science? It's a good balance.

SL: I didn't get terribly good grades in science. Not good enough to do anything with it.

MR: Is it because you're interested in the concepts of science, but not the nitty-gritty... details and formulas?

SL: That's pretty much it, I think. I love science, I love the beauty of it. And mathematics too, but not in the same way. I used to anthropomorphize chemical elements and draw little comics to help me study.

MR: Did it help you on tests?

SL: Well my teacher thought it was amazing. It never really went anywhere in the long run, because everything got more complicated and abstract as we progressed and finally I had to say, "Okay, I can't draw this." I would still love to revisit some of those topics from a creative point of view and see what comes out of that.

I really loved chemistry, and I liked biology a lot too. I could never really get into physics, but you know, maybe I'll try again. I appreciated mathematics a lot more as I got older. Not so much when I was a kid, obviously, but more so when I actually started understanding what it was about, as opposed to just going through the motions with the formulas and such. I don't think I have a particularly mathematical mind, but once I get it, I get it.

But science was my other big love. And I wanted to go into veterinary school at one point too because I would love to work with animals, but then I actually worked in a vet's office and a dog died, and it just made me think: I don't know if I could deal with that on a regular basis. It would be good to help animals, I would love to do that, but you’re not going to be successful all the time. Not even doctors are successful all the time, and I'm not sure if I could deal with that.

MR: But was it like a 50/50 thing, like veterinary work or animator?

SL: Yeah, I wasn't really sure. I was fifteen years old or so, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with my life. I just knew what I was good at. I liked writing, but that was not really something I was great at or had a real passion for, so that was out. Then it was just between being an artist and being in vet school and I was afraid that going to art school would kill my love for it. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case.

MR: As far as veterinary stuff – the interest in animals, do you think that helped you artistically? Given that you’re known for being good at drawing animals.

SL: Oh, completely. You draw what interests you, and I’ve definitely drawn a lot of animals.

MR: Did you study anatomy books or anything like that?

SL: I actually studied my dog, because my dog is a greyhound, so she’s basically a live skeleton! I just followed her around the house and drew her in different poses. I had a Victor Ambrus book about drawing animals, and he had a lot of tips about how to successfully draw animals. A big thing that I learned from the books was just how to get the basics of the pose down immediately, and with animals that's important because you can't really ask them to stay still for hours on end like you can with models. So I practiced on my dog and I actually got pretty good at it. Just roughing out poses, getting down the anatomy really quickly.

MR: And did you use any of those drawings when you submitted a portfolio?

SL: I definitely included life drawings in my SVA portfolio. I was really good at life drawing for a while. I don't have the patience for it anymore.

MR: Life drawing in terms of people, or...?

SL: Still life. I was good at that. And it was good for me because it trained me to replicate on paper what I saw with my eyes. But I could only go so far with realism before I got bored with it, and it was just like, "Yeah... I want to move on now, because I've done all I can with this."

MR: What was the name of the book? Who's the author?

SL: Victor Ambrus. I haven't really heard the name around, so I don't know if he's really known here at all. Anyway, he’s an illustrator, he did some illustrations for children’s books I used to read, and he wrote several books about drawing that were helpful to me.

MR: So you get to SVA in 2005?

SL: I get to SVA in 2005, after finally deciding that I want to go into art and animation.

MR: Was it a big deal, coming to New York City and trying to get immersed? Was it a big change or did you get used to it quickly?

SL: It was a HUGE change, but I actually got used to it pretty quickly because I met a lot of people here that I clicked with in a way that was different from…

MR: Back home?

SL: I have a number of good friends back home. But they're not really arty people for the most part. I enjoy their company, and I can even share my love for animation with them, but it's not the same.

MR: Yeah, they don't have as much of an interest in it.

SL: You remember the Satoshi Kon film, Paprika? SVA had a screening of it and they had Satoshi Kon come in and everything because I was busy with projects and I was really annoyed because I wanted to see it. I went home that summer and it was showing at an arthouse theater when I was back, and I thought, "Oh, awesome! I get to see it on the big screen after all!" So I asked some of my good friends, "Do you want to go see this movie with me, because I'm really excited about it" and they said "Well, we’ve already downloaded it, so why don't we just watch it at my house?"

