Today we started the second in a series of intensive animation workshops. This time around we had Kevan Shorey and Robyn Mesher heading up the lecture series. They both currently work at Dreamworks PDI and have done for the past 8 years. Kevan was actually a graduate of the NCCA back in 2002 and so he understood that our minds were in Major Project mode.
We started the day in the lecture theatre where Kevan and Robyn talked us through the plan for the week. They had demo reels and videos of their motion reference which were shown during the presentation. Throughout the presentation they both pitched in with some sound industry advice, which we could put into practice every week. They gave us tips on presenting, as they had sat in on our presentation session the previous day. The advice they gave was to present our work in the most positive way possible, and not to explain what we 'hadn't done'. They said that if we did that with shot dailies to the director of a project, they may find it difficult to have confidence in our work. I really hope that I take this advice on board as we tend to present almost every week and it'd be good practice for when we (hopefully) transition to industry.
During the short interval in the presentation Kevan came up to us as we were sitting in the front row and asked how we thought the presentation was going. We told him it was going well and it seemed very relaxed. They seemed to have put a lot of effort into the slides and they worked really well.
At one point the pair spoke of the differences between working in the UK and the US. The main difference is the positive approach that the Americans take to their work. I think this is echoed in the differences between Kevan and Robyn and Campbell and Susannah. These two seemed much more upbeat and talked noticeably more about the positive elements of the job.
I got the opportunity during the break in the presentation to ask Kevan if he'd ever had to sleep in his workspace since being in industry; a common animation student practice.
In the afternoon session we gathered in the labs where we were given a list of animals. We had to choose one and gather motion reference from various online sources and use the notes from the morning session to design a 5 second animation sequence. The purpose of the morning session was to get us thinking about making our animations interesting by playing off of the audience's expectations, so our sequence had to embody this.
The animal I chose was the Hummingbird. Usually I would have chosen the simplest one to animate, as I'm not a very confident animator, but I was feeling inspired and was game for a challenge. I guess that positive attitude really does help!
After gathering motion reference, it was clear that hummingbirds are one of the most energetic animals out there. I noticed that the head leads the movement while they're flying; the head moves and then remains still while the wings and body work overtime to keep it there. I liked how there was such a contrast between the head which seemed effortless and the body which is obviously working tirelessly!
The sequence I designed featured two characters; a normal energetic hummingbird and a lazier, dopier one. The lazy one would hover slowly to a feeder where the energetic one would zip in front, performing aerial acrobatics and only staying still for small amounts of time.
I drew up some thumbnails and got Kevan to come over and take a look. He said that he liked the idea. :D The day ended and we were told that we would be developing our ideas the following day.
I had a really good time today and I'm interested to see how this week pans out!
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