Animation Mentor:
What inspired you to learn animation?

Alexis Memmott:
Wait, is that what I’m doing here?? I kid, I kid. Early on I was interested in animation because I had a great love of art and of being funny (or at least trying to be!) and cartoons were a great outlet to do that. When I was in elementary school I saved up my money to buy a book on animation by Preston Blair and worked my little butt off to try and copy what he had done. In the meantime I worked on my flipbooks on the corners of each page of my text books and created beautiful, disproportioned characters for the many crazy stories I wrote. I continued to work towards that goal throughout school and actually got as far as to be accepted to an animation program in college. I eventually pursued other things and somehow ended up in an entirely different field. It was only when I was in my senior year of college last year that I really started to think about what I wanted to do and what would make me happy. A degree in Psychology definitely was NOT the answer. My love of art and my continued LAME attempts to be funny were still going strong. People also kept asking why I didn't go into something art related.

Then BAM!

Alexis Memmott:
Incredible.

Oh, did you want more? It has gone farther than any of the expectations I had. The entire set-up of the school makes for one of the best learning environments I have ever seen. Sure it is online, but it has been more effective and more fun than I have had in a lot of college classes. The community is amazing and the way all of the students work to help each other is quite impressive. I was stunned by how actively students work to help each other and form great relationships. I've been surprised how willing people are to share their knowledge. When they find out how to do something new and great they share it around the community with a forum post or a video tutorial. I’ve definitely run into my share of tough spots but we constantly push and support each other as we work on our shots. And then after having aspiring animators share their knowledge and critique our work throughout the week, to have a professional animator scrub through our shots and critique it is an incredible help.

Alexis Memmott:
One? Just one? I think that it’s impossible to choose! Animation-wise I think learning the basics of animation is definitely at the top of the list.  Analyzing each of the 12 principles of animation and then applying them to our work one by one has been and is an excellent experience for me. Getting everything to flow has been a great challenge – making sure each part is having a nice arc, a nice path, and on and on.  Even right now as I sit here writing this I’m thinking about what I need to change on my shot to help it out!  Every week I learn more about how to get that flow.

I've learned to let people critique my work and work through it when the shot just isn't good enough…yet! Critiques are so key to getting a good shot. I had the hardest time at first letting people tear up my shot!  But so far I’ve been shown that this is a continuous learning experience and will be as long as I’m in it. No doubt that I will always be learning and trying to improve – it wouldn’t be fun if you came to a standstill!

Ooo, and I’ve almost tweaked the perfect work flow for myself!  Working full time and doing Animation Mentor takes a lot of juggling!  But I think I’m about to the point where I could join the circus…you know, with my juggling skills…(remember those lame attempts to be funny??).

Ok, one last shout out on a few of the many things I’ve learned so far: feel the character’s emotion, plan, have a story behind each idea, plan, know where the character has been and where he’s going, plan, (sleepless nights are common around Animation Mentor), plan, video reference is a great way to figure out how things work, plan, video reference is a great way to make a fool of yourself for many people to see, plan, clear silhouettes, and did I mention plan? Because that’s definitely an important thing! There is so much I have learned here so far – impossible to give you the full picture. But it’s been worth every moment.

Alexis Memmott:
The ultimate would be a job where I do what I love and I'm surrounded by people who feel the same way. I know that may sound vague, but it’s really not. I see too many people who do not enjoy what they do and to be able to follow my passion and do it for a living is an incredible idea. Animation is not just a job that you fall into - you have to work for it. Everyone that is there wants to be there. It's definitely something you have to put your all into. Animators that I have met are passionate about what they do and they work pretty dang hard to get there. To be surrounded by that kind of excitement and by people who love what they do would be the ultimate job.

That is an impossible question to answer with a one liner. There are a lot of incredible animators out there…so off the top of my head…

• Glen Keane for creating some incredible work and doing an amazing job at it - no need to elaborate here.

• Richard Williams for being so passionate about this, for his incredible mind, and for pushing the boundaries of animation. (The feature from the late 80s, I Framed Roger Rabbit, is quite a cool thing to watch.)

• James Baxter for having an amazing talent and an amazing mind that understands how to make things move, and how perspective change makes things flow incredibly well.

• Art Davis and Ken Harris for pushing the limits of characters in Warner Bros classics and finding that niche to make a character really come to life and make people laugh.

• Chuck Jones for creating and bringing to life timeless characters. (Where would the world be without Wile E. Coyote or Pepé Le Pew?)

• Andrea Deja for supervising the creation and life of some of the greatest cartoon villains. (Jafar still makes me cringe back!)

