Well too advanced for my level right now but here is a quick introduction to Michael Chekhov given at a demonstration-Performance by students of Graham Dixon’s “Michael Chekhov Studio London”

Born in 1981, the nephew of the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Michael Chekhov is one of Russia’s most outstanding and innovative actors and diresctors.

Chekhov developed a unique approach to acting in which actors seek their characters in the imagination rather than in the intellect of in their personal histories. Much of his approach is dedicated to developing the means with which images (pictures, sounds, scenes) in the imagination can be artistically shown through the body on stage. His aproach provides techniques for enriching the actor’s craft, as well as developing the imagination and creative and personal life skills.

New assignment video reference

And this is the planning:

Robert is really concerned since I never managed to finish my assignment in the time allocated but except a flat move I should have plenty of time for animation for the next 4 weeks.

Mood of the week:
“I should rename this blog, Welcome to Animation Crapoland”

Everything is going wrong again. I am on the verge of giving up animation but I still think that I have an eye for animation and it is only the beginning of my training. The full training is 18 month so the way it is, it looks like I will only to be able to animate at the end of class4. That really sucks, I was hoping to get a job in animation by septembre which is a very important deadline for me, but so far I have nothing to put on my showreel except the boucing ball assignment and the Stu poses. Forget about holidays, this is gonna be animation in my bedroom for the entire summer.

This is my refined “jump on box” assignment. The first one has nothing to do with what Robert asked for and the second one is the real assignment. As you can see, the first one is actually more polished than the second one but well…. animation mental block, this is what it is called.

Jordi’s game if coming out soon, go and check why I get depressed when I see other people’s work. The fight sequences are keyframed, no mocap. Heavenly Sword. Yes Seb, that’s the game we saw at the Autodesk 3december event.

Robert just sent me an email asking why I didn’t put my video ref for next week’s assignment….the pressure in on again….

We have been lucky to have a Q&A with Blue Sky’s Ice Age 2 crew tonight. 650million dollars at the box office in few weeks, they must have done something right, the “story is everything” thing has been challenged again…

That was very fun and we learnt few things. They looked half the age of most of AM students so the pressure is on.

This is an example to illustrate Arcs and overlap between the body and the foot, use the left and right keyboard keys to flip through the drawings.

It is finally here !!!!

I thought it would be a clever move to order it through the american Amazon but it took 5 month for the book to arrive in my hands!!! At the end of the day I got it just before the acting class which is good and I only paid $44.53 for it, shipping included! Not bad eh!

“The Illusion of Life! is regarded as the Bible of Character Animation, so what is all the fuss about? I will tell you in my next post.

Long time no see. Last week was a very important week for me. After failing my walk cycle assignment last term I didn’t really get the chance to experiment too much with animation workflow so this week was the time to get my hands dirty.

This term is about body mechanics but also the time to find our animation workflow. We have been shown different refining techniques from the entire GE (Graph Editor) workflow (Pixar’s Victor Navone) to the 2d animation one (Chicken Little’s Jason Ryan) and it is time to apply them and pick the one that makes more sense to us.

I was very busy last week so couldn’t really push the refining as far as I wanted but I think that I am seeing the light now.

Watch out that space and you might get to see some interesting stuff in here very soon.

So what have I got for you this week.

180 turn partial refining:

Jump up onto a box and off the other side video ref.:

Week 205 blocking, animating in 3d is doable, you just have to check your perspecive, front, back, left and right view but what about animating in 3d for a locked camera? This is this week challenge, I haven’t found the answer yet but Robert will probably share is thought on thursday.

my comments for this week.

I bought Microsoft ergonomic keyboard to try to improve some problems with my wrist. It is taking a bit of time to get used to it but I feel much better already, my wrist has stopped cracking when I type. One problem though, it takes so much space that the wacom doesn’t really fit anymore.

The 180 degree turn is much harder than I initially thought despite the *** star warning. I was pleased with my first blocking but Robert pointed at few things to change or improve. While fixing them for the reblock I introduced some new errors and raised few new issues. I am actually glad I am making some mistakes, this is all very beneficial. Sometimes you can be very lucky and nail your animation rightaway but your lack of experience will eventually catch up with you so don’t be shy or ashamed of making mistakes, your mentor is here to help you out.

We have now access to Stu with no arms and Ballie with arms, Ballie looks a bit ugly with his 2 new appendices but he is already very funny to play with and I started to block a run cycle the same day. I am not too sure which assignement I am gonna take. I used to go for the hardest assignement but I really wonder this time, they all seem plenty of fun. Since I never finished my walk cycle last term maybe that I should go for the run cycle this time…

Here is the planing for my new assignement: 180 degree turn using our character Ballie. Based on our video reference material we have to plan our animation due for session 204. This exercise look a bit like rotoscoping but in fact when in the blocking phase we are gonna start giving a bit more life to the animation.

I was talking with my friend Carmelo and offered to show him my animation dvd collection. Some good DVDs like Monsters Inc collector edition, some less good but found on the market for cheap 😉 and some cult movies like Dark Crystal!