binzer blogs a blog

blah blah blah blah blah excuses

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:38:00 +0000

I have a blog! I am going to post on it.

I just finished Class 4 with my FANTASTIC mentor Brett Coderre of Pixar. I have never learned so much so easily at AM, and it was extra nice to have a mentor who is stylistically similar to me because I actually always agreed with his advice. Don't get me wrong though, style is where the similarities end! He can actually pull off the style he's going for, whereas my poor skill level is nowhere close to pulling it off :P

He even gave us mini-crits mid-week, and always went above and beyond during the Q&As. I'm really sad to leave this class because I can't imagine that I'll have it this good again, but I guess we'll see! Here's my latest assignment, which I'm sure will look like crap because blogspot isn't very good at this whole video thing.

Here's a link to a QT mov of the scene, in case the Blogger video sucks too much: CLICK

Time for sleep; I just wanted to post before I forgot. Goodnight!

Oh ya, Class 2 and Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:32:00 +0000

At this point I should probably just go ahead and change the title of my blog to something more appropriate, like "binzer doesn't blog her blog, but thanks for stopping by sucker."

It's not that I hate the 3 people who occasionally read this blog, or that I hate blogging, or that I hate animation. Mostly it's just that I'm lazy and that I've been spending too much free time playing Rock Band and watching Scrubs. I only discovered the show last year, and after a long period of despising it I recently starting loving it, which means that I have seven seasons to watch, and that's a lot. My dog also has big brown eyes that bore into my soul every time I'm on the computer, and a cute fuzzy tummy that forces me to give him raspberries when he's trying to sleep.

Oh, and ALSO, I got totally disenchanted with blogging because my videos are always butchered when I upload them. I can butcher the timing and quality of my work well enough on my own, and the extra help finishing the job just makes me ornery.

Is that enough excuses yet? If it's not, feel free to shoot me an e-mail because I have some extra excuses saved up that I'm happy to share.

ANYWAAAYS, Class 2 has started! The topic is Body Mechanics and I think it's probably the most terrifying class I'll take during my stay at AM. Everyone I talk to says it has the steepest learning curve, not to mention that a large number of people seem either to retake it or drop out, so it's gotta be hard. I hope I'm done Scrubs by the time it picks up :(

My mentor is Brian Mendenhall from Tippet, and I think he'll be a good mentor to have for this class since he's used to a very realistic style, which usually means accurate body mechanics! He seems very knowledgeable, and he's also quite the chatterbox which should make for some awesomely informative Q&As. Too bad I'm an IDIOT and missed this week's Q&A because I forgot that it's on a different day for me this term :( Luckily for me my wonderful classmate Maya gave me some kickass notes, but I'll have to get my head screwed on straight before next week.

It's 2AM and the supply of guilt that was fueling me to write this has officially run out, so that's all for now! I may start hosting my videos so they don't suck so much, but I'm happy to take alternate suggestions (I already tried wordpress, and something about it didn't work for me, but I forget what :P).

PS Check this out if you have time: http://mattsevensix.blogspot.com/

sooo frustrating

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 23:19:00 +0000

Apparently blogger butchers the timing of your video, so here's a youtube version. It still sucks, and it stops part way through (just progress the slider a frame forward to get it moving) but it's better than nothing!

I fail at blogging.

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:51:00 +0000

Yikes, I can't believe I haven't posted since Halloween! Actually, I guess I can believe it since I lasted longer than I thought I would in the first place. Anyways, I feel reeeeeallly bad since I know there are poor people out there with no access to the AM site, and I can empathize with how much that sucks.

I was just looking through the old videos I posted on this blog and I was horrified to see how terrible they look with a fresh eye. I guess I'll still post what I've been working on lately, but I'm pretty worried that it's all more horrible than I've realized.

Class is almost over btw! This week is the last real week, and then next week is an easy week of compiling all our assignments (although I suspect that in my case it will be a long and frustrating week since I still have a lot of revising I want to do). I'm kinda sad about the end of class since I have awesome classmates and an awesome mentor and it's sad to see them go (although I realize they're not dropping off the planet or anything).

