motion09 officially came to a close, Wednesday October, 15, 2009.
“It was our best year ever,” said Becky Padilla, co-producer of motion09. “We started motion three years ago. As working professionals in the industry, we were frustrated that nothing like it existed. As creatives – we were looking for an event that provided inspiration.”
“We’ve attended many conferences over the years,” said Elaine Montoya, co-producer of motion. “They all focused on learning software. While this has it’s place, we were at the place in our careers where we were looking for creative inspiration as a means to revitalize. With tight deadlines, and the pressure of the industry, sometimes you just need to get away from all of it and rejuvenate. That’s what motion is about.”
With motion09, these goals were realized. This year’s show included some of the top talent in the industry, including Karin Fong and Rod Basham (Imaginary Forces), Andrew Orloff (Zoic Studios), Synderela Peng (yU+co.), emmy award winning director Jamie Caliri, animation master Dan Haskett, Michael Waldron and Erik van der Wilden (nailgun*), visionary screen designer Mark Coleran, Patrick McDonough of PMcD Design, and many more.
“The intimate atmosphere allowed for some great one-to-one conversations. I made some great connections that will be invaluable as I continue to define and develop the new Department of Motion Design at Ringling.” Ed Cheetham – Ringling College of Art and Design
“It was so enjoyable to share time and space with other creatives who didn’t seem to be worrying about their place in the scene!” Erik van der Wilden – nailgun*
“We had a wonderful time, thank you – looking forward to next year already!” Alicia VanHeulen – Toolfarm
“I think the whole experience of motion is the people you meet. I have always found some great people that become friends that last much longer then the conference.” Jason Sorbie – Sorbie Design
“Congratulations on the conference! I am so glad I participated!” Patrick McDonough – PMcD Design.
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. This year we were honored to have the amazingly talented photographer, Chelsea Nicole capturing the event. Take a look… This SlideShowPro photo gallery requires the Flash Player plugin and a web browser with JavaScript enabled.
“A shout-out to the rockstars of motion09, attendees, volunteers and sponsors of motion. You are what motion is all about,” said Montoya.
“I’ll say it once again,” added Padilla. “We truly appreciate your support!”
Next year’s motion, will take place in October 2010, in ABQ, NM. Details coming soon.
motion09 is an event that inspires.
Once a year, animators, motion graphics artists, title designers, visual effects (VFX) artists and broadcast designers come together to share their skills, work, and professional insights at this unique summit.
Industry professionals and students spend four days together in a collaborative environment designed for experiencing and participating in the creative process.
And now, we proudly introduce – the rockstars of motion09.
Visit the motion09 conference website to view detailed profiles on each ‘rockstar’, including online reels.
Then…see them live at motion09!
A graduate of the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, Barbara has performed, created and directed numerous theatre works and films. Barbara has had a varied performance career, careening through Mud Shows, mask performances, indie films and Shakespeare. Her directing credits include the acclaimed contemporary commedias Love Potion # Mine and 3 Dottories 3. She has extensive experience as a mask maker and visual artist, exhibiting her ceramic sculpture around the country.
In 2000, she developed the graduate course Physical Expression For Animators at the Rochester Institute of Technology and has brought that work to animators around the country.
In the spring of 1998 I was asked to devise a course in non-verbal communication designed to broaden the creative vocabulary of Graduate Students in Animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology. At the time, I had decades of experience and training as a physical actor behind me and some experience in working for animators doing registration and film editing so I set about to distill the elements of my training and experience that would be useful for an animator.
A common belief about acting is that it’s simply about becoming someone else and for the most part, that’s what’s apparent to the audience. But that process requires an understanding of the way we inhabit our bodies. Without it, we can’t play with and mold our physicality in a way that translates as a believable transformation into the “other”. And a character without a real physicality is just a talking head.
Breath, gait, gaze, status. We take these things for granted in ourselves, but if we can isolate their specific qualities, understand and work with them in a variety of combinations, we are building a great foundation on which to create a character that is alive as a real individual for the audience.
- Breath pattern is a great indicator of a personal rhythm and emotional state.
- Gait or how a character walks can express a tremendous amount about a characters’ physical state and what they do as an occupation.
- Gaze brings us into the character’s thought process and inner life.
- Status as it is expressed physically, gives us an almost unconscious understanding of a character’s place in their immediate social circle and in the wider world.
Yes. When you begin to mix variations in rhythm, pace, levels, and movement qualities with these basic elements you’ve established, it’s possible to explore and embody a full range of physical possibilities for your character.
