Starting June 21st I am participating in a Summer internship program at Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon. The 10 week program will team 6 to 8 students together under the supervision of a Vinton Studios top director and producer to create an animated short from start to finish. The project will be conceived by an ad industry creative and executed by the student production team at the Vinton facilities.

Broken Arms, Good Times >> 08/20/04 @ 3:03pm PST

This I unfortunately have to write my last blog entry one-handed because I shattered my right elbow in a bicycle accident several days ago. I'm going to wait till I get back to Savannah to go through surgery, as they are going to have to put a metal pin in my arm and keep in there for some time.

The project is over. We had our exit interviews with Paul Diener and Mark G and Fran yesterday. I learned a lot. I learned what I need to work on as an animator and as a professional. I had a great time. We had some good squabbles, some good card games, some fun evenings and a lot of hard-working days. I will miss this place and these people a great deal.

I've got a thesis to make in the coming months but rest assured Vinton hasn't heard the last from me. I have no intentions of being a stranger. I love what they are doing here and what they have planned for the future. I also love Portland too much to stay away too long.

Look for the finished film on this site in the coming months...and hopefully at a film festival near you...

Goodbye faithful readers! Everyone is welcome to keep track of me on my personal website, www.lineofaction.com.

We'll fix it in post!

~Ryan

6 Days and Friends >> 08/14/04 @ 1:00pm PST

This will be the last entry I make in this journal until the project is finished on Friday the 20th. If there's ever been a crunch time in a project, its now. I can only hope my thesis is a bit less stressful...but somehow I doubt it.

Animation is nearing completion, it's just a matter of polishing what we already have and making it glow. Lighting is in full swing, and we'll have final rendered shots (minus any color correction) by Monday morning.

The They Might Be Giants concert was a singular, amazing experience. We were in the VIP section of the audience, which was right on stage next to the band. John and John rocked it out. It was a very high-energy outdoor venue with some amazing guitar work by a local artist that plays with TMBG when they are in town. He went off on a fantastic balls-to-the-wall improved solo at the beginning of Istanbul not Constantinople that After the concert and a few tense moments when we thought it wasn't going to coelesce, I was being offered soda and nosh by John Flansburg himself. I was wearing my "Republicans for Voldemort" t-shirt, of which I was sure the John's would appreciate, but Flansburg actually didn't know who Voldemort was. Such a shame. Anyway, John Linell, the keyboardist and other permanent member of TMBG wasn't around, unfortunately, but Flansburg is a really nice, amazing approachable guy. And, as Jessica pointed out during the concert, he plays his guitar left-handed! Woot! Go Sinistrals!

Lastly, a very good friend of mine is going through some pretty heavy stuff right now in LA and I want to say that all my heart and thoughts go out to her. Your friends really love you, Katie, and what few prayers I have to cry out to the universe I'm using for you.

4 minutes in 9 weeks? >> 08/06/04 @ 2:16pm PST

The Plympton film was an experience, to say the least. A good bit of the animation community in the Northwest was there, including Will Vinton himself, though I managed not to catch a glimpse of him. The short film that Plympton presented before the actual feature, Guard Dog, was actually funnier than the feature, Hair High, which is my opinion of most of Plympton's work.

I think we're a bit in awe of how much work we've done in a very short period of time. We've been working on this project for 7 weeks, we've been animating for only 3 weeks, and the piece is 24 frames from being a full 4 minutes long. Wow.

In other news, I just finished working out the timing on my thesis animatic! Huzzah! The bad part of that is...its also 4 minutes long. Oooooo, not good, Ryan, aren't you the only animator on the project? You bet I am. And don't you have 10 weeks to do that one, too? Errr...well technically I have 12 weeks. And what about rigging and texturing and lighting? Shut up nasty little voice! I'm not listening! LALALALA!

sigh.

Giants and the master of shooting on 3's >> 07/28/04 @ 6:59pm PST

Bill Plympton is having a grand-opening for his new movie Hair High here in Portland on Sunday. He's going to be there, its a red carpet affair and I've got a ticket for it. Also, someone at the company knows John Flansburg from They Might Be Giants and since they are going to be here in mid-August, I'm going to get to meet them! My favorite band in the world and I get to meet them! Huzzah! We're also going to a barbeque at Fran's house on Saturday. To quote a Calvin and Hobbes anthology, the days are just packed.

