I Am A Man Of Action.

My New Years Resolution for 2009 is to attempt and try to learn how to sing better. I would love to join a band some day, but that's still iffy. I really only like a band when I like their singer, or their singer is insanely good. So, if I don't like my own singing, I won't like my own band, therefore won't be able to be in one. My track record of liking my own work of any kind isn't all that good so it will take a lot for me to get where I want to be, but today I'm one step closer.

I took the initiative and signed up for vocal coaching today, I start this weekend.

I am a man of action.

New Jumping Animation (WIP)

http://www.jaygrenier.com/animation/gallery/spearJump.mov

Hey guys, I did this animation test yesterday and thought I'd put it up for all to see. I'm not 100% done, but it's almost there. Waiting for some critiques then I'll give it a final pass.

Done with the animation mentor rig, "Bishop".

I wish I was a power metal singer.

I think my most powerful wish I've had throughout my entire lifetime was that I could have been born with the skill to be a REALLY sick power metal singer. I can sing relatively well right now, but it's nowhere near good enough. I could probably hold my own in a decent band even, but its nowhere near where I want to be. I need to hit Heiman notes, I need to hit Matt Smith notes. I need to hit Toby Sammett notes. Roy Khan even.

YEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Seriously, I want to hit notes for days.

I'm going to start taking lessons this year, New Years Resolution.

Cheese, Bread, Cheese, Wine, & Cheese. And Wine.

All of the above are awesome.

Today was spent eating cheese and bread, drinking a little bit of nouveau wine, animating on a new shot and hanging' with the Em. No complaints on today, in fact it was awesome! Tomorrow is shaping up for awesomeness as well, stay tuned!

P.S. Emily made a blogger finally, not sure what it is though. ^^

The Dark Brotherhood Chronicles

If any of you played the game, 'The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion' than you would remember without a doubt the most intriguing (and fun) side quest of the game, the Dark Brotherhood. You are approached by an Assassin named Lucien Lachance who brings you privy to a secret underground group of assassins known as the Dark Brotherhood. You are then tested, and if you have the skills are brought in as a brother. Following this you are given about a dozen quests involving assassinations in the game and it is without a doubt the most fun to be had, the trouble was that it was so short and left so many strings dangling at the end.

My guess is that the developers didn't anticipate it being as popular as it was and opted to focus more on a variety of guilds and content instead of really pushing this one. It wasn't completely unfinished, it had closure of sorts, but it wasn't 100% satisfying to say the least.

The Oblivion game is fun because it allows it's users to 'mod' the game, add scripts and models and animations of their own to customize the game to their liking, add more content, etc. This is great because if there is part of the game you don't particularly enjoy, or find too hard, you can alter it to your whim assuming you have the skills to do so. There are websites abound with game modifications, downloads, libraries even of mods you can try out and use to make your experience more enjoyable. It is here I came across a project known as the Dark Brotherhood Chronicles. (DBC)

Through Google searches and a forum or two, I stumbled upon the DBC and started reading up. A team of tens of people from around the world have come together to build what is certainly the largest expansion to the Dark Brotherhood storyline anyone has made. It is supposedly going to add 15 hours of gameplay, along with tying up some of the loose ends and continuing the story where it leaves off in the current build of the game. New characters, new quests, new items, new buildings and more. This is a modification to the game that players have built completely on their own that is going to add FIFTEEN hours of gameplay. Anyone who has ever tried to design something for another's entertainment knows what a feat that is, and how much hard work went into it.

Over the months, and eventually a year or so I saw they posted a test level for potential beta testers. Beta testing anything usually ruins the experience of immersion and burns you out on a project, but I was still interested and gave it a go. I talked to a couple of the developers during the first test and during this process I found out they were looking for an animator, so I asked and was brought on to the team for a few small jobs.

It's exciting, the mod is almost finished and I'm happy to be helping with it. There are thousands of people waiting eagerly to play this and I'm excited to have a small part in it's production.

More Info: DBC Website

Bike Hero For The Win!

This is possibly one of the coolest ideas I've ever seen.

Freaking. Awesome.

Free Hugs

Check out this youtube video I found over at Bobby Beck's blog.



Source: http://bobbyboom.blogspot.com/2008/11/breaking-barriers.html

Barack Hussein Obama

Congratulations to all of us for being a part of American history today. This is the first time in my lifetime that something like this has happened and it's pretty neat. No matter what your beliefs or who you may have voted for, you should be able to respect the fact that literally millions of American people, black, white, asian, hispanic, and robot, were celebrating in the streets last night.