Not all of them will be useful in a given project, but your underlying understanding will bring depth to your creation. An understanding of these elements are useful to animators as they develop a character just as they are to the actor creating a character in performance. If you can inhabit the physical aspects of the characters you create, to get inside their skins, it is so much easier to translate that into your animation because you know what it feels like for them to move in this or that way, to twist like that, how their breath changes when they’re scared or embarrassed or in love.
It’s a great way to improve you observation skillsDefinitely. You will also find yourself much sharper in your observations of living things. Tapping into your instinctive understanding of what to look for, you’ll find all the inspiration you need for character in the nearest coffee shop or a walk down the street.
Add these skills to your toolbox and you’ll find yourself going back to them again and again.
speaking at motion09
Barbara Geary will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
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copyright: © 2008 – 09
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Jamie Caliri - Director
motion09 speaker Jamie Caliri won yet another award: the 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design. The project? Showtime’s The United States of Tara. Jamie played multiple roles in this production, including Director, Director of Photography, Editor, and Main Digital Compositor.
The United States of Tara follows the life of Tara Gregson, a wife and mother with dissociative identity disorder (DID). After deciding to take a break from her medication to discover the real cause of her disorder, her alternate personalties re-emerge. Tara is supported by her calm and level-headed husband Max, her somewhat troubled teenage daughter Kate and quirky, good-hearted gay son Marshall. Her sister, Charmaine, is not so supportive, often expressing her doubt about the validity of Tara’s disorder. The show is set in Overland Park, Kansas.
Caliri’s opening titles for The United States of Tara is based on the concept of a pop-up book – a subtle way of illustrating the relationship to Tara’s ‘personalities’ – personalities that could ‘pop-up’ at any given time. The illustrative style and the darker color palette used by Caliri evokes a feeling indicative of a ‘mysterious’ disorder – fitting for this project. Caliri worked with the show’s writers, creative producer David Finkel and also received a few helpful suggestions from executive producer Steven Spielberg on how to represent the character. “This project was a melting pot of ideas,” says Caliri. “I wasn’t given the show and then sat down and storyboarded it. Things are more collaborative in television apparently, which is fine!”
Jamie Caliri - Director
Created in the cut paper stop-motion animation style that Jamie has become known for, this innovative piece is an amazing work of art. Unlike most modern-day pieces, Jamie’s projects are normally created the old-fashioned way – by hand.
When asked why he doesn’t go digital, Caliri replies: “If you’re just going to fold up some paper why do it on the computer? Some things are easier done with less technology. The nice thing was I wasn’t sweating, ‘Does this look like paper? I don’t know, we’d better get some paper plug-ins!’”
But for the stop motion aspect, he does rely on the software technology co-developed by Caliri and his brother Dyami: Dragon Stop Motion.
Jamie was hands-on with this project from the start – from constructing some of the actual pop-ups to shooting the sequence – and his unfaltering attention to detail shows through. Each pop-up illustrates one of Tara’s three personas. Tara’s ‘June Cleaver-like housewife personality’, Alice appears first in the title sequence, as she ties her apron in the kitchen. This humorous sequence shows snippets of a ‘day in the life’ as she arranges flowers, gingerly places a tissue over a cockroach before stepping on it with her ever-so-feminine pumps, and then brings out the vacuum to clean up the aftermath – all while she is baking a fabulous cake. And just what, ‘pops-out’ of this cake? Tara’s male, loud, beer-drinking Vietnam vet personality – Buck. The scene transitions to Buck in the garage, beer in hand working on his Harley. As he zips out of the garage on his bike, the trail of dust he leaves, transitions to the bedroom of Tara’s wild and flirty teenager personality ‘T’.
The scene with Alice was creating using a fully working pop-up – without any extras. The stop motion process consisted of Caliri’s team carefully opening the pop-up books until they got a good take. In the scene depicting Tara’s wild child teen persona T opening her closet, the team – art department lead Morgan Hay, illustrator Alex Juhasz and animator Anthony Scott – created a few add-ons to augment the pop-up book.
“When you see T’s room open, there are a few things in the background that slide into the closet. Those had metal in the bottom and underneath the set were little rare-earth magnets,” explains Caliri. “We could slide things along the line of the magnets while the page held itself up. The great thing was that we didn’t have to have those extra pieces in there when the whole set was crushed.”
So just how long does it take to create one of these amazing pop-ups? On the average, anywhere from one day to two weeks, depending on complexity. To create a complex pop-up page, it takes about a month. Yep – you heard right – a month for one page. Having said that, Caliri’s talented team was able to take the project from conception to completion, with the team shooting the action on two stages – in just two months.
motion congratulates Caliri and his team on winning the Emmy award for Outstanding Main Title Design!
speaking at motion09
Jamie Caliri will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
………………………………..
copyright: © 2008 – 09
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motion09 is honored to announce its most recent rock star in our 2009 lineup – Synderela Peng!