And they would not pay for tickets, because they already had the movie, so, "why pay for tickets?" And I think that was actually pretty heart-breaking for me because of course I’m going, "but it's different on the big screen and... animation..."

In the end, I just went to see it with my parents, who are film buffs, so I can usually count on them to watch things with me that nobody else will. But still, it’s different when you see movies like that with people that do that kind of work. If it had happened here, I would have easily been able to get a bunch of people to go see it with me. And we would all have been excited about it and we'd probably have gone to a diner or something afterwards and had a long conversation about the film over dinner. It's that kind of thing that I can't really do with very many friends back home.

MR: At SVA, you immediately clicked with a bunch of people.

SL: I had a good vibe about SVA in general, and I don't really have any regrets going. The animation program isn’t perfect, but I met a lot of people there that I'm really proud and happy to know.

MR: How was thesis year, anyway?

SL: It wasn't as horrible as people were making it out to be. I guess because I didn't bite off more than I could chew? I mean, people always try to do more than they're capable of and then they kind of... oh well.

MR: On your film, was it a one-man show, or did you have people helping you out?

SL: I had a handful of people help me out. I had.., it was mainly for menial stuff like scanning and coloring. I actually would rather not have had any help at all, just because I'm a control freak like that.

MR: You're a perfectionist?

SL: I am, and I also don't like having to explain the process over and over. But two of my friends, Tris (Waples) and Brian (Kaufman) actually wanted to help me, and they came up and asked if I needed help, and I said, "Well, sure. I can give you a couple of simple scenes just to try." Tris mainly wanted to figure out how he was going to color his own film for the year after that. So I said, "sure, try this method out. This is what I'm doing." They just wanted to get experience where they're really working with people, and that's why they were going around asking thesis students if they needed it. So I was happy to oblige, really.

But other than a handful of people, I basically did it all myself. I mean it's a three-and-a-half minute film. There's really no excuse for me not to finish on time, you know?

MR: When did you finally come up with the idea? Was it late in the game?

SL: It was... it kind of germinated in March before thesis year, and then over the summer I kind of developed it. I knew I wanted the central idea... I think I wanted the film to be a lot more wacky originally, just cartoony-styled stuff bouncing all over. I was getting into doing more of that at the time and I wanted to try it, but I don't think my skills were up to snuff at the time, I was still figuring a lot out in terms of both drawing and animation. I could probably do it now, and I’d probably have designed the characters more differently now too. But at the time I was still relatively naturalistic so in the end I just opted to go with what I was good at.

I wanted to challenge myself, because I knew everyone was going to expect I would do a puppy film and I didn’t want to go the easy route. I wanted to challenge myself, but I was thinking, I don't know if I could do a whole film with people. Firstly because that's not really what inspires me generally, I’ve always been more inspired by nature and animals. And secondly because my skill at drawing humans was not as developed as it is now. I wanted a challenge but at the same time didn’t want to be tearing my hair out during the production process.

So I focused on animals that I would enjoy drawing, but that I had not really tried drawing before, so I would have to figure out the movement of them by looking at actual reference and studying how they move.

MR: So instead of doing something with dogs or cats, you tried to do a pangolin and monkeys.

SL: Yes, yes.

MR: Did you study a lot of...?

SL: I did, actually. There's a lot more pangolin footage around on the internet now than there was when I started making my film, which I'm happy about but also kind of annoyed about because it's like, "Well this would've been helpful."

MR: Did you realize, "Oh, a pangolin can't move this way?", or...?

SL: Yes I did. They mainly walk on their hind legs and they only use their claws now and again for balance. The claws are mainly for ripping apart insect mounds and stuff like that, so they don't really use them to walk because they have to grow out really long and powerful. So they're not really for walking. I was doing all this research about the adaptations that these animals have to thrive in their environment.

I also wanted to pick something close to home because durians are a big symbol of my country to me, or of my region of the world at least. My dad loves them. I'm not a huge fan, weirdly enough, the taste and smell are too strong for me, but they always make me think of time spent with my family since we’ve spent many a night sitting around chatting and eating them. That’s how I spent a lot of nights during my summer vacation home, since that’s also when they’re in season.

MR: Four years of school – what did you think you got the most out of them?

