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!

11 Second Club February Results!

Hi Everyone, it's that time again. After a long hiatus for the holidays, I jumped back into the 11 Second Club competition for February. This month was a very active clip from Garden State, and certainly challenging. It's been a long time since I've attempted full body mechanics, my last two submissions being mostly from waist-up, so it was intimidating, but fun to tackle. With a short month, and many things going on, it was not easy to stay focused on this daunting endeavor, but managed to get through, and ultimately finished 14th place out of 191 entries, tied with my highest ranking ever. Here is a look at the breakdown pass:

Did quite a few breakdowns to really describe the movement of the dance, and her active explanation that follows. Now, here is the final piece:

And that is that! Again, been getting great feedback from colleagues and DreamWorks Animators to which I'm very thankful for, their input is a huge help. Now I shall take my hiatus month and hopefully jump back in again in April! Thanks for watching!

11 Second Club Sept Results

Hey all, so as previously stated, I crunched through the Sept 11 second club competition. Each time I run through, I learn a little more, get a little faster, and hopefully a little better. This month was a fun clip from Angel Heart that allowed for some fun facial acting and interesting arm and hand gestures to work through in the breakdowns. As before, I wish I had another day or two to really work out the polish, would have liked to do a better facial pass on both, as well as fix some of the linear motion in there. But nonetheless, I came in 14th place out of 209 entries! My best submission yet.



I've been getting great feedback from the extraordinarily talented animators at DreamWorks. I'm hugely grateful for their input, it's like getting a masters class while at work! Hopefully I can digest their notes and put them to good use in the November competition. Now I'm in my "month off" as I attend to life related matters again, prepare for several weddings I'll be in, run errands and get ready for the upcoming holidays!

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!