Where I've Been, and Where I'm Headed
So if you didn't catch yesterday's post, I put up a link to my latest blocking pass for a dialogue animation that I'm working on.
As I often do, I like to bounce animations like this off of various people, to get as much feedback as I can, and one of the groups of people who have been more than a little supportive have been the fine folks over at Blur Animation Studios. Now trust me... they didn't find me. In other words, nobody at Blur stumbled upon my work and said, this kid has "IT," and we need to keep an eye on him. No... no... I stumbled upon Blur through my own dumb luck.
Walk with me a moment on the way-back treadmill...
Around 6 or 7 months ago, I had finished a total of 1 animation in my entire life. Sure I had done some pencil tests to limited degrees of success, but I had done one 3D animation in my life. Want to see it? Click the link below this bad boy of a screenshot and prepare for 900 degrees of awesomeness to blast you square in the chops:
Dave's Super Awesome Wrestling Animation
If you were lucky enough (smart enough?) not to click the link, let me just tell you that the animation is awful. Terrible. It looks like someone created it as a bad joke.
It is a bad joke.
But it's all I had.
So back to that whole "six or seven months ago" thing...
I'm doing a search on the Looney Tunes DVDs on Google, as I've always been a fan of animation, and I get hit with a link to Blur's Academy Award Nominated film, "Gopher Broke," because the description on YouTube contains the line, "...elements of Looney Tunes in this amazing short..."
So I clicked the link, and watched the short.
You know that feeling you got as a kid, the first time you saw another kid fly by on a two-wheeled bicycle? There you sat on your little three-wheeled mound of mud, barely moving, and this kid comes racing by, wind in his hair, not a care in the world. You just knew that riding that two wheeled bicycle was where you wanted to be, but you could barely keep from biffing it on your tricycle.
Blur was my kid on a bicycle.
I knew I wanted to do what I had just seen for a living, but I didn't have a clue as to how to do it. Remember... I just had that one animation.
So I did what anyone in this day and age would do... I started a blog. I figured if I couldn't actually be an animator, I'd create a blog about the world of 3D Animation and at least have fun "collecting" neat shorts and other snippets of news from the 3D animation world.
One day, as I was out searching the various 3D forums for stuff to post on my blog, I stumbled upon a posting for a school called Animation Mentor. I figured it was just some lame online school, and was seconds from writing it off, but something made me click the link to one of the student demos.
I was blown away. Here was a student doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. They were bringing characters to life and entertaining people with them.
So I watched another student reel... and another... and then another.
I went in and told my wife, "I want to show you something."
She replied, "Oh, honey, I'm tired... my feet hurt... I think I feel a headache coming on..."
I said, "No... not that... I want to show you a video on the innerwebs!"
When we were done watching it, my wife looked at me and said, "That was really cool."
I said, "I want to do that too!"
She patted me on the head in a dismissive manner, not understanding exactly what I was saying, and said, "Have fun, Dear. Let me know how it turns out." Then I'm pretty sure she mumbled something like, "Hopefully it doesn't turn out like that awful wrestling animation..."
I said, "No wait... I mean I want to go to this school."
She said if it's what I really wanted to do, then of course she would support me. So I started researching the school. I talked to students and faculty, I read through forum posts, blogs, and anything I could get my hands on, and I'll be darned if I could find a single bad word to be said about Animation Mentor.
So I enrolled... and the rest is history.
Except for Blur...
So while all this was going on, I was (and still am) chugging away at my 3D blog. It had gained a decent following, and I decided it would be neat to try and interview some artists from the industry for the blog. I focused on 2 or 3 companies and Blur.
Not only were the artists I contacted from Blur quick to respond, and eager to answer the questions, some even suggested other artists within Blur to interview. When I told the above story (in a much more short-winded form), one of the key folks behind "Gopher Broke," Jeff Fowler, even offered to send me an autographed DVD of Gopher Broke, which sits next to me on my desk as I type this.
So I began bouncing my Animation Mentor work off of them, and they've been just as supportive as ever. They offer advice when they aren't overly swamped and have generally gone above and beyond the level they should have for a dork like me.
Fast forward to present day, and I'm well on my way. While I'm not a master of animation by any stretch, it's easy for even me to see the leap from that horrific wrestling animation and my most recent Guitar Zero animation, or my Sticky Door. Those animations have character and timing and appeal, and all of the other things that the wrestling animation lacks.
I owe a big portion of that to the crew at Blur, and truth be told, I'd love to have the opportunity to work for them one day. Is that because they answered my dumb questions and sent me a DVD? Truth be told, that's a huge part of it. In my limited contact with them, they've been great, and seem like a great group to work for.
However it's more than just that. Blur seems to really foster creativity, with the best example being that everyone gets to put in an idea for a short film each time they're set to make one, and the best one is chosen. Everyone gets a shot, which is how "Gopher Broke" began.
Couple that with the fact that they consistently kick out amazing work (check out some of their game cinematics, or "A Gentleman's Duel"), and I'd be dumber than a brainless monkey to not want the chance to work there.
I wanted to work for Blur the second I watched "Gopher Broke," and that hasn't changed through any of the last 7 months. In fact, that desire to work for Blur is what spurred me to create the blog, join Animation Mentor, and learn the skills I've learned to this point.
I'm not going to say I owe it all to a company, but it sure as heck played a big role in where I've gone.
Maybe I'll work there someday, and maybe not... it's the bar I've set for myself, and I'm working hard to get there. If I continue to make large strides in my work like the one I made from the unwatchable wrestling videos to my current stuff, I may just make it.
Then all if this will seem like one big Blur.
Get it?
I sure hope I do.
To Jeff, Peter, and everyone else from Blur who has humored me, inspired me, or just plain tolerated me, thank you.