• Chris Sanders for not only helping to create Stitch but also giving him his voice.

• Nick Park for having the awesome talent and incredible patience to create memorable characters full of life one little move at a time.

• John Lasseter for having an incredible passion for this stuff and putting emotion and life into scenes no matter how inanimate the object is, like in Red's Dream.

• Tom Bancroft for showing that drive, and breathing life into some hilarious characters. (Mushu definitely adds that spice and Tuke continues to make me laugh out loud.)

• Nick Ranieri for letting great personality show through his animation giving the characters spunk and making us laugh. Boom baby!

• Bobby Beck, Carlos Baena, and Shawn Kelly for having an incredible amount of passion and energy for animation and sharing that with others. (Seriously, after watching a few lectures/video news, how can you doubt their energy and passion?!)

• And of course the nine old men for starting this and pushing their way through to create something amazing.

The list is endless. Those who show their passion through their work and push animation boundaries as well as their own really impress me.

Alexis Memmott:
Man, yet another hard question! There is so much amazing animation out there. How about a favorite five? (Of course it isn’t a top five of all time as I would find that list virtually impossible to narrow down!)

• The scene in Tarzan when he’s swinging through the vines and sliding along them. Crazy footwork! It’s an amazing scene that has an incredibly complex flow to it and yet it works great. The combination of 2D and 3D is quite impressive.

• I know this isn’t a favorite among most, but I love one of the first scenes in Chicken Little. He’s chasing the bus and running as fast as he can to school and throughout this scene there isn’t a lick of dialogue, but his personality and the way he’s feeling is made known quite well. The timing of it all, the camera angles, and the changing expressions on his face communicate everything incredibly well.

• Towards the end of Iron Giant when the bomb is heading for the town – that whole scene is incredible. When the giant thinks Hogarth is dead – the emotion there is amazing. The animators pulled a great deal of emotion not only out of an animated character, but a robot with very little dialogue. The way his hand trembles and his movements clearly show that he’s hurt, confused, and angry…oh man, it’s excellent.

• There was a teaser trailer for The Incredibles that I loved where Bob is trying to get into his super suit and Helen is calling him for dinner. It’s great to watch him struggle with his too-small pants and yelling back, slowly changing his mind. It’s an incredibly believable scene. (Maybe just a salad!)

• (Seriously having a hard time deciding here!) This one is biased as I love the movie overall, but the opening scene in Lilo and Stitch when Lilo is swimming in the ocean and then running to hula class. At the class, the hula movements are so fluid and beautiful. And then when they slip up and she is explaining what happened, her frustration is perfect! You definitely get that she’s a little kid with the building up and the nonstop explanation, barely leaving room to breathe. She uses such big words and literally is freaking out. And then it’s all ended when she abruptly calms down and says that Pudge controls the weather. Amazing range of emotion and movement. Love it.

If you are thinking about coming to Animation Mentor, quit delaying and just do it! You will not be disappointed. In my opinion (and from what I've seen, this is wide spread across the Animation Mentor community as well as people outside that scope) this is one of the best programs out there if you want to become a character animator. There are so many incredible people in the community and the layouts of the classes are incredibly efficient. Yes, you too can animate a bouncing ball!! It does take a lot of hard work but it's worth it. You just have to jump in and make that commitment. Once you get here, devote your life to it. Put as much of your drive and passion into as you can. The more time you put into your classes, the more you will get out of it.

To everyone already at Animation Mentor, first off, thank you! You guys are incredible. Thank you for keeping me going whether it's at 3 PM in the afternoon or 3 AM in the wee hours of the morning! Keep going and keep pushing yourselves. Don't be afraid to jump into a shot that scares you a bit. (And will you please remind me of this from time to time!) It's incredible how much we can learn when we push what we think our limits are. Definitely make sure to be actively involved in the community. We're here – let’s make the most of it! The alumni tutor Q&As, the makeup Q&As, posting around peer's workspaces, guest lectures, even the chat room - be involved as much as you can. Not only will you meet many incredible people, but it'll help you improve your animation ninja skills by talking with people. Learn to take critiques well and be willing to consider all suggestions. Heavens knows that doesn't mean you have to follow them, but log them away in your brain as you keep working. Accept the fact that there are times when you need to cut out a large number of keys that you've worked hard on to jump into a new way of doing things. (Man, I hate that!) But in the long run, with a lot of hard work, your animation is going to be stronger. (I keep my fingers permanently crossed!) Just stay involved in the community!  Listen!  Talk!  Learn! And never give up!  Now if you don’t mind, I think I need to get back to taking my own advice! Keep rockin’ it my fellow animation ninjas!