Fans of film title design are sure to have seen many of the projects Peng has worked on. Recent work includes Warner Bros.’ Watchmen, Disney’s Race to Witch Mountain and DreamWorks’ The Soloist.
Peng is the Art Director for yU+co. Established by Garson Yu in 1998, yU+co. has designed film titles for more than 100 feature films distributed by Hollywood motion picture studios, working with directors such as Ang Lee, Zack Snyder, Steven Spielberg, Tony and Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and Spike Lee.
Peng has also designed television movie titles and show opens for the major networks such as ABC, HBO, and Showtime. For the fourth year in a row, yU+co. received an Emmy nomination for Main Title Design for HBO’s TV movie, Bernard and Doris. Other nominations include ABC’s Ugly Betty, Syfy Channel’s The Triangle and ABC’s Desperate Housewives.
In 2005, yU+co. formed a Hong Kong office for motion graphics work and launched yU+co.[lab] to focus on multimedia interactive design. Recent projects include an interactive trade show exhibit for China Mobile, a technology demo center for Intel, and work for the upcoming 2010 World’s Fair in Shanghai.
“There’s been a lot of change at yU+co. over the past ten years,” said Peng. “A lot of expansion. We’ve evolved into being a full-service motion graphics and digital media design production company. But we’re not a ‘traditional’ motion graphics studio. We serve as a visual design and effects production company for feature films and video games.”
yU+co.’s venture into the video game arena has quickly taken off, designing and producing projects for 3 of the top 5 game developers. For Capcom’s recently released Resident Evil 5, yU+co. designed and directed over 60 minutes of cinematics for this highly successful game franchise. Other recent gaming work includes trailers for the Ubisoft games Tom Clancy’s EndWar, Tom Clancy’s HAWX and Vivendi’s Spyro.
A graduate of Art Center College of Design, with a BFA in Illustration, Peng went on to get her Masters in Design from CalArts. She is a board member of LACE – Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and is a member of AIGA, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Most recently, Peng and the team at yU+co. have taken center stage for their work on Lakeshore Entertainment/Lionsgate’s futuristic thriller Gamer, in theaters September 4th. Gamer is a high-concept action thriller set in a near future when gaming and entertainment have evolved into a terrifying new hybrid. yU+co. designed story-driven motion graphics applied as visual effects to create the visual look of the entire film.
motion09 welcomes Synderela Peng to the stage!
speaking at motion09
Synderela Peng will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
………………………………..
copyright: © 2008 – 09
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motion09 is honored to announce its most recent rock stars in our 2009 lineup – Michael Waldron and Erik van der Wilden!
nailgun* We’ve all seen their work. With a list of clients that could easily span this entire article – you’d have to be living in a cave to have not seen some of the projects they have created. Specializing in broadcast design, their clients include almost every network imaginable including: A&E, ABC News, Animal Planet, Cartoon Network, CBS, Comedy Central, ESPN, Food Network, Fox, HBO, National Geographic, Nickelodeon, Showtime…you get the picture.
With a strong belief that great art derives from making creative choices – and sticking to them, veteran graphic designer Michael Waldron and editor/animator Erik van der Wilden co-founded motion graphics house nailgun* in 2003 and since then have guided the young company to its lofty status as one of the industry’s most respected broadcast design houses.
storyboards for the 79th annual academy awards
Michael began his career as art director at NewsChannel6, Richmond, VA and left there to become creative director at The Diecks Group, New York. His work has been recognized by awards from Graphic Design USA, PROMAX/BDA, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Type Directors Club and ID magazine, to name a few.
Eric van der Wilden came from a completely different background. An All-American soccer player and former professional actor, Erik gradually migrated to broadcast editing, animation and design, and founded Vandyink in 1996. He later worked for The Diecks Group as Director of Editorial and Animation, where he met Michael.
The rest is history. And an amazing history at that. Their award roster includes honors from the BDA, New York Festivals, Type Directors Club, Emmy Awards and the Promax Judges Awards. nailgun*’s work has been featured in several publications in the US, UK, Asia and Europe, as well as in the books After Effects in Production: A Companion for Creating Motion Graphics (by motion09 speakers Chris & Trish Meyer), Broadcast Design (Daab, 2007), The IdN 15th Anniversary Edition (2009) and in 2010 will be included in the title, Visual Effects Artistry (Drate, sched. pub. 2010).
As nailgun* evolves, the studio continues to foster the same spirit that has brought it to this point. In an industry that is ever-changing, they continue to adapt, inspire, imagine and most of all, together, hold fast to knowing no limits.
