Pete Docter at Animation Mentor Graduation

Not much to add to this one, other than I can't wait to attend the next graduation ceremony (which I'll be taking part in) come this August!



ONLINE ANIMATION SCHOOL ANIMATIONMENTOR.COM®
CELEBRATES THIRD GRADUATION
Pixar Director Pete Docter Delivers Commencement Address

Berkeley, CA – January 14, 2008 —AnimationMentor.com, the online animation school® by animators for animators®, celebrated its third commencement Saturday, January 12, in San Francisco. Legendary Pixar Animation Studios filmmaker Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc. and the upcoming 2009 release, Up) delivered the inspirational address, and was joined on stage by distinguished animators from ILM, Pixar Animation Studios and DreamWorks/PDI, all of whom teach at the school. The graduating class was comprised of students from 20 countries and an equal number of states. Animation Mentor propelled more than 80% of its first four classes into coveted studio positions.

Speaking from the heart, Docter urged the graduates, “to be open to whatever life throws at you,” and that “whatever you do, make it your own.” Docter expressed his belief that an animator’s job was to “find a truth in the world that no one else has found and bring it to the screen.” He also emphasized the importance of story, because “without a good story, you’ve got nothing.”

“Pete is a visionary whose artistry helps set the standard for an entire industry,” said Animation Mentor President/CEO, Bobby S. Beck. “His appearance at our graduation with our great professional mentors speaks volumes about the world in which Animation Mentor lives and to which it aspires.”

A three-time Academy-Award® nominee, Docter began his association with Pixar Animation Studios in 1990, working as the supervising animator and a member of the story writing team on the groundbreaking computer-animated film Toy Story. He was a storyboard artist on A Bug’s Life and the storywriter on Toy Story 2. Docter made his directorial debut on Monsters, Inc., the fifth highest grossing animated feature of all time. He is currently in production on the motion picture Up, scheduled for release in 2009.

Animation Mentor’s nontraditional graduation ceremony included an award ceremony that honored the Best Forum Ninja, Biggest Personality in a Live Q&A (real-time, online class), Best Dialogue acting and more. Graduates earned a Certified Diploma in Advanced Studies in Character Animation from the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education.

ABOUT ANIMATIONMENTOR.COM

Based in Berkeley, California, AnimationMentor.com is an online animation school at which top working professionals teach character animation to students worldwide. Opened March 2005, the school offers an eighteen-month program built from the ground up by its founders, Bobby Beck, Shawn Kelly and Carlos Baena, whose combined credits include Ratatouille, Finding Nemo and Transformers. AnimationMentor.com’s California-certified curriculum includes professional mentoring; expert, rich media lectures; live, real-time, interactive Q&A sessions (classes); eCritiques® and 24/7 creative community. More information at: www.animationmentor.com.

ABOUT PIXAR

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. Creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, and most recently, Ratatouille. The Northern California studio has won 20 Academy Awards® and its eight films have grossed more than $4 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The next film release from Disney•Pixar is WALL•E (June 27, 2008).

Fall 2007 Animation Mentor Student Showcase

In case you have yet to see it, Animation Mentor has posted their latest showcase of student work.



Awesome work as always, and my hope is that the school will get a good enough reputation that I can simply show prosepctive employers my AM dimploma, and not have to actually show any of my own animations to land a job.

Fall 2007 AM Student Showcase>

Who Wants Some Cheese?

Just finished up another assignment at "The Ment," and I thought I'd post it here, since we're in the middle of a bit of news drought.



As I've said before, it's amazing to take a step back and see how far I've come since joining Animation Mentor a few short months ago. It's a wonderful school and well worth it, as far as I'm concerned.

Final Cheese Animation

Slow News Day = Crappy Animation from Dave

It was a slow news day yesterday and today, so I figured I'd go ahead and post my own animation from my most recent project at Animation Mentor, since it's almost identical to what you'd find in a Pixar or Dreamworks film anyway.



A couple of things I want to make clear about this animation:

1) The walk up at the start of the 'mation is far too fast. We had a frame limit, so I really sped things up to fit it all in. I will be slowing this down some if the piece is ever included on any demo reels.

2) The guitar pops towards the end of the animation. This is my own dumb fault, as I made an adjustment to the animation with the guitar's visibility turned off, and then rendered out the scene before checking the animation with it turned back on. I'll be fixing this and posting an updated link later in the week.

If you folks have anything to say, good or bad, drop me a comment and let me know. I'm still learning, so critiques are always welcome.

UPDATE: The link below is now the updated version. The walk is still fast, but the pop at the end has been fixed.