This man has given hope and excitement to an enormous percentage of people who have maybe never had any, and for that he has my respect.

Here's looking forward to see what he can accomplish.

A Morning At The Polls

Voted today! Ron Paul imo.

Image Metrics, Surfing, Halloween

Towards the end of October I started over at Image Metrics again for a stint until the end of this month. It's been so much fun! I was doing only at-home freelance work for a few months and it was really starting to be a drag. Sleeping in is always nice, but not having any reason to leave the house for days at a time can start to make anyone get bleh'd out. I was stir crazy and running out of money, so the new job has been a light in many dark places. Getting bills payed, things fixed, being able to eat, etc. It's awesome!

Since the studio is on Main Street, it's a one block walk down to the beach and we've been taking daily surfing breaks during lunch or whenever the tide is good. My old spot down by the Venice Pier is significantly less awesome than this new one for my personal taste. The water is nice and shallow and the larger breaks are quite a ways out so you've got plenty of room for variety in between. My buddy Jonas bought a 6 footer which we've been trying to shred and I've been on my body board until I get the cash for a new board. Ultimate fun though, so happy to be getting out in the water every day.

Halloween was pretty entertaining. We cruised down to Bill's house in Huntington Beach for his annual Halloween bash. He went all out this year with a full on Halloween decor that put Knott's to shame. It was an awesome time. Got to see some old friends and meet new ones, who could ask for more? Emily dressed as Tifa Lockhart from FF7, and I was Luffy again. Almost everyone knew who Emily was right away so that made her happy. =)

I finally beat Final Fantasy XII. It's been sitting at the final battle for like 4 months and I forgot about it until the other night where I plugged in, logged on, and proceeded to hand Vayne his ass in all 3 forms. Good times.

Chad has moved!

One of my best buds from back in Massachusetts Chad Sullivan just moved out here to Los Angeles. He is an actor and has been living and working New York City for about 4 years, and just made the big move to LA. He has been in a couple of features and worked on some NYC shows like Law & Order and some other stuff. Him and his lady friend just moved out to Burbank so I'm pretty stoked about that!

FJORG! Videos

In case you didn't get a chance to see them, here is a link to all the FJORG! videos.

Our film was titled, "For Grandma", Team Ragnarok.

http://www.siggraph.org/s2008/attendees/fjorg/

Patricia Beckman Recommendation

The Chief Viking Priestess gave me a nice recommendation on LINKEDIN today. Thanks so much to her for the kind words and all her hard work at FJORG!.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jaygrenier

New Animation Test: Vanilla Jump

I wanted to do a short little test with a very light character just doing a normal every day hop. Nothing fancy or exaggerated, just an exercise in weight.

Check out the gallery on my site or click HERE to see it.

Animation Mentor Graduation!

Note: Because of the length, remember to click "Read More" at the bottom to see the entire article!

When I got home from my vacation in Massachusetts I had about 2 days to recover and get myself ready for the next leg of summer. Come Friday, Emily, Dan Edwards, Mike Bahurinsky, and myself all piled into Dan's Civic and began the trek to San Francisco for our Animation Mentor Graduation.

The drive was easy and uneventful, discussions of gaming, cars, music, etc. all took place in the usual fashion and we arrived in Oakland around 1am. A decent hotel room and about 6 later we got up, had some breakfast, dressed up nice and headed on our way to the Berkeley Art Museum where our Graduation was being held.

Last time we were here was for the Animation Mentor Annual Barbecue and the weather was less than awesome. Overcast, a bit chilly with what seemed like impending rain was what we had then, but this time we got lucky! 80 degrees and not a cloud in the sky! The scenery was beautiful, the weather was perfect, it was shaping up to be a really awesome day. As soon as we arrived we started seeing people we had spent 2 years in school with yet (in some cases) never met in person. Bill, Cedric, Jerzy, all these guys I talk to ALL the time yet had never met. Instantly cool for sure, but it kept getting better! We had a trial practice run for the ceremony, hung out a while, and were then seated for the ceremony to begin.

Shawn, Carlos, and Bobby are definitely a bunch of amazing dudes. The school that was once an idea being tossed around during lunch and gaming sessions was now alive and changing people's lives, mine most included. As well as great animators, the three of them have an air of charisma and inspiration about them that has definitely played more than a small part in the success of the school. Many thanks to them for everything and for Shawn's great speech.

Glen Mackintosh from ILM was the guest speaker and had some really cool things to say. We also heard from Rick O'Connor, Don Crum, and many others with a boatload of great info.

