So you wanna work at Pixar?

        Pixar is one of the powerhouse animation companies of this world. So of course you've thought about working at it. Which is why there's an interview with animation mentor Nate Wall. What better way to learn what it is like to work at Pixar than from an employee himself?

        A typical day at Pixar starts with a coffee, a few chats before jumping into work, animation dailies, and then the rest of the day in an office drawing or animating or studying with the potential of another meeting happening at some other point. Wall explains to readers what dailies are. He says they may be the most amazing and valuable part of the job. They are the department's opportunity to meet with the director and show the work that has been done. They are a great way to start work. And while they are not unique to Pixar, the studio has truly forged them into something special. he says that it is a loud affair and that anyone in the room can give notes and speak up with ideas and opinions in service of the shot and the story. Of course, egos are left at the door and everyone is cooperative. The director has the final say, and he says that Pixar is lucky to have directors that engage with the dailies process so readily. To sum it up, he says, what defines a Pixar animation daily is humility. It is humbling to show your work to a room full of artists, and have them show theirs right back with the same humility. Humility is key, they all serve the story. He then explains that to serve the story means that he most powerful way every person can contribute is to make every decisions based around the central idea that they serve the story. Story doesn't make the animation, the animation follows and understands the story.

         Nate says that his favorite kind of shots are anything that takes something you've seen before and makes it new. It could squeeze some new meaning out of a moment, like when the character is profoundly sad but keeps a brave smile on the entire time. He wishes he could redo many of his scenes. It is frequent that he watches his finaled shots and wants them back. But also that is natural, as an artist is their own worst critic. The biggest challenge faced at Pixar is that feeling that there is never enough time. And personally for Wall it is balancing his time and effort with his emotions and sometimes anxiety. A job at Pixar is a Job, not a side passion project you can spend leisure years on.

         The interview with Nate Well ends with asking why he does what he does. He says it is because he loves the process. Working for just the final product can be daunting. But he loves the process, and wants to make something meaningful. Animation can be a tough business, but if you can get into the swing of it, I'm sure you can love it.

        This was a good article because it gave an inner perspective of working at Pixar. It was cool to read someone opinions of what he does day in and day out and how he feels about it.

        I want to hear other perspectives. Or just more. Like how he really fully breaks his days down or more about how meetings go. It would give a wider perspective.

sobbing

        How many points do we lose if we hand in an unfinished final project?
        This week I learned that I really like animating lip syncing like the Canadians from South Park. It is easier and now as mind draining as using actual lips. Why couldn't this be my entire animation?
       I don't have anything I want to learn in the future currently. Maybe how to convince my mom to get me a chameleon, but that doesn't aid my education.
        Something that frustrated me this week was starting to put words into my animation. I forgot how much I hated word scrubbing and listening to the same phrases over and over and over. I'm also frustrated because I'm not where I want to be, and there is so little time left for this animation. I'm going to cry.
        I saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. It was amazing and I loved it. It made me very happy, and you're a monster if Baby Groot doesn't make you happy. I can't wait until the next time we get to see the Guardians. I just love them so much.
      My link of interest this link was made by one of my best friends: enjOY IT!

PHYSICSS

        In order to succeed in animation, you have to have a grasp on physics. Without physics, animations can lose their appeal because they do not look realistic. No matter how cartoony, having a realistic air to your animation is important.
        In this article, Professor Alejandro Garcia talks about the principle of weight gain and loss. To us weight is a constant, you can gain or lose some but for the most part, you stay in one area of weight. But when something is moving, their effective weight is constantly changing. This most often happens when the something is moving upward and gaining speed, moving upward and losing speed, moving downward and gaining speed, or moving downward and losing speed. When you go upward and you are gaining or losing speed, you are also gaining or losing weight. But when you go downwards you lose when you gain and gain when you lose. Essentially you are working with gravity. If you go against it, like rising and gaining or falling and slowing, you are gaining weight. When you go with it, rising and losing or falling and speeding, you lose weight.
          All this weight this and that is important because as a character moves the weight variations create overlapping actions through hair, clothing, and flesh. Losing weight makes these things seem light while gaining weight pulls them down. Poorly animated characters can look floaty because of the lack of effective weight overlapping. The important thing to remember is that it is not just the direction of the motion but whether it is going with or agaisnt gravity. Weight is related to inertia, with a distinction in perspective. When the camera moves we see the overlapping action as drag and when the eye is following the movement we see it as a weight variation.
         Weight is a very important dynamic to animation. It gives realism to imaginary characters and lets the eye follow something and process it correctly. Without weight variation animations would be floaty and low quality and would not look real to us. It is the small things in physics that aid to the appeal of animation.


