Summer Animation Programs

Summertime is coming. I had the best experience after I graduated high school in 90 at a summer arts program. I’ll be helping teach a course their this summer along with the Kroyer’s. Here are some cool summer classes going on for animation this summer.

Please post links to more or email me (splinedr@gmail.com) any other programs you think are good.

-Andrew

http://www.csusummerarts.org/courses.shtml

http://www.csssa.org/

http://www.gobelins.fr/~summerschool/en/informations.php

http://www.vanarts.com/courses/character-animation-intensive

https://secure.vfs.com/summerintensives/

http://www.cca.edu/academics/precollege

London Class

The class in London went great. Matt and I wanted to thank all that attended. All the students asked great questions and everyone who helped put it on did an amazing job! London is such an amazing city with so much to do and see. We had all different types of people came from all over Europe for the class. Students, Game Artists, Independents, VFX artists and animators, feature animators, etc… Thanks again and we hope to return to the city one day. Matt and I are hoping to have time for one more class in Canada this year if time permits. Thanks again to everyone.

-Andrew and Matt

Brad Bird on Caricature.

A while back I did a lecture for the CTN animation expo in Burbank on the successful traits of an animator. For the lecture I asked a bunch of people what their thoughts were on the subject. I was unable to get this into my lecture for lack of time so I wanted to post this snippet of gold from Brad Bird. Big thanks to Brad for taking the time to do this. Brad is always so knowledgeable and inspirational. I hope you enjoy this short clip…

The question was: “What are some traits an animator should have?”

-Enjoy…Andrew

bird_traits

Expression Change

This was sent out the other day as a great reference of expression change. I wanted to share it…

Now that the Olympics are over we can look at the best clips. Like I said, some of the best clips are the reactions to events and sometime not the event themselves. This is a perfect example of that. You can see the Canadian reaction is so much different. When they cut to the Russian bobsled team you see the guy on the right get excited, then realize that he is on TV and react differently. It looks like there are 3 main beat changes in this reaction. Also, look at how his teammate reacts.  Click on pic for video… Please post links to your favorite reactions in the comments section.

PS: coming soon – more spline casts and hopefully some interesting posts.

-Andrew

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