Digital Domain – Analog Artist Digital World

Travis Blaise worked with students at Misty Forest to help create storyboards for a short animated film titled “Rosalie and the Bottle Tree.” As I sketched Travis, he told me about the equipment he was using, and I decided to purchase the same scanner and printer he was using. The Epson has been serving me well. Misty Forest is a small private school that offers kids creative courses after regular school hours. A bottle tree consists of bottles stuck onto branches and they are created to bring good luck. Travis had the kids create all the storyboards and he was using the Cintique to edit together the images along with the sound track.

Travis is an amazing animator that worked at Disney Feature Animation when hand drawn animation was in it’s hay day. He is a master at working straight ahead, letting the scene develop organically. He showed me how he uses the Cintique to animate using Flash. I was amazed that the program could be used to create organically drawn animation. I always assumed that Flash created flat, cut out type characters that were then moved like puppets.

Travis ended up leaving Orlando to work at Digital Domain, a computer animation studio. Digital Domain then closed down and I’m not sure where Travis went after that. Working in the animation industry is like tap dancing on quick sand.

The Florida Painters Group had their annual exhibition at the Casselberry House (125 Quail Pond Circle in Casselberry, Fl) in June. The show included paintings from 15 artists, who are mostly landscape painters. I went to the opening reception to see the work.

Show participants were: Ann Gale Holstein, Robert Ross, Carol Platt, Cathy Hempel, Cori Garret, Diane Walters, Gary Rupp, Gary Sisco, Karen Minnigan, Kim Ashby, Laura Bates, Lynn Tolar, Lynne Polley, Mary Martin, Orit Reuben, Rosa Bujali and Seemi Usmani.

The paintings that most caught my eye were by Robert Ross. He did a painting inside the Capen House. This historic Winter Park home was slated for demolition, but locals are raising funds to save the house and float it across the lake Osceola to the Albin Polasek Museum where it would be lovingly preserved.

After viewing the paintings I decided to sketch Louis Alfredo playing guitar. He was quite good and several people actually danced as he played. For the most part however people shouted at one another in the crowded space and didn’t notice the incredible talent in the corner.

Cami Smith who is an industry outreach liaison at Full Sail introduced herself. When she found out I had worked at Disney Feature Animation, she asked me if I knew Aaron Blaise. Of course I knew Aaron who had co-directed “Brother Bear“. He had taken a research trip to Alaska for that film and his sketchbook from that trip was absolutely inspiring. Aaron had gone on to work at Digital Domain in South Florida but that company went bankrupt before they could finish an animated film about an elephant. I heard Aaron was returning to Orlando. Cami informed me that he is hoping to produce a Computer Animated film called “Art Story” about a boy and his grandfather who travel into the worlds of famous paintings. She showed me the Kickstarter page and Aaron has successfully raised the $350,000 needed to further develop the story. I like the story’s message, “Life is a blank canvas, now go paint your masterpiece.”