Jason Fittipaldi - Character Animator in Training

AM 502 - Facial Animation, 2nd Pass

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:15:00 +0000

Not too much to discuss here, just a second pass on the facial animation after receiving some notes.

AM 502 - Facial Animation, 2nd Pass from Jason Fittipaldi on Vimeo.

We also worked on a few face pose tests (still imagery):

501 - Facial Animation Blocking

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Here's the first pass on the facial animation for my dialogue shot. We really got into understanding the sounds and mouth shapes that happen when you speak.

AM 501 - Facial Animation Blocking from Jason Fittipaldi on Vimeo.

Some of my old reference for this clip with a couple of new tests:

AM 501 - Facial Reference from Jason Fittipaldi on Vimeo.

Planning drawings for the lip sync and facial expressions:

Class 5 - Advanced Acting

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:52:00 +0000

It's been tough updating on account of a ton of life changing events occurring over the past several weeks.

Long story short: I'm leaving my day job to focus on animation and training full time. We'll see what happens, but it should be an interesting year ahead!

A few weeks back I started my 5th class at Animation Mentor - Advanced Acting. my mentor for this term is Ethan Hurd who I have heard nothing but great things about! So far I would say they're all very accurate. He's proving to be very knowledgeable with great critiques and a great personality!

Check out some of his work experience or his blog.

Animation Progress Reel - September 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:17:00 +0000

My current progress reel for my work at Animation Mentor (classes 1-4).

Animation Progress Reel - September 2009 from Jason Fittipaldi on Vimeo.

You can download or stream a quicktime version as well.

The Dialogue shot was animated with minimal facial controls and we will be doing full facial animation on it next term.

AM 411 - Dialogue "Final"

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:11:00 +0000

AM 411 - Dialogue Shot "Final" from Jason Fittipaldi on Vimeo.

Here is my "final" pass for my dialogue shot test. It's always hard to believe, but another class has flown by already! In our next class we will be taking this shot and working on facial animation for it. Fortunately, this thing has been a ton of fun to work on and I think the facial animation is going to be even more fun!

Time to rest and enjoy a weekend off for once! =D

AM 410 - Dialogue Polishing

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:13:00 +0000

AM 410 - Dialogue Refinement from Jason Fittipaldi on Vimeo.

I moved into the nitty-gritty polish phase this past week. I also changed the lame hand and how he was posturing it thanks to some good suggestions from a classmate (thanks Jeff!).

One more week left to super polish everything. I know there are a few spots where I want to tweak the timing and the arcs.

AM 409 - Dialogue Refinement

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:43:00 +0000

Not too much to discuss this week. I've moved out of my blocking stages for my dialogue shot and have begun to refine the actions and ideas.

AM 407 & 408 - Dialogue Shot Blocking

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:40:00 +0000

I've spent the last 2 weeks working on the blocking for my dialogue shot. I chose the "Words are evil..." line and based on my first pass on the reference where he is walking around in front of a chalk board (my wall).

First blocking pass

After my first critique and some feedback from my peers I decided to get more away from the reference and incorporate some other ideas I had. I had a chat with fellow AM student Daniel Klug about utilizing the outdoor/bird noises into the setting. He said it would be cool if the class was outside in the quad or something.

I took it a step further with the whole crazy factor I'm going for and turned it into a lecture in the middle of a forest. I think I might add some audience members too. Perhaps a squirrel, some twig people, propped up animal carcasses or some other inanimate objects for this deranged guy to be talking to. He's really taking on a personality all his own and it's quite fun to see it develop!

Second Blocking Pass (Blocking+)

Am 406 - Dialogue Shot Planning

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:22:00 +0000

It's finally here! The first dialogue shot :)

After a very difficult process of narrowing down our audio to clips, I chose these final 3:

I tried to imagine several scenarios for each one before acting out the reference. Each scenario is explained in the following video reference takes.

PRO TIP: A great way to act your audio over and over again is to make an mp3 file for each clip. Make a playlist on your ipod for each clip with the mp3 of the audio, a short mp3 clip of silence, and a mp3 clip of some kind of beep. Put the playlist on loop and have it. This will make acting it out easier and keep your fiancee from murdering you when she has heard "Words are evil..." for the 700th time! It's also nice to be able to use the video reference without the audio of me whispering words on top of the shot dialogue.

Video Reference & Exploration

Here are my planning drawings exploring ideas for each of the 3 audio clips:

I truly like all 3 ideas and I'm going to have a hard time choosing which one to do!

AM 401-405 - "Underage" - Pantomime Shot

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:41:00 +0000

It's been a whirlwind these past 6 weeks and I'm very much looking forward to an uneventful weekend. Someday, perhaps.

