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Get Ready for Holiday Gift Giving!
Brand New Animation Mentor Merchandise!
Can’t get enough of Animation Mentor? Want to tell the world about how much you love this school? Need to get some holiday gifts?
Here’s a way to get all three things done in one totally hip and cool package…
Brand New AM Merchandise!
Feed your craving for all things Spike, Ninja, and Animation Mentor by going to our new store located at:
www.zazzle.com/animationmentor
What suits your personality best?
You can choose from tons of new designs to fit your mood.
If you’re feeling silly, we’ve got Spike in action:
Grinning, chasing Ball-e, eating hearts (!) or contemplating (wait, isn’t that an oxymoron?)…
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If you feel like ‘kickin’ it’ old school style you can hang out with Retro Spike.
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Or feel like kickin’ butt? Go Ninja style!
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We’ve got all these designs and more in short and long sleeve t-shirts, hoodies, hats, bags, mugs, aprons, keychains, mousepads, skateboards…
Get gifts for yourself, friends, and family this Christmas and show that AM Pride off to the world!
The Digital Revolution in the Animation Industry
The Convergence of 2D and 3D Animation: Where the Future of Animation Is Heading
More than 100 animation enthusiasts attended a panel discussion hosted by AnimationMentor.com on the Convergence of 2D & 3D Animation: Where the Future of Animation Is Heading at the Disneyland Resort Hotel on Nov.14.
Tom Sito, the moderator of the panel, is a 30-year veteran of animation production with screen credits including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Pocahontas, Dinosaurs, and Fantasia 2000. Sito led the discussion on the transition of 2D and 3D and how it affects the industry.
Panelists included Jay Jackson, a supervising animator on a Disney educational film; Raul Garcia, who just completed the feature The Missing Lynx and is a partner at Antonio Bandera’s animation studio Kamdor Moon; Scott Johnston, who is the founder of Fleeting Image Animation; T. Dan Hofstedt who is a senior character animator working at Walt Disney Animation Studios on the 2d feature The Princess and the Frog.
“Everyone can say that we saw the digital revolution coming in the distance and watched it wash over and watched the effect it has had over our industry,” Sito told the audience. “The digital revolution is no longer hypothetical and no longer a potential. We have been on a cusp of this change and it’s a reality now. It’s not a maybe. It’s an is.”
Sito asked the panelists of they felt anything was lost during from the transition of 2D and 3D animation.
“One thing that is lost in 3D is a personal artistic style,” said Jay Jackson, adding that veteran animators could watch a Disney film and point out a Frank and Ollie scene.
“We can recognize their style coming through even though they are doing the same character. That is much harder to see in CG,” Jackson said.
Scott Johnston said the loss of 2D and 3D depended on the type of project you were working on.
“At a big studio, there’s a lot of specialization. When an animator creates a character and animates a scene, the modeling, rigging, performing, timing -- they are doing the whole thing themselves. At big studios, animators don’t own the character as much.
In some ways it hasn’t change much, but in other ways it has changed, said T. Dan Hofstedt. He said he’s been working on The Princess and the Frog for the past six months and while the animators are still using paper, the pipeline has changed.
“We’re trying to do 2D, but it’s not exactly the way we used to do it,” Hofstedt said. The animation team is scanning things into 2D harmony and a lot of the post animation is done digitally within harmony.”
“The commonality of the two in a nutshell is character: what is the character supposed to be doing thinking and feeling, how is this moment I am working going to be portrayed in the film,” said T. Dan Hofstedt.
The standard for computer animation is photo realistic, photo texturing,” said Raul Garcia. “When we face this new revolution, we have to go further. In 2D animation, we have people doing things with watercolors, colored pencils, wax and cutouts and 20 different styles.”
While the technological landscape of animation has changed, the panelists said basic elements will always remain the same. And it’s a great career if you are passionate about animation.
“You still have to know what the principles are to make animation come to life,” Garcia said. “At one point, animation was an exclusive thing. It’s not anymore. The computer has democratized the field. Now everybody can have a go at animation and make things work, act and perform.”
“We’re really lucky to be allowed to be playing with toy trains. Sometimes the toy trains are made out of wood and are kind of crummy,” said Garcia. “But sometimes you get these great electric trains.”
From Visualization to Animation: See Your Ideas Come to Life
In conjunction with Jason Ryan, Animation Mentor is hosting a webinar on December 6, 2008 called “From Visualization to Animation: See Your Ideas Come to Life!” Intended for the beginner who is curious about how animation works, the two-hour webinar will show exactly what needs to happen to take ideas from storyboard beginnings, through blocking and posing a character, to animating a great performance and polishing it to create a professional shot. Jason Ryan, currently a Supervising Animator at DreamWorks Animation Studios, has over 15 years of animation experience. He has worked as a 2D Animator, an Animator for computer games, and as an Animator and Supervising Animator for Disney in CG and 3D.
Hungry for more learning about all things animation? Join us and tell others who also want to know! SPACE IS LIMITED so sign up now.
Date:
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Time:
10:00am – 12:00pm ET / 11:00am – 1:00pm CT / 12:00pm – 2:00pm MT / 1:00pm – 3:00pm PT
Cost:
$24.99
Click here for more info
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