This year, the two co-founders are going to do just that at motion09 – inspire. Tuesday evening, October 13, nailgun*’s keynote presentation will be all about broadcast design. And then, get ready for an amazing experience Wednesday morning as Michael and Erik offer a 3-hour intensive in this year’s promotion series. This series provides attendees to opportunity to work interactively with top-talent in the industry on a specific project. Watch the motion09 conference website for details on nailgun*’s interactive promotion presentation.
speaking at motion09
Michael Waldron and Eric van der Wilden will be two of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
………………………………..
copyright: © 2008 – 09
motion.tv
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Dan Haskett, a Harlem native, is a master animator with four decades in the business, an extraordinary character designer – and an all around ‘great human being’. I am one of the lucky ones. Dan lives in Albuquerque, so I’ve been able to interact with him on several occasions. I’ve never met a more remarkable animator – and one who is unbelievably humble to boot.
the art of expressivenessWhen I first saw Dan’s work, what caught my eye the most was the expressiveness of his animation. It made me realize – I hadn’t seen this in years. What happened to expressiveness in animation? Did we loose it when everything transitioned from traditional animation to computer animation? Is it possible to animate ‘expressively’ with digital tools? Have deadlines become such a factor in animation, that we no longer have time to ‘go the extra mile’ in adding the details and characteristics of expressiveness? Or is it just that, somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the art. Fortunately, because of animators like Dan Haskett, more and more young animators are being given the opportunity to explore this lost art – and hopefully carry on the tradition for years to come.
a brief historyWith many credits to his name, Haskett is well-known for creating the characters of “Belle” for Beauty and the Beast and “Ariel” for The Little Mermaid. He began his career setting up an animation department for a New York company that did commercials and corporate films. A co-worker told him about a man named Richard Williams, who would later go on to make Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Because of Williams, Haskett got an audience with Frank Thomas, one of Walt Disney’s famed “Nine Old Men” group of directing animators. Haskett was offered a job as a junior animator under Thomas on The Fox and the Hound.
Freelancing for Disney, Warner Bros. and many others since then, Haskett’s credits include Toy Story, The Prince of Egypt, Sesame Street, Scooby Doo. He won an Emmy for his work on The Simpsons and has done commercial work for Kellogg’s and Nestle. Haskett helped pioneer a resurgence of classic Disney qualities and “organic” animation.
When it comes to animation, it’s easy to say Dan is a role model. Everyone wants to be able to animate like Dan. It’s a given. But beyond this, he plays a very special role in the African-American community. As an African American animator, he serves as a role model. In a 2005 article by Esther Iverem, on the portal seeingblack.com, there is an excellent interview with Dan about what it means to be a Black animator. I was intrigued by this article, and soon realized Dan’s role and how it will be written in the history of Black America.
But what amazed me even more, was the first time I received a phone call from a young African American who learned that Dan lived in Albuquerque, speaks at motion, and is involved in our community. He wanted to get in touch with Dan – his lifelong idol. And, this wasn’t a one time occurrence. Since then, I have had calls from other young African Americans to see if I could help them get animation cells signed by Dan, and even met a young man who travel to ABQ from Atlanta to meet him in person. Dan is definitely a ‘rock-star’ in the industry and a ‘rock-star’ in the African American community.
Back for his second year, Dan is a favorite at motion. This year, he will be on a special panel of Disney (and former Disney) animators, titled The Art of Animation: Now and Then. Additionally, with hopes of carrying on the traditions of the art of animation, Dan will be presenting a 3-hour interactive session at motion09, in the promotion series.
“I’ve been able to influence a lot of young talent,” said Haskett. “A lot of people like what I do and they like how I do it and they want to learn. And it’s very important to me to create characters that have a life of their own—and apparently I’ve been successful at that.”
Dan’s an amazing man, with extraordinary talent. motion09 is honored to welcome him to the stage!
speaking at motion09
Dan Haskett will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
………………………………..
copyright: © 2008 – 09
motion.tv
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Flash animation expert and founder of High Bar Films in Los Angeles, Stanton Cruse has just completed work on Ape Escape. His current and past projects include ABC’s Slacker Cats, Where My Dogs At, Wow Wow Wubbzy, Sunday Pants: Weighty Decisions (Cartoon Network), Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show, The Phil Hendrie Show (FOX) and EuroTrip (title sequence – Dreamworks).
Anything you can design, as an artist, you can animate in Flash – and you can do it pretty quickly. In a couple of days, you can have a fully animated scene that’s in full color, 24 frames per second, that’s broadcast quality and ready to show the world.
