My Animation Blog

Interview with Steve Hickner from Dreamworks

Mon, 5 Jul 2010 16:30:32 -0400

This is an excellent interview with Steve Hickner, Director at Dreamworks. In it he explains how attitude is one of the most important things when getting into the animation industry. It will make you stand out and get you those jobs because when you have a good attitude, people love to work with you. A bad attitude is also a sure way to get fired from a job... or at least not extended if you are working on a contract.
This is something I believe in myself and I strive to have, a great outlook and attitude towards animation and my job.
Enjoy!

Happy 4th of July

Sun, 4 Jul 2010 23:31:16 -0400

We walked over to the waterfront today to check out the fireworks. It was awesome since they had them on this side of Manhattan, right off of the Hoboken pier. So they were bigger than life!
I took the opportunity to use my new iPhone to shoot a little video and see how the new camera does in low light conditions.
Results: pretty impressive! For a cell phone camera it does a remarkable job. I think it's better than the video I took last year with my Cannon TX1 which also records 720P.
Check out the video above which I created from the footage. BTW, I edited it right on the phone with iMovie while I laid back on the couch. It only took me like 15 minutes to do it. Pretty nifty.
Make sure you select 720P from the resolution arrow on the lower left of the video once it starts playing. For even better effect click on the full screen button to see the full resolution of the video.
Kenny

Laura's BDay -My First iPhone Video

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:08:28 -0400

We celebrated Laura's birthday last night here in Hoboken and I edited the quick video clips and pictures that I took on the new iPhone with the cool iMovie app and the results were amazing!
Make sure you select 720P from the resolution arrow on the lower left of the video. This is the full quality resolution the iPhone outputs. For even better effect click on the full screen button to see the full resolution of the video. The video was fully edited using nothing but the phone. It even exported and compressed the high quality movie.
Watch it quick before they take down the sound. I used a song from my iTunes library and I'm sure they will take it down because it's copywrited.
Happy Birthday Laura!!!
Ken

McDonalds Underwater TV Ad

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:04:10 -0400

I've been working at Hornet Inc. since February and a couple of months ago we finished the McDonalds Underwater spot. I was lucky to help with the previs and animate about half of the shots in the ad. I also had to animate the box at the end of the spot which was challenging since I had to rig it myself to move like a jellyfish. This has been one of the highest production 3D spots for TV that I've worked on so far.
The characters were designed by Peter de Sève, the same artist that worked on the characters for Ice Age! Check out this post of his blog where he talks about the character creation.

The Shrimp was the coolest little character to animate since he had to move very snappy and mimic a motorcycle. I really enjoyed all the cool deformers we put on his eyes that enabled us to get some really fun shapes. Here's one of the shots I animated where he is grabbing his "handlebars" after a dive.

Funny thing is I was browsing Cartoon Brew the other day and I did a double take when I saw the ad featured on one of their posts: McDonald’s Spot by Guilherme Marcondes.
That brings me to the director, Guilherme Marcondes. I am really enjoying working with him. I am currently on my third ad with him as the director and I really enjoy the collaboration and creative process. He has some really great character ideas and is an amazing artist. He is well known for his short Tyger which has some really cool visuals.
Check out the ad!
McDonalds Underwater
We are currently working on another McDonalds spot that is looking really good as well. I'll update my blog as soon as it airs.
Ken

Pop Tarts Stand TV Ad

Tue, 25 May 2010 07:44:31 -0400

Last year, before taking off to Tippett, I was working at Panda Panther on some Pop Tarts TV commercials. I saw this one on TV the other day and I remembered I never posted about it.
What was really fun about this spot is that all the background houses and terrain were actually miniature sets built for the production. Then they used stop motion techniques to film the camera pans and shots to create the back plates for the animation. We then animated the characters over these plates and they were finally lit and composited to make them look like they fit in this stop motion world. They were even given 2D like textures in the hair for example.
Check out the video!
Pop Tarts Stand
Ken