SL: I learned a great deal, my drawing and technical abilities have definitely improved. But probably the best thing I got out of college was meeting the main group of friends I have now, we hang out a lot, talk a lot about movies and games, and collaborate on a number of projects too. It's fun being friends with creative people.

MR: Did you get anything out of your thesis film?

SL: I did feel like I accomplished something. And it was the first full-color, full-sound, full-everything film that I ever made. It was cool just seeing it on the big screen, though it was also terrifying – the screen is so huge! But people apparently liked it, and that makes me happy.

MR: So what happened after you graduated?

SL: I got a full-time internship at World Leaders and was there for quite a while. They were still doing Venture Bros. at the time, so I had a fair amount to do. I got to work on a nice variety of projects, definitely a big learning experience. And I get to say that I worked on Venture Bros.!

MR: And what were you doing as an intern there?

SL: A lot of the stuff was data checking and organizing things. I had to panel storyboards – cutting the panel part of the storyboard out and saving that as a separate file so that they can make the animatic. Most of the interns were doing that kind of thing, at least at first.

MR: So it was more like computer management and leading to the editing process?

SL: It was like that at first, but if you get into good relationships with people, which I did, you start getting more and more responsibility. At one point I got to check lipsynch on the x-sheets – which was pretty amazing for me, to be trusted with something so important.

MR: And how long did you do that for?

SL: I was at World Leaders for about a year, full-time and then part-time when I got another part-time job. After that, they didn't really need that many people anymore because they were wrapping up production on Venture. And by then I had been hired on at another studio anyway, so it worked out.

MR: That was Bunko Studios, yes? How did you find that job?

SL: I made friends with another intern at World Leaders, and she recommended me to the head of Bunko. I sent him my reel and my film and he liked it, so I became an intern there. At first it was relatively quiet because they weren’t working on a lot of projects when I came aboard, but eventually they asked me to come and work as a Flash animator on Sid the Science Kid, since they were going to be starting production on the second season of that, and I was more than happy to jump on that. Fun project to work on, and I learned a lot.

MR: So you do traditional animation, AfterEffects, Flash animation…

SL: Yes, and I'm a lot more comfortable with Flash than I used to be since learning some tricks from professionals. I can do basic motion graphics work with AfterEffects but I’ve yet to really explore it.

MR: Photoshop, Illustrator? I know you're learning, because I've seen some of the stuff you're doing with Illustrator.

SL: Yes, I'm attempting to learn Illustrator. I'm trying to get used to it, it's just really different from what I’m used to. Photoshop I have been using for years, and sometimes it’s hard to break out of the mindset of how that works. And Flash I'm actually very comfortable with now, I can do vector art in Flash no problem. Using it is relatively intuitive for me, whereas Illustrator...

MR: It's more technical.

SL: Definitely. Drawing mechanics in Illustrator are a lot better than Flash, though – I'll give it that. I hated Flash at first and now it's like my best friend, so I am hoping that in time Illustrator and I will have a better relationship.

MR: The thing I like about Flash is that it's quick, you can just dive in and animate something, but the problem is that just trying to make things look beautiful in flash is hard.

SL: Yeah, very true!

MR: What do you enjoy doing when you're not working?

SL: I would really like to start working on my own projects again.

MR: What, like a personal film or...?

SL: I don't know about a film just yet. I still have to recover from helping last year’s thesis students. I’m good friends with a number of them and I spent so much time in the studios helping them out, it was like living thesis year all over again.

MR: So it was like Thesis, Part Two.

SL: I didn’t appreciate how much I had taken on until after that year was over and I realized how tired I was. Don’t get me wrong – it was fun hanging out with my good friends, and helping them work on their films. They’re good films, and I’m happy I played a part in making them, but it all took a lot out of me, more than I would have expected.

MR: Besides animation, do you just enjoy drawing?

SL: I love drawing, always have and still do. I haven't done it in a while, and I think it's because I stopped going to classes. That's kind of sad, but it's true – and I think this holds true for a lot of artists my age – somehow the drawings I like the most are the ones I doodle on my notes during class.

Right now, I'm kind of drawing blanks on inspiration of my own, but I’d still like to practice my drawing skills. I still want to draw, I just don't really feel like being creative right now – but I’m hoping to get ideas again as I get back into drawing. You can’t force these things.