Early versions of Flash (I started in version 5) had some definite limitations. But as developers were given the ability to create third-party extensions, animators began developing tools to solve specific problems. I’ll give you an example: Say you have a 500-frame scene and want to lay some keyframes down at frame 300; when you click into your character, no matter where you are in your timeline, the playhead jumps back to frame 1. This can be very frustrating if you have a long, complicated scene with a lot of layers and nested parts, and every time you click into a part you have to scroll back through the timeline. Dave Wolfe, an animator at Cartoon Network, has written an extension called Frame Edit that lets you stay at the same frame you were at when you clicked into a symbol. This saves a tremendous amount of time and brainpower.
There’s a tendency for things to get rushed into animation without taking a good look at the overall strategy of how to do a Flash show. Elements that aren’t in place initially have to be introduced into the production at some point, causing a lot of back up down the line. There’s a lot of confusion about what a proper set up of a Flash show is, because it’s all so new and we’re still finding our way. But it’s important to figure out how to do it right, and I have some good ideas about that.
Right now it’s mainly being used in television, and it seems to be gaining a pretty strong foothold there. At Six Point Harness, the studio I helped form, we created dozens of pilots. Studios were willing to outsource the pilots to us because we could get them done relatively quickly and cheaply.
As a natural progression of that, larger studios like Film Roman and Nickelodeon – which has its Flash show El Tigre, as Cartoon Network has Fosters – are considering Flash a more valuable tool for doing broadcast production. At Film Roman, there are dozens of shows being produced in Flash. While I think big studios will do more and more shows in Flash, I don’t see them phasing out traditional all together, that’s a well-established pipeline. But this is a transitional time and I feel like the studios are really giving Flash a chance – though nobody has decided yet if the best model is going to be in-house, out-sourced, or a combination of the two. That’s a conversation we’re still having.
Flash can be more challenging than working in 3D. In 3D you have a technical director who controls the models and does very elaborate, well designed set ups. When a character animator hits the rig, it’s like a driving a well-engineered car. Things are logical, they’re where they’re supposed to be and it’s actually pretty easy. When I got to Flash, there were no standards or best practices. The challenge was, how do I use what I know to create models that are well engineered and “easy to drive”?
When I began 3D animation, I approached it the same way I approached traditional. I would spend a lot of time working with the character and creating strong poses until I’d get the scene completely posed out. Then I would do pass after pass of computer interpolation to get some nice overlapping action and flesh out my scene.
When I came to Flash, I did it the same way. On my first day working on Jake’s Booty Call, a 2002 movie produced by National Lampoon, I spent a lot of time creating keyframes and poses of the character. The guys were getting frustrated with me, saying, “Okay, apply some motion tweens already, let’s see this guy go!” But I had to make sure the poses were right first. Ever since then, that’s been my approach. Any time I’ve gone away from it, it takes me a lot longer to get through the scene. I end up getting lost in motion tweens and what the computer is doing, trying to force it to do things it’s not wanting to do. Which means I’m no longer in control of what I’m creating, and the tool is controlling me.
Beyond animation, in running a production, it’s important to control what’s going on there too, and not let it get away from me – which I can achieve by spending the necessary time up front thinking about the end of the production.
After Slacker Cats I went to Hawaii to supervise Ape Escape, which was 38 two-minute short films for Nicktoons, produced by Frederator.
The cartoon is based on Sony PlayStation’s popular 1999 video game of the same name. If you’re familiar with the game can look forward to seeing many of the same characters, including Specter, Jimmy, The Professor and others. However, the similarities end there. The episodes were written for an audience of 6 to 13-year-olds who have never played the game. The humor is very slapstick.
I was super excited to do this project, because it was a test of my skills and what I’ve learned thus far. While I’ve run some small shows in the past, I had to scale it up to a larger production like Ape Escape. It was a lot of work – but overall, a great experience.
We created the characters using Illustrator as our design platform, and Flash as our animation timeline. We used After Effects to create the environments, and as the camera would move through, perspective would change, giving a sense of dimensionality – but nothing is actually 3D here. The commercial was a promotion for Max Lucado’s book Every Day Deserves a Chance. You can view it on You Tube.
I can imagine doing a project someday with 2D characters animated in Flash, that live inside of 3D vehicles created in Maya, joined together seamlessly in animation. It’s a look I haven’t seen yet. We’ve seen 2D and 3D together, I’ve just not seen 2D Flash and 3D brought together. That’s what I’m ultimately pushing for and hoping I’ll get a chance to do.
The first character I ever drew was Cap’n Crunch. I was a Saturday morning junkie, and I used to love Cap’n Crunch commercials – I have no idea why. When I was six years old we moved to the Azores, where there were no cartoons, only The Muppet Show in Spanish. By the time we came back to the states, Disney was doing some incredible work. In particular, I remember the opening sequence of Rescuers Down Under – a little boy runs into the wilderness to play with his friend, a golden majestic bird; the bird tosses him around in the air and pushes him along on the water as he’s water-skiing. There was a lot of unspoken drama – it was very moving, and it amazed me that I could be moved by an animated cartoon.