Animation Workflow Tips and Tricks

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:38:33 -0400

One of the things I've learned since I've been working in the animation industry is the importance of having a good workflow. Anything that you can do to minimize repetitive tasks or accessing of menu items will speed you up. A simple thing as having all the hot keys within easy reach of your left hand so that you don't have to reach over to the right side of the keyboard or worse yet, take your right hand off the mouse, can make it a lot faster for you to get your work done. All those little tasks, throughout the day, add up to lost time and they separate you from the task at hand.
In this post I will talk about the workflow improvements I learned while working at Blue Sky and Tippett, as well as some of the studios in New York. I will link a Maya preference file that you can use if you would like to adopt these hotkeys and scripts for yourself.
Hotkeys
As I explained before keeping your hands in place while you work and not accessing menus can speed up your workflow. Following are some of the hotkeys that I use.
1 and 2
One perfect example of keeping your left hand in place is how I re-mapped the Next Key, Previous Key to the 1 and 2 keys instead of the < and > keys which are all the way on the right side. The Next Frame, Prev Frame keys then logically get remapped to alt-1 and alt-2 instead of alt-< and alt->.
Alt-x-c-v-b
Another workflow tool I use is visibility toggle hotkeys for curves (alt-c), geometry (alt-f), and joints (alt-b). These hotkeys toggle on and off these types of objects so it's another menu I don't have to access. I also have an x-ray view mode toggle key (alt-x) to turn that on and off as I work, in case any of the controls get lost within the character or I need to see what the joints are doing. Thanks to the animators at Tippett for sharing these toggle gems.
Rotation Toggles
Another issue I constantly come up with is the Gimbal Lock issue. This happens when you rotate a control in several axes and two or more of the axes align so that it becomes hard to rotate in certain directions without having crazy curves in the graph editor.
So therefore it is good to keep rotations as organized as possible and it is good to know what axis you are animating by using Gimbal rotation, which shows you the actual rotation axes. But there is also something to be said about the ease of animating in Global and World rotation mode, in which the gimbal rotations are hidden and you are presented with a more user friendly "free" rotation tool.
I constantly found myself switching rotation modes. Therefore I decided to figure out a way to change the mode with hotkeys. My implementation is not the best but I use it all the time. Since e is the hotkey for rotation it made sense to use it as the hotkey. Alt-e switches to Gimbal mode, alt-shift-e switches to Local mode, and alt-ctrl-e switches to World mode.
Translation Toggles
Just like it's useful to use the different rotation modes, sometimes it's useful to switch translation modes for a translation tool that is better aligned with the object or moves straight up and down, amongst other reasons.
So I created some similar shortcuts. Since w is the Maya translation hotkey, alt-w switches to Local mode, alt-shift-w switches to World mode, and alt-ctrl-w switches to Object mode. I use this shortcut almost as often as I use the rotation mode shortcuts.
Ctrl-p
The next tip is a little Mel script magic that my friend Jeff Vacanti taught me. Like most animators I create my own selection Mel buttons on the Maya shelf.
Well Vacanti added a little Mel script to one of my hot keys ctrl-p. Now, when I have a selection of controls selected on screen and press ctrl-p, it opens the script editor with some code on it. I drag the code to the tool bar and it creates a toggle selector for the selected controls.
What's cool about these buttons is that they can then be used to add selections together. For example, you can make a toggle button for the spine and then one for the tail, then you can add one selection to the other by clicking on one after the other. It also works the other way, say you have the entire character selected and you need to key everything but the tail. Simply click on the tail button to toggle off those controls and press s.
Ctrl-b
This shortcut runs a playblast with your last used preferences. Simple but it saves you from accessing yet another menu.
