Animation is also exersise.

Does everyone remember what my school looks like? If not let me remind you.



Sooo, at MCAD we have the tiny, tiny, tiny animation studio where the capture stand is at your convenience, the light tables are there, and the MAC computers are huge and beautiful. We also have a elevator, though it is slow, sometimes it's nice to ride on it.

Here we have 2 #4 buildings (It's just the 2 animation buildings) to do animation, but only about 3 classrooms to do it all in. No one ever knows where the capture stand is and the hole punch along with the computers. Lol.

I work in the 3rd building on the 3rd floor with the interns and awesome professor wei. (soon it will be back on the 1st floor)

CAA doesn't have any elevators in the school, or at least in the buildings that I'm in because they are media based.

I have to run from the 3rd building on the 3rd floor and go up to the 4th building on the top floor which is the 5th floor and get the key to use the capture stand and run all the way down to the 2nd floor for probably a second or 2 of animation and run all the way back up the stairs and return the key. Lol. Then go back to my studio. Luckily today, I just used the one on the 5th floor.

They also use this program called CPT which is PC based, so I can't capture and keep my pencil tests because I have an apple computer.

So I have to use my memory to remember which frames are slow and what I need to change, etc, etc.

Now I am VERY thankful of MCAD even though I still think the animators get the shitty part of the deal at the school, I am very thankful that we have MACS, light tables, stop motion studio, blah blah blah. That is not scattered all over the place and have programs that I understand.

At the same time, it feels like a fucking boot camp art school, they have loud music to wake you up for class, and you have to go and exercise at 6 am (Thank god I'm an international student, otherwise I would have to participate in that), gates close at 11 and if you are out by that time you can't get in or vise versa.
I feel trained in animation that I would never even have imagined.

Basically, because I am not handed everything I want like I can get at MCAD, I have to use other ways of animating. It's sweet, kind of makes me feel like I can animate ALL THE TIME. Ahhh, who doesn't want that? Ha...

On the bright side, at least I'm getting a lot of exercise.
And perhaps appreciating MCAD a little more. <3

It's so damn hot here.

So, spring has begun and the winter rain has disappeared.
I'm really happy because spring is my favorite season however...
IT'S SO DAMN HOT. Shit, It's like summer in MPLS, or Texas!!
Because the air is so polluted here it makes it harder to breathe, it's sticky hot and that's gross. Lol.

When I was little I use to eat these vegetable buns my dad made whenever he had time. It was the greatest thing in the world and the last time I remember my dad actually making these was probably 5 years ago. But they were vegetarian pork buns and it was the most delicious thing in the world. I am sad because everytime I come home to Portland I never get to eat them because my dad never has time to make them.
However, today I went to this place that makes vegetable buns, pork buns, steamed buns, red bean buns, blah blah blah list goes on.
AWESOME. China I love your foodddd.



I started doing an illustration. (honestly don't know why I didn't start earlier) But I found this piece of like, flimsy cardboard on the stairs that someone was throwing away. So I just started drawing on it with watercolor pencils.


Yesterday when I went to the studios to animate and I was talking to one of my friends, His name is ah long, and I was talking about how there's so much cool contemporary art. But he didn't know wtf I was talking about so I gave him an artist named, Ai Wei Wei and he was like, "Oh yeah, he's one of my friends! He's a very good contemporary artist." If you guys don't know him, he's the one who designed the Beijing Olympics stadium. But he has done a lot more and he's really amazing.

SOOO COOOLLL. Okay time to go animate my life away. Lol.

The mountain

Well today I went to the mountains that I see all the time from my back porch.


However I think I need to go back by myself because then I can venture more, I like to keep going to random places. Lol. It was still a lot of fun with my new found friend "zhang jing"


We had to climb this huge hill which was the roof of this tunnel for cars. Lol.










This is a grave, but I took the picture and Zhang Jing was like, "DON'T TAKE A PICTURE OF THAT!! IT'S A GRAVE!!" Ohhhh Diana Chao you have lots to learn. Lol.






So we sat on the mountain and talked about Chinese politics and schooling. It's really interesting to hear, she wasn't bias about it so it was nice to hear the "total truth" in terms of Taiwan and Tibet and the way the systems are about school. I was so happy that she was teaching me all the Chinese history that I didn't really pay attention to in America. She was really interested to hear what America thought about the whole ordeal.
In China, it is a very touchy subject to talk about politics. You just don't do it because it causes problems. Unlike America where you can talk about whatever you please and do whatever you want, there are certain things you just don't talk about here. And if you do want to talk about it, you find someone cool like Zhang Jing and they let you know about it. Lol.

Good times today. <3

Animatic and clubbin

Well, yesterday I finished my animatic, though I feel like it's too fast. Perhaps some critique would be good? That would be really awesome. Also, at the end of the animatic when the letter drops, the color changes to colder colors. I'm the laziest animator ever. Lol.

