CarlosBaena.com

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.

Toy Story 3 Teaser!

2009-05-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

In addition to UP coming out today (go see it!), I just found out that the teaser trailer for ToyStory 3 is online. See it here in HD, it makes a difference:

ToyStory 3 Teaser

So happy it's finally online. This little teaser was a lot of work. Everyone in the crew did simply amazing. I was responsible for animating Buzz when he bumps into Woody until he claps and the lights turn off. I'm more than excited for this film. One more year to go!

Carlos.

On Film Acting.

2009-05-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Been busy so whatever I'll be posting I'll try for it to be helpful. So, with that said I have to say I just love the internet. Really. What a wealth of invaluable information.
I found some links of some actors sharing their thoughts on acting, that I wanted to pass on. How that translates to what we do as animators, I wanted to bring my thoughts on as well:

Anthony Hopkins

This what a great one as he basically is telling us, sometimes you don't need to do much to convey strong powerful emotions in the scene. Sometimes is nice to let the camera do part of their job. If you have a slow push in on the character, but the character is moving a lot, what happens is, first you miss what the camera is trying to do. Second you miss a great opportunity to get internal on the character. As animators (especially starting) we always have this desire to do a lot, to always have our character gesturing, to have a wide range of facial expressions. Well, some shots will call for that, but other ones certainly will not. So keep that in mind when approaching your shots. There is a nice sentence he says at the end where he goes "Don't signal to us what you are feeling, speak the text, be clear".

Another area he discussed, which I thought was great, was when he was talking about a Meryl Streep's comment on one of her scenes. Her point being that sometimes concentrating too much sometimes creates the opposite effect to what we want, because by concentrating we are tense, we are thinking about it too much, etc. So sometimes is the opposite (lack of concentrating) what we want. Just letting go and relax and see what comes out. Think about that when shooting video reference for your shots. It's not always good trying too hard to bring out some sort of emotion.

Wonderful stuff. Interesting the thought from Rod Stieger as wel as James Lipton throughout. Ultimately it's about the choices in the scene. As animators, you can have great polish, great poses, etc...but if the acting choices aren't there, then you still got nothing. That's why it's great to observe what great actors do...definitely observe what real people do. There you'll find really unique stuff. As actors we are always doing our own interpretation of a feeling, an emotion, a moment. But real people when they do that, it really is the real thing. So watch documentaries. It'll give you absolutely great choices.

Think about this for a second. Imagine you have to animate a scene in where a kid is struggling thinking about something. The scene could go in a lot of different ways...he could be struggling in a sad way, he could be struggling as if he knows something but doesn't remember it, he could be struggling as if he doesn't want other people to know, you call it. Well, you can act out that stuff, but you can always find real case scenarios like the documentary Spellbound where you'll find plenty of cases where kids are thinking, struggling and coming up with wonderful choices.

Back to the Brando Method, there is a section where James Lipton puts it very clear:

"[...]...2 actors and a Director making choices that are unique to the actors, that are unforgettable and that have made a four minute scene one of the most famous moments in cinema history"

There is a scene talked about in part 3 about the scene of Brando/Eva Marie Saint and the glove from "On the Waterfront". It's great in terms of working with the circunstances, given an accident (glove dropping) and doing something different and special with it. Read more on it here. All of a sudden, Brando adds a new dimension to the scene, something that was real, that both him and her could work with. In the animation world, it's always something worth exploring for me. What props are in the scene, is there something on the set that I can use? Can I do something additional in the exchange between characters that not only does what the scene calls for and what the director wants, but adds an additional layer of interest? Many times this is hard, but when you find it, it certainly pays off.

Watch all three parts of the Documentary on Brando. It gives you a new insight on what it is that we do. This is to me what we aspire as animators. In creating scenes that while are very much on character they still have unique and original acting choices that are memorable, real and thruthful.

Hope this helps.
Have a great Sunday.

Carlos.