Alt-q
I use this shortcut to perform the euler filter on curves after I've been working on them. The euler filter can really help you avoid headaches when your control starts getting close to Gimbal lock.
If you start working on a control and see some of the rotation curves start swapping places on the graph editor, the problem can often be attributed to gimbal lock and can be fixed with this command. When you run it, all of a sudden you will see the curves magically flatten out and won't have any of those crazy rotation glitches.
i insert key
Many times during the day I need to add keys to my animation but I need the new keys to not affect my current tangents so that the animation up to that point doesn't change (since pressing s usually changes the tangents). The insert key "i" is great for this. Select the curves you want to add a key to, hold down i and press your middle mouse button at the specific frame in the graph editor. A key is added, your tangents are maintained.
Ctrl-t
This one brings up the Tween Machine, another great mel script. TweenMachine is a tool that I started using at Animation Mentor. It is free and was created by Justin Barret and can be found at http://www.justinanimator.com/mel-tweenMachine.php. It allows you to create in betweens based on the pose before and the pose after. And you can bias the in between to either pose based on a percentage slider on the Tween Machine interface.
Ctrl-t brings up the Tween Machine interface. You then select the controls you want to get the in between on, position your play head between the poses you want where you want the in between to be. Then simply drag the slider. It will immediately create an in-between key. The closer you get to 100% the more the pose will be like the following key. The more you get to 0% the more the pose will be like the previous key.
Non-Weighted Tangents
This tip took me a while to learn. That is that you should try to only use non-weighted tangents in your animation. I finally caught on to their power while working at Tippett. At any point in time, even during the polish phase, they could come with changes. Sometimes it was a matter of speeding up the animation with the scale tool. Have you ever tried to scale animation that has weighted tangents? Those tangents don't scale well and you end up with lots of buckling in your curves. Non weighted tangents aren't perfect but they are much easier to fix after such a change. Like a lot of animators have told me in the past: "If you need the curve to do something different just add another key". There is really no need to switch to weighted tangents in most cases.
Mel Scripts
There are several scripts I use as part of my workflow. Luckily all these scripts are free online. Here are my favorites as well as the hotkey preferences I have set for some of them.
Autotangent
This is one of my favorite tools in animation. I learned about it while I was in Animation Mentor and my Blue Sky mentor (now at Pixar), Amber Martorelli, told us about the tangent tool they used while working on Robots and Ice Age. There just happens to be a free Mel script that does a similar thing.
The issue with tangents in the graph editor is that, if you block using splined tangents, as I do a lot of the time, or if you're adding keys in the middle of polish, the keys that get added usually don't have the right tangency. You end up with a lot of overshoots on extremes or incorrect tangents on in betweens. (see image below) So then you have to go through all your curves later fixing all the tangents which takes time.
This free Mel script can do that for you and it's a great way to do some initial curve cleanup. It's called autoTangent and is available at http://www.comet-cartoons.com/melscript.php. It works with an interface window that must be open to define the overshoot of your curves. I use it at 0 overshoots setting 99% of the time.
So the shortcuts that I have created are alt-a to bring up the autoTangent interface. I leave this little window up all the time in a corner. Then I press the "a" key each time I need to run autoTangent on selected keys in the graph editor. And I run it ALL the time as I animate to clean up curves as I work. Sometimes as much as 10 or more times a minute as I'm blocking setting keys. Here is a video about the autoTangent tool in use with the hotkeys.