As I often do, I like to bounce animations like this off of various people, to get as much feedback as I can, and one of the groups of people who have been more than a little supportive have been the fine folks over at Blur Animation Studios. Now trust me... they didn't find me. In other words, nobody at Blur stumbled upon my work and said, this kid has "IT," and we need to keep an eye on him. No... no... I stumbled upon Blur through my own dumb luck.
Walk with me a moment on the way-back treadmill...
Around 6 or 7 months ago, I had finished a total of 1 animation in my entire life. Sure I had done some pencil tests to limited degrees of success, but I had done one 3D animation in my life. Want to see it? Click the link below this bad boy of a screenshot and prepare for 900 degrees of awesomeness to blast you square in the chops:
If you were lucky enough (smart enough?) not to click the link, let me just tell you that the animation is awful. Terrible. It looks like someone created it as a bad joke.
It is a bad joke.
But it's all I had.
So back to that whole "six or seven months ago" thing...
I'm doing a search on the Looney Tunes DVDs on Google, as I've always been a fan of animation, and I get hit with a link to Blur's Academy Award Nominated film, "Gopher Broke," because the description on YouTube contains the line, "...elements of Looney Tunes in this amazing short..."
So I clicked the link, and watched the short.
You know that feeling you got as a kid, the first time you saw another kid fly by on a two-wheeled bicycle? There you sat on your little three-wheeled mound of mud, barely moving, and this kid comes racing by, wind in his hair, not a care in the world. You just knew that riding that two wheeled bicycle was where you wanted to be, but you could barely keep from biffing it on your tricycle.
Blur was my kid on a bicycle.
I knew I wanted to do what I had just seen for a living, but I didn't have a clue as to how to do it. Remember... I just had that one animation.
So I did what anyone in this day and age would do... I started a blog. I figured if I couldn't actually be an animator, I'd create a blog about the world of 3D Animation and at least have fun "collecting" neat shorts and other snippets of news from the 3D animation world.
One day, as I was out searching the various 3D forums for stuff to post on my blog, I stumbled upon a posting for a school called Animation Mentor. I figured it was just some lame online school, and was seconds from writing it off, but something made me click the link to one of the student demos.
I was blown away. Here was a student doing exactly what I wanted to be doing. They were bringing characters to life and entertaining people with them.
So I watched another student reel... and another... and then another.
I went in and told my wife, "I want to show you something."
She replied, "Oh, honey, I'm tired... my feet hurt... I think I feel a headache coming on..."
I said, "No... not that... I want to show you a video on the innerwebs!"
When we were done watching it, my wife looked at me and said, "That was really cool."
I said, "I want to do that too!"
She patted me on the head in a dismissive manner, not understanding exactly what I was saying, and said, "Have fun, Dear. Let me know how it turns out." Then I'm pretty sure she mumbled something like, "Hopefully it doesn't turn out like that awful wrestling animation..."
I said, "No wait... I mean I want to go to this school."
She said if it's what I really wanted to do, then of course she would support me. So I started researching the school. I talked to students and faculty, I read through forum posts, blogs, and anything I could get my hands on, and I'll be darned if I could find a single bad word to be said about Animation Mentor.
So I enrolled... and the rest is history.
Except for Blur...
So while all this was going on, I was (and still am) chugging away at my 3D blog. It had gained a decent following, and I decided it would be neat to try and interview some artists from the industry for the blog. I focused on 2 or 3 companies and Blur.
Not only were the artists I contacted from Blur quick to respond, and eager to answer the questions, some even suggested other artists within Blur to interview. When I told the above story (in a much more short-winded form), one of the key folks behind "Gopher Broke," Jeff Fowler, even offered to send me an autographed DVD of Gopher Broke, which sits next to me on my desk as I type this.
So I began bouncing my Animation Mentor work off of them, and they've been just as supportive as ever. They offer advice when they aren't overly swamped and have generally gone above and beyond the level they should have for a dork like me.
Fast forward to present day, and I'm well on my way. While I'm not a master of animation by any stretch, it's easy for even me to see the leap from that horrific wrestling animation and my most recent Guitar Zero animation, or my Sticky Door. Those animations have character and timing and appeal, and all of the other things that the wrestling animation lacks.
I owe a big portion of that to the crew at Blur, and truth be told, I'd love to have the opportunity to work for them one day. Is that because they answered my dumb questions and sent me a DVD? Truth be told, that's a huge part of it. In my limited contact with them, they've been great, and seem like a great group to work for.
However it's more than just that. Blur seems to really foster creativity, with the best example being that everyone gets to put in an idea for a short film each time they're set to make one, and the best one is chosen. Everyone gets a shot, which is how "Gopher Broke" began.
Couple that with the fact that they consistently kick out amazing work (check out some of their game cinematics, or "A Gentleman's Duel"), and I'd be dumber than a brainless monkey to not want the chance to work there.
I wanted to work for Blur the second I watched "Gopher Broke," and that hasn't changed through any of the last 7 months. In fact, that desire to work for Blur is what spurred me to create the blog, join Animation Mentor, and learn the skills I've learned to this point.
I'm not going to say I owe it all to a company, but it sure as heck played a big role in where I've gone.
Maybe I'll work there someday, and maybe not... it's the bar I've set for myself, and I'm working hard to get there. If I continue to make large strides in my work like the one I made from the unwatchable wrestling videos to my current stuff, I may just make it.
Then all if this will seem like one big Blur.
Get it?
I sure hope I do.
To Jeff, Peter, and everyone else from Blur who has humored me, inspired me, or just plain tolerated me, thank you.
Labels: Animation Mentor, unrelated
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posted by Dave Johnson at
11:49 PM
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