CarlosBaena.com

My TS3 journey comes to an end.

2010-04-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

This week I finished working on what's been by far one of the most gratifying, exciting, fun and overall amazing projects I've ever had the pleasure and luck to be part of: Toy Story 3.
It's been such a weird week. Part of me is glad to be done since it's been over two years working on it and towards the end has been quite a lot of work, and can't see things anymore. But the other part of me is sad that the adventure has come to an end. What a truly fun group of people I've been able to work with, what a special film and what a wonderful Director to learn from.

This movie has been also fairly special for me for a few reasons. Toy Story (1995) was simply one of the main reasons I wanted to become an animator. I always knew I wanted to do films period. Just didn't know how or where really. I went to a talk that Pete Docter gave in San Francisco that same year, and that talk changed a lot of things for me. I found myself so excited about this world ahead of me. Didn't know if I had what it takes...and quite honestly I didn't really care. Instead, I was just so excited to learn all this and start doing things. Getting a chance to be part of the world of Toy Story has been yet another dream of mine for a long time. A dream that not in a million years I thought would come true. I love dreams...and if they actually do happen it only makes me feel luckier and more thankful. I went through something similar when I had the chance to work on StarWars almost ten years ago having grown up with the original films. The kid inside me was running around non-stop for months and it's been the exact feeling here with Toy Story. Feeling difficult to describe.

Another reason has been because I was given a chance to animate what's been perhaps one of my favourite animated characters period, Buzz Lightyear. Now, after watching the first two Toy Story films a million times in college with my roommates, for a while as I was working on this third installment I'd think and ask to myself "These are very hard shoes to fill", "Am I trying hard enough?"..."Am I exploring all possibilities this shot or character has to offer?". I hope I did. I think at least I tried. One thing I know is I'll miss animating these characters a great deal.

Last reason is one which I can't really get into as much, but it has to do with Spain, my culture and this film. So, once the movie comes out, I'll be able to share. But it's yet another reason why I felt so lucky to be part of this film.

Anyways, as of this week I'm off this film and will be taking some time off soon, resting and also getting back into the live-action short film as we start to finish that as well. Here I'd like to share some pictures of the Atrium at Pixar and how they transformed it due to the film coming out in a couple more months.

It's been an amazing ride.

Carlos.

Viral ToyStory3 Trailer

2010-03-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

I love these.
Viral Toy Story 3 Horror

C.

Happy 5th Anniversary AnimationMentor!

2010-03-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

After working for two long years on our free time, in March 2005, Bobby, Shawn and I opened the doors to our first group of very enthusiastic/motivated and passionate animation students. Many friendships and experiences were born out of what to the three of us was a very scary new adventure. I remember our very first Q&A. We met at Bobby's house...and we were ready to start meeting students online. About a 100 students were waiting to log into this Q&A from all over the world. Within a minute of the Q&A starting, the server crashed. Couldn't handle things. We were terrified to say the least. I sat on the floor a bit lost. All our hard work and sweat, and many sleepless nights spent on the School all of a sudden seemed like they would not see the light, and that perhaps we were trying to achieve something ridiculously ambitious.

However, in the following weeks to that, and thanks to our very patience/supportive students, mentors and a ridiculously talented/hardworking staff/crew...what seemed like it was going to be a nightmare turned out to be one of the experiences of our lifetime. Things got turned around slowly, and our online community was born. Pretty unreal. So, the crew, the teachers, the students, have always showed us sides that have made the experience unforgettable.

I think one of the things I remember constantly is the support from people in a lot of ways.
A moment I clearly remember, was one of our first Birds of a Feather in Los Angeles' Siggraph. It was just a few of us. Bobby, Shawn, Rachel, Becky and Lleslle if I remember correctly. We were going to have a few of our first mentors speak about their experiences. We were stressing and rushing to get the event ready and organized for the students to arrive. One of the first people entering the room while we were finishing things quickly and running around one side of the room to the next, was one of our mentor guests of that day, Jason Schleifer. Someone who's been definitely one of the most supportive mentors we've had in our School, and someone who I respect tremendously. Jason was coming to just speak about his experiences. However, first thing Jason says walking in the door without even saying hello "Ok guys, what can I do to help!". Those exact words. Right in that moment, that showed me a lot about Jason from the very beginning. So for me, it's been always moments like that were people surrounding us have been there with us very very generous along the way. Hopefully we've been trying to do the same as much as we've been able to.