Work & Website

2009-04-03T18:40:00.001-07:00

As you can tell, I haven't really been able to keep up on posting useful information on the blog.
2009 is looking to be a pretty busy year for me. Toy Story 3 is in full production. Being the first Toy Story film pretty much one of the reasons I wanted to learn animation and one of my favourite films of all time, I wanted to make sure I dedicate the time to this production. Additionally, I found out a few weeks ago that I'm going to get to direct an Independent Live-Action Shortfilm produced by Pixar along with a fantastic crew/co-workers. The opportunity and the chance to work on both TS3 and to direct a Shortfilm here at work, is an amazing one, therefore I want to do my best. Unfortunately, I have to put other things/projects on hold while I work on these two films this year...and the blog is among one of them. I won't be able to post as often as before...but hopefully here and there I'll try to post something that is of some help to you all.

Carlos.

Tribute to Milt Kahl (Los Angeles)

2009-03-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

For those interested. I'd love to be able to make it to this. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is having a Special Tribute Event to Milt Kahl, one of the most inspiring animators of the Nine Old Men.

Events like these are always incredible. Andreas Deja shared a bunch of drawings from Frank/Ollie he had at last year's Frank/Ollie Tribute at Siggraph, and that stuff is very motivating/inspirational to hear regardless of whether you animate on 3D, 2D or Stop-Motion. Very recommended if you can make it, especially for those in the Los Angeles area.

Milt Kahl: The Animation Michelangelo

Carlos.

Where the Wild Things Are Trailer.

2009-03-25T13:40:00.001-07:00

To follow up on my previous post regarding Spike Jonze (a personal favourite of mine) I just watched this Trailer. Don 't even know where to begin about how excited I am about this film:

Where The Wild Things Are Trailer

C.

Spike Jonze's "Heaven"

2009-03-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

I try to post usually about animation/film things related. Ok, sometimes I may post about things I may be into such as skateboarding or Spain Soccer team winning the Eurocup. :) But this is one of those times where I get to post about two of them at the same time.

Spike Jonze just put together a new music video where he used additional footage and re-edited previously used footage he shot for an skateboarding intro a couple of years ago. The result of this is an even better wonderful and spectacular mix of visuals and music.

Too good not to share.
Enjoy.

Spike Jonze's "Heaven"

To read about it, go here.

Carlos.

New UP Trailer

2009-03-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Make sure to check it out (in HD).

UP Trailer

C.

Day and Night

2009-03-02T01:53:00.000-08:00

These days have been raining and cloudy non-stop, so I shot some timelapse Footage shot from TwinPeaks in San Francisco, and put it together in this short video for fun. Used PcLix LT and the D90.

Day and Night

C.

Commercial

2009-02-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

My father just sent me this. This is one of those TV ads, that not only touches you but leaves a big mark. It's a spanish ad for the Asociation Afanoc...and well, it's just beautiful.

Un Gesto de Amor

Enjoy.

Carlos.

Congrats to Wall-E and Spain

2009-02-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

Watching the Academy Awards is always something special to me. Not so much for the awards or the glamour, but because to me it feels like a big celebration of filmmakers/everyone involved as well as all the extremely hard work that goes into the craft. Been watching them for as long as I can remember...even when I was in Spain and had to wake up at 3am to watch them. So last year I felt more than proud to be working at Pixar and to being born/raised in Spain...having both Ratatouille and Javier Bardem both win Academy Awards. Yesterday I felt the same if not more having Wall-E and Penelope Cruz both win Academy Awards. I especially liked both their speeches for different reasons. So from here just wanted to congratulate again the Wall-E crew I had the pleasure of working with as well as Spain/Penelope for the Awards.

Co-worker Ronnie del Carmen posted some more on Andrew coming back to Pixar to celebrate.

Carlos.

One year later...

2009-02-22T12:39:00.000-08:00

It's been approximately a year since I updated the site. My goal was to make it a simpler site to navigate, and simpler site to add movies/content/educational stuff to it. I wanted to make sure I thank again my friend Michael for making all my design/interface thoughts and ideas on the site a reality. You rock.

So, pretty much I'm posting about anything that relates to Films/Animation since that's my passion...and anything that can help anyone out there. Again, since it's been a year, let me know what sorts of things you'd like to be discussed (that's not Pixar sensitive/undisclosed material which I can't talk about), etc. Also, since it's pretty much impossible for me to keep up with email sometimes, I'll try to address general questions I get asked in a post to help more people.