Since I've been gone I "finished" my first acting shot - a pantomime test involving a bar, a fake mustache and some semi-successful underage drinking. The main goal for this shot was to show a change in the character's mood or disposition. I wanted to have a character with a cocky, confident personality walk into a bar and pass himself off as legitmate, of-legal-drinking-age type guy. Once his disguise fails, he needed to transition into a panic or frightened state and bolt the heck out of the bar.

Since I'm about to slam you with a wall of text & media, here is that "finished shot." (Disclaimer! I'm unhappy with some of the animation - particularly the left arm/elbow - and hope to revise this sucker later).

While I feel like that main goal was fairly successful, I had some rig limitations when it came to pinning the character's elbow on the bar. Some day in the future, I hope to transfer the animation over to an updated rig I now have where the pole vector & IK elbow controls are fully functional and I can clean up the messy left arm animation I currently have.

Here comes the chronological decomposition of this shot...

Video Reference & Initial Exploration of the Idea

Refinement of the Idea

Clarity is something you need to keep in mind when working on an animation shot, especially one that relies on pantomime actions to tell the story. After my first take on the project idea it was clear a few things were not reading too well.
1) The "sexy" gesture where he runs his hand through his hair. It wasn't necessary and it was confusing people more than it was adding to establishment of the character's personality.
2) The way in which the mustache was coming off, or why it was coming off, was not reading well for most people. The addition of the mug seemed to improve this part a bit.

Animation of the Shot - From Blocking to "Final"
I like putting the "final" in quotes. It reminds me that I need work on my revision whenever I find some free time!

The video titles are self explanatory, but they are a progression of my shot from its first blocking pass to its final pass. Enjoy!

Class 4 - Intro to Acting!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:19:00 +0000

You know you're on the right track when you can't wait for school to start again and finding out who your next mentor/teacher is feels like Christmas morning at age 5!

After a much-needed break, I'm super excited to be starting my fourth class at Animation Mentor today - Intro to Acting w/ Mike Belzer.

It's always great to study under someone who's work you admire and at AM this has been the case for all 4 of my classes now!

I had the pleasure of attending a Q&A event Mike hosted last term (for Bolt) and it was awesome!

Mike @ imdb
Mike's website

So Long Class 3!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:37:00 +0000

Keeping this short & sweet... Here's my updated AM Progress Reel (Classes 1-3). Time to enjoy my short break before diving into "Intro to Acting"!

AM 310 & 311 - Giant Key Polish & Final

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:18:00 +0000

Hard to believe, but another term at AM has just gone by! Here's my final turn-in for advanced body mechanics:

I also caught the lazy bug and didn't put anything during week 10. Here is the first polishing pass from that week:

Time for a much needed week off before I head into my Intro to Acting class!

AM 309 - Giant Key Blocking+

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:19:00 +0000

I had some big issues to work on after my first blocking pass last week. In particular, getting the ending to retain the sense of weight for the key and not have it feel so rushed and floaty.

Sticking to a 200 frame limit has made all of the things I'm trying to do really challenging (they all take time to sell the weight!). I went from stepped keys to splines to get a more accurate feeling for the timing. I also cut some of the dragging sequence in the beginning and sped up a few other spots to vary the timing. The height of the key hole was lowered, because trying to have the character work out the mechanics for something much higher up was taking far too many frames. I also made the hole smaller to look more proportionate to the actual key itself.

The ending w/ the key turning (when the "magic" of the key/door takes over) will remain quick & short for this project. I may give it the time it needs for a more appropriate ending after this class if I'm still interested in working on it.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with where it is at now, but I still need to tweak the part where he does the 180 turn into the leg-assisted lift into the key hole.

AM 308 - Giant Key Blocking

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:05:00 +0000

Below is my first blocking pass for the "Giant Key" project. Still need to work out the ending so the weight feels better and "magical" part is more clear...

AM 307 - Dancing Final & Giant Key Planning

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:24:00 +0000

Dancing Final

Hands down, the hardest shot I've worked on to this day. There's always a million little things I want to keep tweaking, but here is what was pried from my hands for my final turn in:

I'm still recovering from massive sleep deprivation, so I'm not sure if I like it or not yet.

The Giant Key

For Advanced Body Mechanics I have tried to do something a little different with every project so far. I feel like I have hit most of the major areas of physical movement, but I still have yet to show weight with an inanimate object.

On this last project I also wanted to approach the idea for my shot differently. Instead of finding some great, superhuman reference clips and exaggerating my test from that, I hoped to create a more imaginative shot and find clips that support the actions I want to incorporate.

I really don't want too much story or acting to get involved since the main idea is to learn how to handle the body mechanics. That being said, the premise for my new shot is a character who is super small (or normal size in a huge world) in front of a giant, mysterious door. He is dragging a giant key up to the door and then struggles to lift and insert the key into the giant key hole. I'm definitely drawing inspiration from some classic animation scenarios (the mice in Cinderella, Mickey & the Bean Stalk, some of the Tom & Jerry shorts, etc.).