That experience made me want to create art that moves people and creates an emotional response. With cartoons, comedy has always been and will always be popular, but there was something about those films – the big epic scenes, the scope and scale of what they were doing – that just blew me away. It still does. I love that stuff.
I would love to be afforded the opportunity to try. I really feel it can be done. My first experience in Flash was on that movie in 2002, and we’ve come so far since then – although studios had insisted it was preposterous to think Flash could ever be used for broadcast television. Now we’re doing it and they’re asking, “how can we do it better?” Today, people scoff at the idea of doing feature films in Flash, insisting it’ll never happen. Which makes me think it will eventually happen.
in an interview at studiodaily.com, you advised novice users to approach their scene as an artist, not a technician. “Think in terms of thumbnails, posing, and timing….compose solid drawings and endeavor to create quality animation art.” you stress the fundamentals of art over technology.The pioneers of our industry spent the best years of their lives innovating and creating our industry. Everything they did is relevant to everything we do. We can’t forget where we came from, and we need to learn traditional approaches-our wheel may be shiny, new and fast, but these guys invented the wheel a long time ago. I’m not sure how impressed they would be with our technology, and I don’t think they’d be impressed at all if we forget what they discovered and learned. We need to retain that knowledge as we push forward into new mediums.
speaking at motion09
Stanton Cruse will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
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author: Lilian Dregalla
Working Story Creative
copyright: © 2008 – 09
motion.tv
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Brad Swardson, a native New Mexican, had a passion for computer animation and special effects since before he knew what it was. He still remembers being in awe of such films as Jurassic Park and The Abyss and defiantly staying up far too late to catch re-runs of Movie Magic on the Discovery Channel as a child.
Brad currently works as the lead animator and technical director of the Motion and Graphics Department at Boeing-SVS where he leads a team of animators to create fully 3D scenario based animations as well as still rendered product visualizations.
Was there anything in particular that sparked your imagination as a kid?Most of my creative spark came from the normal influences on a late 20th century male child; cartoons, movies and video games. I used to love squiggles and art lessons in grade school because I was able to draw, color and actually make something artistic. I can remember sitting down with a friend to come up with our own Mega Man game villain designs and drawing sports logos, power rangers and ninja turtles to no end. It was a lot of fun.
I don’t know if there was any one thing I obsessively drew like characters or environments or anything. I mostly just drew something when I felt inspired or when there was a contest among friends or classmates. I did seem to have a weird obsession for a season with football helmets. I remember drawing every team’s helmet and their logo a few times. Might have been a bit of a young graphic designer in me there.
As a child I always loved movies and animated cartoon shows. Even more then watching them I always thought it would be the best possible job in the world to become an animator for Disney or work in visual effects for a living. I can remember defiantly staying up far to late at night to catch re-runs of Movie Magic on the Discovery Channel completely glued to the TV as they described things that happen behind the scenes. Even now I am often more excited to see the “Making of” features of a movie then the actual movie itself. The shear amount of times I have watched every appendix disc of the extended Lord of the Rings Trilogy DVD’s is embarrassing really. It was only natural that I end up finding a love for 3D and motion graphics and am lucky enough to actually be doing it for a living.
My first foray into the world of 3D graphics was with Bryce 3D when I was in 9th grade. A delightfully painful program that allowed me to create landscapes and reflective spheres to wet my appetite for graphics. While being a limiting program for animation and modeling it gave me a brief but exciting introduction to 3D. As a freshmen at UNM I stumbled across the CGI and Animation course they offered. At the time I did not know there were any classes like that available. I was so excited about it I instantly switched my major to computer science and enrolled in the class the next semester because I heard it was an upper division computer science course. It was in that class that I was introduced to Maya and began my 5 semesters of that course utilizing the machines and software to learn and explore the vast world of 3D. It turned out that I didn’t have to be a CS student to do the class so I switched to Studio Art in my sophomore year and finally found my grounding as an art student. I owe a lot of my training to my internship with Boeing while I was an undergrad. At the time I worked under the supervision of Jim Van Allen who currently works for Industrial Light and Magic. He is really one of the most innovative, creative and driven CG artists I know. Working with him on projects and learning the nuances of CG production whether it is 2D or 3D really propelled me beyond where I could bring myself at the time. Lastly I cannot forget the wonderful community of CG artists across the world that are so eager to share their knowledge and assistance to even the most introductory students. The amount of knowledge I have gained through online articles, forums, tutorials and critique sessions has been a priceless entity to my education. Thanks everyone! You rock!