On the bright side, I'm really excited to start class 2! Excited and terrified, since I hear that's when things really start getting tough. I think I can hack it, but I guess we'll see!

Anyways, I have way too much to do and only even wrote this because my guilt was weighing me down, but I'll try to post again before Christmas :P

PS This weeks assignment is a character walk, and I'm doing a wounded guy. I bit off waaay more than I can chew, so I'm expecting a week filled with bouts of indigestion :(

Happy Halloween everyone!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:45:00 +0000

I'm lame and am not doing anything special tonight (besides my Q&A) but I did dress up Enzo for a couple minutes! I don't think he likes halloween very much...

Another week gone by

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:05:00 +0000

Well, another great week is behind me, and the good news is that my video uploaded properly! My mentor Elliot couldn't have possibly been any more helpful throughout the week; he really goes above and beyond what's expected!

This week we get a ball with squash and stretch, so I'm actually pretty excited about that since I think it'll add a lot of character. I still have to think up a good idea though :S We also have to do a pose with Stu that shows devastation, and THAT I have a good idea for :D

In other news, I finally watched Surf's Up, which was actually a lot better than I expected! I didn't realize it was documentary style, but it works really well, especially since for the voices they actually had the actors stand in a room together and improv based on a pretty loose script. The whole thing ended up really natural and appealing, and quite funny, although it doesn't really come off as a kid's movie imo.

I also just started playing the new Ratchet and Clank game for PS3, which is also very good! Although the animation isn't exactly movie quality, it's a lot better than most other games, and I would certainly be more than happy to work on something like that. You can tell that they actually put a lot of work into getting good-quality results, whereas a lot of game companies have their animators working so quickly that the end product is pretty lackluster.

Anyways, that's it for now, check back next week, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

Only 17 more months to go!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:14:00 +0000

It's officially the start of week 4, which means I've been at AM for almost a month now! I guess a month isn't actually very long, but it feels satisfying anyways.

Last week was our first animation week, which would've been really fun, but instead it was mostly just frustrating b/c my computer decided to crap out and develop a stutter (if you use your imagination I'm sure you can see how that would make animation difficult). I'm hoping to have it fixed this week, although I'm sort of dreading the fix itself.

I'm getting a new motherboard and processor and I know my computer is gonna be awesome, but at the same time, getting a new computer always sucks. It's kinda like getting a new house. It's technically better, and it's great once you're moved in, but there's always a really unpleasant period where you have to reorganize, throw stuff out, wander around looking for stuff you've lost, and generally just get annoyed because you don't have everything available that you're used to. I also find that I never realize how much useful stuff I had until it's gone, and that moving takes waaaay longer than I expect.

Anyways, as a result of my stupid broken computer my work wasn't as complete as I would've liked, but I'll post it anyways. This isn't actually the finished version of some of the stuff, but I can't stand to compile another video :P

This week my assignment is to animate a heavy ball and a light ball, so if you just HAPPEN to have some reference footage of a bowling ball or a ping pong ball bouncing, let me know!

EDIT: This was supposed to be posted Monday, but I got an upload error and then we took my computer apart to fix it. Oops! But now my computer is fixed with a brand spanking new Quad Core processor. Yaaaaaaaay :D

EDIT2: Apparently the video refuses to upload properly, so sorry, no video for you!

My first REAL week

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 05:05:00 +0000

Last week was a fake week since we didn't really have to do anything, but as it turns out, real weeks are good too! I had some trouble finding good people to draw since it wouldn't stop raining and my car is broken, but it was fun trying to be creative with boring poses and playing with gimpy-proportioned Stu.

The Q and A was great again, and Elliot joined early which made for some good times. I also learned some useful things about how to approach my sketching, like exaggerating on the fly and redrawing for more readability and emotion. Oh, and he mentioned watching Hudsucker Proxy and Glengary Glenn Ross for good acting, which I'm writing here so that if I lose the paper I wrote those titles on (again) I still know what to rent!