So from here I wanted to say Happy 5th Anniversary to AnimationMentor, the crew, the teachers/guests/students who I've been lucky enough to meet/hang out in these 5 years...and a big thank you for being there along the way. Thanks to you, I've been lucky enough to meet people from all over the world, who have treated me above and beyond what I could ask.

Carlos.

ps: check out this "Once Upon a Time..." video in the front page of the Public School site that will show you more about the beginnings of us starting all this.

Toy Story 3 & ShoWest

2010-03-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

Very excited about the positive feedback and reactions from the work in progress Toy Story 3 screening at the Vegas ShoWest Event.
Read & watch below.

Toy Story 3 & ShoWest

C.

Final ToyStory3 Poster

2010-03-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

Just saw this at the Pixar Blog.
Very cool.

C.

Pixar Talk Blog

2010-03-04T09:36:00.000-08:00

Pixar Talk Spotlight

This is way cool and really nice.
Made my week. Thank you Greg.

C.

Social Sites

2010-02-15T15:41:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to quickly let you know about this since many people have been trying to reach me through facebook. I use Facebook mostly for friends/family stuff...and I use my website//blog for animation/film related stuff. I try to keep both worlds separate. Since many facebook requests in the past come from people I've never met, I wanted to avoid any confusion about that. I have family and friends in facebook and I'd like to keep that part private. Thanks for understanding.

As for Twitter, I still have no clue how to use that thing.
So nothing being done on that end.

Update: I learned to use Twitter...sort of.
You can find me at: Carlos_Baena
Twitter I'm using it for work as well.

C.

Final ToyStory3 Trailer

2010-02-11T09:25:00.001-08:00

Check it out. It introduces many new characters.

Final ToyStory3 Trailer

Carlos.

Acting & Non-Acting

2010-02-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

I used to hear the whole "the acting has to come from a real place". Took me a while to understand really what this meant and how to think of it in terms of my own work. Much of what we do is an interpretation of a situation. There have been some scenes I've been assigned where I get to them right away, and try to figure out what comes natural. But then there have been other scenes where I dig in further and I try to find in my memory and my life experiences something I can pull from and see if I can bring out feelings to apply to it. I think it's in those where you get unexpected material to work from. The real place not the acting place.

When I'm acting, I'm acting. It's simple. I can't fool anyone. I'm pretending to do something I've never experienced and sometimes it just feels fake. However, when I can find pieces of my life experience to put on my work, it does a giant difference. All of a sudden, there is a degree of connectivity that makes people relate to what they are watching. We want audiences to relate to our work. It's harder for an audience to relate to something that feels acted out than something that feels real. Therefore, that's why we encourage people to avoid cliches, and things like that (as difficult as that is sometimes).

I recently stumbled upon what I consider one of the strongest scenes I've seen in a film. It's from the 2002 film Rabbit Proof Fence. I studied this film's documentary last year since I was going to be working with 10 year olds and I knew nothing about working with kids in general (the making of has a great section on what challenges the Director faced with these kids). This was big help for me. For the purposes of this post, I chose the initial conflict moment in the film. I use the word moment as opposed to acting moment. Because to me this moment in the movie felt real in many levels. I also included the making of documentary of that section. The fact that we have kids playing such difficult roles made it even more memorable to me. So watch the scene first. It really is something else:

The scene feels real, because the kids were feeling those emotions of pain in that situation. One of the kids does say on the making of (which I post a link to afterwards): "I felt like she was really my mother". It really is strong in many ways. For once the contrast of having two of the kids in pure shock in the car not saying anything, taking it all in versus the mother and the older sister screaming and crying, make for a very powerful real moment. I know I repeat myself but contrast is a very powerful tool in any animator/filmmaker's toolbox. I'd recommend reading the book Visual Story by bruce block, to understand how contrast and affinity visually affect films constantly. From the performances, to the composition, to the focal lengths....all the way to sound design and scoring I'd like to add. So getting back to this scene and the contrast between the reactions of the younger sisters and the older one, really made the state of shock of the little girls stand out. In animation, in many cases less is more. I'm more drawn to the little girl's facial expression where her eyes are wide open confused that to the older girl crying. Sometimes in our lives we go through a moment or situation were we are on shock...don't know how to react or what to do. As an audience, that choice feels heavier and more interesting to me than the screaming. And the two younger kids really bring me into that state of shock and confusion.