MR: Right. I've been drawing the same stuff over and over.

SL: I know, it gets boring after a while, so then you think, "Okay, I feel more like drawing other people's characters than my own right now." And that’s what I’m planning to do pretty soon, actually. Drawing things you didn’t design or create yourself can be really challenging and rewarding, and a nice change of pace. It’s fun to either try drawing in somebody else’s style, or transmitting a character into your own style.

MR: What do you enjoy animating most?

SL: Recently, my animator sensibility has been getting more and more cartoony. I love squash and stretch, that's not a surprise, and I use it all the time right now. I'm trying to get crazier with expressions, because I know that's not a big strength of mine, but I'm attempting it.

MR: So you're trying to exaggerate?

SL: I'm trying to exaggerate more, yes. It’s a challenge for me since I’m relatively conservative in my drawings, but we all know by now I love challenges.

MR: I know you said your influences were classic Disney, but was there any movie that made you just click? Was there a ‘click’ movie?

SL: I don't know if there was any one movie in particular. I would say a big artistic/story influence is Brad Bird, I've loved all of his movies, and from interviews and his commentaries and such, he just sounds like a really great person to work with. It's what I'd aspire to be like in the future.

MR: You'll work towards it.

SL: I don't know if I'm really a story person, I don't think that's my strength. I think I'm mainly character animation, and I do intend to get better with that. I’m not as good as I’d like to be by a long shot, but I’m working on it.

MR: Well, you're branching out, so...

SL: It's a process, you know. I can't get too stuck on that. I'm not sure if there was any one pivotal thing that made me want to do this. Maybe it was just seeing all the behind-the-scenes animator stuff on the Disney Channel that they used to show whenever they had a new movie out – when they have the concept art, and they have the people talking about that, and the process of making the film. Just seeing the animators talk about what they do, it was really fascinating to me.

MR: Do you remember long enough ago that they still used to show the old Walt Disney show on TV?

SL: Yes, I think. I just liked seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff, and I thought that it would be great if I could do that someday. At first I was afraid because I know it's tedious work. You know how some people go in thinking, "Oh, this is going to a party! This is going to be easy"? No, I knew it was going to be tedious going in, but surprisingly, I liked it.

I think that was partly because of my first year teacher, because he's Mr. Positive-Reinforcement. But that was actually a fantastic first year for me as far as academics, because he gave me the freedom to experiment and play around, and I felt invincible. I felt like I could draw anything, I felt like I could do anything and I was just on top of the world.

MR: Now your other teachers... second year you had...?

SL: I had Doug Crane. And that was good too, because he helped tone me down a little bit. I learned how to be on model better, and also his effects animation exercises were really useful. But at the same time, I did kind of fall into that trap where it's just like "key, key, now inbetweens"…

MR: It became more technical.

SL: It became much more technical and I did have to break out of a formula, and I feel that I eventually did. But I broke out of that much much later – at Bunko, actually. When I worked on Sid, I was animating stick figures, and you don't have to pay much attention to getting stick figures on model, except for things like keeping count of the number of fingers you were putting on him, the number of hairs he has coming out of his head, things like that. Aside from that, you can just do whatever you want.

MR: It's also good to sort of get outside of your comfort level.

SL: Exactly, for example – I never really played around with smears before I worked on Sid, and then I started using them all the time. And I was playing with timing, I was playing with different movements, things I hadn’t really experimented with before because I was worrying about other things, and it was just a lot of fun. I felt like I was learning how to animate all over again.

MR: And you had Howard (Beckerman) third year...

SL: I did.

MR: And what did you get out of Howard's?

SL: I had to collaborate with my class on a film based on an idea that he pitched to us, and that was definitely a learning experience. Also, I was assigned to design and animate a horse. I was known for being the ‘animal specialist’ in the class by then.

MR: Once you animate a horse – a horse is different from any other animal.

SL: They’re difficult because they're-

MR: Rigid creatures?

SL: Yes, more so than dogs and cats, anyway. But they're fun at the same time. I did a cycle of the pony that I was really proud of, her prancing around in a circle. I did a lot of work I was proud of on that film in fact. Everyone worked hard and we were all happy with it in the end.

