Siggraph 2005

Okay, I know i'm way behind on my blog here, but bear with me. I will catch up. In the meantime, I just have to report on my first Siggraph experience - Los Angeles, California - Convention Center - July 31 to August 4.

First of all, I have never been on a trip that long by myself. Getting all the arrangements made was a bit daunting, but I pulled through, trying not to think about how much all this was going to be costing. My work wasn't paying for anything, so I was going out on a limb (I thought), doing all this - the full conference pass (more expensive than the limited passes), etc, etc.

Well, it was a 100% worth it. The first event to kick things off was the AnimationMentor.com Birds of a Feather gathering - I had to leave Ed Hooks' Acting for Animators class a little early, but I'm very glad I did. That's where I finally got to meet the people that made all this happen - Bobby BOOM Beck, Carlos Baena, Lleslie Aclaro, Becky McDonald, (Rachel Ito, who I didn't have the pleasure of meeting til later)...

I gotta say, you have never met a guy with a bigger heart than Mr. Bobby. He greeted every single person with a huge bear hug and took the time to put names to faces and spend a few minutes talking with each person as they came through the door. The room was a sea of AnimationMentor T-shirts and was a-buzz with energy. A few of the mentors were there - Jason Schleifer (Dreamworks/PDI), Derek Friesenborg (Sony Animation), Jamy Wheless (ILM, i think), and Kevin Freeman (TD Animator at Sony - he does all our rigs). Rob Coleman of ILM gave an in-person LIVE Q&A - which was spectacular. He was so honest about everything. For example, one thing that sticks out in my mind is how he responded to a question about what it takes to be an animator and he said something like, "A lot of people have the desire, but some just don't have the observational skills." This is so true, and not brought up very often. (When people talk about animation and what it takes, art skills, drawing skills, computer skills ALL get brought up, but the base of animation, the bedrock, is observation and I don't think that core, basic principle gets brought up enough.)

Here's a juicy quote from Rob Coleman: "There will come a day when at the end of a day of animating, you won't remember even touching the computer - it becomes transparent." That's when you know you're animating from the heart, and really getting to the heart of animation.

Anyhow, moving on, after Rob's very inspirational session, all the mentors had a panel Q&A and they talked about how AM (AnimationMentor) has changed them as animators - how even THEIR work has improved and how it has spawned more feedback within their various studios. It was a total lovefest - like a family reunion (although we had all just barely met in person), only fun.

After the meeting proper was over, a lot of us just hung out, got to know each other, talked animation, pitched our latest assignment ideas to each other. It was so incredible to be there and have that kind of interaction with classmates. Then we all headed to the cafeteria and took the place over practically - mentees crowding around Bobby and Carlos, hanging on every word that was coming out of their mouths almost. I imagine it must be exhausting to be asked the same questions you've answered a hundred times already, but they were such good sports and responded to everyone like it was the first time they had ever talked about what it was like working at Pixar, etc...

Since I had the full conference pass, I got to go to the "Courses" which were all very informative. The course on demo reels was good - the main point I took from there was that your REPUTATION is your "invisible resume". It's your most important asset and must be guarded carefully.

AM had a booth at the Job Fair which was just crawling with people. They were meeting with prospective students and also reviewing peoples' demo reels that came by. THAT was a huge education for me - seeing the quality level of work that people had on their demo reels. There was a guy with killer character animation on his reel - I guess it was feature film work, but getting a taste of the competition was a good wakeup call.

I checked out part of Ewan Johnson's presentation on Staging and Composition - he's the head of Layout at Dreamworks/PDI - he showed a lot of examples from their latest film, Madagascar.

Then there was the 2-keg ReelFX/AnimationMentor.com party out in a parking lot across the street from the convention center. Got to know some of my classmates better there. Then we headed en masse over to the Alias Booth to see Bobby Beck and Jason Schleifer present on "Maximizing Your Workflow in Maya". It was quick and dirty, those guys talking at a million miles an hour, gold spewing out of their mouths. Jason broke it down for us with one of the best explanations of how computer animation is done that I've heard: "Select, move, say stay."