The pose I decided to turn in is the talking/explaining one, although the dreamy one seemed more popular. I just couldn't turn something in that has twinning, but I feel pretty good about the submitted pose too.

Thanks to anyone who posted on my workspace btw! I was all disappointed and concerned that I wouldn't get any responses since I didn't post anything until noon Saturday, but again everyone was suspiciously nice and I got a ton of very kind and useful comments.

Anyways, next week is the big week where we actually start animating! We have to pose Stu AND make a ball bounce, which is very scary. I'm not even kidding, I think it's gonna be hard! Wish me luck :)

Yesterday was a good day

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:36:00 +0000

So, yesterday I was given a brand new 24 inch monitor (so beautiful) AND I had my first Q&A with my mentor and classmates. The monitor is awesome for obvious reasons, and the Q&A was awesome b/c everyone in my class seemed very interesting and friendly, and so did the mentor! I was originally dreading the first Q&A since I thought we were just going to have to introduce ourselves by talking about ourselves at random (which always makes me feel cheesy) but instead we just had to give our animation background and name a favorite character, which is soooooo much better. Elliot genuinely seems like a nice, helpful guy, and I like his general point of view and sense of humor to boot! It should be a very enjoyable and educational few months :)

AM is awesome!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 04:14:00 +0000

I have to go to bed soon so I'll keep this quick, but I just wanted to mention that Animation Mentor is completely awesome so far (mostly I feel guilty for not posting about it sooner). Everyone seems ridiculously nice and friendly (almost suspiciously so!) and the syllabus looks fantastically fantastic. The whole website is quite ingenious really, and I can't wait until next week when the learning really begins.

Anyways, I'll have more to say tomorrow after my first Q&A with Mr. Elliot Roberts, assuming I remember to post :)

I LIED

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 17:16:00 +0000

OK, so my last post wasn't actually my last post before class starts. I realized about 30 seconds after I posted that my first mentor had been assigned, and I felt the immediate need to announce it here! His name is Elliot Roberts and he is currently working at Pixar, although he has also worked at ILM, Tippet, and Blue Sky Studios (all of which are amazing). He has worked on very cool stuff like Ratatouille, PotC 2, Charlotte's Web and Robots, and I'm sure he's working on something wicked awesome at Pixar as we speak. Neat!

All Systems Operational

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:34:00 +0000

Webcam, check. Scanner, check. Sketchbook, check. Tablet, check. Quicktime, check. Maya, check. Copious quantities of ram required to run Maya, check. Calm mental state and sense of readiness ...check?

OK well maybe I still don't feel ready, and maybe Totoro is still suggesting that I'm not prepared, but at least all my stuff is ready to go!

At least I think my stuff is good to go. I ended up having to get Maya 2008 b/c Studica.com took down Maya 8.5 like a day before I went to buy it, so hopefully I don't run into any problems since 2008 technically isn't supported and hasn't yet been tested with AM content. I'm sure it'll be fiiiiine, and besides, there's always PLE!

Anyways, this is probably my last post before AM actually starts (2 more days, woo) so lets hope that the big kids don't make fun of me on my first day of school, and that my next post is full of awesome and positive goodness.

One Week to Go!!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 21:40:00 +0000

It's so close! It's making me completely crazy that all the orientation videos show all these amazingly awesome features of the website that we can't actually access yet. I think that the designers of this program are specialized in torture as well as animation. Anyways, I'm super stoked and super nervous and feel like there's way too much to do, but hopefully I can handle it! I'm sure blogging isn't the wisest use of my time, but at least I'm keeping the blog going. Yay for me!

So in other news, I went to see Paprika last week (by Satoshi Kon, guy who did Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers) and the whole movie was pretty much pure insanity, but I really liked it. For the majority of the movie I almost felt like I was being attacked because I was constantly being inundated with very strange visuals, music and plot, but the movie was very well directed and carried out, and I recommend it if you like bizarre movies.

Time to go for a walk and some tea, wish me luck in my last minute scramble to get ready for next week!