MR: And with each year, did you feel like you moved to a new level?

SL: Most definitely. Technical skill first and then more branching out to actual narrative, I suppose, Howard’s big on storytelling as you probably know. Also it was good to work with people I knew, and I learned a few things about how to work as a team.

MR: Where do you see yourself in five years?

SL: I'm not entirely sure where I'd like to go or where I'd like to be at this point. I mean, I know I want to be doing art, and I would love the freedom to be my own boss, but maybe in five years I’ll want stability instead of freedom, I don’t know. For now I would actually like to bounce around for a while. I'd like to work on a variety of projects, build up my portfolio and reel more, just spend a while developing my skills some more in the professional world. Maybe attempt to do motion graphics or 3D, even though I'm not hugely into that. The technical side of things is definitely something great to know and have in your skillset. I just feel like there’s a lot I still have to learn, and frankly, I’m excited.

all artwork in this post © Shelley Low

Check out more of Shelley's work on her blog.

Storyboard to Film Comparison

I made a side-by-side comparison chart for my film. The images on the left are panels from my preliminary storyboard from last July, and the images on the right are from the finished film, 10 months later.

These few examples are special because they pretty much stayed the same from my first pass (albeit a few minor changes here and there). Not every shot in the film was copied verbatim from the storyboard. Some of my original ideas for how shots were going to be laid out were either too flat and uninteresting (like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon) or so complicated that it would've been a real pain to animate once I got up to layout and animation later on.

That's why it's always good to get a second opinion on things. That's why I had my thesis advisor (and good friend) Howard Beckerman help me out on every step of the process. To me, Howard was my "test audience" to see whether things were working or not. If he didn't understand what was going on, that's when I knew that I needed to make some changes so he would understand it.

Whenever I had an issue, I went to Howard for advice on how to fix it, and every time we would straighten things out so they worked. Sometimes it would be a minor tweak in the camera angle or a pose, and other times whole story ideas were thrown out the window. It's hard to let some things go, but for the sake of clarity it's important to fix things so the audience won't be left scratching their heads and asking questions.

Another Preview (and it's more than just one second this time)

Here's another little sneak peek at my short. It's Shot 17 (out of about 65) all roughed out and ready for cleanup.

It's a dialogue shot. One of many. The dialogue shots are usually the ones I hold off on, but nonetheless, this was one I really was looking forward to doing because of how juicy the dialogue was. Maybe I went a bit over the top with the physical acting, but I enjoyed doing it.

All the rough animation was done in Flash, and all my cleanup is being done in Toon Boom, which is a really great program. I'm gradually switching over to it from Flash, and for the better too!

Randy's voice was done by my friend Joshua Tomar, and he did a really spot-on job. Check out his website and take a listen to his voicework: http://tomamoto.com/voice/.

Movie Bar Codes

Ever since I've started using Tumblr, I've come across some cool art/film blogs. A really neat one I recently found is called MovieBarCode. Each frame from a movie is stretched and compiled into one long "barcode". You can see the entire movie's continuity as a whole, like a color script.

Some movies look pretty uniform and it's hard to pinpoint certain scenes, but some are really easy. Looking at them all, the easiest ones to point out always seem to be the animated films.

Can you tell what movie this is?

Give up? Look again:

The key scenes really stick out, and in some instances, there's a noticeable flow into a new color scheme.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - Overall pretty uniform color scheme. A lot of earthy colors.

Dumbo (1941) - A lot of contrast. Definitely a circus film! Scenes really do stick out here, especially "Pink Elephants", "Roustabouts" the scenes where the clowns are behind the tent, etc.

Alice in Wonderland (1951) - Very colorful. I don't know why, but this Alice one feels almost like paint dripping down a canvas. It has a very surreal feeling to me, which fits the movie perfectly. A lot of pinks and magentas.

I've noticed a more uniform "banding-like" effect in these two, which are both very recent animated movies. The sequences and their colors are more defined here:

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

Whoever makes these barcodes is really creative. Sadly, it's hard to give proper credit, since the creator's name isn't up there to see. There's a lot more on his/her site, and an index to make things easy to find. I suggest you seek out the ones for The King's Speech, The Matrix, and Speed Racer. http://moviebarcode.tumblr.com/

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Also, I don't know jack about color, but Oswald Iten sure does! He makes very thorough studies not only about film color, but on filmmaking in general. He just did a really neat series of posts about Fantastic Mr. Fox that's definitely worth reading. Go check his site out too: http://colorfulanimationexpressions.blogspot.com/

'The Stash' is made public...