That evening I went to the Star Wars retrospective, which was interesting because it showed the evolution of the filmmaking, especially going from stop-motion, motion-control to CG.

That night, however, was one of the highlights of the trip. Thanks to the lovely Rebecca (awesome AM student and now good friend), I got a ticket to the infamous BLUR party at the Henry Ford Theater on Hollywood. Go-go dancers, trapeze silks entertainment, fire jugglers, open bars, great music - it was a night to remember. Bobby, Shawn Kelly (the third AM founder), and Carlos were all there, as was the rest of the AM gang and a lot of AM students. Didn't get to bed til 5:30 am, but it was so worth it. Memories to last a lifetime made that night.

The next morning was another big highlight - I went to the Legacy of Disney presentation which started out with a bunch of Chicken Little stuff, which was very cool. It's great to see CG move towards more cartoony animation. Watching some frame by frame animation was awe-inspiring, seeing the broken joints all the snap they were getting into a medium that has always been criticized for being too stiff and inorganic. CG Animation is finally hitting puberty.

Then Glen Keane got up and spoke about his transition from hand-drawn to CG animation. He showed an animation test he did with John Lasseter (of Pixar) for Where The Wild Things Are that used 3D backgrounds with 2D character animation, much like Keane did for the movie Tarzan. So he's had his head in 3D space for a long while, but always resisted the "CG craze" til some execs asked him this way, "If you could do everything you can do with drawing without a pencil, are you in?" He had to say yes. So now he's directing Disney's upcoming Rapunzel Unbraided. He showed a short clip of the blonde-tressed girl with a squirrel and I couldn't believe my eyes. He had delivered animation Glen Keane, traditional style on a CG character, all rendered like an illustration from a children's book. It gave me the chills and it took me a while to pick my jaw up off the floor.

That's the kind of stuff I want to do. Nuanced, fluid, squashy, stretchy, living, flesh and bone character animation. It would be an amazing experience to learn from Glen Keane, and I hope to get good enough quick enough to work on that film.

After the presentation, I got to meet him. He signed and did a quick sketch of the Beast in my sketchbook. I'll post that and the picture I got with him later. That was such an "adrenaline moment" for me - meeting my biggest animation hero.

Lastly, there was the CGChar event, which had some great animators go through their workflow. AM's Carlos Baena of Pixar went through the suicide jumper shot he animated on The Incredibles. Jason Schleifer went through some of his shots on Madagascar and Andrew Gordon from Pixar also presented on finishing a shot with tons of examples from The Incredibles.

Here's a juicy quote from Andrew: "Animators don't final shots, they surrender them." It's that kind of investment that is the mark of a true animator, I would say.

At the exhibition hall, I wandered around, spending a lot of time at the Disney Booth, where animators were on hand to show you the actual character rigs used in Chicken Little in Maya. Their concept of "broken" rigging was just fascinated and made me wonder why we weren't doing that same sort of thing at AM, but maybe that's down the road. We're still using a very simple setup with not more than several dozen controls, which I am glad for.

Crawl before walk. Milk before meat.

Patience, patience and hard work.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the Electronic Theater and the Animation Theater presentations! Awesome work showcased there, especially 9 from Shane Acker. I saw his post-apocalyptic short at Sundance this year and was happy for him that he won Best of Show at Siggraph. Then I found out that he won the Student Academy Award and that Tim Burton is producing a full-length feature version of the short!! So I guess some times dreams do come true. It's great to see such talent and quality get recognized and exposed like this. I hope to emulate the level of filmmaking Shane has accomplished.

The whole conference was a whirlwind of energy and it could have been easy to get distracted by all the bells and whistles, but the biggest thing Siggraph did for me was to cement my desire to be an animator and strengthen my confidence in AnimationMentor as a school. Being surrounded by and immersed in the animation world for a week and hanging out with the likes of Bobby Beck and my fellow classmates left me with a feeling that I was home - this is where I belong. These are the people I want to work with. This is what I want to spend my time and energy doing.

This is what I want to dedicate my life to.