Vicious Cycle by Michael Marczewski

 Tragic commentary on society, with superb computer animation and good basic storytelling.

Vicious Cycle from Michael Marczewski on Vimeo.

The Gnomon Workshop presents an Evening with Grzegorz Jonkajtys

Polish animator Grzegorz Jonkajtys has an interesting technique in combining miniature hand built sets with CG characters. Glad I made it over to Gnomon to see the talk.

Grzegorz's film credits include Sin City, Hellboy, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Mist, Rango, Pacific Rim, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Warcraft, and The Revenant. 

His titles were VFX Artist and Lead Animator.

 

(copyright Grzegorz Jonkajtys?)

After such grim short films such as ARK, where an animated Leonard Nimoy type character is trapped on a doomed plague ship, Grzegorz is bringing us a family oriented film based on a Polish character, Teddy Floppy-Ear. 

Teddy, and his friend Hare find out that a toy factory is not all fun and games. Grzegorz slips in some social commentary when the system tries to toss Teddy into an incinerator for having one minor defect, in this case, his floppy ear,

After years of CG work, Grzegorz said it was refreshing to build miniature sets by hand. He pointed out that his hand built sets have a more convincing depth and character than the usual CG backgrounds. This was his strategy in filming "ARK". Grzegorz had his crew do lighting checks with real miniature models so the lighting on the CG characters would match the hand made backgrounds in a more convincing way.

Using kit-bashing and Styrofoam containers, drinking straws and mint candy box tins, Grzegorz and his crew built the charming, and at the same time, frightening world of Teddy Floppy Ear.

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-gnomon-workshop-presents-evening.html

PreVis Class at Studio Arts

Incredible class I took from Brian Pohl at Studio Arts. 

Brian was a PreVis supervisor at Persistence of Vision studios.

It was a bear using Maya, After Effects, and a little bit of Photoshop. Plus, just coming up with the idea, storyboards and  timing for the chase. In other words, generating content while mastering two software packages. But you can see the result.

Previs Final from Rosko on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/8208316

http://www.brianpohl.com/

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2012/08/previz.html

3D Animation Essentials by Andy Beane

A great comic strip outlining the digital production process.

(copyright Andy Beane)

Maya 2017: Quick Rig

Animated 3D Chicken, my first Maya short

Here's the chicken I created at Friedman 3D ( now Studio Arts) under the instruction of John Park. The original assignment only called for a chicken model to lay an egg. I modeled, rigged and animated the short in under 6 months. The little short I made from this scene was accepted into the 2002 "Bring your own Video" open screening put on by L.A. Siggraph. It was a good break.

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2006/01/ancient-maya-work.html

Simple Chase with Two Primitive Characters

Here is a frame from a simple chase I made at Friedman 3D (now Studio Arts). My plot was about a cookie that escaped from a cookie jar, and how the jar chased the cookie in order to recapture him. I animated a bounce for both characters.

http://animationre-creation.blogspot.com/2007/01/tag-lab-2007.html