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I regularly search the web and collect photos/artwork that inspire me and store them in meticulously-labeled and organized folders, which I call “The Stash”. Whenever I’ve been in an artistic slump, "The Stash" has helped give me those well-needed bursts of inspiration to keep on working. And now, I thought it would be a good time to share that wealth to other artists.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO 'THE STASH'

While most of my finds come from auction sites like eBay, a lot of my files come from other artist’s blogs, Disney history sites and online art galleries. Since I don't want to klepto other people's finds, I'll make sure to give credit and link to the original source.

You will find the link in the right sidebar under "My Sites".

Animation Law and Pitch Books

Okay, lemme try making a more insightful post, rather than a "Hey, look what I did!" dog and pony show.

I just completed the 1st semester of my final year in college (wow...that went quick), and we've all been working on our thesis films. Because thesis takes up a good chunk of our time this year, the 4th year animation class schedule is much more limited compared to previous years. Besides thesis (which technically counts as a class, oddly enough) and any humanity, art history and/or elective classes that we neglected to take care of, there's only one other class each semester, the first being "Animation Law". It's pretty self-explanatory really. Copyright, lawyers, agents, all that legal mumbo-jumbo... at least thats what you'd expect from a class called "Animation Law", but I'm not going to open that can of worms today. That's a story for another day.

There were two assignments we needed to do to pass the class. One was to interview two animation professionals currently working in the business. Graciously, John Canemaker was kind enough to take time out to talk with me, but again, that's a story for another day. The other assignment was to create a pitch book.

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For those out of the loop, a pitch book (or bible, depending on how devout you are) is a "pitch" to sell an idea or concept to a possible buyer or investor. Let's say you have an idea for an animated series and now you want to convince a studio or network to consider your idea, and if all goes well, pick up and produce your series. So how do you do that? With VISUAL AIDS of course! Lots of pretty pictures for network executives to ogle at, to give them the feeling that what you have will be the next Spongebob Squarepants or Phineas and Ferb, and eventually take it and turn it into other money-making cash cow of a franchise to milk 'til it's bone dry!

What? Too far? Ok, let me put it another way:

Think of your pitch book as a catalog. You have a product and you want to sell it. What do you use to grab the buyer's attention? Of course, cool pictures will grab their eye, but what will ultimately make them take the next step and actually buy it? Now it's your job to play the role of a salesman/storyteller to give them as much information to latch onto to convince them that they're getting more bang for their buck. So what do you give them?

Here's a bare bones outline of a pitch book:

1) Cover Page

2) Contact Information

3) Concept Summary

4) Character Bios & Line-up

5) Episode Premises

6) Bio Page

You can make a pitch book for a variety of things. For TV shows, for movies, for toy-lines, ANYTHING. For my pitch book, I decided to pitch a comic book series, like Asterix or Tintin, using my original characters. While it is a book series, it still follows the same basic guidelines of what a TV show pitch book would have. Below are select pages from my own pitch book. I omitted several pages because they had personal information on them, which would've included page #1:

#1) The Cover Page:

You know the phrase "Don't judge a book by it's cover". Well, that doesn't quite apply to a pitch book. Consider this: somewhere in Hollywood, a network executive/agent has 12 zillion pitch books piled up in his/her office. Among the endless plethora of possible TV series/movies/comics, what will make your pitch book stand out from all the rest?

The cover page (or title page) is what will initially grab the reader's attention. It's the eye-grabber that will want to make whoever's reading it want to stay and learn more about what you have to show. Your book doesn't have to be just black-ink on white paper. Get as creative as you want! Personalize it! I've heard stories of people decorating their pitch books in the most outlandish ways. Covering it in feathers, making it a pop-up book, burning the edges of the paper... You name it, somebody probably already did it. And sometimes it's not just the cover. Some people do it to the whole book. One of my classmates made her pitch book look like a crime case report, while another made her pitch book like a child's sketchbook done in crayon. It can be as imaginative as you want it to be.