        This article was informative. I knew there were principles of animation but I was unaware there were principles of physics of animation. Knowing what I know now could help future walk cycles.
        I like when we learn about physics in animation. I plan to never take physics so this gives me a very basic understanding without all the complexity. What else can physics be applied to for animation?

Tired Tired Tired

        I'm so tired.
        This week I relearned the camera in Harmony. With just a view short sentences and a messed up keyframe sequence, I had it. And then I relearned how much I hate Harmony's camera. The only thing I miss about Maya is the camera. Maya's camera and I got a long way better than Harmony. Is there any way I can use a Maya camera in a 2D animation?
        There isn't much animation stuff left that I want to learn in the future. I do however want to learn how to get a four or five on an AP exam because I refuse to get another two. I think I have it in the back but also English is a tricky device to learn in an advanced setting.
        Just animating frustrated me this week. I know it is mostly my fault because I won't just get voice recording done so I can properly time things, but also I don't really want to voice record. But there is like a month left so I gotta get this done.
        Something that made me happy this week was the realization that there are only 101 days left before I see Hamilton. (By the time you read this 100...or 99....or 98....August ninth). I am so excited because I get to see a new city and also see the musical that has taken over my life.
        Normally I plan a link ahead but this time around I have not. I don't wanna give you anything animation related or an animation sooooo.....here's Drag Queens. (But also guys I think Jason animated this.)

Creature Animation Advice

         Most creatures in movies these days are animated. Like dinosaurs and gigantic apes. We don't just have them laying around domesticated and alive to use in movies. Monsters are also animated, as well as things like the Hulk or Groot and things with many arms. Creature animation is a big deal.

        Alvise Avati didn't start animating until he was 32. He had originally decided he wanted to work with computer graphics, and while some of it had animation it wasn't solely animation. He has animated scenes in movies such as King Kong and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol No. 2, and focusses on creature animation mostly. If you watch his showreel you will see a ton of creature work, all ranging from different quality. You can watch his improvement just like that.

         He tells about how he got to where he was, and how he changed his mind a lot before settling on wanting to animate. One of the most challenging movies he has had to work on was Avatar. He had to animate a six-legged creature, which was difficult in itself seeing as any James Cameron movie is hard to work on. He learned that the big picture always comes first, that chunks of animation may be cut because they are details that are not necessary for the story. he also learned that research is important for any multi-legged creature. He went in to animate the thing with only a fraction of an idea of how it worked and wishes he had spent more time researching and understanding how it would move.

        Avati says that creature animation means a large variety of wide variety of animation techniques. There are many forms of creature animation, from photorealistic like in Life of Pi or giant alien monsters like in Pacific rim. No matter what there needs to be a grasp of body mechanics before animating whatever your creature is. There also needs to be little attentions to detail, special touches that really give it an oomph. But that only comes with time and experience, or else it would not be as special. He says that students must know body mechanics because it is the most important in creature animation. If they don't look almost 100 percent believable they will be distracting to the viewers. The shot you are making also has to look interesting, entertaining, and appealing. So spend a lot of time on body mechanics and performance.

        Creature animation is a difficult art, but grasping certain dynamic can really help you out. So get out there and get knowledge of body mechanics and appeal and make the best possible animation you can to stand out.

        I liked this article. It was interesting to see talk about just one certain field of 3D animation because I do not see that often. Avati gave some good advice that was short and sweet and easy to understand.