Much of this feels improvised. Some really great choices like the older sister trying to shut the car door with her bare feet. Going back to how this applies to us animators, I think the use of props around in a scene give us additional choices. So make use of the props around in a scene, even if it's a technical challenge, at the end of the day, we remember the choices in the scene...not how difficult it was technically.

Now watch the making of this particular scene here:

Rabbit Proof Fence Documentary - Forced Removal Scene

What makes this scene real is how immerse the kids put themselves in their roles. Even to the point of making their Kids acting teacher cry (woman watching the camera monitor). You often hear that for some actors, certain roles take a toll in them. It's very exhausting. I think there is something along those lines that we go through. In some cases I've locked myself in the acting room at work for almost an hour, trying to figure out all the possibilities the shot has to offer. And even after I feel like I'm still not done. So watch both the scene and the making of, as there is some wonderful stuff to learn from. I'd recommend studying this scene from a performance choices (all the way from when they are sitting down) to a staging/cinematic point of view, and what elements did the Director include to make this scene much more dramatic like for example making the car part of the element of intimidation.

Enjoy it.

Carlos.

The Third & The Seventh

2010-01-06T21:05:00.000-08:00

The Third & The Seventh

This piece was so inspirational, I had to post it.
It really speaks in so many levels...and it's so well executed, from the CG to the compositing to the sound/score. All done by the same guy. What a beautiful display of talents.

Now one of the things that really impresses me here is the composition choices as well as the interesting angles he chooses. Definitely something worth studying.

Carlos.

ps: Happy New Year everyone.

On Feedback

2009-12-20T15:18:00.000-08:00

Feedback is quite a delicate part of what we do. Sometimes animators take it well and other times not so well. Over the years, I've come to learn that without feedback, my shots or anything I do would look like complete crap. Getting some fresh eyes on what it is that we do, really helps, especially when you are staring at your same shot for days and/or weeks.

I noticed people give feedback in some ways. I'm not writting here about how to give feedback...but instead, some pointers that may make the process a little easier.

First, does the animator want feedback? Are you confortable giving feedback to a person? If you are not, then don't. However, if the animator is open for suggestions, that's a great quality as it shows he or she wants to improve the shot.
Also, the feedback should be honest. I always go to particular animators at work, that I know will be direct on their feedback, and will not pull any punches. If I want to improve as an animator, I need that.
Not all feedback is about things to correct in the shot. Even if the shot needs a lot of work, it's nice when someone brings up something that is actually working.
Make the feedback constructive. Doesn't help to hear "That looks wrong" or "That area seems off". Instead, find ways to let them know how to fix it. Maybe the up/down curve could be smoothed out...or hold that pose there a little longer so that we read it.
What kind of feedback are you passing? Is it feedback that will improve the shot based on what the animator has in there already, or is it feedback that will make it different? Big differences.
I think it's important to respect the animators idea/choices. I would not want to give a friend feedback that will completely change their acting choices, unless they ask for it. Also, it's important to remember that this is their shot. Not my shot. Helps to keep that in mind.
I think it's important to get feedback from a few people. It doesn't matter how much I like the choice/acting I put in there. If two or more people agree that something in there is not working, then it's important to re-evaluate the shot, and consider to re-block that section.
Something that matters also is when the feedback is given. It's not the same to give feedback when the animator is just starting to work on it as opposed to the day the animator is supposed to final that shot.
If a shot is in the early early stages of blocking, then feedback related to the actual ideas, acting choices or overall staging of the character will be useful knowing a lot of the work in the shot is still very rough, and it's easy to change.
However, if your shot is about to be finaled, you are adding some of the polish...and someone tells you, to have your character walking slowly instead of running, it can really set you back. It helps to show often to get feedback, or if you don't, be ready to get feedback that may change your shot a 180 degrees.
So usually, if the shot is closed to being finaled, most of the feedback I'll offer is related to small polish things that may help the shot...arcs, pops, subtleties, keep alive areas...
It's important to know that getting feedback is about improving a shot, and not judging the animators skills. Some of my early blocking looks very crappy. However, at that stage I can care less about how the curves looks...what I'm concerned about is whether my ideas are good or even worth it.
Ultimately, the Director has the final say in a shot. So you can get all the feedback you want from peers, but at the end of the day, you are working towards helping the Director realize his/her vision.

