11 Second Club May 2012 Competition Entry

May has been a very busy month for me, but especially busy since I took another swing at the 11 Second Club Animation Competition.  This month was a great energy-building two-person acting clip from Rebel Without a Cause.  I got lots of great feedback and help along the way, and managed to hit 6th place out of 245 entries!  My highest rating yet!

I'll be presenting this piece to several of my animation colleagues at DreamWorks to get their intense feedback, can't wait to hear their input.  Thanks to everyone who helped contribute to this piece.  On to the next!

An Owl-Free Guardians Movie Trailer

Hey everyone, For the last several months I've been working on a new project at DreamWorks Animation called "Rise of the Guardians".  Despite the title, the movie features classic childhood characters such as Santa, the Easter Bunny, Sandman, the ToothFairy and of course, the Boogeyman aka "Pitch" (and no owls).  Today we officially released the first trailer, and it looks something like this.  Enjoy!

I'm Freakin' Done!

If I haven't mentioned it already in a previous blog post, for the past 6 months I've had the immense pleasure of working on Kung Fu Panda 2, the next installment of our story of Po and the furious 5. This experience has been enjoyable in absolutely every way. Our production team did a brilliant job of making sure the show was well run, that artists were always well informed and taken care of, and that everything was communicated to the utmost level of efficiency. I owe a lot of my enjoyment to them in particular.

Though also I was able to work with a completely new team this time, Damon O'Beirne head of layout and Rich Shiba, my Final Layout Supervisor. Working with both Damon & Rich together, I was able to learn more about camera work & cinematography at a sequence-wide level as well as the shot level. My new co-workers on the team were also a pleasure to work with of course, extremely helpful and always very positive, which can be very important when working on an epic-scale picture.

For now, I move on to the Kung Fu Panda 2 DVD in which we'll be creating an original short film adventure that takes place in the Kung Fu Universe, should be interesting! Until then, be sure to see the film when it comes out May 26th, it is going to be Awesome to say the least. As if this wasn't enough shameless promotion, here is our epic trailer that just came out:

Thanks for reading, now it's off to get prepared for the next project!! I leave you with a picture of me wrapping up my last shot on the movie! I love Kung Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuu--- Panda!

Thank you for everything, you useless reptile

After 9 months of very challenging and very rewarding work, my employment on "How To Train Your Dragon" has come to an end. I am officially off the show, and am now gearing up for my next DreamWorks endeavor. The experience has been indescribable, and as recently mentioned here, I'm sure I will attempt to pass along some of the artistic knowledge I have gained through this journey.

This was a privileged opportunity to work with some of the most talented feature animation artists working today in all departments. Personally in my department, I got to work with layout veterans James Ryan Peterson of Kung Fu Panda, JC Alvarez of Shark Tale and Bee Movie among others, and our head of layout, Gil Zimmerman. Learning from these three gents was always a simultaneously humbling and empowering experience, both making me realize my bad habits, and yet showing me how to utilize my strengths. You can find an interview here on the official How To Train Your Dragon blog with Gil, where he briefly answers some questions about himself and the movie. Also, a brief clip in which he discusses the challenges and process that went into Romantic Flight, the first sequence I worked on in this film.



Tomorrow, I get to meet with the director of the next project I am starting on, where we will discuss the set dressing for one of the large landscapes we'll be using. Always new and challenging work to be done at DreamWorks! More to come!

Welcome to Dragon Training

Hello readers! Much time has passed since the last post, for many things have been occupying my time. The purchase of a Condo being one of the biggest time consumers, but also because in the past year I've been enjoying a position as a Final Layout Artist at DreamWorks Animation working on the next upcoming film "How To Train Your Dragon".


The experience has been incredible to say the least. It has been a continuous challenge, both in artistry and stamina, but the rewards have been invaluable. The amount of things I am learning about stereo, cinemetography, camerawork, staging, and visual storytelling make the job well worth the efforts alone, besides of course all the fantastic benefits that the company itself provides us. It is awesome to get to work at a union shop and experience what The Animation Guild has to offer. I'm nearly finished with my dues, I'm sure I'll have a celebratory post when that day arrives!

There is simply too much to say about the amazing things I've been able to experience, accomplish, see and learn in the past year in just one post, and I'm sure I'll be posting more updates that are relevant to the adventures in layout, but in the meantime I shall say that this movie may be the most amazing things I ever get to work on in my entire professional career. Seeing final renders from this movie are astounding to absolutely everyone on the show across the board. I truly think people are in store for images they have never seen anything like before. Check it out everyone!! Just 2 months away!

LA Times Article

Hey y'all! I know it's sacrilegious for my first blog post in a long time to be not-artwork, but I promise some is coming very soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share a piece of microscopic publicity. I was interviewed relatively recently by the LA Times about my university art school experience, and the article came out a few days ago with my name mentioned briefly. Click below to see the full article image.

They got my educational info a little wrong, but still a cool mention. Which also reminds me, new season of South Park has started up again, so I'm sure my art-dedication time will be limited. But, new posts coming in the next few days I promise.

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!

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!

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.

Tracking Jobs

This week started out as a week to make head way on Job Track, my thesis, and has ended up being an unexpected job hunt. Through power of persuasion, suggestion, recommendations and surprising information, I ended up applying to about four jobs this week. Of course, I found out yesterday that the e-mail I used to apply to all these jobs has been spam-flagged and so none of my applications got delivered, so I re-applied yesterday and today to three of the four (one of the jobs I decided wasn't worth the effort). So, we'll see where it goes! In the meantime, hopefully it's back to the thesis!

Stand by...

It has been far too long since I've posted any new work, so I felt like I needed to post something here. For the past 2 months, I've been employed by the One Laptop Per Child organization as a designer and animator. We're doing a lot of interface design, but unfortunately I cannot talk about any specifics here, else I get fired I think. At any rate, it has been an exciting project but has also been monopolizing my time. I'm hoping soon to get some more sketches up in this space, so that the 2 people that read this blog (Hi James and Ashley) can have something to look at!

Rhythm & Blues

I received my annual "we got your reel and we're checking it out" postcard from Rhythm & Hues today. I should start making a wall out of these things! And now I play the waiting game again. Animation gods have mercy!