After the speakers spoke and awards were awarded, we all got in line for our diplomas, handshakes, and pictures. Awesome to the max! The reception following was a great time with many pictures to be taken, wine to be drank, and memories to be made. After it all ended we got a burger, took a deep breath, and headed on home.

Stay tuned for the next update...Siggraph and FJORG!

Back To Reality, Job Search!

I've returned from the East and have dug my heels back into reality. Sort of...

I've got one normal day to catch up on a few things, then tomorrow we leave for San Francisco for our Animation Mentor graduation, then it's right back here to LA for Siggraph and FJORG!.

The vacation was amazing. I got to spend a lot of time with Emily, my family and friends, do a lot of surfing, eat some great food, and overall just relax and have a really cool time. I'm totally refreshed and I'm looking forward to getting back into the game with some new animation work.

I'll update next week once FJORG! is finished with some hopefully really cool news. =)

Summer Trip, FJORG!, Siggraph!

Reporting in here from Cape Cod, Massachusetts right now! I've been here about a week visiting family and friends, soaking up the sun, and preparing mentally for FJORG and a hopefully busy month of August.

August 8-9th -|- AnimationMentor.com Graduation -|- San Francisco, CA
August 10-13th -|- FJORG! Animation Challenge @ Siggraph '08 -|- Los Angeles, CA
August 13-17th -|- Siggraph '08 -|- Los Angeles, CA

FJORG! is going to be freakin' amazing! My team is Bill Buckley, Ken Robkin, and myself. We'll be held up in a room full of animators where we'll have 32 hours to make the best short film we can. I've been working with Ken for almost two years and haven't had a chance to meet him yet (he lives in Florida) so it's going to be a good time for all no matter what happens I'm sure. More updates when I can.

Once I get back from Siggraph I'll be back to work full time on my short film until I find some work in the L.A. area. It's been a really neat summer so far with so much free time but it's about time to get back into some real work. =)

So far on the trip Emily and I have taken a couple hundred photos so it will be a good time going through them all. I'll definitely put them up once the time comes. Stay tuned!

Happy Independance Day!

Hope everyone had a good time. I raised a mug for Caleb today, I hope his day went well.

Home Again

After a pretty neat weekend, we got back from San Francisco last night around 2am. We left Thursday night and stayed at Sean's place in Antioch. His son Aiden is 17 months so it was cool to see him again. I don't have a beard anymore either so he wasn't afraid of me. =)

Friday morning we got up and headed to Emeryville to the Animation Mentor headquarters. Inside we were greeted by some cool staff people who showed us into the main offices where we got to meet job recruiters from about 8 different studios. It was cool to talk with them and meet people that I've been training with for the past 18 months. After the job fair the doors opened to the rest of the world for the Open House. We met Richard there and mingled with lots of folks and talked and drank and sang, etc. No we didn't sing. After the Open House we drove down to visit Pixar and take some photos.

Friday night brought us back to Antioch to visit Sean again where we went to see Wall-E. I won't give it away but as usual with any Pixar flick the movie is fantastic. I'm looking forward to the reviews, it's got some interesting points to it.

Saturday morning we headed off towards the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco where the Animation Mentor Annual Barbecue was being held. Great food, great people, overall a great time for sure. Just meeting so many awesome people and animators was such a rad time.

Life is back to normal at least for a few days until Richard gets back on the 3rd. Time for sleep. Yes...

San Francisco and Friends From Paris Part II

Man it's been a hell of a week! Richard arrived last Wednesday and we spent the week touring around Los Angeles visiting the sites and hitting the beaches. Venice Beach, Santa Monica Beach/Pier, Hermosa, Redondo, 3rd Street Promenade, Hollywood, Studio City, Death Valley, we did a lot of driving around and had a radical time.

Probably the most interesting thing we did was to leave the city around 11pm for a two day trip up north to Death Valley National Park. We were going to head out East to Joshua Tree but there was a massive heat wave coming through and thought it might be wise to head North into the mountains instead. So, we got some instructions to an old primitive campsite from a friend and headed out. It took about 3 hours to get there which put us in around 2am, and....man it was a crazy place. This "campsite" looked like it was straight out of a Friday the 13th movie. We were miles off the road, not another person or sign of life in sight. The place was barely a campsite, really just a small patch of space off of the dirt road. There was a river that came off the mountain that ran right through the site, which was neat, except for that it was deafeningly loud. We decided we didn't want to get murdered out in the middle of nowhere and decided to head home. On the way back the sun started to rise so we pulled over on the side of the deserted highway to watch the sun come up over the ridge. Some great photos were taken and we ended up having a really fun time despite the original plan going bust. On the way home we stopped off at a few more campgrounds to do some hiking and got back to the city around 10am. Traffic was fun.

