Blur Music Video

Here is another amazing music video by Shynola , done for Blur. Make sure you watch it all the way.

http://www.shynola.com/movies/goodsong/goodsong_download.htm

New Maya Rigging Book

CG|Toolkit released a new maya rigging book and dvd. It simply kicks ass make sure to check it out if you want to learn more about character setup.

www.cgtoolkit.com

2nd AM meetup

Just came home from Brian Nicoluccis place where we had the second AM bay area meetup. It was such a blast , i love how everyone is so down to earth and friendly , it was a blast hanging out with you guys.

Cant wait for the next one.

Howls Moving Castle

Got to see Howls Moving Castle yesterday at sony metreon. What a wonderful movie! Everytime I go see a Miyasaki movie i leave the theatre thinking "why didnt i think of that?" well he is a genious.

Actually i never get the story of miyasaki movies , but because of the character dynamics they are soooo much fun to watch. Same with this one , Young girl is working at a cloth shop and she is not pretty compares to her sisters , for some reason a witch goes into the store and casts a curse on her that makes her age to 90. Thats when I said "whoa! you wont see anyone do that" imagine trying to pitch a movie to dreamworks where the main character is a 90 year old granny. :)

After that she travels around trying to break the curse and ends up in howls castle. I shall say no further so I dont spoil the movie.

Make sure to see it if its playing in a theatre near you , its a wonderful film.

Believe!

Take a look at this wonderful animation done by framestore for the new Chemical Brothers music video. Click on "quicktime and credits" on top right to view the vid.

here is the link:

http://www.framestore-cfc.com/commercials/chemical_brothers/index.html

Killer

Post your funny caption..

Excellent Read

I just got this book earlier today at 2pm and just finished reading it at 10.51. If you are a bookworm like me do yourself a favor and pick this up , one of the most excellent stories I have ever read.

Dean Koontz - Velocity

Powerball to the rescue

So we are animating so and so hours a day and browsing the net and typing and all that. your wrist has one thing to say to you:

"wtf?"

A friend who is a ts showed me this thing called powerball. the powerball is:

a finely engineered and precision crafted gyro consisting of a rapidly spinning rotor enclosed in a solid [hand held] outer sphere.




I got to play with one today , and man that thing ROCKS! , works out muscles in the arm that i didnt know existed. Took care of my wrist numbness problem in two days. So do yourself a favor and get one , its just 24$ anyway.

more info on the site:

http://www.powerballs.com/index.php

-A

http://nextframe.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Watch out Pixar!

A new startup company called Raven Moon is out to compete with Pixar.

"ORLANDO, Fla., June 20, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Raven Moon Entertainment, Inc. (OTCBB:RVNM) announced today that its wholly owned subsidiary Raven Animation, Inc., located at MG Studios in Orlando, plans to produce three "Disney/Pixar style" fully animated low-budget theatrical films with the same technology used in "Toy Story", "Shrek" and "The Incredibles" with a budget of only $1,500,000 per film for the G-Rated movie marketplace, where parents and kids can't wait to buy the next movie ticket."

now you might be skeptic , you might be saying "ah hell naw" but check this gem:

http://www.ravenmoon.net/clips/bicyclemanpsa.wmv

I'll pay to see that for 1 hour 20 minutes.

I really really hate it when pr like this give us a bad rep. It makes it seems like all we are doing is button pushing and anyone and their grandma can do it who has access to the "same technology" pixar has. Yea its not talent or hard work , its the tech!

rant over for now..

-A

http://nextframe.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Session 1

Just watched the first class of body mechanics and read the course outline. One word:

SCHWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!

This session will be more fun then I expected. The assignments are getting pretty challenging.

I cant wait for the pantomime assignment , I love silent performance stuff more then dialogue. There is something satisfying about a nice pantomime performance , its stronger then words.

Also wondering who else has Jason as a mentor? So far I only know Phil , i hope more of us come outta hiding and discover the AM forums. Post there guys , its free!

-A

Lost Sperm

Gotta love clever commercials:

http://www.toxic.no/php/vis_film.php?id=82

hilarious :)

For everything else..there is Mastercard

Washington Post reported that:

"More than 40 million credit card numbers belonging to U.S. consumers were accessed by a computer hacker and are at risk of being used for fraud, MasterCard International Inc. said yesterday.

In the largest security breach of its kind, MasterCard officials said all credit card brands were affected, including 13.9 million cards bearing the MasterCard label. A spokeswoman for Visa USA Inc. confirmed that 22 million of its card numbers may have been breached, while Discover Financial Services Inc. said it did not yet know if its cards were affected."

I saw this right when i was trying to figure out why my balance is so high on my mastercard. some hackers are probably shopping with mine right now :(

New Mentor!

Just got the e-mail from AM , my next mentor is Jason Schleifer!

man I am so happy , I am a huge fan of Jason's animations and looking forward to learning from him. Good times.

-A

Look mom! I am on TV!

This video is excellent , simply excellent. Make sure you are not drinking anything while you are watching it.

Here is the mail I got from the friend:

"--------------------
You just came to Texas Tech university as a freshman... You get the
opportunity to make it big time as the football teams "BELL RINGER"
during their games... Your whole family, all of your friends, and
about 10-15 million espn viewers will see you on a saturday telecast
ringing the teams bell....

But to your whole family, all of your friends, and about 10-15
million espn viewers you DO NOT appear to be ringing the teams bell...

watch and see..."

here is the vid:

http://ali.cgcommunity.com/bellringer.wmv

Animating Fast

Wow! , Today i found out the difference between games and movies.

Sup: "Ali , animate this death for me"

Me: "Sure thing , how much time do I have?"

Sup: "Should be done 4-5 hours"

Me: "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek"

This was a practice in how really important planning is. I spent the first hour thumbnailing all my keys and breakdowns , an hour animating and two hours polishing. Everyone was happy with the final result. Two months ago i would have just jumped in and made a mess out of it.




Don't forget to plan your shots!

-A

Internship @ Factor 5

I am so happy right now!

I started my animation internship at Factor 5 yesterday. Gonna be animating there for 2 months with a incredibly talented and fun crew. Between that and AM i'll be in animation heaven learning so much :)

First day I had to animate a quadruped walk cycle , in a way its all the AM assignments for the first semester combined in one. you have the tail , two bouncing balls and two walk cycles , the AM training really paid off :)

-A

Testing the waters

I now have a blog too! watch out world for my random ramblings.

So first semester of Animation Mentor is over and we are all excited. i cant wait to find out who my mentor will be for next session. Victor Navone was awesome and learned so much from him this semester.

bring on the body mechanics!

-A