TweenMachine
I already covered TweenMachine. Go to ctrl-t hot key above.
Create Motion Trails UI
In animation it is well known that we have to make sure body parts and objects move in nice arcs an not linearly. With FK body parts the arcs are easy since they pretty much come for free. But when you are using IK or animating the main body control it is much harder to get nice arcs. You can do it by eye or with Maya's arc tracker which is not very good. And of course, you can also draw on your screen with an erasable marker and track it that way, something I do as well.
But when the arc is more complicated and you need to track it in 3D, not just the animation camera, this Mel script can be a godsend. It was written by Cameron Fielding : cameron.fielding@bvg.com but I can't seem to figure out his website.
Correction, just got the link on Creative Crash from Matt Cadusch. Thanks a lot for that!  http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/animation/c/cmotiontrail-mel
The way it works is you select the control you want to track and bring up the Create Motion Trails UI interface by clicking on the button labeled cMTrUI. This will bring up an interface in which you can select the size and color of the key markers and path curve. The script then generates the path and you can start tweaking.
What is amazing about this tool is that you can additionally change the position of the object and the curve will update on the fly. It's a great tool and can save you lots of time tweaking.

Pose 2 Shelf
This is another lifesaver tool. I found it at http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/animation/c/pose-2-shelf. It's great for transferring poses or even animation from one scene to another. It is also good for saving poses that you might need later.
The way it works is you select the controls that make up the pose and then click on the p2s button. This will open a window for you to name your pose and then save it to the self. This tool can also be used to make a selection button for the selected controls (although I would rather use ctrl-p and create a toggle button).
Save
This is an incremental save button that saves a new version of the file each time you press it. The file name gets a three digit serial number that grows with each subsequent save.
Snap
This is a very simple Mel script that snaps one object to the other by creating a parent constraint and immediately deleting it.
Simply select the object you want to snap to, then the object that you want to snap to it (similar to any type of constraint) then click on the Snap button.
The 30 minute test
At Tippett we used to have many very challenging shots. In a lot of them the technical challenges were huge. One thing I learned from some of the animators there was the 30 minute test. The way it works is you decide on a solution to the problem and the go head on to fix it for the next 30 minutes. If by that time you are still having problems, then go back to your previous version and try a different solution. Then all you lost was 30 minutes rather than 1 or 2 days.
Buffer Curves
I always animate with buffer curves turned on in the graph editor. Not only are they a baseline for your previous animation but they can also be used to take a snapshot of your current work and "save" your animation curves before you attempt a big change. In addition, once you are done making the change you can swap back and forth between versions on the fly to see the effects of your chances. It's especially useful when changing keys in the graph editor.
Conclusion
This covers most of the basic workflow tools I use as I animate. Hope this helps you as well.
These preferences take a lot of time to set up if you are doing it from scratch. That is why every time I go on a job I carry with me a USB memory stick with my preferences so that I can get to work right away with no setup required. Once I install the preferences I get all my hotkeys, Mel scripts, tool bars and any other preferences
You can download these basic hotkey preferences, as well as some of these free Mel scripts here:
maya.zip
Simply close Maya, replace the preference folder and open Maya to check out the hotkeys. Make sure you back-up your old preferences in case you want to go back or create your own preference file by adding some of my preferences to yours.
If you have any good workflow tips that you use when you work, please tell me about them in the comments below.

Tim Burton Exhibit at the Moma

Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:37:18 -0400

Today I had the amazing fortune of checking out the Tim Burton exhibit at the Moma! It was so incredible to see such a talented artist as Tim Burton. Especially when you consider that he started doing such amazing work at a really early age. At the museum they had work of his going back to when he was 13 years old.
Tim Burton is the type of artist that you can immediately tell apart. His style is so unique. Here are some pictures I took of his amazing work.

Here is Jaime checking out the paintings.

The Corpse Bride maquettes were amazing!

We finished the great afternoon with a screening of 5 of Tex Avery greatest cartoons, including Red Hot Riding Hood and Little Rural Riding Hood. It was so much fun to watch, and the cartoons were so not PC.
This is what I love about New York, all great exhibits end up coming here at one time or another.
Ken

Hired at Hornet Inc.

Mon, 19 Apr 2010 00:17:14 -0400

I was hired at Hornet in February to work on a couple of McDonald's spots. So far I've made a few really good friends and animating again has been a lot of fun. I will be posting up the ads once they get aired. Unfortunately, the ads will not run in the US. They will run in the UK.
Ken

I'm back from my honeymoon!

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 17:47:01 -0500

The honeymoon has great! We really had an awesome time. We went on a trip around the world: Switzerland, then Bangkok, then Bali and finishing up in Hong Kong before coming back to New York.
Check out the video that I made of the highlights of our trip...

Or take a look at some of the cool pictures:

Here are some Switzerland pictures.

After Switzerland we went to Thailand. Highlights from this part of the trip were the Big Reclining Buddah temple...

...the Thai kick boxing...

...colorful tuk tuks...

...the Floating Market...

...and the Elephants we saw.

We then went to Bali for 2 weeks. This was the highlight of our honeymoon. It's hard to show you in just one post all the things we saw so I'll put a few pictures so you can get an idea. We saw amazing rice paddy fields...

...religious ceremonies and temples...

...monkeys, lots of monkeys...

...dolphins...

...balinese dances...

...waterfalls...

...volcanoes...

...bats in a sacred bat cave...

...hotsprings...

...and it wouldn't have been a honeymoon without getting massages every other day. :-)

One of the coolest things we did was get a guide that took us to his village as part of the tour and let us stay at his parent's place for a day so we could see how typical Balinese live.

He took us around his village and we even got to see a cock fight!

Make sure you check out the video so you can experience all the sights and sounds, it was a truly unforgettable experience.
I'm currently back in New York and looking for work so please send any animation job leads my way.
Ken

Done working at Tippett

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 09:20:30 -0500

I'm finally done working at Tippett. Working on Cats and Dogs 2 has been amazing. I have learned so much in the last 9 months.

I'm currently back in New York and looking for work in the city.
Ken

Wedding Portraits

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:56:23 -0500

We finally got our wedding portraits! We got them taken in Long Island where we had our wedding by a really amazing photographer, Danny Weiss.
These are some of our favorites.