Besides that we did a lot of walking through various parts of the city and Richard took some really cool photos. He is a great photographer and is going to be editing the photos before we see any of them with color correction, cropping, etc. so they are awesome +1.

To Read More, Click Below.

Now that Richard has flown up to San Francisco, I've got a couple days to get my stuff together than we're headed up there too for the Annual Animation Mentor Barbecue and Job Fair. Recruiters from 11 different studios are confirmed to be there for us to chat with on Friday. Afterwards we're all headed to see the opening of Wall-E (New pixar movie.) On Saturday is the Barbecue where I'll hopefully get to meet a lot of the people I went to school with online who I've not yet met in person, along with some of the mentors I have worked with in the past.

It's been a busy week and the weekend seems like it won't be any different. I'm looking forward to getting back to my routine on Sunday. And some sleep, yes.

Happy Birthday To ME!

Today I'm 26 year old. Emily got me some awesome gifts too, freakin' awesome stuff! The DVD of '300', a Naruto t-shirt, and a new digital camera! Stay tuned for some photos.

Kung Fu Panda, Friends From Paris, Graduation, Birthday, Emily <3

Just a few things to update about that are pretty neat.

Last week I got invited to go watch a screening of Kung Fu Panda on the Paramount Pictures studio lot. It was an incredible movie, probably Dreamworks' best. Highly recommended to anyone and everyone! I laughed as there is a small shot in the film that is almost exactly like a shot in my short film. Not 100% the same, but close enough that I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there asks me if I was inspired by it or something.

My buddy Richard from Paris is coming to visit next week. He'll be staying here in LA for about a week then he's going to trek it up San Fran to explore a bit. We met on www.simplycg.net awhile back. Should be cool, he's a photographer so I'm sure we'll end up with pictures.

This is my final week of school! My short film is nowhere near done, but it's on it's way. It's been an incredible ride and I've come such a long way since I started thanks to Animation Mentor. I'm hoping to have my short film finished by the end of summer, we'll see how that goes. It's certainly nothing amazing, it's been a hell of a learning experience. I won't be posting it online for awhile in case of the small chance it turns out really cool and I can submit it to a festival or two. (If it's online, a lot of festivals won't allow it).

It's going to be a busy summer. Headed to San Fransisco at the end of June for the Animation Mentor job fair and annual barbecue. After that Emily and I are going to be traveling to the East Coast to visit my family and friends. August brings us Siggraph and the FJORG! animation competition.

And finally, Monday is my birthday. I'll be twenty-six. Emily is awesome, in case someone out there didn't know already.

FJORG!

Ken Robkin, Bill Buckley, and myself were accepted into this years FJORG! animation super challenge at Siggraph. It's a 32 hour long sleepless animation marathon to see which team can complete the best animation in that short time. It's awesome, and I'm stoked.

Here is more info about FJORG:

http://old.siggraph.org/s2008/submissions/late/fjorg/

On another note, my short is coming along very well. I managed to get all 9 shots blocked and most of them into spline. They are mildly rushed but I have plenty of time now to polish since I met the deadline. I worked a lot on the set yesterday, a much needed break from actual animation. Built the actual Tatami mat floor patterns, modeled some new furniture and textures a few pieces. Once I start playing with lighting I'll post up some teaser renders.

Fear And Panic In The Air

It's 12:42am and the dying battery on my laptop tells me it's been a long night. I recently left my job at a game studio to work on my short film full time. Most people don't come close to finishing their film in the very small amount of time we have in the Advanced Short Film class at Animation Mentor. I was for sure going to be one of those people until I decided to take a leap of faith and give myself 1440 minutes a day to work on it. So, here I am on my second cup of coffee with 3 giant LCD monitors shining their bright, eye-piercing white light into my brain, showing me I have about 60 seconds of animation left to do in a few weeks. Professionals would tell me that's impossible. I'd tell them they were right. Then I remember I'm a professional too, so I know it's possible.

It's possible, at the expense of the following: Sleep, Girlfriend, Food, Exercise, Fun, Fresh Air, Video Games, Movies, Friends, Sleep, Sun, Beach, Water, Sleep, Food, Sanity.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me lately. I've got about 4 weeks left. I hope everyone is doing well and having a great Spring.

Babbles

When I run from nothing nothing sways for sweeping sweeping endless never days of hour glasses ocean waves are slaves to moons and moods and blades.