I hope this helps.

Carlos.

ToyStory3 New Clip

2009-12-20T15:16:00.000-08:00

Check it out.

Extended Toy Story 3 Clip

C.

Status & Comedy

2009-12-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

What makes stuff funny. I'm still trying to figure out with every new thing I watch, that captures my attention. This post is not about animation or film, really...it's about comedy. Something that I'm not capable of explaining what it is, or how to get it. What feels funny to some people may not be funny to me, and viceversa.

Now what I've been observing are certain things that tend to keep us interested from a comedy point of view...and that's great stuff for me as an animator. Can't get enough of it, and continue trying to apply it to my work in whichever way I can.

One of those things is status. Great masters of comedy such as Charlie Chaplin, knew this all along. And they knew how to apply to his gags. Highly recommend studying Charlie Chaplin for this reason, and another million reasons as well. I'm a big Seinfeld fan, and have been learning so much from the show. Some episodes hold up today as much as they did fifteen years ago. So I wanted to use another example from it, this time from actor Larry Miller, who I consider to have great subtleties and a pretty unique and advanced sense of humor. In this clip Larry Miller plays a Doorman, and it opens this Seinfeld episode with the same name:

First, what really catched my eye here was the use of status and subtext. Status is used heavily borderline confrontational. Larry's body language and delivery is played with a much higher status than Seinfeld himself, especially in a role of a doorman. Being used to seeing how in a job like that a doorman treats the client with the most respect, to see Larry Miller cross that line of respect so blatantly and over the top, made the introduction of this character instantly funny. Some areas to pay attention for example is the finger action...he's not even looking at him to begin with. And that body language is more used when someone has a much closer relationship to another person. Which again brings it back to status for me. Also, he takes a while in making eye contact with Seinfeld. Another thing he does status wise, is to scan Seinfeld up and down, walking towards him slowly with a big smirk in his face. Again, somehow seeing someone in a position like that, behaving that way, became very funny to me. Goes back to doing unexpected things from certain personalities or characters....and it is that contrast that brings reactions out of us. Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin both did that.

Second, the subtext throughout the whole scene is something else. What the doorman character is implying by his facial expressions, by his timing...brings comedy to the scene as well. For example, the dialogue goes:

- "Can I help you? Benes. No one here by that name."

The simple fact that he's smiling throughout his delivery, to me adds another layer to his character, and his status in this scene.

Third, Larry's delivery and timing in each sentence is really great. Pay attention to the timing when he says the word "Quickie". He includes a pause in there which makes the overall sentence even funnier. If you cut that pause, guarantee the delivery of that sentence is not as funny. Breaking up the timing in our actions, pauses and dialogue, always adds a whole new dimension to comedy in my opinion.

Anyways, see how it feels to you.
Hopefully someone finds this useful.

C.

Some links.

2009-12-11T16:05:00.000-08:00

Been meaning to write and recommend some of this stuff. These are either great work done by friends and other stuff I've found that may be both motivating and inspiring. Some of these people have devoted years of work in their free time, to put these together and that's never easy. So be sure to check these out:

The Passenger (2006)
Chris Jones

Distraxion (2009)
Mike Stern

Alma (2009)
Rodrigo Blaas

Oktapodi (2008)
Jullien Bocabeille / Francois-Xabier Chanioux / Olivier Delabarre / Thierry Marchand / Quentin Marmier / Emud Mokhberi

Greed (2008)
Alli Sadegiani

Meindbender Studios
(Animation Studio in Sweden)

On MiltKahl
(A Tribute event with current Directors/Animators. Be sure to watch all videos)

C.