I have to admit, there were times I was frustrated taking studio art and art history courses during my undergrad because all I wanted to do was play in Maya. However, my drive to earn a degree and understanding that even though I didn’t see a direct connection between courses like “Early 20th Century African American Art” and visual effects, it’s influence on me and my experiences would be an overall benefit to my career. Looking back on my education now I am really thankful for all of the courses I took in traditional art creation and art history. They have helped me to see more possibilities of depth and meaning in art today and have elevated the quality of my work more than anything else could. There is so much more to film making, animation, motion graphics and graphic design than simply hitting the record button on the camera or slapping some shaders on a model and rendering it. I consider myself a life-long learner and find that I have more of an interest in learning traditional methods and history even now that I am working in the industry.
That is a very hard question to answer in too specific a manner as I consider everything I see and hear as something that influences my work. I have always been inspired by the genius storytellers and production teams at Pixar. The way they meticulously dissect every minute detail in order to ensure that nothing is done without purpose really inspires me to do the same for myself. In terms of visual effects I love to see the innovation that comes out of ILM, Weta, Sony, Digital Domain, Framestore, etc. I am always fascinated to see how they do the things they do. Some of my favorite commercial spots have been created or assisted by The MILL and the Digital Kitchen. I am also highly inspired by great film directors and DPs like Alfred Hitchcock, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, M. Knight Shyamalan. As you can see I find inspiration in a lot of places which I think is the way to do it because there is so much creativity to be found all over the place. You simply have to look and listen to find it.
I have a bit of ADD going on when it comes to graphics. I definitely have a strong tendency toward 3D, but I find a lot of enjoyment and passion from extending myself to the motion graphics, graphic design and web design arenas. I find if I spend too much time on one specific thing I have a strong pull to learn something new, or work on something completely different. My interest in motion graphics really stems as an extension of my 3D knowledge rather than it as something different. It started as I became more comfortable with the concept of compositing using After Effects. The more I learned After Effects, the more I saw it as an extension of 3D. Some of the most inspiring 3D pieces I have seen involve a great amount of motion graphics and almost all of the motion graphics I enjoy involves 3D or at least 2.5D. I find that my knowledge in all of these fields in computer graphics expands my envelope in the others. This includes computer programming and computer networking.
Much of the work I do on the scenario based animations is not that different than any other 3D production. It still involves a planning of the story and mood as well as the usual modeling, animation, lighting rendering, editing processes. One of the interesting things about some of the work I do for Boeing is that at times a piece of hardware or an engineer’s design becomes the “star” of the show rather than a character. I have found it really extends my understanding of cinematography, timing and framing to create shots that are interesting even though there is no character mood or development to back it. Another thing that is interesting is that I often work with and for people that are more technically minded then artistically. While this creates some problems and challenges I have found that it makes me really understand exactly what it is that I am doing in order to explain it very clearly and concisely. Throughout that process I not only learn far more about what’s going on, but I have a much greater understanding of how to control what I do in order to get the exact look and effect I am going for.
Most of the direction of how to tell the story we are trying to tell is given to me. While this seems like the biggest blank canvas one could be offered, the projects tend to have some repetitive limitations. Since each project’s story can be told much like the others it is a creative challenge to present similar ideas in completely different ways. Much like a painter will depict the same person in different poses, environments and lighting to change the result of the piece. An interesting affect of working in aerospace is that my customers and audience often do not have a clue as to what or how I do what I do. As such the only thing they have to compare the work I do to is the productions they see on TV and at the movies. As you can imagine this puts some pressure on our small group to produce work that is on par with the top studios in the world within budgets and timelines that are even less realistic for us. A lot of the creativity for our productions is in creating processes, workflows and solutions that are fast and quick to implement, but still produce results that are competitive.
What kind of creative projects do you work on outside of work?When it comes to 3D, a lot of my personal work usually involves R&D tests for things I would like to learn to enhance my work or some effect that will be needed for the next project. I like to create mock scenarios where I would need to produce some effect or look and then work to solve that problem so that when it becomes required it will be a lot easier to implement. Through my company, Swardson Studios, I also do a number of contract based projects. Whether they are in graphic design, web design, motion graphics or 3D animation really just depends on what comes up. I enjoy working in all of these fields and find that the knowledge and time I put into one will often push my abilities in the others just the same. Could be called the DaVinci effect I guess.
If I could instill one thing in my students to prepare them for the real world is to NEVER STOP LEARNING. In this industry constant learning is something that is not only advantageous but is required to stay competitive and employable. Faster computers are constantly being developed and software is being designed to utilize those computers to the limit almost as fast. With this new software and their processes and abilities comes an ever increasing learning curve that fresh young minds are picking up faster and earlier than ever. If I were to be able to instill two things, the second would be to NEVER SETTLE. You may not get to where you want to be immediately but persistence and drive is the key to get there. Always push yourself farther than you think is possible, faster than you think is needed and more than you think is required.