For my pitch book, I combined 2 pages into one: The title page and...

#2) Contact Information

There have been stories of pitch books sent into a studio and were really great, but the bonehead who made it didn't put any of their contact information on it! "Who made this pitch book?!" Here's where you list all your contact info so whomever sees it can get back to you:

Your Name

Your Email

Your Phone Number(s)

Your website address

Your blog

etc.

It's up to you what or how much you want to put there. Also, this would be a good place to put down your copyright information, like this:

All characters, artwork © John Doe 2010

All Rights Reserved

*Also, in case you were curious, you can type a © if you press Option+G on a Mac.

#3) Concept Summary

Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?

Okay, what is your idea? Who are the characters? Where does this all take place? Here's where you describe your idea, either in a broad or detailed way. I like to think of it as the back cover of a video or the insert inside a book cover or the summary on a Wikipedia page. It tells the reader what they're getting into and what they should expect. Here's the back to a DVD that was within arm's reach:

"The clues are in, the chase is on, and the case of the century is about to break wide open in Disney's greatest little mystery in history! Let the creators of Aladdin and The Little Mermaid take you on an adventuresome journey through the cobblestone streets of 1887 London, where some suspicious "mousechief" is the suspenseful start to this thrilling musical adventure.

Olivia, the brave daughter of a beloved London toymaker, turns to Basil of Baker Street for help with her father's disappearance. Basil's jolly assistant Dr. Dawson and loyal dog Toby lend a hand...and nose... as they sniff out clues through their charming miniature world. The final chase leads to Professor Ratigan, a hardhearted criminal whom Basil must outwit to save all of Mousedom! ... full of unforgettable characters and spectacular animation - all leading to a climactic climb atop Big Ben - it's elementary who you'll want to watch again and again... The Great Mouse Detective!"

"Wow! "Adventurous journey"? "Cobblestone streets of 1887 London"? "Climactic climb atop Big Ben"? Oh my sweet loving saviour! I'm so curious, I want to see MORE!"

In two paragraphs, the story, the characters and the setting are all briefly summarized, and now you know that you're going to see a movie about crime-solving mice rather than aliens, zombies or teenage vampires.

Here's my very brief summary page:

Brief? Yes. Vague? Yes. But at least it's something for the reader to grab onto.

For your summary, you can also include your inspirations, what you expect to give and/or who this particular movie/series/toy is aimed towards (or demographic). Here's mine, which I put on it's own page with some FULL-COLOR ARTWORK to further grab your attention!

#4) Character Bios & Line-Up

Ok, now that you've explained what the story is about, it's time to delve into things a bit further. Go into further details about your characters, your settings and any visual aspects of your concept. It's probably better to devote a page or two to each character, but hey, I was strapped of time and energy when I made these (each of these sketches were done in about 4 minutes):

It's also good to include model sheets of the characters, as well as a line-up to show their sizes in relation to each other. You should also devote pages for possible secondary or tertiary characters, backgrounds/settings, props, etc. The more you have, the more the potential buyer can latch onto.

#5) Episode Premises

If your developing a TV show or something that's planned on having multiple episodes or stories, you should include some examples of possible storylines or episodes. Just like with the main summary, write each episode out in very general terms. Think of an episode summary like a slightly more-elaborate TV Guide listing:

For a TV pitch book, it's good to have at least 6-8 examples. Like I said earlier, the more you have, the better.

And finally, there's the...

#6) Bio Page

You've told them all about your concept, your characters, your episodes... Now it's time to tell them more about YOU. Here's your "About the Author" page. Talk about your accomplishments, your experience (previous jobs, projects, etc.) and what you like to do. Don't write your life story, just give them a taste of who you are and what you do. For once, here's where you can appropriately brag about yourself. And don't forget to put a picture of yourself there too.

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My pitch book is more like a pitch pamphlet, but it gets the point across. If I was making a REAL pitch book and not just an assignment to pass the class, I would've put so much more time and energy into it. More pictures, more pages, more write-ups... but that's for another time.

Also, just to make sure:

ALL CHARACTERS, CONCEPTS AND ARTWORK © MICHAEL J. RUOCCO - 2010

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Option+G, what would I do without you?