A Short Update

I’ve finally got a few minutes to post, so I thought I would let everyone know what’s going on. I’m busy – as usual – but this has been an especially busy time. I’m actually working on a VERY small team creating an animated short tentatively entitled “Treasure Dogs”. It’s being done in 2D and animated with After Effects. We’re going for a “paper cut-out” look, which I think could produce some very interesting results. For my part, I have worked on the animatic, sound, character rigs and layout/blocking, but the story and character designs are not mine, so I don’t want to arbitrarily post here what we have so far. However, as soon as I have something solid to share, I certainly will. I’m very excited for this!

On the other end, I have been accepted to both DePaul’s MFA in Animation and the DePaul Quarter in L.A. program this coming fall, so I’m prepping for that as well. It will be my main goal to secure an internship during that time, but just being in L.A. again (even if I will be taking classes at the time) will be fantastic. I’m hoping I will have a little more success with the internship hunt than I did this summer, but then again there is a TON of competition from folks already in the L.A. area during the summer months. Onward and upward!

There you go. I’ll try not to leave such a pause between posts next time…. however, the work comes first, right? Right! 😀

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Conspicuously Absent

Hey all! I’ve neglected to post anything here for a little while, but I’ve been busy trying to sort things out with my planned trips for the summer. Unfortunately, they both fell through due to a couple of unexpected turns of events. I’m not happy about it, but there’s no use brooding over things that were largely beyond my control. I can only continue to try and plan for the future.

Otherwise, I have been tinkering with things here and there. I am in a summer class on Hollywood film structure, which is great for going over my writing and all of the terms commonly used in the industry. I have also been playing around with the (VERY) rough first cut of the “Grandpa” animatic, which I will share soon. In the meantime, I am on the lookout for a job or internship for the fall, so if you know of anything I would be most grateful! 🙂

Summer and New Projects

Summer is fast approaching, and it is time for everyone to be thinking about what they are going to do with the increased amount of free time it usually brings. As some of you already may know, I am trying to finalize a trip to California to attend some summer sessions at USC. I am also on an active hunt for an internship in the animation industry, which has not resulted in a whole lot of response so far. Amusingly, I got a stronger show of interest during the fall and spring semesters. In a way, I suppose that makes sense. Competition is very high during a time when almost everyone has a break from class. I’m not giving up, though.

That said, I have thought about other possibilities for use of my time. There’s the obvious summer job, which is fine. It will help pay the rent and may make it easier to get steady work later on. But I have also thought about bringing out an animated short project I actually conceived and started a little while ago. I went through some of the pre-production for it, but then I hit a wall when it came to dividing my labor between it, my schoolwork and the full-time job I had at the time. Now, however, things have changed. I have a better sense of time management, even more motivation and… well, let’s be honest… I was let go from that job, like many other people. But since it was in retail, it was taking time and energy away from my career/creative pursuits more than anything else. So now I can work towards getting things finished, which I intend to.

The way I conceived it, this was to be a short CG film, with no/VERY limited dialogue. The working title is “Grandpa”. I don’t want to give too much away just yet, as I want to share bits of development as they come about, but basically it involves two characters: a young boy and his elderly grandfather in a single, mysterious location. It may sound very simple and/or limited, but I will most likely be working on the majority of it myself. Regardless, those who are familiar with the full story think it is a strong concept, and I’m not one of those folks who think a film needs to have an overly complicated situation or set of events to really get a point across. 😉

That’s what I have floating around in my head right now. Look for me to post in-progress tidbits from “Grandpa” very soon, as I revise what I had done previously and continue the work. If my summer happens to indeed get extremely busy, it will probably slow me down somewhat. But this short has been scratching around in my brain, and it’s time to set it free.

Here’s to a productive year!

Old Post From Last Year

This is an old post from my now-defunct deviantART profile from last year, but I thought it was save-worthy nonetheless. 😉

Yay! My stop motion short “In The Park” got into the first Something Awesome Animated Short Festival hosted by Theatre Unleashed in North Hollywood, CA. No prizes or anything like that (there weren’t any), but I consider it an accomplishment. The show was on June 12th, but you can check them out at http://www.theatreunleashed.com/joomla/.

NEW BLOG!

Yes, so this is going to be my new blog on my old, previously neglected Blogger account. I’ve had this for a few years now, but just ignored it all this time. I have used it mainly to follow other people’s blogs up until now. Let’s see where this will take me!