Class 2 Mentor: Victor Navone!

Yes, that is Victor Navone, heavy with child... good thing there's room at the inn for little animation younglings like myself (Victor's pet name for his mentees) at AnimationMentor.com.

I was very, very excited to find out that the Victor Navone would be my second term mentor. This man is actually how I found out about AnimationMentor.com in the first place, come to think of it and has been an inspiration to me since I first discovered his infamous Alien Song short that got him his job at Pixar when Ed Catmull discovered it. I saw it in the late 90's when I worked at Argonaut CG Films as an "animator" (oh, I laugh at the thought of calling what I did then "animation") on the ill-fated sci-fi CG saga The Guardian Oath. I remember my boss, Ben Harrison, pulling it up and all 4 of us crowding around the monitor. We must have watched it over and over.

Since then I would check out Victor's website every so often, cause he would put up new links and info of various sorts. I even ventured to email him once, and to my geeky delight, he responded! I had wanted to know about how easy or hard it was to move into the animation department at Pixar if one were to get a job in, say, the modeling department, or the custodial department -- anything! He said it was very hard to do that, which kind of dashed my hopes, because I knew I didn't have the skills (yet).

That's when I started seriously looking into the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I saw that Cameron Miyasaki went there and got an internship and then a job at Pixar, so I was almost ready to bite the bullet and pay out of my eyes and gums for continuing education, but then I saw this cute little link on Victor's site, announcing a new animation school. I went to the link, lost my jaw somewhere on the floor, and then "googled" all things AnimationMentor.com. I found an interview with the founders, Bobby Beck, Carlos Baena (whose website I had also followed for several years and was very impressed by), and Shawn Kelly (who I wasn't familiar with, but have since gotten to know through AM lectures and in person at Siggraph - great guy). All of these guys seemed so genuinely excited about animation and the prospect of reaching talented and passionate people that have not had the opportunity to learn animation as it should be taught.

At first I thought I must be a) dreaming or b) that it was all a big joke. There was no way they could offer mentorship with industry professionals at that price -- everything sounded so idealistic, like it was personally created for me. Like they had somehow snuck into my dreams and pulled the biggest one out and served it to me on a bargain-priced platter.

And now I am being mentored by Victor Navone - it all comes full circle. No, what would REALLY be circe-of-life material is if I went back to be a mentor myself after a long, illustrious feature animation career (call me a dreamer, I don't care...).

But first things first - Body Mechanics, baby!!