I hope it works out to be an interesting test. Here are some of my pose explorations and planning drawings for it:

AM 306 - Dancing Pass & Revisions

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:30:00 +0000

I've moved my dancing shot into splines and still have a lot to get done on it. I'm really not happy with where it's at, but it's certainly been a challenge and learning experience.

I also worked on some revisions for my Bouldering & Butterfly kick shots. The Bouldering stuff was really minor tweaks, but the Butterfly kick got a new ending and background which I'm much happier with.

AM 305 - Dancing Blocking

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:10:00 +0000

Pretty overwhelmed these past 2 weeks. Busy, busy with personal, work, and school stuff. Here's the first blocking pass I did for my dancing shot last week.

I will be slaving away all weekend in attempt to get this close to being done and splined so I can spend next week polishing and planning my last shot for this class.

AM 304 - Bouldering Final & Dancing!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:05:00 +0000

Whew! Quite a week!

I wrapped up the polishing work on my Bouldering project and spent days pouring over ideas for my next project. I had quite a few in mind, but I have been wanting to do a dancing shot for quite some time.

It only took me another 2 days or so to decide between the awesome clips I gathered of Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and the Nicholas Brothers.

Anyhow...less talk more animation!

Bouldering - Final

Dancing Reference:

Note: I'm only focusing on the dancer who is screen left 90% of the time.

It comes from the movie "Stormy Weather," and much thanks to the original uploader of the clip!

Planning Drawings:

Preliminary Costume Design:

Animatic Test (ROUGH!):

So I thought I'd have a little fun and try to put an animatic together with my pose drawings in Flash...

Animation Mentor Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:13:00 +0000

So, I was recently asked a few questions about Animation Mentor, and since this has come up before I thought I might as well share that Q&A here.

....

I graduated with a BS degree in "Digital Arts & Science - Engineering" in 2001. I went in hoping to become skilled with computer animation/art with some programming to back me up. Needless to say, the program was pretty awful and left me w/o much of anything to show for it.

> Firstly, did you find that the online classroom setting worked well? Did you get enough one on one time with the mentors?

I think the online class setting works amazingly well! As far as I have seen, you never have more than 16 people to a mentor...some classes end up being as small as 8 people. On top of your weekly live class, you also have a prerecorded (and awesome) video lecture every week on specific topics, an assignment, and a recorded video critique of your previous week's work.

There are also a number of other live Q&A classes that happen quite regularly, like guest lecturers (I've attended ones with Pixar animators, one with the lead for The Watchmen, some game animators from Valve, etc).

They also have a weekly tech Q&A class, a Saturday makeup class where they cover a broad range of topics from beginning to advanced depending on who shows up and what questions get asked, and they've started to incorporate alumni tutoring classes (live Q&As with AM alumni).

Personally, I make an effort to attend everything! It's all such useful information!

To add to all of that, the school campus is essentially setup like a MySpace or Facebook. You can easily browse other students' work, see their critiques from their mentors, chat with people on the forums, post your work in progress stuff to get feedback before handing in your weekly assignments, etc.

I've never been so active in any other type of education setting. It's awesome being able to post a WIP project and get feedback from your peers, and then take another pass at your project.

You know, I almost failed to mention it, but the networking is absolutely the greatest asset. At AM you get to know your mentors on a personal level, and these are people who are working at the places you would likely love to work!

To top that off, a large number of my classmates and peers are currently working in the industry (or have in the past), and of course I'm sure most of my other peers will be working in the industry at some point in the near future as well.

AM is a breeding ground for building your animation network, just as any great school should be!

> Secondly, did you have prior animation experience before starting the program?

I had very, very little animation experience prior to starting at AM. Don't get me wrong, I've dabbled and had some horrific experiments come out of it, but my animation experience was extremely limited.

> Thirdly, were you familiar with Maya before starting the program?

I have spent some time with Maya on and off for the past 8 years. Never anything too crazy...there's far too many facets of Maya to really master it. I picked up a number of the Gnomon and Digital Tutors DVDs some years back and they helped me get refreshed when I started AM.

The springboard course is probably a personal choice, but AM is 100% focused on JUST character animation, and with that in mind you really don't have a lot to learn in Maya. They have a number of excellent prerecorded training videos on using Maya, as well as videos on using their character rigs, etc.

Throw in the school forums where everyone is exceptionally helpful, and the weekly tech. Q&As and I think you could probably skip the springboard program.

NOTE: This question might be better answered by someone who took the Springboard Program!

> Fourthly, what's the work load like? Is it feasible to work part time and still have enough time for the work assignments?