Click on the link below to see the rest of the portraits we got.
Kenny and Melissa Wedding Portraits
Ken

Halloween in City Hall

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 03:53:04 -0500

Another reason to get into a fun costume with Halloween last weekend! And best of all, Melissa was here in San Francisco visiting so we got to spend some quality time together. She recently went to China so she brought back some awesome chinese opera costumes with masks. They were a lot of fun to wear.

My cousin Craig got us some tickets for the City Hall Halloween Party in San Francisco and it was a blast. Here he is with his girlfriend, Elaine.

The party was a blast and there were some amazing costumes! Check out the pictures from the event.
Halloween 2009

Ken

Tony's 40th Bday Zombie Party

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:56:18 -0400

Boy, this year really seems to have a Zombie and Vampire theme. Not only did I just watch the movie Zombieland which was AMAZING and I recommend you all go see it, but it's the second time I've had to dress up as a zombie. The reason, Tony Preciado's 40th Bday Zombie Party!

The party was a blast! We had such a good time. All the costumes were really good and the music was great. Lots of crazy zombie dancing. Here is everyone giving Tony a little lift. Tony's on a BOAT!!!

That party was a lot of fun. Thanks Tony and Adrienne for throwing such an awesome bash. Check out some of the other pictures from the party.
Tony's 40th BDay Party Gallery

Ken

I got Married on September 5th!

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:19:00 -0400

I haven't been posting for a while because Melissa and I were getting married! So you can imagine there was a lot of planning and crazyness going on. Especially since I am still at Tippet working on the Cats and Dogs 2 movie, all the way in the West Coast.
We eloped to Long Island to a really nice vineyard B&B where we spent a beautiful weekend having a small ceremony with a few witnesses.

We were planning on having a destination wedding in Costa Rica but things got complicated so we decided to elope. Our witnesses were our New York friends Adriana and Carlos and my sister Shannon and her husband Ethan showed up as a surprise to me. They are, the only family that is local to the East Coast so it was easy for them to make it to the ceremony. As a bonus, I got to meet my nephew Owen, who was born just about 2 months ago.

We are still having a reception for family during the Thanksgiving holiday and I'll be posting about that soon.
Oh, and we are planning to go on our honeymoon in December! It will be a trip around the world. First stop, Switzerland where we will share the holidays and celebrate our marriage with Melissa's Mom. Then we are heading to Bangkok, Thailand for a couple of days. After that we stop at Bali, Indonesia for about 2 weeks. Then we take a plane to Hong Kong where we will spend a day checking out the city. And then we finally fly back to New York. I'll be posting a lot about that as well in the next few months.
Ken

My time at Tippett has been extended!

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 14:04:51 -0400

I was just notified that my contract at Tippet has been extended until October! I am so happy about it because Tippett has been one of the best companies I've ever worked for. Every day I am learning new things and being challenged. And my co-workers are all super nice and very talented.
The bad part of it though is that it means that Melissa and I will be apart for even longer. :-( But we'll make up for it with more visits back and forth.
As a matter of fact, I am making this post from the airport in Chicago since I'm on my way to see my girls in New York. It will be a fun 4th of July weekend, especially since the fireworks this year in New York are on the Jersey side so we will be watching them from Carlos and Adriana's balcony right on the water!
I'll be posting some pictures of the fireworks for you guys to check out.
Ken

Amazing Tippett reel!!!

Fri, 3 Jul 2009 13:23:50 -0400

My friend Adrian gave me this reel that Tippett made from the special effects work they have been doing. It was recently updated in April '09 so I thought I would share it with you guys. Especially those of you that are unfamiliar with the special effects industry and don't know much about the work that Tippett does.
The shots shown here are from well known films such as Spiderwick Chronicles, Cloverfield, The Matrix, Hellboy, Enchanted, Blade, Charlote's Web, Starship Troopers and more.
Enjoy!!!
Ken

Salty Dogs Zombie Shoot

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:50:13 -0400

Our Tippett co-worker, Randy Link, is working on a short film titled Salty Dogs and this Saturday we had the privilege of appearing in it as zombie extras. Talk about a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon... getting made up as zombies and then replicating a zombie mob in what has got to be one of the most awesome and freaky locations I have ever seen. Here's Randy on the set.

