Force versus Form

It’s about four months since our last podcast. Way too long. I took a break for Animation Mentor, Charles has been busy with getting a reel together and Tom has been finishing up the Animals & Creatures Masterclass at Animation Mentor.

Oh yeah, Thomas Qui Nguyen is now officially a part of the Force Versus Form podcast. So a big welcome to Tom from both Charles and myself. You can visit the About link up top to read his saucy bio.

Now, let’s get down to business.

I’ve been trying to find a way to get an interview with our special guest, Wayne Gilbert, for a while now. Charles was actually a student of his and I asked him to contact him. He did and no contact was made.

Fast forward to beginning of August. I was in Vancouver, BC. to attend the annual Siggraph expo. I remembered that he worked at VanArts. I met him and his fellow colleague and former Disney animator Mark Pudliener at the VanArts booth at the Siggraph expo. We talked about a few things and without me resorting to any begging and pleading he agreed to do the podcast. So here we are.

I could taked about his background here but we’ll let the podcast take care of that. I can mention in brief what we all talked about. We talked about his career, his education, his views on animation formats, does mocap suck or not or is it a tool. Lots of insight. her background, offers a lot of insight on his work process and his role as an educator in the field of animation and his views of educating the animators of tomorrow.

You can find out more about his excellent book “Simplified Drawing For Planning Animation” and watch his short films on his website at www.anamie.com.

You can also view more about him on the following two links:

• His short bio of the VanArts site
• His IMDB page
• Interview at Vancouver Animation

The link mentioned on Carlos Baena’s site for Don Graham’s Animating Force vs. Animating Form is www.carlosbaena.com/resource/anim_DonGraham.html. The rest of the Animation Material links in the Resources section of Carlos’ site are also pretty good.

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• Intro music:
  
• Outro music:
  

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Summer was short me here in Washington State. I am already looking forward to graduation in January and then a whole lot of snowboarding.

We decided to go balls out for this one. Just got fellow Animation Mentor Alumnus Thomas Qui Nguyen and talked about a whole host of things. We decided to chat about how we all deal with checklists, roadblocks and procrastination.

Links mentioned in the show:

• A post from Jim Brown of Tippett Studios on his blog titled “Questions and Hopefully Answers – Forks and Roadblock”.
• Animator Dana Boadway answers the questions “Do you have any ideas on how to increase productivity and speed up workflow?”
• Dreamworks animator Mike Stern tells us about his animation checklist.
• Freelance animator Raquel Rabbit tells us about her animation checklist.

We also talked very briefly at the end abou the amazing project started by our fellow Animation Mentor student Willie Downs called “The Animator Letters Project”. If you’re a professional animator and would like to contribute to this inspirational project or just a passerby that wants more information on what exactly Willie is doing and the reasoning behind it, please do visit the project blog at http://animatorlettersproject.blogspot.com/. You can also follow the project via it’s Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Animator-Letters-Project/203732639665920

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Trailers
Source Code starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michele Monaghan, Vera Farmiga and the amazing Jeffrey Wright. Directed by Duncan Jones, the director of the Moon.

Meek’s Cutoff, starring Michelle Williams and Bruce Greenwood. Directed by Indie director Kelly Reichardt, who also directed Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy.

Bill Plympton’s Idiots and Angels.

X-Men: First Class

Tranformers 3: Dark Side of the Moon

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Music on today’s podcast:

• Intro – Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb
  
• Outro – The Crystal Method’s Down in the Now (featuring Matisyahu)
  

We eventually knew we’d come to this point and without further adieu, here it is, our first interview.

We were priviliged to have a conversation with Senior Freelance Animator, Nicole Herr, who’s worked everywhere from Cinesite LA to Sony Pictures Imageworks to most recently at Animal Logic, Rhythm & Hues and Digital Domain. She’s served capacities ranging from compositor to matchmover to creature animator to character animator.

She talks about her training, her background, offers a lot of insight on her process and the processes in the studios she’s worked in and offers advice to those are training to get in the industry as well as a brief discussion on the ever expanding role of women in the field of animation.

You can find out more about her experience, work history and view her reel on her website at www.nicoleherr.com.

• Intro music: Yo-Yo Ma’s Doce de coco
• Outro music
  

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The new trailer for the the prequel to the 1968 Planet of the Apes, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

And just for fun, here’s the original Planet of the Apes trailer with Charleton Heston.

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Tron: Legacy is now available on Blu-Ray and DVD

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Valve’s Portal 2 got released on Tuesday. Anyone play it yet?

That’s it for now. Till next time, folks.

Today we talked about in depth about feedback and it’s necessity to animators and how it helps you grow as a student and how it helps you build your eye.

Links from the podcast:

• The new Green Lantern trailer:
  
• Rosalie and Truffel – a stop-mo short from German sto-mo shop Trikk17:
  
• While I have no desire to watch Priest in the theatres, I had no idea that the movie starring Paul Bettany was based on a graphic novel. Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter’s Lab, Powerpuff Girls, Samuarai Jack and now, Sym-Bionic Titan, created it’s opening prologue sequence. And it’s now online. link:
  

Exclusive: First Look at Disney’s The Ballad of Nessie

• From Dreamworks animator Mike Stern on Animation Tips and Tricks blog: Can you tell us about your animation checklist?

Music:

• Intro – Waisted by Beats Antique
• Outro – Memory Table Part 2 by Secede:
  

Next podcast, our first interview with a very special guest.

We’re back.

Topics included in this podcast are a word of thanks, a bit of news, talk about long talk planning and why feedback, both to and from others, is so damn important and helps you grow by leaps and bounds as an animator.

Books

• Wayne Gilbert’s book Simplified Drawing for Planning Animation is available from www.animae.com
• Preston Blair’s Cartoon Animation
• Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn To Life Vol 1
• Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn To Life Vol 2
• Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators by Mike Mattesi
• Lateral Thinking: Creativity Step by Step by Edward De Bono

Trailers

• New Green Lantern trailer from Wondercon
  
• Hop
  
• Rango
  
• Portal 2
  

Songs featured in this podcast:

• The intro theme to Batman: The Animated Series