Guitar Zero Animation

What is this crap?

Some of the worst animation I've ever seen...



I said that I'd be uploading an assignment from my studies at Animation Mentor, and here it is. It's short, so I hope you don't hate me too much for wasting 11 seconds of your life.

If, for some unknown reason, you'd like to see a high-res version, follow the link below.

In all seriousness, I know there are some animators that frequent this page, so if you've got comments and/or critiques, please let me know by leaving a comment.

Thanks!

Just to be 100% clear, as I've mentioned in the past, I try to stay far away from personal posts like this one, so don't expect this blog to turn into a walking demo reel. 99% of it will continue to be content created by animators who actually know what they are doing.

High Res Versions of Dave's Class 2 Assignments

Animation Mentor

Animation Mentor Winter Showcase

The Winter student showcase from the students of Animation Mentor is now online!



As always, the high level of work coming out of The Ment is just mind blowing, and I can only hope that my time at the school produces work that even comes close to that same level.

Winter Showcase at Animation Mentor

The Ment

For those of you who don’t know, I’m enrolled in Animation Mentor, and I’m just about to wrap up my 2nd quarter (term? class?) there.



While I normally try to refrain from personal posts on this site (please try to ignore the 36 personal links in the right column over there), I do want to talk about my experience at “The Ment,” since I do get questioned about it from time to time.

The degree that I have in computer animation is from a chain of schools that you’ve probably heard of. I’d prefer not to mention the school by name, but chances are that if you live near a major city, you have one close by. The reason I’m not trying to name names is because I found my time there to be less than perfect. In fact, it was far from it. I vividly remember sitting in a Maya class, as an instructor took us through a Maya modeling book on how to build a spaceship. In other words, he wasn’t “teaching,” he was simply reading out loud. When a student would ask a question, this professor would then have to consult the glossary of the book, hoping that a key term the student mentioned in their question(s) could be found there. If not, he would tell the student he would have an answer for them next week, which was sort of like trusting a heroin addict to “have the money for you next week.”

I wish I could say that, at this particular institute of learning, this was the exception rather than the rule, but it really wasn’t. Now, as with anything in life, education is what you make of it, and there was some brilliant work that came out of the school. The problem is that it had little to nothing to do with what was taught, and really just a matter of sheer talent overcoming subpar teaching.

Upon graduation, I packaged up my little demo reel and sent it off to companies, convinced that I had no shot in hell at landing a job in computer animation, and boy was I right. Not with that reel at least. So here I was, having graduated with honors, as a member of the Dean’s list, with nothing to show for it but a demo reel that I even laughed at when I watched it.

In other words, saying I had a degree in animation from that school was worth about as much as a degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering applied physics from Jiffy Lube.

So when the chance to join up with Animation Mentor sprung up some months back, I was somewhat reluctant. I didn’t want to get burned again by a school that wasn’t accredited and had no real proven track record. However, once I looked at the student showcase for the first time, I couldn’t sign up fast enough. Absolutely everything contained in that showcase was better than anything I had done before, and I wanted to see if I could match that level of work.

Having no true animation experience, other than the one class in 3D animation I took at my former school, I had no idea what to expect. We started out animating a bouncing ball, a standard for early animators, to learn timing, weight and arcs. From there we progressed to a ball with a tail, then a ball with two legs (essentially two tails), and then something clicked…

I started to realize how each assignment was building on the previous. They didn’t just throw us in with a full-featured rig and say, “Make it do stuff,” as was the case at that other school. Instead they showed us how everything relates to the same principals of animation (developed and outline by the 9 old men), and got our feet wet a little at a time. After the ball with legs, we got a ball with legs and a torso/head. Next came arms. Suddenly, before you realize it, you’re working on a full-bodied rig, yet what you’ve learned keeps it from overwhelming you.

It’s an amazing structure, and one that continues to build, with full fingers and toes, and then a fully functional facial rig. All the while, somewhere deep in your mind, you’re still animating that simple little bouncing ball. Not only that, but you’re animating using the principals that have been introduced to you over time throughout the course. You aren’t just making an arm move, but you’re making that arm move with overlap, and you’re tracking your arcs, and you’re concerned with weight. Again, this is all done without you even realizing directly that you’ve started to focus on these things.

It can be intense at times, but you never ever feel like there is an assignment that you can’t accomplish. Not only that, but in later classes you get a “pick list” that allows you to choose your level of difficulty for your assignment, which helps you to stay in a comfort zone of sorts.

