Student Lounge, Full Sail

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This is a sketch done outside the 2D animation studio that used to exist at Full Sail University. Kathy Blackmore built this 2D animation studio to give students a grasp of the 12 principles of animation using pencil and paper before they started using computers.

Kathy hired me after meeting me at SIGRAPH, a computer animation conference in LA. Kathy and Sam Ewing would give the lectures and my job was to assist students with technical issues as they shot their drawings. There were always technical issues as students got used to the equipment.  After several years I had to leave Full Sail because the salary barely covered the cost of gas to drive to work.

On the wall of the student lounge were framed DVDs of the movies that graduates of the program had worked on. With all the digital tools available to artists today, you don’t have to wait to be part of a huge team  working on a blockbuster film. You can make a film for a very select audience right from home.

Disney Internship: Inbetweening

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All the Disney Feature Animation interns gathered around Sam Ewing‘s animation desk to watch him point out the mechanics of inbetweening. In an animated scene you often have tow key drawings which show the extremes of a motion.

Sam has Mickey on his desk, so I will use him to explain. If Mickey throws a baseball you will have the arm pulled back anticipating the throw and then you will have the hand extended forward at eh moment the ball is released. The inbetweens fill in the gap between the tow extremes.There are 24 frames of film for every second so it take 24 drawings for a one second movement. It is often possible to get away with 12 drawings and holding each drawing for two frames each. In any scene more that 3/4 of the drawings are inbetweens. in a 2 hour movie that means there are about 172,800 animated drawings that need to be done. That is why a small army of artists are needed to complete an animated film.

After work I walked around the empty MGM theme park with several other animators. The park was closed but the music was still playing. It felt eerie. The whole Disney experience was kind of eerie.

Disney Internship: The Ball Bounce

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This is our group of Disney Feature Animation interns listening to a lecture I believe by Sam Ewing about the mechanics of a ball bounce.

I worked closely with Sam when he was the clean up lead animator on Koda in Brother Bear. Among the interns in my sketch I recognize Darren Webb, Peter Clark. He blew me away with the amount and quality of the animation projects he completed. He was an absolute machine. Yes that is a compliment, He was building whole worlds while I struggled with basic mechanics of getting my drawings to move. On Dinosaur, Peter got to shine doing what he does best which is visual development and creating whole new worlds.

I was surprised to discover that Darren Webb went on to work in the the animation department of many amazing computer animated films from Dreamworks like How to Train Your Dragon. I would love to find out his story some day. The main thing I remember about him as a roommate is that he took very long showers. I was in a room full of great artists.

Watching Lilo and Stitch

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I used to teach at Full Sail University. I had to leave since they didn’t pay me enough to cover the cost of gas to get there.

Kathy Blackmore and Sam Ewing were in charge of the class that taught traditional animation with pencil and paper instead of computers. I helped student as they shot their scenes and answered their questions.

For the last class we always showed a movie. It was the final day students had to work on their animation assignments and you could tell who was serious about animation because they could focus in this last class to keep improving the scenes they ha created. True artists use every moment available to keep tweaking their scene since no scene and no sketch is ever perfect. I also would use the class to sketch, always hoping to catch a few students at work.

I now teach virtually for Elite Animation Academy and the great thing about that is that I get to animate right alongside of the student. Getting to animate so often let me break out of my usual illustration routine and bring a character to life. Students get to see ever step taken in creating a scene which is rare when dealing with a larger group.

Earl’s Kitchen opened at the Millennia Mall .

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Former Disney animation artist Sam Ewing, sent me an invite to Earl’s for a preview food tasting evening at Earl’s Kitchen  (Millenia Mall, Unit 246, 4200 Conroy Road Orlando Florida.) The restaurant was offering a free evening of dining to test out the menu and service staff. Before I official opening.

Katy Bakker was there with her husband. Katy had curated all the art on the walls at Earl’s. Andrew Spear had a large mural featuring parrots on the white wall next to the kitchen. His signature cross hatched drawing could easily be seen from any table in the restaurant.

I arrived early and sketched at the bar waiting for a friend to arrive. Citrus drinks and wine flowed but they were not free, so I stuck with water. I always want to keep the cost of each sketch down to a minimum.

The wait staff was very attentive and they kept asking how things were. Kathy and Eric Backmore warned me that we would be praising the food more than chewing the food. By the end of the meal I was nodding my head like a bobble doll saying with a hint of sarcasm, “yes, yes it was veeeery gooooood.”

There was one free alcoholic drink on the menu, but I us driving so I stuck with caffeine. Service staff were all dressed in black and I spent some time trying to decide who had the most fashionable shoes. Earl’s is a sleek, upscale Canadian chain serving gourmet burgers, global comfort food, cocktails, wines and beers. It was a pleasant night out, though I don’t recall exactly what I ate. I just eat food to keep my hand twitching on the page. I would make a horrible “foodie.” I was impressed with the upscale atmosphere and would gladly return.

Rusty Pliers shocked the crowd at Stardust Video and Coffee.

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Saw Ewing was a lead cleanup artist at Disney Feature Animation. I worked under his guidance on the character Koda in Brother Bear. After Disney closed the Florida animation studio, I started work at Full Sail University and I worked closely with Sam as we taught college students the principles of animation using traditional pencils and paper. Sam had a dream of someday becoming a writer. He left Full Sail to follow that dream. I was happy to hear that Sam started a blog titled “Rusty Pliers.”

Soon everyone referred to Sam as Rusty Pliers. I wondered what the moniker meant. My thought was that each artist that worked for Disney was a tool. For the duration we were tools with a set purpose, to create ageless films. When the studio was shut down there was little need for Animators who draw. We were discarded tools left to rust (rusty pliers) until we found new outlets for our talents. The Florida humidity has caused all the tools in my tool chest to rust. It is unavoidable with age.