Have a rockin' Sunday.
And from here best of luck to all the nominated filmmakers at the Awards tonight. Since I work close to see of them, of course I'll be rooting for Presto and Wall-E. But I know some other people who's also nominated, so I wanted to wish them good luck as well (Shuzo, that goes for you!).

Carlos.

Dramatic Choices.

2009-02-19T18:17:00.000-08:00

I wanted to continue bringing up the topic of choices in acting. It's not a small topic...and quite honestly, to me it seems to be the one topic to continue learning regardless of how much animation experience you may have or not.

Sometimes you watch a movie and someone in that movie that's not necessarily the main actor just blows you away. That was the case of Tony Collette in the film "The Sixth Sense" and her character Lynn. Not only she was believable as her character Lynn, but also she was natural and she comes up with great acting choices. I enjoyed the film quite a lot when it came out and haven't watched it again until recently. I'd love to show this one scene towards the end of the film where she really impressed me in all levels:

So much to study in this exchange.

She starts out very subtle. "Secrets?"..."What is it?". What I like is that, she's not the center of attention and lets the other person talk, giving this part of the conversation a nice balanced feel. Also her delivery feels natural and not over the top.
When the kid goes "the lady is dead and standing next to my window", Lynn does a small pause and sits back. In this pose all that's going on are a few eye darts of her searching for the dead woman. "You are scaring me", her whole body language feels contained and there is not much going on other than her lipsync. It could be easy to go over the top (even if it's a slow scene) in an animated shot, and animate the head, etc. However, the fact that she's very still when delivering that line makes gives the scene a more intense feel. Be that creepy, scary, whatever makes you feel at that particular moment.
"They?"..."You see ghosts Cole?"...her body language is still very much still. Sometimes less is more, and less will give your acting shot more intensity.
"They talk to you?": the mother in the film loves Cole very much and that's a big part of who she is in the film and her personality regardless of what she's going through, and this line could easily be delivered or acted out with a facial expression that reads almost making fun of what Cole just said "Ghosts want me to do things for them". Instead, what I really liked in this part is that she stays as the loving mother, so her delivery "They talk to you?" comes off genuinely interested while trying to make some sense of what she's hearing.
The exchange of him asking her what she's thinking and asking her if she thinks he's a freak, again, her performance is pretty straight forward. Staying on character, but also not going over the top. The next parts are the areas that really hit me.
"Let me think for a minute...", her subtext and facial expression reads as if she's been close to being knocked out, in a smaller level. But again, the fact that her delievery of these lines are not big in any way, gives the scene more intensity (at least for me).
"Grandma says hi": She looks quickly, and her timing is faster. Her eyes (very subtlety) widened, and as Cole continues talking, she slightly starts to turn her head away from him while her eyes are fixed on him. Her mouth opens in awe, again in small increments. All this while still subtle it sure adds a lot. Her body language is both saying I don't want to hear this, and also saying what crazy stuff am I listening to right now?
"What?"...a small detail that I personally enjoyed very much. Her lipsync anticipates the word "What?" for a little while. So she stays in the word "O" for a while. It's quite a nice choice. Also notice her eyebrows raising slowly. They don't really move much when she actually says the word. Again, it's nice to anticipate slowly.
"Grandma saw you dance": again, another quick look...this time, her head and body are more involved. This from a pacing point of view is just great, because it advances the scene. Goes somewhere. It's important to go somewhere with our acting and our shots. The fact that she doesn't say a word and just keeps looking at Cole and listening, makes this moment anticipate the rest of shot in such a powerful way.
At this point she's thinking and remembering. So she's darting around thinking, even when she breathes. Again, it's nice to see her eyes anticipating the head move, by her thinking/remembering. It's as if her remembering is taking her to places and the head moves with it. Weird way to think of this moment, but when we remember very powerful memories, it's always interesting and very educational to see what our eyes and head do and how related they both are.
She's still listening. This time her hand covers her mouth. It's such a nice choice. In the book "ManWatching", Desmond Morris talks about how covering your mouth sometimes indicates "holding back information". The hand is covering the mouth since the brain unconsciously asks it to suppress the information. Could be true in this case or not. But in either case, to me, from an animation/acting point of view, this felt like a very original choice...that also gave intensity to the moment and how her character is feeling. In a way is almost like all this information she's being given and that she's processing, is too much for her to take.
On that same note, notice how she almost doesn't know what to do with her hand (when it's by her nose). Her facial expressions and how she covers her face/nose with both hands speaks by itself. Her body language, her shoulders raising and her spine starting to bend, shows me that her character is at her most vulnerable level. She's obviously about to breakdown, to the point where she can't barely talk. Even when she does talk, she takes a break to get air (hands by her neck), but also get her stuff together.
"Do I make her proud?". Her facial expressions at this point are not just expressions of sadness, but also of pain. Sometimes, as I pointed out in the past, just because a character is sad, doesn't necessarily mean her facial expressions have to be sad. She's having a really hardtime even speaking because of all the emotions going on in her head/memories.
Then she adds that last bit (non dialogue) after her delievery, which always gets to me everytime. Really powerful stuff for me.