Animation is coming along. We did a test render today with one of my shots with some mock up lighting and I must say it looks pretty cool! It looks like we're going to have a good bit of finalized animation by the end of this week as well, so things are progressing. You'll notice the frequency of blog entries has drastically decreased on everyone's pages. That would be because it's crunch time. There's nothing left to spare. Work, you dogs! This movie won't make itself!

Barry Bruce and Margaritas>> 07/23/04 @ 6:49pm PST

Today I met Barry Bruce, the creator of The Great Cognito one of the a very famous piece of stop-motion animation and a classic example of morphing. Barry is one of the pioneers of Claymation, a registered trademark of Vinton Studios. Today was Barry's last day with the company. After 30 years, he's retiring to Colorado. Best of luck to him.

The project is coming along. We're all beginning to prematurely lament that this project has to end in 4 weeks. We're all really enjoying the experience. Animation is full throttle and Andrea is going to finish off texturing this weekend and start lighting. Sean is racing ahead with his animation and already has one shot near approval. He'll probably have to end up helping Andrea with lighting stuff.

I've been huddled over this first shot of mine for the past two days. Its a really tricky bit of business where the devil enters the room with a backwards walk cycle, turns around, shuts the door with his foot while rebalancing, and drops a large box on his dog. All in 194 frames. Whew. I hope by tomorrow it will be at a place where I can leave it alone for a while and continue on. It's going to be a work weekend.

Its also 100 degrees in Portland right now, a freakish heat wave has hit the city. Its still not as bad as Savannah due to the breeze and lack of humidity.

Busy! Busy! Raa! >> 07/21/04 @ 6:37pm PST

Wow. I didn't realize how much work being a full-time animator and being animation director would be. I like it, don't get me wrong, but its hard to animate your shots and have people asking you for suggestions and approvals every 5 minutes. I'll have to improve. I've also been doing some TD stuff regarding the render pipeline, as its foreign to all of us. Today is officially the halfway point. We have 4 and a half weeks left to finish the project. Almost all the shots are blocked now, and things are visually coming together, which is refreshing after looking at an animatic for 4 weeks. We're going to do this. It will be finished. We may just have to do some camping at the studio in the next few weeks. Jeff Farnath came in after work today and said if we could finish this piece in 9 weeks we could do what a lot of pros couldn't. Nice if true, nice even if not true. We're all pretty passionate about getting this project to work. The group is starting to show stress, of course, as production ramps and the "ship goes out to sea" as Diener puts it. But I'm confident we'll come together when all is done. I'd like to talk about something other than work right now, but as it is, that's all I have time for! There *is* a margarita and Mexican food party on Friday, though. I think we'll all be taking a few hours off...

And Thus did Animation Commence >> 07/16/04 @ 6:10pm PST

The animatic was locked today, as much as it will ever be locked I suppose. Paul Diener, our executive producer basically told us the 3d animatic is out. We don't have time to do it, so animation basically started today. That means as animation lead I had to assign shots to people, which was a rather daunting task. It's hard when people are your friends to do what you feel is right for the project even if it means possibly pissing some people off. There was some tension this morning as the process shifted over to production. I think we've worked it out. Anyway, the group was pretty understanding about my decisions and I think we're going to have a strong animation team as a result.

I started working on my first scene today and the principle animation for the shot is just about halfway banged out. It's also clocking in a whole lot longer than the 10 seconds that was given to it. It'll probably be more like 15 or 16. There's just so many things going on in this shot that in 10 seconds it's impossible to switch moods convincingly. What will probably end up happening is the shot will get divided into a few different camera angles to keep the audience alive while we're giving them what they need.

Ah, animation. I enjoyed doing the rigging and scripting and the challenges those things present, but I tell you what - when I start animating I feel like I'm home. This is definitely what I have to do with my life.

Damn the Animatic! Full Speed Ahead! >> 07/14/04 @ 6:10pm PST

Ok, so we've been pouring over the animatic for 4 weeks and we've made a lot of changes. The story is there, but somehow, we're still not entirely happy with how the story opens and closes. We're still struggling with it, and as a result the animatic is still not locked. The project is half over and I think its starting to get frustrating for everyone that we're not at a comfortable place with the story. We had a teleconference meeting with the Richards Group guys who had some good ideas and suggestions for sound, but of course while they are giving us good ideas, it brought about the concern for the beginning of the piece. Its 6 o'clock and everyone is stooped around the conference table trying to figure out what to do with it to make it work. We might be here a while. The point is we're all dying to get into production and we're still stuck in pre-production.