Imagemakers

2009-12-06T21:42:00.000-08:00

For those in Northern California who are able to get the KQED Arts channel and are interested, they have a weekly show named Imagemakers, where they showcase really great Shortfilms from all over the world. Read more about it here:

About Imagemakers

And for a list of films showcased so far and a description of them:

Imagemakers Shortfilms

Some of these films are beautifully made.
Highly highly recommended.

Carlos.

Combining multiple ideas into shots.

2009-10-12T16:30:00.001-07:00

Since this week I'm taking a small break, as I get ready to get back to work on TS3 for our last few months, I figured I'd write about something I've been reading and studying about a lot recently in terms of planning and shooting.

It's been more than interesting to figure out ways to combine multiple ideas in a shot, and see how it would play out in a full scene. So far until not long ago I kept thinking about one idea per shot, meaning something happens in shot A, then something else happens in shot B...then shot C....and it'd be the juxtaposition of those shots that give meaning to a scene.

However, I started running into the issue of a scene being a little too static, or the scene not being broken up enough from a shot structure point of view. Some stuff just felt plain boring to watch. All of a sudden, when planning animatics I'd find myself having separate shots and a scene that didn't feel dynamic. To put it simply, the scene would lack a lot of interest from a shot structure.

I continued researching different films to see what different Directors and/or DPs would do with their scenes. Also, at one point, Sharon Calahan (Director of Photography at Pixar), a truly wonderful person and very very helpful to me lately, brought up to me the idea of combining separate ideas into single shots. That soon made me want to go back to studying films thinking about that. Not only it would allow to simplifying sequences and be more practical in the number of setups, but also would add a bit more interest when putting the shots together. Easier said than done. When working on the Shortfilm, I found out that time on the set is more than a luxury sometimes especially when working with kids. Because of this, we weren't able to have the flexibility of working out some of the camera setups my DP Tiffany and me originally had in mind. Very difficult stuff.

However, it was still a huge learning experience to plan as if we would be able to nevertheless.
So with that in mind, I wanted to show an example I found very useful in learning about combining separate ideas into one single shot by a great use of camera work/leading the eye to where it needs as well as some great character staging choices.

The movie is Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946). If you haven't watched it, do watch it before to avoid spoilers. Here is a section towards the end of the film.

The middle shot while it may seem simple now, but it was quite eye opening for me.
We learn than the bad guy here (Sebastian) just found out that Alicia (Ingrid Bergman) is an american agent spying on him. So him and his mother decide to take some slow measures towards her and start to poison her.

This shot starts out with a relaxed 3/4 MS shot of Sebastian. What starts out as a simple dialogue exchange (where you almost expect to cut to the opposite 3/4 shot of Alicia) all of a sudden brings attention to what's really going on, the coffee. The camera tracks straight to the coffee and holds there. We don't see anyone putting poison on the coffee. But we get it. When Alicia is first talking, the camera is still on Sebastian, not her...for a reason. Then the camera while she's still talking, goes to the coffee, not her. We then see Alicia drinking the coffee, and right away the camera tracks from her face to a profile shot of the mother. Since the mother is in profile, we are pretty removed from her eyeline. I'm guessing this was done in purpose to have her in profile as opposed to an eyeline closer to us.

So in just one shot we get:

Sebastian starts to get Alicia to drink coffee
He's pretending nothing out of the ordinary is going on
This coffee is poisoned
Alicia has no idea what's going on
Sebastian's mother is also in it

Anyways, this series of moving tracks from one character, to the coffee, to the other character to the final character in a way it could almost be a bit too on the nose nowadays...However, for my purposes, it taught me a lot. It goes back to:

What's the point of the shot
How can you say it in an interesting way
How can you add suspense and drama out of the characters

To name a few. Then, back to the combination of ideas into single shots, I'd add:

How can I simplify the number of shots in a scene so that's not too many.
How can I cover more than one story point in a shot without making it too busy/distracting, and instead make the shot more interesting visually?
How can I improve the timing/pacing of the scene by doing this throughout?