Most of the zombies and actors are Tippett employees like myself that volunteered to be in the movie.
I think this has got to be one of my favorite pictures in the bunch.

I can't wait till he's done with it and I can post a link to the movie here on my blog. Until then, here are some pictures me and some of my friends took during the day.

Ken

Up Screening at Pixar

Sun, 31 May 2009 03:53:48 -0400

The new Pixar movie Up was excellent!!! I totally recommend for everyone to see it. It pretty much had me crying and then crying from laughing throughout the entire movie.
The animation was phenomenal as always but what always leaves me wanting more is how great the plots of the Pixar movies are. It was just really fun throughout...
And a Pixar movie wouldn't be complete without an amazing short before the movie. This short was just as good as any of the other's they've done... a lot of really fun and creative moments.
It's a real treat so go see it if you have a chance.
Here are some pictures that we took while we were at the Pixar campus. I didn't get any of the Up artwork since it was not permitted unfortunately.

Ken

Moka's New Bandana

Sat, 2 May 2009 19:42:15 -0400

My mother in law came to visit us in New York for Easter while I was away and she got Moka this beautiful bandana! Isn't she the cutest little puppy!

Here she is modeling it for me at the park by our house with the great New York City skyline behind her.

I'm headed to New York next weekend and I can't wait to see my two girls. :-)
Ken

Hiking!

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 10:16:46 -0400

I've been hiking on the weekends with friends from Tippett and it's been a ton of fun so far! My friend Jess Morris has become the de-facto organizer and she sends out e-mails every week about our upcoming hike. We usually hike for a few hours, enjoy the day, and then end up in a nice restaurant close to our hiking location to have some good food. I just wish Melissa and Moka were here to go with me. I think Moka especially would like being out on a trail and meeting all the dogs that come along.
So far we have gone to 3 places. Our first was Tilden National Park in Berkeley. This one was really nice because it had a high peak from which you could see the city and even the Golden Gate Bridge from far away. Here are some pictures from the hike.

We also visited Joaquin Miller National Park. This one was a recommendation of my other Tippett friend Adrian and it was amazing because the whole time we were walking under a canopy of trees, including some really nice redwoods. This has been by far the biggest group we've had since a bunch of us invited friends.

And the last place we went to last weekend was the Land's End Coastal Trail Hike. This was by far the nicest hike I've been on. The entire time we were rounding the coast of North Western San Fran so we were continuously by the ocean with some amazing drops and rocky beaches. And the whole time we had the San Francisco Bridge right in front of us. So of course I took some great pictures.

Next week we are planning to go on a hiking tour of Moaning Cavern near Sacramento. We are going to do a hike in the cave and then finish the trip by zip lining a set of 3 platforms within the caverns! I'll be postings some pictures of that trip soon.
Ken

Acting classes the last two weekends

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 10:19:26 -0400

Tippett held acting classes for us the last two weekends on Saturday. I have to say it's been a blast. We did many acting exercises and learned a ton about how to come up with acting choices for our characters and informing the status of characters based on the interaction they have with others.
It surprised me that when I got there I found out that one of the ladies that was teaching the class was Rebecca Stockley! She appears in an acting video lecture in Animation Mentor so I already "knew" her and it was great to finally meet her in person.
I'll post more about this later on since we still haven't gotten back the notes and I don't want to miss quote. However, I'm so excited to be in a studio that cares enough about it's animators to even get them acting classes. We had a great turnout and we hope that more of these types of events will be possible in the future.
Ken

Done with my first week at Tippett

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:19:40 -0400

Wow, my first week at Tippett has been awesome! Similar to Blue Sky in many ways, although their systems work a bit differently.
I was very impressed because, not even 5 minutes after I arrived, a Tippett guy came up to me in the lobby and asked me what type of desk setup I wanted so that he could take my ergonomics measurements!! I told him I'd always wanted a standing desk so he had me stand, took a couple of measurements and dropped me off at HR.
Later, the HR rep, Rebecca, took me on a tour of the all the buildings and as I was walking around I was impressed to see so many monster and creature maquettes of so many movies I've loved throughout the years. Robocop, Starship Troupers, Dragon Heart, and Jurassic Park to name a few.