        I also really enjoyed his show reel. I have seen a lot of movies that he's had bits in and never realized. Especially Waterhorse. I know that Waterhorse doesn't have the most realistic animation, but it is cool to know about someone who did some of the animating for it. Creature animation seems like such an interesting art to pursue, even if it is difficult.

im free the evil is defeated

        I am so tired but I have eighty years of homework still. Why do teachers have to do this to us during musical weekend?
        This week I learned that I have forgotten all about Harmony. I also learned more than I wanted to know about Tim Burton. And the words "cat-themed gift shop" will forever make me cringe. I also learned that four shows in one weekend leaves no time for anything but maybe eating and sleeping and I am going to physically fight our director if he does it again next year. I have limits and they have all been reached.
        Something I want to learn in the future is how to do eight hours of homework in one hour because I just want to sleep. It is all I ask for. I also want to learn how to win at raffles because they are 100% rigged. And I need to relearn the art of cameras in Harmony because I am drawing blanks.
        Something that frustrated me this week was: the musical. We did great things but I do not think a majority of us were ready for it. I witnessed a cast member straight up leave just because she was not feeling well, even though there is always at least one person who is throwing up off stage at some point during the show. I am also just frustrated at my lack of sleep and my lack of time to do work. I thought there would be downtime during Saturday but it was basically just an eight-hour play because we had no breaks in between shows.
        I am happy I never have to touch that stupid pound of foam that is my role ever again. My knuckles are purple, my ankles are purple, and my body hurts. I was also gonna be happy to finally get some sleep but that does not appear to be happening tonight. Woe is me.
        I feel like I'm missing something. I probably am. But I have another like four things to write so I'm not even going to think about it. Here's something: I have watched it every time I was feeling upset this week.

Messages

        Everyone wants a movie to have a larger message to it. Not just "hey watch this movie its cool", there is always a bigger picture. Zootopia is just a feature film about a bunny cop and a con-artist fox. There is a lot of animal stereotypes used, but people also want to make the central message about prejudice. There are ways in which this could work, but also there are some flaws to that idea. Like how the dynamics of Zootopia and the real world are very very different.

         Zootopia is a movie centered around little bunny Judy Hopps. She faces a lot of struggle in her life for being a bunny with a desire to be a cop. But while she is a minority in her line of work, she is a majority of her place of inhabitance. With the concept of predator and prey, Zootopia is 90% prey. When predators are found to be savage, some simple miswording during a press conference instills fear in the majority. It may seem that Zootopia could be sending a message about prejudice and the likes, but also this movie has such a broad statement that it could mean anything. It is targeting young children mainly with a message of feeling left out, not with a goal to teach them about prejudice and police brutality like some want to argue.
        Zootopia's core metaphor is hard to make sense of. They want you to believe that predator and prey went from a relationship of predator eating prey to them coexisting happily in their world unless say a chemical imbalance happened. It is easy to see why prey could be scared of predator on some level. But applying this idea to our world makes little to no sense. Because then who would be considered the prey or the predator? Trying to mold the Zootopia message into one about the prejudice in our world is rather difficult because there just is not enough cause and correlation.
        But in there is a general message about prejudice in this story, just not one that can directly fit our society. Reading into the timing of the release of the movie could lead people to try and connect it to contemporary issues. It could be if you follow the heavy editing that happened before the release of the movie. And still, Zootopia's overall metaphor is open and elastic for anything you want to fit in it, instead of having just one solid meaning to it. Using animals for general metaphors has always been our thing, we understand them just enough to mold them to us then throw them into the world for a metaphor. Like Animal Farm and Babe, Zootopia follows a metaphor, but it is just a broad metaphor for one subject. It is not solidly about one single subject.
        Animals in movies always guide us to make some form of way too in depth metaphor that we did not think about before. In reality, however, these are often children's movies just trying to teach a small little lesson like "do not judge a book by its cover". We may see specific metaphors, but we are really just pulling our own legs.

       This article was interesting to read because it talked about something I have thought about Zootopia. A handful of people I know also believe Zootopia is about prejudice and police brutality and the whole works. It really is not, in my opinion.
        I see it for the broad metaphor of do not treat someone different because of who they are. Sure there is a lot of stereotyping and sensitive subjects in this movie. I do not see the way someone could pinpoint this all as just police brutality and prejudice however. I mean, they are just cartoon animals, what do you want out of them?