I think her acting in this scene is not only believable but also powerful.
There could be a million other things that you notice...and probably not all the things in this scene spoke to you how they spoke to me. Also, there could be a million different ways to act this out and animate a conversation like this.

Ultimately, the great thing about what we do is how many choices we have available and how many different ways we can say something, and make an audience feel.
I hope this scene was as inspirational to you as it was to me.

Have a great week everyone.

Carlos.

Planning Case Study: The Incredibles

2009-02-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

A study of the process of planning of one of the sequences from the film The Incredibles that I had to animate in the past, and the importance that planning had for me in preparing for this sequence. Showed several planning elements such as video reference, film clips and thumbnails.

Planning Case Study: The Incredibles

I hope this is helpful to people.

Carlos.

Wall-E Sequence

2009-02-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share one of the sequences I had the chance to work on in the movie Wall-E. It was a really different style of work I got the chance to do based on other things I've had to animate in the past, and I felt pretty lucky that I got to animate this. It was a difficult sequence, but the most fun for me.

Wall-E Hurt

Enjoy.

Carlos.

Lonely Tree

2009-01-31T01:42:00.000-08:00

Some random tree I found in Spain over the holidays.

Lonely Tree

C.

Motivation.

2009-01-31T00:51:00.000-08:00

Ben asked this:

I wanted to ask you, was there ever a time when you found it hard to animate, or felt like your original passion for animation was no where to be found? If you have experienced this at some point what brought your passion back?, what caused you to remember how special animation was? I am curious, as i have experienced these feelings and would like to know if professional animators, like yourself, go through similar times.

Absolutely. I can't talk for other people, but I feel it is quite normal to not always feel as motivated doing what we do for years and years. Motivation is definitely not the same as when we are starting for example. Something I decided many years back was to keep myself busy outside my full-time job whether I was working on commercials, at ILM or currently at Pixar. I chose to do different things that while were close to Film/Animation were different enough to keep me motivated/inspired somehow, such as shorts/videos/music and/or photography. Things that are different visual for the most part but similar in nature and that I enjoy quite a lot. The AnimationMentor School has kept my mind quite busy for a few years outside my full-time as well. What those things ended up doing was for me to not get burned out on my day job and have other things to keep my head balanced. I didn't want my entire life to revolve around ILM...or Pixar. I've done it in previous jobs and I can easily get more frustrated at my own work, more stuck, more unmotivated or feel like my life is going no where. Instead, I wanted to try to continue growing as an artist/filmmaker while learning in these places. Sometimes it worked and other times not as much. It is not easy. By nature it's easy to focus on the struggle...but the best part is that in everything we do, we always have a choice.

In terms of actual animation shots, since I started at Pixar, I've been trying to focus every shot more from an acting point of view, trying to figure out new ideas to do in every new shot and also add something new to what I've done in previous shots of mine or previous films. The idea is to push my animation skills and not get stuck. I believe in the quote "you are as good as your last shot", so I try different things on every new shot and see if I can do something new and fun. I try to not look at my job as a routine, as a 9-5pm job...because I know then I'll easily burn out. So if I'm feeling pressured, if I'm not feeling as motivated or anything similar, I'll take a break, I'll focus on a different shot if I have the chance or I'll focus on something different I may have going on...until my motivation to get back to that shot comes back. It's always a matter of balance I think.

