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Bruno Monteiro - Class 4 - Advanced Acting

First of all, animation is my life!

It is not just a passion, it’s not a flame, and it’s not a dream. It’s my whole being, it’s the energy that flows through my blood and makes me infused more and more with animation! It’s my soul!

Animation Mentor....Wow!

Well, this was the first expression that babbled out of my mouth after I saw the latest student showcase. I know it sounds a bit goofy but at that moment my brain was just as fast as Homer Simpson’s pitch line! At that time I was like “Wow, ok they are great but I live in Brazil – maybe my English is not good enough and, by the way, I just don’t have the money.” For me it was like looking at a lake in the winter morning: foggy!

So I kept on with my life, doing my stuff until one day I was selected to have a workshop with no other than Pixar animator Mark Walsh! I said "WHAT?!?! My future boss is coming and I'm sure he'll hire me right away!" I kissed my girlfriend and took the first bus to the city where the event happened! So there I was making Mark Walsh laugh, joking with him. “Yeah man, he'll hire you definitely” was the only thought going through my mind for those 2 days. Well, after all that I had a chance to show him my so-precious-reel and guess what happened? I GOT A JOB AT PIXAR! Haha! If only… well he started pointing out my mistakes and how mediocre all my work was. I'll never forget the last glance he gave me, seeing that I was walking away with my heart completely broken. Well, I know someday we'll bump into each other at Pixar and I'll say, “Thanks so much for that.” That experience just made me eager to prove to him that I had what it takes, so I just took my reel and discarded it! Nothing in it would take me to my dreams. And then I thought “What now?”

I then heard about a great animation contest called 11secondclub and I thought “Hey that’s a good way to show my stuff and if I wanna be there I have to win this thing!” Yeah, I was determined to do that so I worked my bones out and after a month I did “Ogre oh Ogre” and hit the top of the competition! See it here.

Wow, that was great, what a great feeling it was to know that at least I wasn’t at a complete loss. I was happy with the winning BUT then I found out that the next month's winner would receive an e-critique from an AM mentor! "WHAAAAT????? Holy moly! I had to do that, I need that, that’s my chance to show them once again!!!” I thought to myself.

So there I was, animating like a mad dog with no sleep, no sunlight, and no breaks! What should’ve been an 11 second animation became a 23 second animation! I was so deeply involved with it that I did everything I could to win, and guess what? I WON again!  Two in a row! I fell down to my knees in the middle of the center hall at my job and started to cry out loud! That was an insane feeling. So all I could do was to wait for the critique of my "wonderful work" (yeah that’s how I thought of it). The critique came and it was....Victor Navone!!! OH MY GOD! 

And then, he just smashed my work completely, there were so many mistakes in my shot that I could fill a kiddie pool with them!

Watch the critique here.l I noticed that when you are playing with the big boys, man you better be ready to deal with that! So I got on my knees and shouted (well, not that dramatic, but this way sounds cooler!): “WHAT MORE CAN I DO??????!!!? AHHHHH, WHAT MORE?!?” Haha, looking back now that must have been a pretty pathetic scene! 

And then just like that, I noticed that there was just one place that I could answer that question: “What more can I do?”

And that day I picked up my phone and called the only person that could help me with my situation: My mom! Yeah, I called my mom and said “Mom, if I wanna see my dreams come true then I need to study at Animation Mentor. I need that to reach my dreams, mom, you NEED to pay for the course for me!" At that time, and well at this time too, I didn't have money to pay for it on my own so I have to say: Thanks mom, I love you!

Ok, ok, let’s get back to what’s happening for me now as a student of Animation Mentor.

So, since day 1, since the first lecture, I found out that I had entered the most incredible deep journey of animation I could possibly believe existed in this world!

Animation Mentor is much more than a top animation school, Animation Mentor is a beacon of hope for hundreds of students around the world. We students believe so much that Animation Mentor is the way to reach our dreams, that it becomes more than a place to study. Instead it transformed into the first step of a dream; the first step in the rest of our lives as animators!

When I started animating my first assignment, one friend from work came to me and said, “Man, bouncing ball? Don’t you know that already?” Well of course I’ve done bouncing balls before but it was the first time that I completely understood the mechanics – the reasons the ball bounces. At work I was animating acting scenes but found myself learning so much from the most basic of all: the bouncing ball. I must say that after 2 terms, my animation skills at my job improved an insane amount. All the classes are just so fundamentally designed for the comprehension of techniques that even if you use 50% of them you'll see the difference in your daily work!

