spang animation studios

World of Coke opened in Atlanta at the end of May. One of the features is a 5 minute short film containing interviews with all the odd little creatures that work inside a Coke machine. The film was produced by Psyop, who did the original commercial - also featured as part of the short.

The characters are wonderfully designed and were fun to work with. Most of the dialog came from actual interviews with Coke employees, so it was a blast taking that and applying it to the characters. The final look that Psyop created is breathtaking.

(I am only responsible for the animation in the above clips, with the exception of the first clip. For that, I also added rough textures and lighting for my own purposes.)

So, I’ve been home for about a month since spending 10 weeks in New York City and working at Psyop. All I can say is that it was nothing short of amazing!  Psyop produces some of the best commercials out there, and it was an honor to work for them.  I animated about 30 seconds of character animation for a project for Coke. Look for a “Show Reel” in a few weeks…

Psyop assembled a super team of incredibly talented, smart, funny people, and it was a pleasure to be part of such a fantastic group. A huge thanks goes to Nick for the opportunity and to the rest of the animators for their awesome support and guidance. I learned SOO much and had a great time doing it.

Thanks!!

Although my focus is now Character Animation, I have spent quite a while working on non-character pieces and feel that deserves a place on this site. Clicking on the picture above will take you to my 3D Work page, with a brief history of the projects I have worked on, and a Demo Reel.

I’m a little late with this, but this morning’s walk through the bogs on an unusually mild December day jogged my memory.  Right around the corner from us, to our dog’s delight, are acres of cranberry bogs.  Carver, MA has something like the largest ratio of cranberry bog to land.  I’m probably making that up, but it seems that way.

This past fall was one of the most beautiful I can remember in New England.  The weather was ideal, and the foliage was brilliant.  Brilliant!  We try to get out in the bogs as much as possible, and the fall we had encouraged that even more.  Every time I walked or jogged through the area, I thought, “I HAVE to remember a camera next time”.

Well, I never did.  Fortunately for me, my girlfriend, Jacquie is an artist and captured the beauty and the feeling of being out there better than any photograph ever could. (Click the image for a larger version)  It sits over our mantle, at the moment (it’s for sale HERE), and brings a warm smile to my face every time I see it.

Ahhh… Fall….

Here’s another AnimationMentor assignment. This one is from Class 4 - Advanced Acting Techniques. I owe a great deal of THANKS to Victor Navone (Pixar), my mentor for Class 4. Not only did he push me extremely far on this shot, but he also was the inspiration to keep working on it. I had decided to do a dramatic piece and selected this dialog from “Gladiator”. After blocking it out, I started getting cold feet, thinking a serious, dramatic piece wouldn’t look good on a reel. I thought I should switch to something funnier. I voiced my concerns to Victor, and he responded by saying I should definitely continue. He said dramatic shots are pretty rare on reels, and that this could help me stand out a little from the rest. So, I continued, and after an ENORMOUS amount of guidance from Victor and insightful feedback from classmates, I ended up with a shot I’m pretty happy with.

The end result is more or less what I started with, after weeding out other ideas. I felt he should display explosive movements to show his anger and frustration. In contrast, although she was frightened by him, she needed to stay calm and in control so she could push her agenda. I think the middle shot conveys this well. (I’m happiest with the middle shot, by the way)

Victor’s direction pushed the performance tremendously, giving me a solid foundation. Because of that, polishing this was great fun for me - for the first time, as its usually a struggle. Victor, of course, had ample polishing notes, too. Such as: Moving the hands/fingers while still clenching the bars, keeping them alive; the use of eye darts to keep the intensity up without a lot of movement; Using his shoulders (”like a drill sargeant”) to add force to his words in the final shot; Adding the spit in his final outburst.

Overall, I really enjoyed working on this shot. Thanks to Victor, I learned a HUGE amount in the process.

Here’s an AnimationMentor assignment I started in Class 3 and completed in Class 4, adding facial animation. The dialog is Jim Carrey from “Dumb and Dumber” - a classic! My initial poses are quite different from what I ended up with as a result of rethinking it while working on it as well as the great mentor feedback I received. Some of the gestures remained from the very beginning - the head shake on “sweet old lady” and the clenched fists at the end.

Doug Dooley (Pixar) was my mentor for Class 3, and he really had me simplify the shot to two main poses, one for each phrase.  He stressed the importance of simplicity, minimal poses and working within the pose.

In Class 4, facial controls were added to the rig, and Victor Navone (Pixar) guided us through the process of a convincing facial performance. He had me push a lot of the mouth shapes and move the jaw around a lot more than I thought possible - to great effect. He also had me focus on the arcs that the chin, nose and mouth corners were taking through the key moments, or broader actions to give a more pleasing performance. Another element he made sure we had was to mimic the shape of brows in the upper eyelid.

I struggled a LOT with the turn from one direction to the other.  I think this was a result of not really animating the feet, so I couldn’t step back and see if the whole body was moving correctly.  Lesson learned.  What I have works, but I still don’t think it looks right.

So, I understand the point of these blogs is to regularly post to them, not start them and abandon them.  Well, after searching around for my user id and password, I’m able to get back into this.

I’m going to start by removing my character reel (it’s not quite ready) and replacing it with individual shots with some comments.  I feel it’s appropriate to give some notes on how they were created, how my mentors at the school guided me, and some of the struggles and successes I had.

I then want to add some of my non-character work.  Although that’s not my focus these days, I’ve done quite a bit of general 3d work over the years, so it needs its place here, too.

Having spent the past few weeks as an Alumni Tutor at AnimationMentor, I am inspired to start a Tutorial section.  Look for that soon.  There is a lot of great information out there these days on creating character animation, and, well, I want to throw my two cents out there, too.  Besides, as an animator, I know I can never get enough information to help improve my work.

That’s it.  You can expect regular posts, now, I promise…

Well, after many fruitless attempts to redo my website, I realized what so many others have - that it’s easier to go with a blog.  So, with the help of WordPress, I’ll be revamping things over the coming weeks.

In the meantime, check out my demo reel!
Stay tuned…