Bobbles

See world through dragon lens with unmoving cinematic ecstasy within persons afoot and warriors within us all are impervious and sanctified though they never tried enough for self rules of righteous amazing areas of flow and personal justice amongst thieves souls spring through and away from it all and into a bottomless abyss of my ability of faithless envisioning and crys where it kills and engines roar and purr and cry with tainted metal eyes storms brew beer and deer kill men with souls full of crying bleeding hearts within ken and when it all comes to them to see and there part of me then time will stop for minutes after ten and fifteen hours after pastors cry with ammunition flying by.

Class 6: Advanced Short Film

This week begins my final class at Animation Mentor. It's been an amazing place to be and I can't believe it will soon be coming to an end. This school brought me from having never animated before, to landing an animation job in less than a year. It really is that good and I'd recommend it to anybody looking to learn the true foundations and principles of animation.

My new mentor is Don Crum. He's currently at Pixar working on Wall-E, and is from what I hear a pretty rad guy. I'm looking forward to class 6 a lot. Lots of things have changed for me in the last month or so and I think I'm finally going to be able to give this short my full attention. Keep checking back for news on my short, "Kunren!".

I also love my girlfriend Emily very much. Thanks to her I'm an animator. =)

Mickey Sketches

I started doing some practice sketches this week. Trying to learn the shapes and lines of a couple of characters so that I can improve my drawing skill, and thus my animation. You'll probably get to see lots of these in the coming weeks. =)

Anthony Rizzo has been giving me some super good tips on how I can improve. Check out his blog if you have some time. There is some really nice stuff there.

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

A rose for the girl I love. Thank you for everything, I'd never be where I am now without you and I owe you so much more than I could ever hope to repay in a lifetime. You have my eternal gratitude, as well as all the love I could ever give.

An Epic Day, Feature Animation!

Today was an ultimately epic day: my very first day animating on a feature film. It's heart-pounding to think only a year ago I was learning how to animate a bouncing ball, now I'm working on a feature. I'm still not quite sure how that happened...if I figure it out I'll post the algorithm straight away.

I've always believed that hard work will get you where you're going. Perhaps that's why I enjoy Rock Lee so much from Naruto. His character is based of the premise that he was born unable to perform at the same level as his peers, but becomes a "Genius of hard work" and proves to everyone that he can still be an awesome ninja even with his terrible handicap. I don't necessarily believe I was "born" unable to animate, or unable to do anything for that matter, but it's certainly been a long and bumpy road trying to get here from little old Brewster. I've gotten A LOT of help from A LOT of GREAT people of whom I'll be forever thankful for, it's because of those people that I was able to work so hard and persevere to get to this point.

Generally speaking I'm not a very confident guy, it takes a lot for me to except or admit that I can do something well. This is one of those rare times where I can sit back, relax for a minute, take a deep breath, and be proud of myself.

This is only the beginning!

Last Drop Falls

When I'm looking in your eyes,
Everything seems to fade away.
After all these years we had do I know you now?
Have I trusted blindly in your love, too many times..

God damn it I love this band, they have taken over my soul.

Pyrats!

I stumbled upon pretty much the most awesome animation I've ever seen this morning. It was made at Gobelins (what a surprise...those guys never put out anything that isn't pure awesome), and features some pirates doing what pirates do best.

http://www.pyrats.net/watch-movie.html

Ricardo Curtis and Class 5

I had my first QnA tonight with my new mentor Ricardo Curtis. He's basically worked everywhere under the sun (Warner Bros., Pixar, Blue Sky, Dreamworks, to name a few) and is going to attempt to bestow upon my fellow classmates and I the glorious art of creating a story. I'm super stoked to learn how it works and get my short film under way.

Ricardo's IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0193484/

Beginning Class 5 At Animation Mentor

Starting January 7th I'll be starting the next class over at www.AnimationMentor.com and starting work on my first short film! I've got quite a few ideas so I have to wait a few weeks to figure out exactly what I'll be working on, but rest assured it will be awesome. =)

Christmas and New Years were a blast. My girlfriend Emily and I traveled across the United States to the east coast of Massachusetts to visit my home town of Brewster and my family. We ate lots of great food, saw lots of good friends, and had a damn good time. We also got to visit my friend Rich Fournier who is an animator over at Turbine Studios. They are known for the LOTRO MMO, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and the Asheron's Call series. It was a pretty rad opportunity, thanks to Rich!

We also got some great gifts, one of which is the final installment of the best movie series ever, POTC! It's on now, so I've gotta get back to it. Have a good week everyone!