The rig is basically done, there's four test walks on the production page for the devil that I made. The website was heavily revamped yesterday as well to unclutter the front page and make the formatting consistent. Also made the production area more coherent.

I've been trying to think of a way to end this blog entry for five minutes. This is what I've come up with.

Whew, Animation Testing >> 07/12/04 @ 6:39pm PST

Sorry I haven't written in a while but, hey this stuff is hard work! Just got finished redesigning the page a bit so I figured I would take the time to blog as well. Over the last several days I've been rigging the main character, the devil, and its finally almost entirely together. I need to work with Andrea on some blendshapes and then paint some weights and the rig is more or less complete. I did an animation test with him today with a few walk cycles and he looks really cool! He has this great movement to him, very wierd and almost unbalanced. I'm going to do a few more test cycles to try and establish a good general walk for him, then put a box in his hands and get a weight cycle to test how he's going to hold the box at the beginning of the film. Paul Deiner and Mark Gustafson picked co-directors for the project, and while I was of course a little disappointed that I'm not one of them, Andrea and Jesus are excellent choices and will most certainly keep the boat afloat. I'll be busy enough with animation direction and the actual animating.

We took a trip to the Oregon Zoo on Sunday. Its a suprisingly large zoo, and gives off a fun theme park vibe. As is pretty standard when one visits a zoo, we only got to see about half of the animals, as most of them were hiding off in the non-tourist-accessible portions of their habitats. We pondered that maybe zoos really only populate a few of their exhibits, and leave the rest empty, allowing the zoo-goers the hopeful belief that the animals are simply sleepy and don't want to be bothered. Hmm.

I also managed to finalize about the first third of my thesis animatic this weekend. It already clocks it at 42 seconds. The movie is going to be long, but at least the scenery is simple. Here's to overdoing it!

Eagle Creek and Rigging >> 07/07/04 @ 05:39pm PST

Paul Diener, Jim Cheek and Fran Kelly took us out to Multnomah Falls and Eagle Creek, which is part of the Columbia River Gorge on Tuesday. It was a great hike - very temperate, very very beautiful. The northwest is amazing! I took several photos but they're with a regular camera. Sean took some as well with his digital. I'll try to get those up here soon.

I starting rigging the main character today, moving on from my prop-modeling position. I guess it's because I've rigged several bipeds at this point, but the actual set-up portion of the program isn't taking long at all. I'm about two-thirds done with the setup, then I have to paint weights on the model and set up the blendshapes. That part is generally a tad trickier.

I'm reminded of a saying I was fond of quoting in high school.

"We work in the dark. We do what we can. Our doubt is our passion, our passion is our task; the rest is the madness of art."

I don't even remember where that quote is from. Anyway. We're in the thick of it. Hopefully going to start animating next week. There's 6 weeks left. Yikes.

I'm also suddenly reminded of another saying...

"Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

My friends and I once pondered on a bus trip how on earth this could be an actual sentance. It is. English is crazy.

 

Fireworks, Emergencies and Breakthroughs >> 07/05/04 @ 05:25pm PST

Emergencies first. I lost my debit card on Saturday. Genius that I am, I just left the damn thing in an ATM machine after I withdrew some money. I reported it, its been locked and a new one is hopefully on the way. Until then, I'm moneyless, which kinda sucks, but I think we've got enough food at the apartment to tide me over until we get our per diem, which is hopefully tomorrow. Ok, aside from that little mishap, the fourth of July weekend was excellent. Portland remains gorgeous, though a little rain would be welcome to clear up some of the pollen. Every year Portland throws the Portland Blues Festival to coincide with the fourth, and as a finale they shoot of a boatload of fireworks from a barge in the middle of the Willamette River. Jessica, Andrea, Kishore and I all went out to the Hawthorne bridge, which straddles the river, and had front row seats to the show. We could even see the fireworks shooting off th barge, it was that close. The show was really nice, by far the most impressive display of fireworks I've ever seen, and we were so close I felt every cuncussive blast from the big boomers.

Monday is a holiday so officially the studio is closed. We're all here anyway, since our deadline is only 7 weeks away. Today, Benjamin and Jesus showed us their work on the animatic, and huzzah! It's funny. It's really funny. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief after we saw the cut, as we were starting to feel like it was going down a dead end. No longer. We're showing it to Mark on Wednesday and to the client on...I think Thursday.

Tomorrow we're going hiking. I can try out my new and improved upper leg muscles.

