• Richard Williams Expanded Survival Kit

    I usually don’t review books here on Spline Doctors, but since Richard was nice enough to do a great Spline Cast with us, I wanted to talk about his new Expanded Edition Animation Survival Kit. Most animation students have the first book. It has so many great tidbits of information. The new book looks to be twice as thick and has so much more info, its a must have for animation students and professionals. I have been paging through it and some of the stuff I really like are the example of animal action. Fellow animator Holger has some examples of the images on his blog… I’m not sure if its out yet, but when it does come out, its a great book to have.

    -Andrew

    7 Comments |
  • Cool behind the scenes Avatar clip

    Heres a cool behind the scenes clip that I’m sure you have seen… Yeah, we get it… This is not animators doing the performance… Cameron did everything… :) I wonder if they should have given another name for the “animators” working on this project since they don’t seem to respect the job of what an animator does. I am blown away by the work on Avatar, but I don’t understand how the animators did not get any love on this film… There was so much great creature/robot stuff. I’d love to hear from some people on the crew about how the roles of an animator were defined on this picture…Expressions must have been pushed, Physicality, interaction… What is the Motion capture to animation ratio?

    -Andrew

    17 Comments |
  • Marty Says Passion and Story…

    Martin Scorsese was honored with a Cecil B Demil Award last night at the Golden Globes. When interviewed by the press afterward he was asked about what students need to have in order to make movies. The common theme that always comes up is passion and story.

    Click the image for the link….

    2 Comments |
  • John K Letter

    Not sure if you have seen this, I had not. Someone from work sent this out and I thought it was great. Its so cool to see some of the giants of the industry respond to students of animation with  such honesty.

    Check it out.

    Andrew

    4 Comments |
  • Chart of Fame

    Former Spline Doctor Angus Maclane made this funny chart of fame. We always joke how animators are one of the least recognized people in the entertainment industry… Oh well, I sure didnt get into animation because I wanted to be famous…I’ll leave that to the Mo-cap actors…(I mean, performance capture)

    13 Comments |