I never expected that the mentors would be that thorough, frame by frame, really paying attention to all the details and arcs and spacing. Well, I've been to two other animation schools and I have to say that I never saw that attention to detail or that quality of education! Did the teachers at those schools not notice that my work was never good enough? The assignments that were given A's still had details that were lacking, or an arc that was missed! How uncool is that? If I want to hear how good I am, I would call my mom. And that’s not the reason I'm here at Animation Mentor; I want to see my work knocked down, exposed and dilacerated cause that’s the only way to improve! Thanks to the mentors who do that with us!
 
I work full time, get home every day at 8-9 pm, get something to eat and then I start animating. When I look at the clock it’s always later than 2 am, but I don’t care— it is worth it. This is my time to learn from the best, to learn exactly what I never learned anywhere else.

Animation Mentor created a learning environment that attends to the needs of the students almost 24 hours a day, by the campus mentors, by the Q&As, and by the peer buddies! If you have any doubts about your work, all you need to do is ask a peer buddy, create a thread at the forums, ask your classmates, or ask for the support! All of these tools are there to help us out! I see so many people that had previously never animated a stick man coming out with so much great work that I can only assume that Animation Mentor's talent and environment will shape the next top animators of the world!

When I look at those three crazy guys that started out this school, I can just say thanks with all my heart because sure, it’s a business and needs to make money, but what I see is more than a business, I see their dreams, their hopes and their faith that they are doing something bigger than themselves. They are giving students much more than a return on our investment— they are helping us build our dreams, and that is priceless and that is what it is all about. Most of these students are the future of the animation industry, so every time I think about what this crazy trio is doing I can only think that they are shaping the hands that will craft the most beautiful art created by man. Animation.

Animation Mentor:
What inspired you to learn animation?

Bruno Monteiro:
Well, when I thought about pursuing animation I was 14 years old, and it hit me like a thunderbolt. When I first saw Lion King (man that was a mind blowing experience!), I remember I standing alone in my room and watching it over and over again – pausing, copying the poses, trying to understand the way to bring emotions though the facial expressions. I spent almost all my spare time drawing from animation movies. It gives people the creeps that I can lip sync 80% of the lines from Lion King, Tarzan, Hercules, Mulan, and Beauty and the Beast. Incredible!! Wow I was glued to the television, so that was pretty much my well of inspiration to learn animation!

Bruno Monteiro:
This is tough; I mean 10 years ago I would have said, “DISNEY MAN!! Huhhuuuu!” But today I would say, “PIXAR!!! HUuuu!!!,” and the reason for that is that both of them, Disney in the past and Pixar nowadays, are more than just movie makers – they are storytellers and dream-makers too! So that’s why Pixar would be my dream job, because they nowadays are leading the creativity in animation stories like never before!

Bruno Monteiro:
“Oh my God!” That’s all I can say! I’ve been trying to animate since I was 15 years old and I even worked on 5 feature animations, but there were always boundaries that made me not improve as much I wanted to. I never gave a second and deeper look at the mechanics and stuff, because once it was moving in a way that didn’t stand out as weird, its was considered ok. But that’s wrong and after some months here at Animation Mentor I can say that I’ve learned more than many, many years along in the industry!

Bruno Monteiro:
I think that the most important lesson is that every movement has a reason. It can be gravity, inner forcer or external force, but each action has a motivation and a purpose. It’s not just moving the character around and making good arcs and nice secondary actions. If you do it this way, there’s no belief that what the character is doing is for real!

Bruno Monteiro:
Glen Keane for sure! Not that I don’t like the other geniuses in the industry, but Glen has a classical way of creating art. It makes me wonder, if Leonardo da Vinci had animated, would he have done it just like Glen? He’s always searching and studying human behavior and is always elevating the animation spirit!

Bruno Monteiro:
For me there’s a scene in The Incredibles where Bob is arguing with Helen and he says “Its psychotic, he’s moving from the…” and the dialogue goes on but that whole group of scenes had been worked with so much craft that you just even forget that they were animation characters and you just stare to you mom and dad at the kitchen fighting for something!

Bruno Monteiro:
Well for those that are flirting with the idea of becoming a student at Animation Mentor, I would tell you that this is the best animation school EVER! And the secret is that Animation Mentor is never frozen in time, it’s always growing, improving, learning, changing, and adapting to market demands. I never thought that there was so much to learn in the field of animation or that you could get so involved in Animation Mentor as a way of life that you can just learn every second you are logged on!
And for those who are already at Animation Mentor, well we know right?! We just know this is it!