Summer begins

Well, May has begun and summer has arrived. For me this is a very big summer since I have several weddings to attend, and possibly several projects to help complete. I'm sure some of these projects I'll be posting things about here, but in the meantime I find myself occupied with all kinds of fun and recreational events! Besides getting some continued use out of my Disneyland annual pass, the South Park crew visited Las Vegas this past week to both celebrate the end of the run and to spend some quality intoxicated time with a beloved member of the crew who will be leaving us. Upon return, I decided to take a moment to practice some typography and do a title treatment, since I hadn't designed one in a while.

This is what came out. Clearly it has been some time since I've designed title treatments, but I suppose that's what practice is for. Anyhow, hopefully more artwork to come in the near future!

The End of a Super Phun Time for now

Well, tonight marked the mid-season finale for South Park, and the end of my first run ever at South Park Studios! Overall it was very challenging and a bit stressful at times, but always fun and exciting with each new episode we got to work on. I was officially invited back for "season 12.5", so I'm of course very happy to be coming back this fall! I imagine this will be the last post regarding working at the studio for a while, so I thought I would show a tiny slice of what I get to do at the studio.

As a Technical Director, I create and rig lots of sets, characters, props and effects animation, which 99% of the time we're given specific approved guides from Art Department to follow. Yet, every once in a blue moon, a montage will happen that has a lot of mini-bgs within a larger bg, such as a location within a background that has been pre-designed, but needs a specific angle for a shot. Art Department has more important backgrounds to create than to spend time creating angles that aren't as critical, so this responsibility will pass directly to a Technical Director. Such a case occured for me on our mid-season finale "Super Fun Time" in the "Super Phun Thyme Montage" sequence. I was asked to create a POV within an arcade machine for a video game Butters and Cartman are playing, so I sketched this up at my desk quickly:

On the top is the initial layout, and then some variations simplified for our Animation Technical Supervisor to take a look at. Once it was approved, I went ahead and created / rigged the final setup, which ended up looking like this in the final show:

Hooray, I'm helping! This may seem super minor, but it still gives me great pleasure and excitement to see something I created displayed on network television, assembled with the rest of the fantastic work of my talented colleagues at the studio. Anyway, it's been a blast so far, and I look forward to busting out the remainder of Season 12 when new episodes are in October. Until then, it's time for some sleep, vacationing, and thesis work!

Wacom time

Working the long hours during the South Park run gives me very little time to doodle anything, and I've been wanting to draw some stuff since I bought that new Wacom tablet for home, but yesterday I got a chance to practice using it a little. Often times I'll stand in front of my mirror and make various facial expressions and poses to study how they look and feel, and this was one of those poses that I figured would be a good one to get more used to the tablet on.

Fast Times at South Park Studios

Hey y'all (whoever reads this thing). It's been over a month, so I think I really ought to give an update! Sorry no artwork this time, I've been super busy at the world of South Park for the past several weeks! So far I've helped with cranking out the first two episodes of season twelve, and it's been an exciting experience. I was so stoked to see my name in the credits of a show that I'm a fan of, that I took a pic and wrote a nerdy net-slang excited statement on it:

Of course, somehow somebody at South Park found this exact image and posted it in a visible area in the studio. Then, apparently whoever saw it mistook "OMFG!!1" for "Look how awesome I am as #1 on this list", and decided to play a prank on me for the following episode by taking my name out of alphabetical order and tucking it on the very bottom:

I of course had to respond with the above image, since I'm excited just to be in the credits at all, regardless of placement! (But still, very funny guys ;P) It's fascinating to me to see how the show operates from the inside out, and while I don't think I'm allowed to mention anything about what that entails, I can say that the team works incredibly hard, and it's awesome to see them doing what they do best at top-speed now that the run is in full swing. Personally I'm still ramping up my speed a little bit every day in hopes to become on-par with the rest of the Technical Directors soon since speed is definitely a major factor in working at South Park, but I feel like I'm getting the hang of things and am finding my place in the pipeline as my supervisors continue to give me more responsibility with each episode.