Project News, Busy busy >> 07/02/04 @ 05:25pm PST

So far my principle role on the team has been as a prop modeller. I've had the honor of people asking my opinion on all sorts of things. I been thinking that I'd like to try directing/producting a project, because I really like keeping the process organized and flowing as well as giving direction and seeing things work as a result. Anyway, where this is going I guess is that I suggested in our dailies today that with five or six animators on this project we need to have a lead animator to mediate the animation style decisions much like we are using Josh for the visual style. Of course I put my lot in for the role, and was expecting everyone to jump at the opportunity to be animation lead. The long and short of it is that I get to be animation lead on this project. I think everyone is cool with that, but I'm going to make sure on Wednesday that everyone is together on that choice. I don't want people feeling like I'm trying to step on anyone's toes.

Incidentally all my blog entries are now being mirrored at projectbackpocket.com along with blogs from all the other backpocket students. I designed the page. Be gentle.

Spiderman, Portland the City >> 07/01/04 @ 08:53am PST

It sunk in today as we bicycled down the 17 blocks to the movie theatre to watch Spiderman 2 that Portland is in fact a city. The area that we live in doesn't house many buildings over six stories, but once you get down towards the real middle of town where the Willamette (wi-LAM-et) river bisects Portland, we're talking skyscrapers and traffic and everything. It is, however, a magnificently clean city, chock full o' public art and greenspaces, fountains and sparkling rotunda malls.

Spiderman 2 was good. A solid character-driven tongue-in-cheek romp that is more "Sam Raimi" than the original. It has plenty of allusions to his Evil Dead trilogy (including another great cameo by everyone's favorite B-movie actor Bruce Campbell) as well as some great nods to classic films like Godzilla and Casablanca. Fun, tragic, empathizable, it's a super-hero movie without any pretension and easily as good as the first one.

Animatic Progress and Modeling >> 06/29/04 @ 05:33pm PST

We've finally got our storyboards finished, everything scanned in and an animatic on the table. The piece, after our first hack and slash session with the timing and the gags, is clocking in at 2 minutes 16 seconds. Considering we have five or six animators on the team, that's probably not a problem. I'm still concerned about getting everyone's animation styles to mesh, but we're here to be professionals, so I'm sure if someone needs ramping, we'll push them to get it tight. Paul Diener and Mark Gustafson were at our animatic-bashing session today and I was getting a kick out of all the animation industry lingo that we're getting into. While we "roll out the garbage" we're putting together "bits of business" and adding in the "beats" so we can get "emotional money." That's good stuff, people. Grade A.

I've been doing lots of prop modeling for the Devil's messy run-down apartment. Josh's visual style is really easy to model for, and I'm actually enjoying the modeling process. Nice to be able to have a model complete three or four hours after you start it.

I can't get over how good the food is around here. Its a good think I'm bicycling everywhere or three pant sizes bigger by the end of this internship!

Meeting the Client and Pre-Production >> 06/24/04 @ 08:45pm PST

We met with the client today, Jimm Bonner from the Richard's group in Dallas. I was really worried that he was going to be distressed at all the drastic changes we made in his project, but he was really cool and everything went over quite well. The storyboards are coming together and should be solid by the middle of next week. I'm going to be working out a full production schedule tomorrow while the other folks tighten the boards, and character concepts. The two girls, Jessica and Andrea, are going to be making a maquette tomorrow so we can visual Josh's dynamic character concept in 3d. I'm excited about working on the rig and starting to animate. There is a lot of animation to be done, and I want it to sparkle, so we're going to try to get started on that as soon as possible. As far as everything else goes, Portland still rocks. The weather is great, though I'm getting some allergies. I ride my bike everywhere and already feel more healthy (which may be jumping the gun as its only the 5th day.) But anyway, things are progressing.

Vinton Interns Ahoy >> 06/21/04 @ 08:45pm PST

Well so far I have nothing but glowing things to say about Portland and Vinton Studios. Let's see, what to start with. We went shopping on Sunday for food, since we had none. There is an amazing supermarket over here called Trader Joe's which has mostly whole and organic foods. The prices are *amazing*. The same or cheaper than regular non-organic stuff in Savannah, with no sales tax. I have a feeling I'll be eating healthier without even trying. I also bought a bicycle (I know, don't freak out, it's still me, I promise.) We are riding to Vinton everyday, which is about a 10 minute trip on bike. We're cycling everywhere for the most part. Today I visited Powell's City of Books, a gigantic bookstore encompassing an entire city block. It...is...amazing. Jeremy would pass out.