We toured all the different departments and buildings and finally arrived at the animation department, which is housed in a remodeled firehouse. This was by far the best part of the tour since I was greeted by 8 or so animators from Animation Mentor, including my good friend from class 1 Peer Lemmers, who submitted my reel to the hiring manager in the first place! I already had met most of them in previous trips to Siggraph and on my graduation, so we were hugging and saying hi and I felt at home from day one.
They also told me I would be placed in a high pressure seat, surrounded by 3 of the 4 lead animators! In the lion's den so to speak. But I'm very excited about that... 3 amazing guys to learn from. I'm sitting with Geoff Wheeler, Brian Mendenhall (pictured above), and the main lead for the movie, Will Groebe.
And this is what was most impressive, I arrived at my seat and I had a desk and chair that was perfect for me and they were finishing the installation of a brand new Dell box I would be working with. :-) The systems folks at Tippett, I've learned, are super nice and responsive.
So far the first week was very easy going. I spent most of it getting used to their systems and working on a test shot with a pigeon, which was crazy because pigeons move in a crazy way.
I really enjoy how structured Tippett is. We start work at 9 and have cut-ins some time thereafter. Cut-ins are similar to sweat box at Blue Sky, in which the animation leads discuss changes that they want to see us make in our shots, as well as assign new shots to animators. Then we work hard, have an hour lunch break at 12:30, and another 30 minute break at 4:30, during which we can do what we want. Most of us enjoy ping pong and this really reminds me of awesome times at Blue Sky. Then we continue to work till 7 when everybody sends a Jet render out for dailies the next day and we all head home.
Today was especially fun since I got my first actual movie shot. Very short shot with the pigeon but a lot of fun to animate.
I'll be posting more as the movie progresses.
Ken

Landed an Animation Gig at Tippett!

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 01:16:22 -0500

I've been sending applications to the west coast to get in to one of the big movie studios and work on another movie and it finally paid off.
I'm starting at Tippett on March 15th and will be working on the movie Cats and Dogs 2. I already have a few friends from Animation Mentor that are working there and they are telling me that the environment is really great. All the animators there are very talented and it's a great learning experience.
In order to get into the studio I had to do a test with one of their cat rigs and it was very challenging, although also a lot of fun. The test had to be 124 frames, or 5 seconds, in which the cat had to deliver a line of dialogue. I have to thank Laura Garbor and Adriana Cesta for letting me use their kitties as reference for some of the cat move ideas I breathed into the animation test.
One challenge in this movie is going to be the realism that has to be achieved in order to make the cats fit in with the live action plates in which the cat characters will "live". Not only are there going to be other animals in the scene that will be real cats and dogs, but we as humans are very used to seeing these animals day to day and anything that is not quite right in their movement and behavior will immediately stand out as fake. Of course, there will be some cartoony stuff as well and that should be a lot of fun.
I'll be working at Tippett until some time in July. Then I might come back to New York, unless another movie or opportunity presents itself...
Wish me luck!
Ken

My Hockey Team at our Skating Rink

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 00:51:06 -0500

For those of you who don't know, our family business back in Costa Rica is a roller skating rink called Salón de Patines Music.
My friend Orlando sent me this picture of our old hockey team for my birthday. You can see me on the lower right. These were good times!
Funny because the skating rink looks nothing like this anymore since it's been modernized. It's fun to remember. I'm going to see if I can dig up some more skating footage and pictures to put up on my site.
Check out the Salon de Patines Music website to see the newer look.
Ken

Costa Rica was a blast!

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:22:09 -0500

During the holidays Melissa and I had a chance to go visit the family in Costa Rica and spend Christmas and New Years with them.
This trip was very relaxing for a change. The best part of the trip, I have to say, was when we went to Punta Leona for 5 days, including New Year's Day. It was a ton of fun. Very relaxing but also very entertaining. We saw lots of animals and spent a lot of time in the ocean and even did a little ATVing.

One of the coolest things was our breakfast every morning. We would eat in this open yard and white faced monkeys would come down from the trees trying to steal food from the tables. It was so much fun to watch.
And during our meal one of the days, a whole herd of Pizotes just wondered right by the area where we were. I had my camera rolling at the time and I caught them on tape.
Check out the movie I made my new iMovie '09!
Punta Leona Movie
Ken

I finally got iLife '09!

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:25:19 -0500

iLife '09 came in the mail today and I am so excited to be using it!
iPhoto '09 kicks butt! I love the new faces feature. It works much better than I expected. I was able to recognize a ton of faces of family and friends and organize my library that way. It even recognized the faces of the monkeys we photographed during the Punta Leona trip! Hahaha!

