My Animation Blog

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