This reading at Stardust Video and Coffee set the record straight. When Rusty Pliers got on the stage, he had an eye patch that made him look a bit like a pirate. He started reading tentatively at first outlining his early dreams of becoming an animator.  Half way into the reading he took a moment to adjust his eye patch. He moved it from his left eye to his right eye which caused laughter to erupt. “That’s so much better.” he said. “I didn’t realize there were so many of you out there.” It was a full house. Standing room only.

Rusty then read about his next career move into the porn industry. This is apparently a hard industry to break into. It was during the filming of a hot kitchen sex scene where rusty earned his name. He discovered some pliers on the set and he worked them into the scene in kinky ways best left to the imagination. When the scene had reached it’s climax the director shouted, “You are going to be a star!” He wasn’t referring to the actors however. He was referring to the rusty pliers.

When the reading was over, my sketch was done. Back by the bar, there was a table full of former Disney colleagues. John Pierro has been doing a painting a day of his quirky and somewhat sinister intertwining figures. Merritt Andrews has been working for Universal Studios the past few years. Pam Darley turned me on to a bar her husband loves called the Brass Tap and I hope to go there on a Drink And Draw outing soon. Darko Cesar and his wife Mirjana were there as well. Darko is discovering how to use TV Paint which is the industry standard for producing traditional animation using a digital tablet. Kathy Blacmore is still teaching art to kids and illustrating children’s books. It was awesome to see Rusty Pliers laughing with friends. I had one grapefruit flavored beer and since I’m a light weight drinker, I laughed at even the simplest jokes. I was just happy to be surrounded by so much talent.

Elite Lakeside Sketch Outing.

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My Elite Animation Academy (8933 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL) class always finds a way to get students sketching out in the community. On this balmy day we made our way to a small lake near the Academy. The goal was for students to sketch the scene and do drawings of the many ducks who call the lake home. We found a spot under a shady tree and got to work.

The ducks were on the far side of the lake but eventually they became curious and they swam towards us. I’m sure they figured that we must have food. We didn’t have any. The days lesson included looking for simple shapes. That is why the hedge across the lake became a perfect circle. I’m always fascinated by south paws. An artist who is a leftie has to twist their wrist in a unique way to see what they are drawing as they put lines on the page.

I can’t always find events for the students to draw although the high school sports field often offers games and practices to sketch. Being an artist is much like training as an athlete. Every day we need to exercise our eye to hand coordination. If one day is missed, the artist quickly becomes rusty. A former Disney colleague named Sam Ewing started a blog called Rusty Pliers and the title is starting to make sense. While working in the bustling studio we were tools with a defined purpose. When the studio closed, it became easy to become rusty. We had to re-invent ourselves to discover a new purpose for our skills. Part of what keeps me productive is to always look forward and never look back.

Teaching 2D Traditional Animation at Otronicon

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Sam Ewing who was the lead clean up artist for Stitch was asked to teach an animation class at Otronicon in the Orlando Science Center (777 E Princeton St, Orlando, FL). I assisted Sam with one of these sessions. It is fun to see how enthusiastic young kids are about animation. Full Sail sponsored the classes offering Mac computers on which Sam showed some scenes of Stitch in action. Although Otronicon is a high tech conference, we taught low tech animation, giving the enthusiastic kids pencils and paper to put their ideas down. We had them storyboard very simple story ideas and then gave them flip books to do drawing after drawing to create the illusion of motion. Since these kids haven’t been told that they aren’t artists, anything is possible.

I teach traditional animation at Full Sail and an apathetic student wanted to know why he had to learn traditional animation techniques. At a Fringe pre-show warm up an actor asked the audience what was their one true passion in life. A wife’s hand went up and she said “My husband.” The actor joked that the husband’s hand didn’t dart up as fast since it was clutching a beer.  Another man asked about his one passion, had no idea. He didn’t have any passions. The audience laughed but it was also quite sad. I refuse to believe that anyone could go through life without a desire to express something, anything.  That is why we learn to write, to draw to photograph or sing.  How could a student spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and not have that basic passion? So many seem to want to coast through college with minimal effort.  I still believe one spark can ignite any fire. It is amazing to see the possibilities when a mind is set free.

Otronicon

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My Full Sail job had me working at Otronicon, helping Sam Ewing as he taught a classroom full of students the basics of Animation. The students, both young and old, paid very close attention to what Sam had to offer, and got to work developing a 24 page flip book.

The Orlando Science Center was packed. I have never seen the place so crowded. After the class was over, I wandered around watching all the kids and adults playing video games. I stopped at this area where everyone was playing the same game. They were all involved in a game called VBS2 which is a military training simulator. The military bought a commercial video game called Armor 2 and converted it into the high tech simulator seen here. All the players were working together as teams in the game. One boy shouted out, “Ha, I killed you. That was me, I killed you.” Most of the time however they stared at the screens intently focusing on the flaming oil fields and enemy tanks. Some players were situated inside virtual tanks, while others were field infantry. The creepy guy with the gas mask wandered over to mess with the kids by reaching in while they weren’t looking and pressing arbitrary keys on the keyboard.

In another area, military men wearing field fatigues were showing kids how to fire of an authentic looking M16 which would blast out a laser beam at the target. Joking around with Evan Miga later that day, he said that the military is selling military service to kids with ads that make it look like every day is a game, where they get to enjoy using high tech graphics in the field. Evan joked that if kids join today they would get an extra life. Otronicon is now over so you will have to wait till next year if you are in the mood to kill.