One last thing that a couple of people did mention, which I should of added is in terms of hanging onto those animation things that inspire me. I have a bunch of things that I keep in my hardrive as gold. Either animated shots that when I saw them I went "That's what I'd like to shoot for", either animated shortfilms that I keep going back to over and ever, or simply live-action acting moments that make me go "I'd LOVE to animate something like this". For example, there is a piece of dancing from Gene Kelly/Donald O'Connor in the film "Singin' in the Rain" that blows me away every single time. The foot work, the rhythm, the poses, pretty much everything. It easily makes me go "that looks impossible to animate"...however, it also makes me go "I would love to try it". So, find your own sources of inspiration, and whenever you feel down in animation, just get back to those.

Something important to know is that this is normal. We can't stay motivated all the time. But we can try in different ways. So the idea is to find things within the job, within the animation work or within our lives, that makes go back to our job differently, recharges us or breaks up the routine somehow, as that will bring excitement/motivation in doing this.

I hope this helps.

Carlos.

Wall-E Animation Test

2009-01-31T00:34:00.000-08:00

I'll be posting one or two sequences I got a chance to work on in the movie Wall-E soon. I wanted to wait until the DVD was released everywhere. In the meantime, I wanted to share a Wall-E Animation test done prior to starting production on Wall-E and shown at Comic-Con 2007. While the test was rough in some parts, it still helped me start understanding the character/his personality a bit more as well as figure out the mechanics of the different parts of the character. While Wall-E was a challenging character at first, I really loved animating him after a while.

Wall-E Animation Test

Carlos.

Oren Lavie - StopMotion/LiveAction

2009-01-26T22:48:00.001-08:00

What a great/original concept and execution. I really enjoy seeing things that are so different like this. Uses both live-action and stop-motion. Be sure to check it out.

Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

I haven't had much time to post as we have a lot of work this month on ToyStory3. I also apologize for the lack of response on my emails. Sometimes it's difficult to keep it up and/or find the time to reply to every email. But based on suggestions I have some pretty good ideas on future posts.

C.

Sundance 2009 Shortfilms

2009-01-16T11:15:00.000-08:00

Head over to the Itunes Store as they are showing some of the 2009 Official Selection Shortfilms, for free. Some great and very original stuff in there.

Search for: Sundance 2009 shorfilms

Carlos.

Wild Things Are Skateboards

2009-01-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

Just rad.
I´m so getting one:

Where the Wild Things Are Skateboards

C.

Madrid

2009-01-12T02:44:00.000-08:00

To follow up the pictures I took while I was in Madrid, I also took a bunch of footage and edited this for fun. Like the film I did about San Francisco, this is something I've been wanting to get off my chest for a long time with Madrid as well. Love both cities and they play a big part in my life since I spent half my life in one city and the other half of my life in the other city.

Anyways, enjoy. Have a great week.

Madrid

Carlos.

Pixar's UP Sneak Peak

2009-01-11T18:31:00.000-08:00

Just found out about this. The Disney Channel has a sneak peak of Pixar’s film "Up". It's a minute and a half featurette hosted by Up/Monsters Inc director Peter Docter. It has some footage not shown in the teaser trailer. I am myself working on the 2010 film "Toy Story 3", but it's been very exciting to see the incredible work my peers are doing for this film. In some ways I'm actually trying to see less of it and fully enjoy when it comes out...but that's obviously difficult. Anyways, enjoy the link.

Pixar's UP Disney Channel Sneak Peak

C.

Advice on Short Filmmaking

2009-01-07T17:25:00.000-08:00

Jim Capobianco, Story Artist at Pixar and Director on the Rataouille shortfilm "Your Friend the Rat" has excellent pieces of advice on Shortfilms that are more than great reminders whether you are working on a short or plan on to. Be sure to check it out:

Leonardo: adventure and absurdity in making an animated short

Have a great week.

C.

Madrid at Night

2009-01-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

I tried to capture what Madrid is like during the holidays. It's absolutely spectacular in some places and it made me want to share. I tried to get all fancy with photoshop...but I still don't think these pictures do justice to when I was there today.

Carlos.

ps: Have a great rest of the holidays.