Fall 2009... inhale...exhale

...Just a minute... still catching my breath...

...Ok--These last few months were basically the beginning of an exhausting experiment. I have been forging a new arena in my animation program where I attempt to have my cake--and eat it, too. It wore me out, but I learned a lot about the grand balancing acts of a full and ambitious life.

Animation Production isn't technically on the books as an option for the MFA Animation program here at AAU, but it's my calling and I was compelled to go for it. Fortunately for me, organized go-getters are in high demand around here, so I have been welcomed as the Producer of two awesome animated films, Prelude and The Lattice-- and spent this semester managing those projects... while also juggling 3 other classes, my RA job, and occasionally helping out with the amazing collaboration project, "Rise of the Turkeynauts!"

When it came time to choose classes for next year, my program director and I realized that continuing production work as classwork necesitated taking the classes as Directed Studies, which you cannot do in our program until you've passed your midpoint review. So, I got signed up to present my Thesis proposal this semester, and the only open time slot was in finals week, on the same day as my most challenging class (Layout Design). The thesis I proposed involves completing and delivering the 2 productions I'm working on, along with "making of" books and deliverables, and also creating a storyboarding portfolio (since this is art school, after all).

To make a long story short (too late?), I survived!--passed my midpoint and also managed what I considered a very generous grade in Layout. I did this all while also taking care of class and work, travelling to see special shows and industry events, and allowing myself time to be social and enjoy myself, too. These were the busiest, most hectic months so far in my young life--and I need to give props to my awesome teachers, friends, and family. I also must admit my secret weapons--Google calendar, and Google docs kept me and my productions on task all semester long!

So I think I've earned a nice long break for the Holidays, and it's nice to have enough time to vent on the blog. Since every post needs pretty pictures, here's some images of the various presentation materials I had to put together this semester as a Student-Producer...

Business Card:


Midpoint Thesis Proposal Book:


Midpoint Presentation Powerpoint:


Layout Portfolio Book:


There's a lot of layout images to show, too-- they'll be up on my next post :)

CONGRATS TO EVERYONE ON AN AWESOME SEMESTER!!!

Antique Repair Store, Wonky w/Graphite Value

My newest accomplishment from Layout Design, a first attempt at breaking perspective for Wonky-style and also my first experiment with using graphite dust to fill in the values. Felt good to get this all done, I'll be doing more work for class but for now, enjoy draft 1!

The Art of Procrastination

Last week, a bad flu took me out of commission for about 4 miserable days. When I couldn't stand being in bed staring at my four walls any longer, I finally dragged myself out and saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which was EXCELLENT (SEE IT.) It kick-started my recovery and now I'm back to normal, but the many hours of feverish bedrest put me way behind in Layout Design in such a way that my brain has been psyching me out creatively and making me afraid of tackling it, which is bad at 11pm the night before class... soooo...after cleaning my room and re-writing my dry-erase board's weekly task list (and doing about eighteen other unnecessary things), I decided to finally pretend to get working, and proceeded to doodle this with my Wacom tablet:

VERY weird, I know... but now that I've shot it out into the blogsphere, I feel warmed up and silly enough to go make less of a mess out of my layout drawings--toodlelooooo!!!

Animation Production: aka, channeling whatever it is that makes me who I am into helping create what I love.

I realized that, outside of the small and wonderful circle of people whom I see or speak with constantly, many of you probably haven't heard the details of what I'm up to nowadays. I want to keep everyone I know and care for in the loop, so I ought to take a moment from my hectic life to explain myself and share my excitement with the world at large...

A year ago, I arrived here in San Francisco to follow my dream of working in animation. My life since then has been a dream come true, and for every moment of it, I have been 100% sure that I am exactly where I'm meant to be. Through many challenges and adventures in academia and beyond, I have learned so much about the animation industry... and gotten much better acquainted with my own self in the process.

I came here determined to absorb as much as I could from all of the beautiful art forms utilized within animation production... and have realized recently that my true passion is the art of production itself. To be the orchestrator of the collaborative process--helping and supporting the talented people around me--has proven to be the role in which I feel most at home.

Now that I can say, "I want to be an Animation Producer", I've realized I also need to explain exactly what that means. The job is a hard one to define, because it covers many areas and is almost always a different job, depending on who's doing it where and for what production. Here's a few definitions I've found that help make sense of it, though:

"In our opinion, the producer is the one person with the full overview and responsibility for a project from a creative, financial, and scheduling perspective." ~Catherine Winder & Zahra Dowlatabadi

"[A producer] has to be part therapist, union negotiator, customs broker, technologist, artist, storyteller, international trade leader, attorney, filmmaker, talent agent, studio executive, mentor, and friend." ~David Lipman

I owe it to my friends and family and the wonderful faculty here at AAU for their votes of confidence in helping me find my niche here, and now I hope I can return the favor in diligent service of the exciting collaborative animation projects which I am now a part of--the 2D animated short Prelude (as Producer) and 3D animated trailer/vingette The Lattice (as Co-Producer)!!!

Since it just wouldn't feel right to post without an image, here's a shot of me with the Prelude Crew:I'm so excited to be helping them keep the project on track, wish me luck!

Artist's Room in Pencil

Based on my digital sketch... A Postcard Photographer's room.

Digital Sketching--Photographer's Room!

Here's something different! I spent the evening playing with my Wacom Tablet to rough out my first assignment for Layout Design. Working with paper and pencil, I get too tight, and with pen, I just make an unerasable mess, so this was a good, safe way for me to exercise loosening up. In other news, I accidentally saved over my original file when I shrank it down for the blog... whoopsie.

Clothed Figure Drawings from Spring '09

I've been getting re-organized for the new school year and found these jpgs floating around my hard drive...up they go!