On the whole, the experience has been a fascinating one thus far. It's hard work, but rewarding with each episode that rolls out, and getting to work on a new script every week keeps things fresh and fun. More updates to come as the experience continues, and hopefully more drawings!

"Yup", it's official!

The end of my second week at South Park Studios has a much anticipated and fitting ending. Everyone at south park, from the PAs to the Animators to Matt and Trey themselves, has a nametag with a South Park character of their choice depicted on it. There can be no repeat characters, so everyones tag is unique. In the first week I was asked to write down a desired character for nametag purposes. And then today at the end of the day, as if reward for surviving the first two weeks and making it to the official run, the Production Assistants came around with all the new tags and affixed them to the appropriate cubicles. I attempted to take a picture with my sucky cameraphone, as seen here:


As you can (sort of) see, I chose Thad Jarvis from season 11's "Guitar Queer-o" episode. This choice made because it was not only an episode I had watched a particularly huge amount of times before going in for my interview, but was coincidentally the animation file that was shown to me in my interview, while I was being explained the production process to. So yes, seeing this outside of my cubicle just makes me even more excited for the run to begin, and to knuckle down and make some South Park!!

Headin' on down to South Park...

So, a while ago I mentioned that I was overseeing some potential job opportunities at several companies, one of which was South Park Studios. Well, in early December I ended up interviewing at South Park and they asked me back in January for a competitive training program, during which time I would be trained at South Park while competing against 2 other potential candidates for the Technical Director position. Well, after the 2 weeks, they decided to choose me, to which I of course said:


The company went on vacation for another 2 weeks, but now the show is back in production for season 12. So for the last week and a half I have been working there as the new Technical Director on the TD team! I drew the above image after I found out the news, but haven't had time to flesh it out until recently since I've also been moving to a new apartment. So anyhow, unless I get canned for being an idiot, I shall be working on the first 7 episodes of season 12!

Big Bad Voodoo Drawing

Last night, Eji and I went to see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's holiday show at the Lancaster Performing Arts Center. The show was fantastic as usual, but my brother had somehow arranged with their client-relations person for me to meet the band personally before the show. Knowing this, I went ahead and drew a caricature of the original 7 band members, who will be celebrating their 15th year together in April 08, and gave them this picture before the show started. They seemed to dig it, so that's good! I totally worship these dudes, so I was pretty excited to meet them!

Me and the band, before the show. Look how cool their shoes are!

Joshua Levy (piano) and I. This guy is like, my musical hero basically.

Interviews and Prospects

Yes, it is time for yet another "Status" post. After applying to a myriad of different jobs over the past two weeks, three jobs finally got back to me, and two of them actually requested interviews. South Park interviewed me for a Technical Director position, while an independent studio in Glendale wanted me as a 3D generalist on a World War II documentary project they're working on for the History Channel. Meanwhile, Lucasfilm continues to look over my portfolio for a 3D Story Art position. With any luck, I'll hear some good news from one of these guys next week.

TIAF07 Booklet

Yesterday I got a package from Taiwan in the mail, from their annual International Animation Festival. As you probably heard me blab about before, I was selected as an international exhibition piece. Anyway, they sent me back my Betacam copy of Herbie-Fun-Time, along with a beautiful 300+ page full-color book that covered the entire scope of the festival, kind of like half-program, half retrospective. The book itself is a gorgeous insight into the festival which apparently covered "Best of" reviews from Ottawa, Annecy, and Platform. The festival also showcased some of the biggest animated features of the year including Ratatouille. Skip to page 168 in the "Personification" section of the book, and here you will find:

There I am! Wonderfully translated into characters I only wish I could understand! This marks probably the biggest festival that Jungle Gym will ever be a part of. So glad to be part of an event that showcased such incredible works! Ok, enough boasting for now. Back to work!!