And then I decided to go the bars with my friends.
Let's just say, the night is young and we were out until 7 in the morning.
the school closes the gates to the dorm at 11 pm, so we had to club all night. Lol.


So at this bar we played this Chinese game involving dice.
It's an awesome game, however I didn't understand the first couple of times so I had to drink a lot. Lol.

Good times.

Yesterday I was working on some colors for my animation. And then I decided to drink. Lol. Soo, I guess I didn't progress a lot, however I know how I will color my animation! I think all the backgrounds will be done in watercolor pencil. At least for the apartment and then for the outside of the apartment, I haven't decided yet. It might just be digital.



Also, I decided to drink last night...and I pretty much died.
They made me drink this wine called, "bai jo" Which means "White alcohol" Er...But it's like, rice wine.

Ha, I'll bring some back and you guys can try it for yourself. Lol.

These kids are awesome, and they kicked my ass in Chess and this Chinese card game. Ugahh, I got so wasted because everytime I lost I had to take another shot of that bai jo or some tequila. Yeahhh Awesome. Oh yes, the kid in front his name is "zen gong" and he's from shanghai, the one in the middle is Adrian, he's from France and the last one is Andy and he's from America, but he doesn't know any english. Lol.


So, today I went downtown with Adrian and Andy and decided not to go to class. I know, it's bad guys. Whatevs.




The Macdon's fries taste the same in America, so I assume everything else tastes like American food. But it's really expensive to eat western food here.










This man on the side sings a song about a story and you sit there and watch this movie thing. It's really sweet!




These are the locals where you can buy AMAZING food here...bahhhhhh, that's the real food you want.




Ahhh, good times. I really enjoyed today, even if it rained a bunchh when we got back and then got drenched...Lol oh wellll.



Bittcchhhhh.

Gotta finish my animatic, laterz

Animation in China is Frustrating.

"It is a lonely profession, at least it was when I worked on my pictures, but the loneliness, accompanied by much frustration and pain, was always outweighed by the excitement of seeing my creatures move in the same "reality" as humans. The thrill of breathing "life" into one's own creations and at the same time giving them individual personalities makes an animator's work uniquely exciting." -Ray Harryhausen

Today I went to class and once again, I told my story, however I redid ALL my boards to look better, the way I want them to look, I thought they were pretty fucking solid. I mean there are a few panels I really need to fix!
You can see, maybe I am wrong:












This is some of the stuff my mentor fixed, but was not shown during class because...He's not really my mentor, he's just another awesome teacher. But anyway continue:







(That last panel means "end" in Chinese.)
So I mean, there's obviously some shots that you can see that I to need work on, but once again, they told me the same exact thing is that, "I need to think about it more." COME ON IT'S THE 3RD FUCKING WEEK, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! So I went up to one of the teachers after class and asked, "I can you tell me what I need to work on? What is it that I need to "think about." "
The teacher said, "Well, I mean if it is the newspaper you want people to see, then you have to hold the frame."
I said, "Yes, of course, but this is a storyboard not an animatic, so what is unclear to you that I should fix?"
He told me that basically the piece is too conceptual, people don't understand conceptual things and that I should keep thinking about it.

I like abstract, conceptual, contextual animations. I like people to THINK about what they are watching. Why am I leading your eye this way? Why is he doing that?

I gave the teacher one look that said, "I don't care anymore I'm going to do it."

I said nothing else, I didn't say thank you, I just left. I got so frustrated that I went up to the animation studio and started crying out of anger and frustration because I didn't understand what they wanted.

My mentor (Wai laosi) told me that I need to do it, I just need to start the animation and he could see my anger and frustration because he was the one helping me throughout the whole animation. He understood from the moment I told him the first version. He said a lot of animation teachers in China don't do conceptual pieces like that and only do animation in terms of "jokes" or kid animation.

So he told me not to listen to them and that I should start doing the animation regardless to what they are saying. Then show them the actual piece when I am done because that is the only way they will understand.

Usually I push the limits on a lot of things, I see how far I can get away with things in art. But here I am scared, I don't know what to expect. And they don't give good critiques. I feel I have pushed the limits anyway on accident, If you see on the 11th page there is a bowl with chopsticks in the middle of it. In Chinese superstition that means that you are feeding the dead. I used it as a foreshadow for whatever is coming up next, which involves death.
When I got to that page during class everyone started talking, and being really surprised that I put that in there.

I'm doing my animatic tomorrow, (apparently we don't have class tomorrow...to go and DRAW our storyboards.) we were suppose to have our storyboards today, the teacher gave everyone 3 days to do it and cut monday's class so they can finish it. No one did it except for me and this other kid who decided to do an animatic.

I'm trying really, really hard to understand the conservative ways of China, but coming from America it's really hard. I had so much freedom back in the states and now I have all these restrictions and no freedom to think. So far, no one has this idea that I have in my class. So I feel good about it.