Now, on to Backpocket. EVERYONE we met at Vinton was amazingly cordial and helpful to us. I was expecting to meet a few people I didn't like right off the bat, as is usual at any gathering of humans, but so far everyone has been friendly and humble and creative. The team looks great. Everyone is really talented and good at what they do. We're going to have some challenges dividing out the animation as we have at least 4 character animators in the group. I'm confident it will all work itself out. We spent the whole day touring the facility, meeting people (including Henry Selick who directed James and the Giant Peach as well as did the principle direction of Nightmare Before Christmas. He was just hired on a few weeks ago and is working on a short film of which I am unable to say anything about besides that it looks really neat so far. We also started brainstorming developments to the treatments presented to us for the short we are doing. It is currently entitled Stud Finder but that's more of a project name right now than anything. I'm not sure what I can talk about concerning the project, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow and ask.

I really wish I had a small portable digital camera, because even though I am taking manual photos, I won't be able to post anything up here for quite some time, since i have to wait for a roll to finish before I can get it developed and scanned. Curse my old Olympus for being screwed up and too expensive to fix. Ah well. Till next time!

First night on the West Coast... >> 06/20/04 @ 07:50am PST

See the timestamp on this entry? 7:50 in the morning. It doesn't feel like 7:50am, but I''ll get used to it. Went to bed around midnight last night after much talk and beer and entertainment. That would make it 3am eastern. I was tired. The apartment is nice, though at the present we have no groceries and beyond all no COFFEE. I'm gonna run down to Starbucks (of which there are plenty around) in a few minutes. Today the Backpocket crew (those of us that are here) are going to by bicycles so we can get around the city more readily. We got a little sneak peek at the studio last night care of the infinitely cordial Fran Kelly. The place...looks....amazing. Our intern area is a really nice production room, each of us with our own computer. Theres a conference table and a video conference setup. Not to mention the rest of the place. We have the day to ourselves today to get ourselves established and buy some fans. There's no AC in the apartment because usually they don't need it. It's been getting pretty hot during the day here though, so last night was al ittle uncomfortable. We'll work it out. As long as I can get some coffee...

Flying to Portland by way of Houston... >> 06/19/04 @ 04:10pm EST

I am writing my first journal entry for this extravaganza at 10,000 feet above...well I'm not entirely sure where we are, but it's either Texas or Louisiana or some such place. I'm on the first leg of my flight to Portland which drops me into Houston International at 4:30 with about an hour to get to my connecting flight to Portland. I am being picked up by Fran Kelly, the liaison for the Backpocket project and taken to the apartment I will share with 3 other people. My roommate is fellow classmate and associate Kishor Vijay. Kishor is a multi-talented guy who models, animates, pre-produces and everything else as far as I know. He wants to focus on concept development for this project. We shall see how that goes. Of course, I will be shooting for a character animation focus with some coding, probably rigging. On another note, I have to mention, even though it probably sounds cliché, that the world looks so amazing from 10,000 feet it never ceases to amaze me. Its like flying over an ocean of ice burgs and frozen lakes. Condensation rocks.

Web page introduction >> 05/27/04 @ 12:22pm

This web site will serve as a journal of my experience at Vinton Studios during my 10 week stay with Project: Backpocket. I am definitely going as of now, with plane tickets already purchased and letter of resignation to my current job already in the hands of my boss. I'm not sure how much visual information I will be able to post on this site because of copyright issues, but I will be as thorough as I am allowed to be. Thanks to my wonderful mother and her very generous fiancé for practically funding this entire adventure completely. I promise to pay you back when I've got a real income.

As it stands I leave Savannah on the 19th of June and after a quick plane hop in Houston, Texas, arrive in Portland at 7:45pm. Hopefully I'll be able to move into the apartment this late. Our living expenses in Portland are completely subsidized by Vinton Studios to which I am very grateful. I'll have a room mate, which I assume will be one of the two other students chosen from SCAD, both of whom I know. Kishor Vijay, a fellow graduate student and Sean Danyi, an undergrad with whom I took my very class at SCAD. Small world, huh? There were only 8 spots available with applicants from all over the world and 3 of the slots were filled by SCAD students!

I've yet to turn in my paperwork to get the class for this Summer, but I'm going to do that on my lunch break today. Then its just a matter of paying lots and lots of money for taking a Summer class at SCAD and waiting to go!

I'll report back later.