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.