There is also a really cool Facebook feature that I can't wait to try. That's because I haven't really uploaded many pictures to Facebook. But that's about to change for me I think. iPhoto '09 lets you do that directly from within the application, and what's even cooler, it will let you export entire albums including the tagged faces within the pictures. And when other Facebook users update tags on your pictures (of people you don't recognize) i've heard they get updated on iPhoto as well. How cool is that!
And of course I couldn't wait to make a video with the new iMovie. So here it is. I made this video with the footage and pictures from the Punta Leona trip. It took me about 6 hours to make and it's crazy how good it looks because you have to understand that until this morning I had NEVER used iMovie. Not even a previous version. It's by far one of the easiest video editing programs to use.

Punta Leona Video
Hope you like it!
Ken

Virgin Media Kelly Osbourne ad done!

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 16:41:30 -0500

The final ad we worked on at So! Animation was finally released in UK theaters! This ad features Kelly Osbourne, as she meets with her therapist, Dr. Shrunk, at the Friary.
The ad will similarly be airing in Odeon and Cineworld cinemas across London.
Check out the video here!
Virgin Media - Kelly Osbourne Video
Ken

Virgin Media Spice Girl MelB ad done!

Fri, 5 Sep 2008 01:40:44 -0400

One more ad done at So! Animation! This ad features Melanie Brown (Scary Spice) from the Spice Girls. Working on this spot was even more fun than the last one. The doctor character was much more cartoony so he was a lot of fun to animate. And Mel B was a lot of fun as well since she is so animated and well known.
Once again, the ad had a lot of sexual innuendo and tongue in cheek jokes, consistent with British humor. This stuff is growing on me.
The ad will be airing in Odeon and Cineworld cinemas across London starting September 12th. We are already working on the next ad with another famous british celebrity so I should be posting that at some point in October.
Check out the video here!
Virgin Media - Melony Brown Video
We had a nice BBQ today at work to celebrate the launch. Here you can see me and Minor at the event. Minor worked on a lot of the cloth and hair animation in many of the shots. 
In this one you can see Phan, the other character animator in the spot. And in the back is Kay, one of our riggers.
Of course we had hamburgers, hotdogs, and you guessed it... 

Beeeeeer!

And here you can see Lauri who was in charge of all the compositing. Joe is our amazing caricaturist, in charge of creating all the characters. Raffaele is our Technical Director. And on the right you can see Rob, owner of So! and responsible for that wonderful lighting.
And here is a nice ad about the Mel B spot in a UK advertising website:
Ex Spice Girl Mel B to Star in an Animated ad for Virgin Media
Ken

Siggraph was Awesome!

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:19:52 -0400

Well, Siggraph was so hectic that I did not have a chance to blog. It was three solid days of networking and handing out reels, attending talks and events, and partying to early hours of the morning. :-)
This year was interesting because a lot of the Animation Mentor graduating class 1, 2, 3 and 4 were not present since most of them are working. So I ended up meeting a lot of the current students and making lots of new friends.

The Animation Mentor Birds of a Feather session was great! We had a really good talk with Robin Linn, hiring manager for Sony Imageworks. He gave us lots of great advice on how to prepare your reel for prospective companies. One of his tips was to be very communicative with perspective companies HR. Here is some audio from the session.
Animation Mentor Firds of a Feather Audio
Unfortunately, I was only able to be there for 3 days but I got lots of photos. Check them out here:
Siggraph 2008 Photos
Ken

Heading to Siggraph 2008!

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:28:12 -0400

Hey there, I know it's been a while since I posted last but we've been crazy in production for our last Virgin Media ad at So! Animation. We just submitted the final version to the clients this week so I should be able to post it on my video page sometime in the next 2 or 3 weeks.
But I did manage to take a bit of time off to come to Siggraph! I'm actually typing this on the plane. He he. There are lots of really cool events going on, as well as parties and get-togethers so I will definitely be posting during the next three days if I have some time and an internet connection.
I am looking forward to the Animation Mentor industry party. Last years party was a blast and I met lots of AM folks and industry contacts. Plus, it was on a swanky hotel in the terrace on the top floor. Hope this year's is just as much fun.
Ken