10 Quick with Mike Walling

This week's 10 Quick come to us from Mr. Mike Walling. Mike has worked on such projects as "Robots," and "Jimmy Neutron," and is now a Senior Animator at Sony Imageworks, working on the upcoming "Surf's Up" film.

Mike doesn't have any large size images of his work on his website, but he's got some great videos, showing his amazing talent for animation. As you read through the interview, please make sure you take a moment to click the links and check out all of his fine work.

Take it away, Mike!

1. Tell us a bit about yourself. How did you break into the business?

I got into animation while re drawing a piece of art for a game company back in like "93" while working at a screen printing shop. I got a production assistant job at PDI just before Antz started production. I did that gig for about two years and got promoted to the production engineering department working as a render wrangler. I was responsible for comping data from various departments. This job gave me the chance to see how all of the other departments worked together and was a great learning experience for me. During my off hours I would use a work station and their rigs to learn how to animate. I did this for a couple of years but couldn't get promoted so I sent my reel out and was picked up by DNA productions in Dallas. You can see a more detailed bio at my web site www.mike-walling.com. The bottom line is, I had the drive and the passion and that got me very far. The rest was observing life and learning as much as I could from books, watching films and getting advice from the animators around me. I'm still learning as much as I can every day and am constantly challenged by the work I'm doing.



2. Which of your work are you most proud of?

For me Robots was when the lights starting going off in my head. I was learning so much in a short amount of time it was crazy! I think the driving force behind what I was learning was my supervising animator Mike Thurmeier. He was the first animator to open my eyes to making my animation more graphic. In other words he taught me how to make every frame a good pose with a nice silhouette instead of letting the computer do all of the inbetweening. I liked animating Big Weld because he was so round and was a challenge to pose. He forced me to animate with lots of arcs. I guess it makes sense, he is round so his animation should have been round! Ha ha..

3. What are the main tools and/or programs you use to create your work?

I work in Maya to do my job. At Sony there are lots of plugins that make up the tool set on top of Maya that allows us to do our job a little easier. I have used Lightwave and Messiah for the Jimmy Neutron movie and tv series but it has been Maya ever since! I like to dabble in Flash once in a while but only for fun.

4. What's a typical day in your life like?

My days are pretty crazy! I try to see my little boy in the morning before work but sometimes he sleeps in. I get to work around 8am or so and need time to wake up! I hit the coffee pretty hard which helps a ton! I try to get some work done before dailies which is usually around 10am. In dailies the animation director and leads see our work from the previous day and then give us notes on what they like and what they think can be improved. It's mostly improvements though! Ha ha.. Once I get out of there I head back to my desk and implement my notes into my shot. I go to lunch around noon for about an hour. Lunch is a great time to get together with some of the guys in my group and talk about everything from life to the shots we are working on. It's nice to have people around you that can relate to the challenges that I face in my job everyday. After lunch I hit the shot again until around 2pm when we have rounds. This is where we meet in a small room (kinda like a sweat box) and look at the work I have done since dailies. After that I head out to Starbucks around 3pm for about a half hour with a couple of buddies of mine. Like I said before, coffee is life! Ha ha... So I finish up work around 7pm and head home. I get about an hour and a half with my little boy then get him off to bed. I then hang out with the wife for about an hour then start my Animationmentor.com duties if I have any that night. When I get done with that my wife is usually in bed so I like to hit the Half Life 2 for an hour or two. I usually get to bed around 1am or so. The next day it starts all over again! FUN, FUN, FUN!!

Click here to see some of Mike's amazing animation!

5. Who or what are some of your artistic influences?

I love any 2d animation art from any studio! I also love oil paintings from artists such as Vincent van Gogh, and John Singer Sargent. As far as 3d, I would have to say I am influenced by animators Doug Sweetland and Mike Thurmeier. The animation that comes out of their heads is remarkable.

6. Would you say that you're a 3D artist who dabbles in 2D from time to time, or a 2D artist who happens to work in 3D?

I am a 3d animator that dabbles in 2d for sure!! I got the animation bug late in life, much to late to learn 2d animation as a career. I am trying to draw more and just purchased Plastic animation paper which is a really cool computer program that lets you do full 2d animation production. Here is a link:

PlasticAnimationPaper.dk

7. What are 3 of the best things about your job, and what are 3 of the worst?

Dang! That is a hard question. Ok here goes!
1) Going to work everyday in shorts and a t-shirt.
2) having the flexibility to handle those little things come up in life and not worrying about getting back to work before I get fired.
3) creating animated performances everyday! I get to be creative everyday instead of going to a job where I have to wear a suit everyday.

1) Not being able to have full creative control sometimes.
2) having to make up that time I missed earlier to deal with life's little issues I mentioned before! Ha ha!!
3) When that shot is just working no matter what you try! I like the challenge but when that deadline looms the stress can get to you.

8. You've spent time as an animator working on Ice Age 2, Robots, Jimmy Neutron, Open Season, and now Surf's Up. Which of those projects was the most challenging to you and why?

They all have their challenges for sure! Jimmy was hard because I was still learning how to structure a shot from the ground up, Robots was hard because for the first time I was being forced to really think about performance acting and good physics. Open Season was hard because I came on to the project late and had to learn the rigs fast. They also had shapers that allowed us so mold the surface of the character to make better graphic shapes in the poses (you'll see when the movie comes out) and Surf's Up is challenging because the acting is so subtle and there is tons of subtext acting. Oh and did I mention SURFING SHOTS! I hope that when the dvd comes out they explain what we had to go through to get those shots done! Lemmie tell ya, making penguins surf is hard, but that's a whole nother story! Ha ha ha..

9. Now that you're working on Surf's Up, did you have to learn how to surf?

I actually used to make long boards with my dad so I did quite a bit of surfing over the years. But yes knowing how to surf has helped me get my head around the physics much faster and having a better eye when blocking out the board animation. I basically get the board looking good first then do rough poses on the character on the board then go from there.

10. Could you take a moment and fill folks in on what exactly AnimationMentor.com is?

I would love to! First off, one thing I would like to say about AM.com is that I am still impressed with the sense of community that is created by the staff and students. It is amazing!! Animationmentor.com is an on-line animation school taught by working industry animators such as myself. AM has this amazing site based on flash that allows us to work with students almost on a one on one basis. There is a lecture every week that the students watch, then apply to their shots. I then get the uploaded file once a week and then give them an on camera critique. I also do a live QnA once a week with the students on camera where they can ask me questions and I can go over clips with them. This is great because they can hear an industry person like me go over my shots as well as shots from movies like Incredibles or the old Disney films. The students also have a forum on the site where they can talk about anything they want. It is pretty extensive.

Thanks for that extremely informative interview, Mike!

If you still can't get enough of Mike's work, then I suggest you visit his site and check out more of his great samples.

Thanks again to the super-talented and all around nice guy, Mr. Mike Walling!