Outside of the class structure, AM has done an excellent job with their “campus.” Though the school is online, I’ve had FAR more interaction with students then I ever had at previous schools (I’ve also attended a University). From the forums, to a 24 hour chat, to feedback that students can leave on each assignment, to the weekly live Q&A with my mentor, I have had no shortage of people to bounce ideas and questions off of.

I know it sounds like I’m being paid to write this stuff about The Ment, but I’m really not. For aspiring animators, this school is everything it bills itself as, and it keeps getting better. This is not 3 guys with a laptop running an online school that you see advertised during daytime television. This is the real deal, and far more rewarding of an experience than other schools that charge 5 times as much.

My ultimate goal is to make the switch from the technical side of life to the creative one, and I have no doubt that, with the help of Animation Mentor, I can (and will) succeed.

At some point, once I’m all finished with this quarter, I’ll post my progress reel, so that you can see my stuff first hand. In the meantime, I highly suggest you swing over to The Ment’s website and check out some of the work.
You’ll be glad you did.

Animation Mentor

Duke's Diner

An Animation Mentor short film so good, you'll slap your mama.

What a great school!

Animating Interrupts Animation Blog

EDIT #2: The link to my progress reel has now been fixed. Thank you to all none of you that let me know about that.

EDIT: As promised, here is my completed progress reel for my very first class at Animation Mentor.



Dave's Animation Mentor Class 1 Progress Reel

Original Post:

Sorry for the lack of update(s) today. I'm currently hammering on my final animation for my very first quarter at Animation Mentor.



Having just completed my first quarter (or at least I will have by Friday), I can safely say that, at least so far, Animation Mentor is worth every penny. To take a step back for a moment and think about all of the things I've learned in one short quarter makes me quite excited about what's to come at "The Ment."

If you, or anyone you know, is considering a career in animation, I can't recommend AM enough to you. In my class there are people currently working in animation (film as well as games), and others attending very well known schools such as the Academy of Art University. Everyone seems to agree that AM matches, and in most cases exceeds, any training they've received so far.

So if you've got the desire to be an animator... make sure you give AM a look.

I'll post my progress reel for you sometime this week, as well as the normal crappy blog updates you've come to expect here on Bleeding Pixels.

The Animation Mentor Website

The Website of My Class 1 Mentor, Ray Chase

Aja Bogdanoff's Demo Reel

I was browsing the RE-Animation blog this morning, as I often do, and I stumbled upon a posting for Aja Bogdanoff's demo reel and blog.



Aja has made quite a name for herself, even in my brief time at Animation Mentor. She's done this not just by having top notch work (which she does), but by helping others in any way she can. She hosts live Q&A sessions to discuss her experinece at AM, helps out on the forum by posting tutorials, and generally provides support to the students as much as possible, even though she's already graduated. I've learned a great deal from Aja, without ever communicating with her directly.

So swing on over and check out her reel and blog... you may just learn something.

Aja's Demo Reel

Aja's Blog

The RE-Animation Blog

Animation Mentor

My first Mentor is Ray Chase

I'm going to keep my Animation Mentor posting separate from this blog from now on, so after today, if you'd like to check my progress at the animation school, please head over to 3Dave's Animation Mentor Blog. If you ever forget the link, you can always find it in the right hand column of this blog, down towards the bottom, under my avatar.

That being said, I just found out this morning that my Mentor for my very first quarter at Animation Mentor will be Mr. Ray Chase!



Ray's credits include Jimmy Neutron and The Ant Bully, and I couldn't be more excited to be working with him.

Ray's Site

Animation Mentor

Animation Mentor Classes Begin Monday

Updates have been a bit sporadic as of late, but that really isn't due to lack of effort on my part. I continue to scan all of the major 3D news sites and magazines each day, as well as YouTube, hoping to find a neat little short or two to share with you. Frankly, there just hasn't been much. Keep checking back, because while the posts may have slowed down, as long as there are things to post, I'll try to get them on here in a timely fashion.

I'm always looking for submissions, so if you have something you think belongs on this blog, email me at davesj [at] gmail [dot] com, or add a comment and I'll get it posted!

On a much more personal note, my first quarter with Animation Mentor begins this Monday!



I couldn't be more excited if I tried. While I have mixed emotions over the fact that I'll have little to no social life for the next 2+ years, I couldn't be more thrilled for the opportunities that could arise from this training.

I signed in last night and set up my profile. Upon doing so, the first thing that I noticed is that, while the school is still very much in it's infant stages, the site is very well-designed. There are places to chat, post your work for critiques, get help, view and comment on the work of others, and connect in just about any way you can imagine.

Should be a lot of fun!