random thoughts • coming attractions • euphoric visions • misc ephemera

life is getting real interesting lately, isn't it?

Sunday, September 19, 2010

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

A lot of work goes into the development of our thesis films made at SVA. A two-year process starts out with kicking around story ideas, followed by preliminary sketches, then storyboards, animatics, early modeling, pre-vis renders... it's a lot of material that usually ends up stored in the closet when the final film is made. Apparently this is not to be the fate of my project.

I was just contacted by a college professor I met at the Santa Fe Film Festival last October, where "Deja Vu" was part of the lineup. He teaches screenwriting at Santa Fe University, and I had the opportunity to share some of my storyboard materials with him.

He just emailed me with a request to include all my development materials - script, storyboard, and pre-vis for "Deja Vu" in a textbook he is writing for 2011 publication!

I said yes.

(you can be sure I'll work in a credit for SVA and Jeffrey Lerer)

Monday, September 6, 2010

Yo Ho!

Took the #6 subway to Astor Place all last week, working at Curious Pictures animating characters on a Nick Jr. show called "Team Umizoomi". This is a show in the Blues Clues genre geared for toddlers. An additional perk to working here is enjoying the company of Angelo Collazo, a friend who shared the SVA experience with me.

This is my first NY job working with character animation in Maya, and it's great to be able to play with performance. I always knew that my prior acting experience would assist me with my animation work, but it's funny how direct it is right off the bat. While I probably shouldn't say what characters I am working on ( I don't recall signing a non-disclosure agreement, but who knows how many 3-to-5 year olds are reading this, and I don't want to throw out any spoilers ;^), so here are two pics from past acting and puppeteering roles that are proving to be useful reference for them.