Words of Wisdom: Torrey Loomis

As our team moves into the final stages of production and some of the team prepares to face the terror that is graduation review, a few words of wisdom to keep us on track:


"Sometimes, you get the slight urging to revise your material, change a page or two on the script, tweak a line...or just fiddling around in general.


This isn't that time...And this isn't about your project, your material, your whatever--its about you.


These are the times when you are so gripped by the realization of the potential of what your life could be that it would be a crime to not allow it to be razed to the ground and rebuild it from the ground up.  Its the kind of awakening that haunts you at first, it says "this could be a lot better" but we dismiss that little voice of perfection.  We all have that inner voice and if we listened to it every time, nothing would ever get done.  But on this occasion, the voice persists.  It doesn't want to be ignored this time.  "Neglect me at your own risk.  This WILL be better, or my voice will be the last thing you hear as I pester you off a cliff..."

Your odds might seem incredible, your deadlines impossible, your challengers overwhelming...All ventures of this sort are immense.  Yet, you are compelled by the voice that won't let up--it keeps pushing you forward.  It is something far greater, far stronger within each of us that knows where we draw our own lines...and exactly how far we can be pushed past those self-imposed limits before we truly keel over.  You may hate the voice for how much it pushes you, but sometimes that voice is the ONLY thing propelling us towards our maximum capacity.  It would rather you hate the voice than to hate yourself for squandering your true potential.

Remember that night before it is molded into something incredible, clay is crushed down to it's core--destroyed beyond recognition--before its reformed.  You might be at a point in your life where you feel like you have no form, no structure.  Guess what?  You're probably right--and you're exactly where you need to be. 

Its okay.  You can be destined for greatness even as it seems like the world is imploding around you. 

Let it explode.  It just means you're being prepared for something amazing.  

And listen to the voice--its your friend"

Torrey Loomis

(originally posted by A. Woodruff to the team's facebook page)

Wrap-up from Pre-Production I (Winter 2012): PROS & CONS

During the last hour of the Pre-production class, we discussed as a group what everyone felt were the best and worst parts of the first 11 weeks.  Here they are, distilled as best as possible from pages and pages of notes that were madly scribbled into multiple sketchbooks that morning: 

STRENGTHS

+Having the 11 people broken into smaller teams of 4-5 with 1 leader worked well keeping everyone on task

+We kept personal drama to a minimum, even when we were panicking.

+LOTS of reference (footage, photographs, peers, instructors)

+Time management: We sectioned out huge chunks of pre-production time for our animators to throw together character designs, practice 12 principles of animation drills with more experienced peers, get some refresher lessons perspective/anatomy, and even a couple crash-courses in toonboom (since not everyone had worked with that program before).


+Saturday night check-in was a good idea:  Our class was on Wednesday, so we had everyone check-in by Saturday night at midnight with whatever progress they had made on their tasks for the week.  That way we knew if anyone was running into problems with enough time to fix the issue before the next class. 

WEAKNESSES
--Make sure leadership knows how to be clear about their instructions.  Make itemized lists if you must, but make sure EVERYONE knows what their task is for each week so nobody can be confused about what they should be doing and what's being done by someone else.

--Trying to make sure everyone was happy/friends with leadership ate up a lot of time, which resulted in less time working on the production, which resulted in missing deadlines, which is NOT. GOOD.

--Everyone had to learn that once class began, the feedback leaders gave wasn't personal, it was all for the sake of the production.  Feedback, positive and negative, is necessary for progress.  Accept it and give it in the most professional manner possible.

Wrap-up from Pre-Production I (Winter 2012): THE TEAM

Eleven.  That was our lucky number.  Eleven weeks in a quarter.  Eleven students working on the production.
 
Our #1 priority during the first few weeks of class was establishing lines of communication. The VERY first item of business on our first day of class was collecting everyone's contact information and availability for the quarter.  We also created a facebook group as well as a public dropbox.com folder.  We cannot stress enough how important this was to the success of the first eleven weeks of class.

As mentioned previously, our team was primarily split into a 2D team and a 3D team.  Then a hierarchy of leadership was decided: one director (in charge of the vision of the commercial), two producers (in charge of keeping the production on schedule), one 2D animation leader (to ensure quality and continuity), and one 3D animation leader (also for quality and continuity).

Every week, everyone (including leadership) had tasks assigned to them.  Every week, we did weekly reviews and feedback, both as a group and one-on-one.  (Production work and character designs are being compiled into our art book that will be available as a PDF upon completion of the project.)

Some of our roles have changed slightly since we have moved into the final stages of production.  Our texture artists have evolved into colorists, our 3D asset creators into compositors and sound editors.  All in all, the project is moving along well, and at a pace much faster than we anticipated.  We've got high hopes, but we're trying to keep it mostly under our hats (for now.)

Wrap-up from Pre-Production I (Winter 2012): THE PROJECT

Our client is the in-school, student-run cafe called Muse.  The Muse wants a commercial that they can play on the school monitors to draw in more business.  They gave us complete artistic freedom to portray Muse as a place of creativity for the culinary students who work there as well as the customers who frequent it. 

The talent in the room was pretty evenly split into 2D and 3D animators, so we meshed everyone's skills to create a commercial with a cel-shaded 3D environment and 2D characters inhabiting said environment.  There was a little hesitation when we started about how well everything would come together in the end, but so far, it's looking pretty good.

Our AMAZING 3D team is wrapping up the background for the commercial and popped out a few renders for us to look at. 

Doesn't it look gorgeous?!

Y U NO behave, tablecloth?!  Y?!?!

Animation Test for Esteban