Oh and PS: Heroes starts tonight!! Even if you've never watched it and hate super heroes and think it sounds really lame (which is what I initially thought) you should definitely give it a try. I have yet to meet someone who has watched a few episodes and not liked it, so give it a go! If you already watch it, please be satisfied in the knowledge that you are awesome.

Totoro is staring me down!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:57:00 +0000

Well, one week left to go and I can log onto the orientation site! I have a poster on my wall of Totoro, and he's staring at me out of the shadows as if to say "you are not prepared." It's similar to this picture, but much darker since it's printed on fabric, and I think we can all agree that nobody stares quite like Totoro.

Anyways, the Illusion of Life is finished! I regret my decision not to take notes, but I did most of my reading at a coffee shop with tiny tables that barely accommodated the book+latte, and between a dog, a bag full of dog treats, and the giant heavy book itself I already had enough to lug around.

What a good book though! I know I've already mentioned its awesomeness before, but it really is genuinely interesting, besides being just plain useful. In the words of Ron Burgundy, "Compelling, and rich." It also makes watching the old classics again extremely fascinating, although I probably drive my bf insane since I have something to say about almost every scene and I'm sure don't shut-up as much as I should.

So what next is the question. I guess the Animator's Survival Kit will be my next coffee shop book of choice, but I feel like I really need to start figuring out Maya! Mostly I just plan to panic a lot since at this point there's no time to do much else, so wish me luck! Oh and btw, all you fellow students I meet are really not helping the situation in the the least since you ALL seem to have experience! What's up with that? Where are all the inexperienced people!

Time's a ticking

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 01:43:00 +0000

Wow, I can't believe it; there's less than a moth left to go! All of my high hopes of becoming well-read, amazing at thumb-nailing, and an expert at Maya have been completely crushed, and now of course I'm even more nervous about starting than before! I'm almost done IoL at least (which let me remind you again, is amazing) but I've had trouble finding time for much else.

I'm sure I could've got a lot more done, but between having a puppy, going to Penny Arcade Expo, working in a fridge (don't even get me started on my horrible job) and practicing Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution in preparation for Rock Band, I've had no trouble whatsoever putting things off.

Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) was fantastic by the way! If you like video games, table top games, or are just kinda nerdy, you'd probably like it. It was also pretty cool that the final round of the Omegathon featured Halo 3! Bungie had been suspiciously quiet all weekend, so I guess that's why. I don't even like fps games very much, but it was pretty awesome when they started hinting at the game with little video clips, and then the curtains opened and all sorts of blue smoke started pouring out while the Minibosses played the theme music, and the crowd went crazy of course. The showdown between the two contestants was equally awesome and epic, and the whole thing made for a very worthy and intense finish to the expo. Oh an also, we got Heavenly Sword for free (about a month before release) and I bought some awesome Miyazaki loot as well.

Anyways, the whole point of this post was supposed to be what a horrible person I am for not preparing enough, so if I don't get my butt into a faster gear soon please tell me how much I suck.

Books, books, glorious books

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:22:00 +0000

Huzzah! Finally my Illusion of Life and Animator's Survival Kit have arrived. I was shocked to discover that the package weighed about 700 lbs, and even more shocked to discover that there was nothing inside but the two books! They are both extremely hefty, and from what I've seen so far, full of goodness. In my opinion they are quite the bargain, so if you don't have them, get them! The Illusion of Life seems especially fantastic, and I think that many non-animators would even enjoy it.

I have only made a small dent in the IoL so far, but I did come across a quote that I really identified with, from none other than Walt himself:

I am interested in entertaining people, in bringing pleasure, particularly laughter, to others, rather than being concerned with 'expressing' myself with obscure creative impressions.

I think that quote captures the essence of one reason I find animation so attractive. I find that other visual art forms are often more self-centered, and although they are often designed to be seen by an audience, they are not necessarily created FOR an audience. I think bringing happiness to others is an important part of life, and as result I find the prospect of animating more fulfilling than simply creating art. I love art, but am more interested in pursuing it as a personal hobby, rather than as a career.