I have been working a lot more with traditional filming techniques recently and think it would be great to try and push my abilities within this medium to produce some live action short films. There is a simple beauty to shooting something in real life and not having to worry about the technical hurdles of 3D animation. Working in both production and education simultaneously has given me the unique insight into the inseparable link between the two. Finding new and innovative ways to bring education to production artists and production experience to students is something I hope to explore and implement over the coming years.
speaking at motion09
Brad Swardson will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
………………………………..
copyright: © 2008 – 09
motion.tv
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motion09 is honored to announce its most recent rock-star in our 2009 lineup – Rod Basham!
Rod Basham is the VFX supervisor at the Los Angeles offices of Imaginary Forces – an award winning visual effects firm with a reel that includes some of film’s most impressive work including Terminator Salvation, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Pink Panther 2, Ray, Definitely Maybe and Charlotte’s Web to name a few.
Rod has worked on numerous feature film main title sequences including Spiderman, My Sister’s Keeper, The Pink Panther 2, In the Bedroom, The Mummy 2 and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. His commercial work includes spots for Microsoft, Pontiac, Nike, Lexus, Spike, and Infiniti.
As a lead Flame artist and designer, he’s contributed feature film content for an impressive list of titles, including Terminator Salvation, Blade 3, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Titus, and Steve Spielberg’s Minority Report. He was also the lead flame artist on live theatrical content for the Wynn Hotel and Casino’s Lake of Dreams in Las Vegas and Julie Taymor’s Grendel Opera.
One of Rod’s recent projects was for Terminator Salvation (view motion.tv article). The piece was entitled “Machine Vision”. In this project, their challenge was to conceptualize how the Terminator robots would see the world. Imaginary Forces broke down the visual spectrum to design Machine Vision, developing the language of these special effects sequences. Using new tools for IF, such as depth cameras that breaks down footage into data point 3-D imaging, Machine Vision creates a terrifying new take on these killer robots.
“We had to figure out how to take this depth information and map these interesting point clouds under there and supplement these with the interface graphics. I think Jeremy Cox (lead animator/designer) approached it very cleanly and in a fresh way but drawing upon what was in the other films. The red wash is pretty much a trademark of machine vision type shots, but we took it in a slightly different direction so it wasn’t the expected optical red wash that people have seen. We made it different for different machines too,” said Basham.
Imaginary Forces also created the main titles for Terminator Salvation.
“A lot of the inspiration for the titles came from the machine vision work and from what we were already working on. The titles themselves are big, iconic, heavy pieces that fit into the score that Danny Elfman did. We did our best to work in pixel crawls and glitches to match the other stuff we were doing,” explained Basham.
Rod has also been involved in a number of architectural and experience design projects including Design and the Elastic Mind featured at MOMA . Independently, Rod directed his first music video, which was featured in Resfest in 2004.
Basham will be presenting several sessions this year at motion09, and is one of the selected panelists for The Art of VFX Supervision.
motion09 welcomes Rod Basham to the stage!
speaking at motion09
Rod Basham will be one of the ‘rock stars’ at motion09
10.11 – 10.14 2009 | abq | nm
motion | experience inspiration
………………………………..
author: Elaine Montoya
motion.tv
………………………………..
copyright: © 2008 – 09
motion.tv
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Over the past 30 years, the art and techniques of animation have changed drastically. The advent of computer animation ushered in ‘better and faster’ ways to work. But at what cost? How did it affect the art of animation?
In this month’s motion+connect, Legendary Disney Animator, Dan Haskett shares his views and insights on the current [...]
Join us for motion+connect!
Concept Vehicle Design in 2D and 3D Using Sketchbook, Maya and Mudbox
Marcel de Jong is a visionary when it comes to his concept vehicle designs. His inspired designs simply state, ‘what if?’ and ‘why not?’ From his ‘Maasai’ motorcycle that Batman would drool over, to his ‘futuristic’ bomber that looks like…well, [...]
We are continually amazed by the talent we see in the up-and-coming members of the motion community . . . students! This year we provided two unique opportunities for students to have their work seen at motion09.
Congratulations to Alyx Loos, a senior at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, CA
Congratulations to Lisa Hetherington, a senior at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, CA
motion09 is an event that inspires.
Once a year, animators, motion graphics artists, title designers, visual effects (VFX) artists and broadcast designers come together to share their skills, work, and professional insights at this unique summit.
Industry professionals and students spend four days together in a collaborative environment designed for experiencing and participating in the creative process.
And [...]