Anyways, I hope this stuff is as helpful to you as it's been to me studying them.

Carlos.

Toy Story 3 Full Trailer

2009-10-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Enjoy it in full HD. Here is the link:

Toy Story 3 Full Trailer

I couldn't be more proud of being part of this film.
On this trailer I was responsible of a couple of parts. The 3 shots of the little kid about to chew Buzz Lightyear in slow motion, and the shots of Buzz when he pushes all the other toys away, strikes a Flamenco pose, walks towards the camera and talks in spanish.
Very very fun stuff to animate for me personally.

Carlos.

Rough Pencil Tests Site

2009-09-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

Great stuff in this link below.
Definitely check it out.

Pencil Test Depot

C.

Editing

2009-09-02T22:45:00.001-07:00

It's been great studying movies in different ways. Some days you study the performance, other days you study the composition. It never ever gets tiring. Quite the contrary. I've been studying several movies over the last year for different reasons each. I wanted to do a small post on editing as it plays a major role on what it is that we do, and it's very difficult stuff sometimes.

Editing can enhance a performance or break it. Simple as that. It can add another layer to the pacing of a perfomance, and it can simply add another layer to a scene in general. When you connect three shots together...all of a sudden, you have a whole new bunch of tools to tell your story, and you can tell it in a million different ways.

Simple rough example. Three shots. A shot of a guy walking on the street. A shot of a car in motion. A close up of the guy. As you place each of those shots in different places with different timing, you could get something like:

- A car is coming, and the guy doesn't see it coming.
- A car is coming and the guy reacts.
- Guy reacts as he's about to get hit by a car.

To name a few.
So to show a more powerful example, I chose an example from the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, a wonderful film shot by DP Conrad Hall/John Corso and edited by Wayne Wahrman. Beautiful photography in it by the way, highly recommended. Pay attention how this scene is edited almost as a shortfilm in itself:

This scene I found is a great example of bringing texture/depth to the pacing of a scene, by how each shot it timed out as well as the choices in each of the shots:

The early shots are longer. Less or none is happening.
We don't see what's going on through the early shots. By the framing of the chess game and Ben Kinsgley's performance, information is being held temporarily from the audience to keep us interested. We don't even get to see what Ben is doing in these shots. We just hear the sound of the chess game in the background getting stronger and stronger.
Camera is not necessarily moving as much. Just keep alive.
Slowly we are being let in as to what's going on. Still the timing of the shots is long.
At one point we are thrown in the action. The cuts begin to speed up. Framing starts to have some quick camera pans and tilts, and quicker and quicker timing as we go.
Music is keeping us in the moment as well.
Cuts at this point become twice as quick...and at one point the accelerate to the point of some shots just being a few frames long.
If you notice, some of the shots of the clock being hit don't match the actual sounds. I'd bet this was a conscious decision done by the editor, to add more confusion to the moment. They get in sync after a moment.
This editing ends up with one key story moment with the chess piece followed by a much slower tilt. The shot is held on the reaction shot of one actor, and held again on the kid actor. Not much else going on, not movement, no talking, nothing, just exchanges. This big change in the pacing gives contrast to all the quick shots that just happened.
That combined with the rest of the scene going back to slow pacing, allows us to take in what just happened. If the cutting was always fast with no break, you'd go crazy. If it was always slow, you'd be bored as hell. It's always finding a balance.
The slow (almost still) pacing now has that shot of the chess piece being hit by the actor who's been defeated. If you think about it, there is not only texture to the editing, but also a musicality to it, just like we find in timing.

Ultimately it is finding ways through the editing for the story to be told.

They always make it look so easy. And it's not. Editing done properly takes so long. What's difficult is to find the right reasons as to why you do something. It's not enough to say "I want to edit things quickly". Everything in film should have a purpose and editing is no different than acting, framing, composition, color.

Hope this is useful.

Carlos.

Abby, the 10 year old food Critic.