I work a full time job (45 hrs a week), live with my fiancee, and am trying to plan a wedding, but I've been making AM work for me.

It really depends on how hard you're willing to work and what sacrifices you think you can make. I spend anywhere from 20-40 hrs a week on animation related stuff. This time is spent watching lectures on AM, watching other students' critiques (you can watch any student's critique of any class level...really awesome), or working on my school projects.

Don't get me wrong, I've had to make some sacrifices... less social outings, little to no video gaming anymore, etc. However, I feel like I get better and better every semester with managing my time and as a result having more time for those things. It helps that my fiancee is super supportive and understanding as well! :)

> And lastly, do you have any advice for someone taking this program? Things you might have done differently or wished you had known going into the program?

Honestly... AM is the best decision I've ever made! I don't think you'll find a better place for learning animation. All of your classmates and mentors are highly motivated about the art of animation.

I wouldn't change a thing, other than wishing I could have skipped out on the 4 years I feel I wasted at college and gone straight into AM. What I wouldn't give to have 4 years to dedicate to studying animation w/o a dire need to work a day job to support it.

Oh hindsight... who knows if I would have ever ended up at AM though? :)

AM 303 - Bouldering Refinement

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 14:25:00 +0000

I'm quite happy with how things are progressing on this project! I feel like my workflow has gotten fast enough that I'm actually going to have a final week (week 304) to work solely on tweaks and adding more subtle polish.

I need to start working on my planning for my next project this coming week as well.

AM 302 - Bouldering Blocking

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:23:00 +0000

Wooo! Just finished my first blocking pass on my Bouldering project last night. Not too much to talk about... Our character model's huge head proved to be an issue (as always) with the reaching arms and hanging that dominate the shot.

I feel like I'm getting a lot more proficient with this stage of my work. We usually have two weeks to block (blocking and blocking+), but I think I can hit most of the stuff I would do in the + stage in the first week as well. This is good because I want that extra time to focus on really polishing my shots more!

AM 301 - Bouldering Planning

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:11:00 +0000

After brainstorming for days and pouring over tons of reference I finally decided to do my first Advanced Body Mechanics project on "Bouldering." Some of my friends in Colorado educated me on this sport last year, and I couldn't think of a better, full body exercise than this! I'm sure this will be a tough one, but what the hell, right?

Most of the awesome clips I found were on Chris Sharma. This video is the one where I'll be taking my main reference from.

And here is an edited version showcasing the main move I'm going to work on:

Planning isn't my strongest area, but here are my initial planning drawings, as well as a little costume for "Bouldering Stewie." Speedos really do improve your mobility!

Stay tuned for my blocking pass...

Class 3 - Advanced Body Mechanics

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:34:00 +0000

Whew! What an awesome 2 day vacation! ;)

As you can see I've moved my blogging over to Blogger. I want to simplify my main site quite a bit, and the blogging tools I was using with my Joomla CMS were a bit too much micromanagement. I'll worry about editing the html/php/css stuff on this later.

On a more interesting note... Class 3 has begun and it's pretty cool to be in the first class on the new AM curriculum. Our second body mechanics course is called "Advanced Body Mechanics."

I'm pretty psyched about my newly assigned mentor, Jay Jackson (I'm pretty sure all AM mentors are awesome, though!).

Jay has seen a lot of change in the animation world, and has worked on a lot of classic projects. Being able to study under someone with this kind of knowledge is an honor and a privilege!

To top it off, Jay studied under one of Disney's "Nine Old Men", Eric Larson!

Needless to say, I'm pretty awestruck at the moment. Looks like I'm in for another amazing term at AM!

So Long Class 2!

noreply@blogger.com (Jason Fittipaldi) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 12:15:00 +0000

Sorry for the disappearing act. The final weeks of my 2nd AM class proved to be very hectic.
Long story, short I ended up starting my butterfly kick over from the beginning. Something just wasn't feeling right, and I felt like I could do better. If anything, it ended up being good practice.

I'm also annoyed with all of the micromanagement I have to do with Joomla as my blog backend, so this may be my last post for awhile until I reconfig my site with a simple blogger or wordpress system.

Anyhow, here's a chronological stream of what I've been up to...

My Butterfly Kick shot after I started it all over. In one week I pretty much got to where I was before (2 weeks of work), and I think the timing and overall feel of the shots was much better:

My final submission for the butterfly kick. I think this was the first time I really started to understand what polishing a shot means, and will hopefully move forward with pushing the "final 10%" a lot more:

My sister had a birthday come up, and I thought it'd be fun to make the BEST animation ever for her. See the vimeo description for more backstory on this one ;)

Here's my assembled progress reel for Classes 1 & 2. Class 3 starts this afternoon, woooo!