Originally I was going to university to get a joint major in computer science and visual art with the hopes of preparing myself for animation school. I dropped out after two years, largely because I found the arts side to be too focused on the personal with little actual teaching. Personally I would rather be taught technical skills (at least for the first couple years) so I could have a larger skill-set to pull from when I chose to be creative, but instead from the get-go it didn't matter what we created, it just mattered how we explained it. I found that I often was creating my assignments based on what would seem "deep" and get me a good mark, and rarely challenged myself since the pursuit of technical skill seemed almost frowned upon in many cases. I know that not all art schools are like this, but in my case I found it to be mostly fluff, and once I realized that I was becoming a worse artist, not to mention disenchanted with the art world in general, I had to quit. I know a Bachelor's degree looks nice on a resume, but I want to be an animator, and I don't want to waste time on anything that isn't bringing me towards that goal.

Anyways, enough babbling for now. This blog isn't supposed to be so stodgy, and I have books to read!

Yay WebRing

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 00:02:00 +0000

My wish was granted and I am now officially in the AM WebRing. I still doubt anyone will read this, but that's ok :D

I'm in!!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 16:43:00 +0000

Woot! I'm accepted! Part of me is terrified even though it's still 3 months away, but for the most part I'm just excited. I guess they must've really put the burners on and gotten to work on that pile of apps since it only took a week to hear back. One of the admissions officers posted on the AM CGTalk thread too, which I thought was kinda nice.

So now I feel like I really need to get down to work and prepare myself! The Illusion of Life and Animator's Survival Kit should be arriving any day, so I can start reading those, but I feel like I need to be sketching like mad, learning maya, and coming up with brilliant short film ideas! I want to make the most out of this program, and as a result I'm having ridiculous expectations of myself and it's making me nervous.

On a side note, now that I'm officially accepted I hope the AM Webring Master (or whatever he's called) accepts me too! Hopefully he isn't dead or something because my blog should've been reviewed by now and I really want to get this thing going so I can start meeting other AM people. The sad truth is that no one is reading this right now. QQ

Admissions Wait...noooooooo

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:27:00 +0000

Word on the street is that the AM admissions staff are quite behind, and certain people have been waiting 3 months to hear back!! I certainly hope I don't have to wait that long, especially since the course will be starting by then :P

It would be nice if they would send out a generic email to everyone and let us know what's going on (instead of having to find out through forums) but I guess I'll just call in 2-3 weeks when I'm supposed to have heard back.

The worst part is the suspense! All of us prospective students are dying to go, and the wait is killing us!

Kwoon - I lived on the Moon

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 05:23:00 +0000

I'm sure a lot of people have already seen this music video animated by Yannick Puig, but I only discovered it a few weeks ago and absolutely love it! I find it inspiring not so much from an animation perspective, but just in terms of sheer creativity.

binzer-binz the blogging blogger blogs a blog!

noreply@blogger.com (binzer) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 03:50:00 +0000

I finished applying for Animation Mentor today, and in honor of my great achievement I am starting a blog! I realize that merely applying probably doesn't SEEM like that great of an achievement, but in my case I felt that it was necessary to spend several weeks researching, googling every person in the showcase reels, perusing hundred of blogs, posting on forums, and harassing current students (thank-you current students, I love you!).

To be honest, I hate blogs. Well actually, no, that's a lie. I love blogs when it's other people who are writing them, especially when they are Animation Mentor blogs that ease my illogical fears of becoming a jobless, in-debt loser. However, I hold no delusions about myself in this matter, and know full well that I will be terrible at keeping up this blog. I wish it wasn't true, but my track record isn't the best when it comes to these things.

Anyways, despite my horrendous blogging ability, I plan to try my best to document my Animation Mentor journey for anyone out there who is interested. Personally I found reading AM blogs to be very helpful and inspiring while making my decision to apply, so hopefully some day my blog can help someone too (assuming I ever make a post beyond this one).

The term I applied for starts in October, so I have a few months to go, but it's hopefully only a couple weeks until I find out if I'm in or not. Until then I plan to draw stick-men and play around in Maya PLE. Fingers crossed that I get in!