2009-09-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

My friend Abby came to visit the Studio about a month ago. Abby was in the Hospital for a while because of Crohn's disease, and couldn't eat normal food for a really long time. After watching the movie Ratatouille at the Hospital, she decided once she would be able to eat normal food again, she would become a food critic like the character of Ego. At first, her parents didn't really take it seriously. Once she was back home, she did go for it. And sure enough, she become one amazing food critic. Check it out.

Abbys Dining Adventures
Abby goes to Pixar Cafe

It was so great having you visit!

Carlos.

Timelapse Interview

2009-08-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

The guys at Timelapse.es asked me some questions about some of the videos I've been doing outside my animation work. This is something that came out as a fun hobby for me. To see the videos at better quality (or at least better frame rate), watch them here.

Timelapse Interview

Carlos

Hitchcock - Storyboard App

2009-08-26T07:37:00.001-07:00

For those interested. Cinemek just released an interesting storyboard application. Pretty much a picture software that allows you to edit things ready for storyboarding planning. Easily usable whether you are doing 3D or Live-Action. I haven't gotten this (just yet), but it sure has a lot of possibilities. Especially when you are on the go. Nice you can export as .pdf files as well.

Hitchcock Storyboard App

Carlos.

Toy Story 3 - Lee Unkrich

2009-08-01T10:36:00.000-07:00

I'm really learning a lot with our Director Lee Unkrich.
This is a great honest interview about Toy Story 3 that he just did at Comic-Con.

Toy Story 3 Lee Unkrich Comic-Con

Have a great weekend.
Back to work.

C.

Update

2009-08-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've been really missing in action. We are getting really busy on Toy Story 3, and on my weekends we've been doing camera tests/casting on the Shortfilm. I can't talk about ToyStory 3 and I can't put anything Shortfilm content related. But I can talk in terms of the technicalities or the process in case anyone out there is interested in this process. I figured I'd post my findings here and there, since it's quickly becoming a fast educational experience for me. Here are some behind the scenes pictures of a few of the Shooting test days with my Director of Photography Tiffany as well as my Lighting Supervisor Luigi, where we were testing lenses (I have dreams with the Arri Ultraprimes, they are amazing lenses), some tracking systems and some location scouting.

Behind the scenes pics

To put it simply, the experience so far is damn hard. It's difficult enough to visualize a particular shot or scene in your head. But once you do, you get excited about it, you do a 3D animatic of it, you get even more excited about it, and sometimes later you find out all the hard work you have been putting in it, and all the planning may not be able to get realized in the same way you wanted due to the limitations of the equipment and/or budget. So we've had to add that and be conscious of it to our planning process in order to realize the point of the shot or the scene. So we are going to do two planning passes, my dream "hell yeah" animatic pass is what I'd love to see on screen....and then I'm doing a "oh, ok, damn it...let's try this then" backup animatic pass after discovering what our limitations might be. This way we still get what we need somehow. Hopefully. If we get the first choice, then great, I'll have plenty of Sangrias that day...otherwise, we go the backup route. Therefore, I've been currently working on doing these 3D animatics of the Short with my DP Tiffany, and getting help/feedback from people at my work that do this as their day to day. It's nice to be back with Maya on the computer. It's been quite a while. Also been working with each of the departments on getting stuff done on their end. This part has been more than fun, especially when the people you work with are really professional, no egos involved and definitely fun to be around and have a good time in the process. I'll post more things like these, and will share what I'm learning with this film after we are done with the film, since now I have little to no time to post much on my blog.

It's nice to spend time on the opposite side of what I currently do on my day to day, which is to animate. But something it's been great to learn for me is to step outside of my animation bubble, where I'm in control of every single detail in my shot, and instead have people add their input/involvement in the main areas of the process.

Carlos.

Great Dog Short

2009-06-10T17:40:00.001-07:00

My co-worker Dave sent this out at work today, and it had me laughing for a while. Reminds me a bunch to "Family Dog"...which I loved, and could watch it a million times. This is a pretty amazing little short in itself. The character has personality, appeal, and is interesting and funny within seconds of playing the movie. There is something to be said about ways to introduce a character. And in my case since I love dogs, it keeps me watching as I find something new every time.

Check it out:

Fed up

Carlos.