Snipt of some Animaton, yes? Okay.

Thought I might give everyone a little preview of my animationnn.
In terms of backgrounds. Not a lot, just a lil, lil bit.
Check dat:




This picture of his mother is unfortunately is not a huge part in my animation. It was going to be, and then my mentor said that it was too realistic. Lol. So I must change the picture again. Wamp. The picture of old shanghai is there for reference. <3 Though it would be nice to do some cut paper things in here. :/

But all I want to do is this:

Nothing.

New light table

Wellll.
I got a new light table because I couldn't wait anymore. They don't have 120 watt lightbulbs. How lame.

So here it is, the huge ass light table that causes me pain when I animate.(lots of splinters) Physical pain...And emotional. Ha.



Fuck you China, you don't want me to animate but I'm gonna do it and prove you wrong.

My apologies

Ahh, sorry there hasn't been any outside pictures.
You see, I'm in extreme animation mode now, for those of you who understand animation timing, this is my schedule:

Animation shit to do:
40 seconds a week
Week: 6 seconds a day
or 8 seconds a day
Animation done in: 2 months
Inking and coloring: 1 month
Backgrounds during the 3 months on "off times"
Sound and composing: 2 weeks in the states.

My room is a mess and I haven't left my dorm in 4 days.
My sleep schedule is wayyy more fucked up then it is at MCAD.
I go to bed around 7-10 am and then get up around 4-7pm.
This is the worse. I mean, I have trouble sleeping anyway, but it's not ass backwards like this. Lol.

I wish I can just take a train to Shanghai and leave for 2 days. (I can it's only an hour or so away.) But the light table calls and the frames won't animate themselves.

If I get caught up this week I am leaving. Lol. Or maybe I'll just bring my light table along to the hotel or something. -_-'

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

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.

Storyboards

So yesterday I went in front of a class of about 30-35 students and told my story in Chinese. Not only did I feel like I've embarrassed myself but also a dumbass.
When I told it to them, I thought I did a pretty good job in explaining everything. Apparently not...After I had told them my story the only thing they told me was,

"You should think about it more."

What kind of a fucked up crit is that? They gave everyone else a decent fucking crit and then the only thing they say to me is that I need to think about it more. I was up there for 2 minutes.

I think it's because I'm not an "actual student" so they don't really care about me.

But, it's quite alright. I'm hanging out with a bunch of MFA's for animation and another teacher who is in a standard of Doctors degree in media arts. (or something like that.) And he's worked on many commercials, films, and animations. So, I am making him my mentor. He gave me a very good crit about my animation and told me suggestions and what not, along with the MFA's.

The story:
A man lives in his apartment alone and his apartment slightly alters reality.
So essentially he deludes himself of reality.
He wakes up and hears the alarm radio and it says, "today it will be sunny and bright!" just telling the weather.
The man gets up and turns off the radio and decides to make coffee, however the outside is raining, of course he doesn't notice and goes along with his day.
He makes coffee and decides to read the newspaper and the newspaper says "The economy is great" and from an outside view you see a whole mess of things, garbage on the street, ruined buildings and everything.

There is this last part i need to figure out which is why some of the boards are blank.

He then receives a letter saying his mother has died, a point of reality that has actually hit him.
He is in disbelief and throws the letter on the ground.
The letter then turns his whole apartment back into reality. Not depressing or anything, just a wake up call.

End.






This story isn't about the man, it's his surroundings.
Ah, i need some input...so if you have an idea that i should do for the last part (not conclusion) that would be awesome.
K fankz. <3

Wtf CAA

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a boot camp where really loud music wakes you up while you're sleeping and then shutting off the internet at certain times.
Learning how to cook with a rice cooker.
Hanging my clothes to dry which takes like many days. Lol.

It's really great. Except for the loud obnoxious music that plays over the intercom.
And the fact that they shut off the internet at a certain time. Lol.

But all in all it's been pretty great so far.

I haven't had a solid idea for my animation yet and it's due tomorrowwww. Oh my.

I'm gonna start posting my sketches and what not.