Back to Skewllllll

Back in Delaware now. I finished the paper laptop and mouse for Dan and it came out pretty sweet. I used a bright orange contrasted with a white screen and yellow keys to really give it some pop color. I think he liked it.

On Saturday they took us out to an Australian fish and chips place where I ate shark and got to drink as much as I wanted for two hours with a wristband. It was sad to leave knowing I might not see some of those guys again but hopefully I can maintain some sort of relationship with everyone. I'm already planning on going to Toronto to see Andy, the British intern, at some point early next summer. Connie will be in NYC til March so maybe we'll do something too before she heads back to Chile. I hope that Dan, Andre and Jon realized my potential as an illustrator while I was there and hopefully I can do some work for them in the future. Until then its back to school and projects and building my portfolio. Last semester in Delaware and I plan to live it up. I'm taking classes with two teachers I havent had the chance to yet until now which are Dave Brinley and Troy so I am pretty excited. Peace out blog.

Sculpt Paper and Drive Hard

Today I updated my website, found my hard drive broken and got assigned a new project. Thank god because the Jersey Shore animation was killing me. So even though tomorrow is my last day, I have to create a to scale mac laptop and old school mouse... using nothing but construction paper. The idea is to create the them in the style of Thomas Demand, an artist who replicates entire rooms using nothing but construction paper. When I am finished, Dan or Andre is going to photograph them and use them for some kind of card or poster. As I finish the pabst blue ribbon in my hand I can already see the mouse in its completion and it came out pretty damn good. I'm not really in a rush to start the laptop today and think that I'll just work on that all day tomorrow.

Sucks about my hard drive though. I had a lot of work on there that wasn't backed up.

Chipotle

Today I delivered a package to West 57th where I ran into a friend from high school by chance in the same building I was going to. The package was addressed to the tenth floor which is BET. It was a pretty cool experience just to be in there. Then I got chipotle and it was sweet.

Last Minute Ideas

#1 Pretend interview with each of the characters separately that would have taken place before season one. I would record myself asking questions and then have my characters respond using soundbites from the show out of context.

#2 Pauly and Situation stand on a street corner as various characters walk by and they repeatedly decide whether they are DTF or not. (example: real life image of condoleeza rice's head on a cartoon body walks by... 100% DTF)

#3 Cutting footage together from real Jersey Shore interviews with serious political interviews to create a parody and disregarding my cartoons altogether.

New Thoughts

Today begins my last week at DressCode. Dan got to take a look at my animation so far and he had mixed opinions. He didn't think my cooking scene was funny and he disliked the head bobbing technique I have been using to make my characters talk. However he thought my "dreams" scene was funny and that's really all I got from him.

So... since feedback is so scarce when you're an intern working for two guys who have their hands full with other projects, I have to take Dan's suggestions and try to move forward. With one week left I should be able to produce at least one more clip, get rid of the head bobbing and maybe even have a fresh take on the whole thing. I have some ideas bubbling write now which I will take the time to write down...actually nevermind they are sending me on an errand to pick up postcards off West 4th.

Home Stretch

Been snowed in for the past two days and today I could finally make it into work. I was full of energy and got a lot done, including a whole new scene about Snooki's dream guy...

I hope to show Dan and Andre my progress Monday morning and then finish strong in my final week interning here. Its been great so far and I've learned a good deal of stuff from animating to running your own business.

Mini Explosions and Bobbing Heads

Since I forgot to blog yesterday I figure I'll start off today with one. Well yesterday I completed my first scenario of the animation so now I have the intro scene, and scene one. I learned more about after effects and downloaded some free explosion quicktimes that I was able to place into my timeline.

After watching the completed scene over and over I' begining to realize that the bobbing head method I am using to make my characters speak is kind of annoying. I need to find a way to make it more fluid and less distracting to the viewer.

Hung Over

hung over.

Cooking

Today Dan had me deliver a package on E 23rd street where this bitchy girl works who's never satisfied with the work she's receiving and always makes it seem like my fault even though I'm just the delivery boy. Don't kill the messenger. Bitch.

Anyway I decided to walk home to save subway fare and totally misjudged THAT distance. Good thing is I got to stop at GoodBurger Home of the GoodBurger and get a GoodBurger that was a really good burger. I got to walk through the village too which was sweet since I hadn't been to St. Marks or Astor Place since I was a fifteen year old who thought he was really cool and shopped for cool things with his cool friends.

Now I'm back and working on situation number one for my jersey characters to get into; cooking. I collected a couple of funny food related soundbites from the show and am working on designing a chefs hat.

Tonight's plan is to meet my dad and his staff in ChinaTown for drinks.

A Day in the Life...

So I finally got to talk with Dan and Andre today and although they both liked my Avatar idea a lot, I guess they realized that I only have two weeks left here and something more simple would be more manageable. Wish they would have talked to me about my ideas sooner and it might not have been a problem... but whatever. So I came up with the idea of just having the characters go through these short ten second skits where it's kinda like the day in the life of a guido except all these bizarre things keep happening. I animated an intro scene thats pretty funny and everyone laughed and liked my characters, especially Andre. Tomorrow I think I'm going to try and finish a full skit.

Animating Day One

Started the miserable snow/rain/slush/ice hell ridden day by getting my characters onto different layers based on how i am going to make them move. For instance, I know I want each character to be able to bob his or her head when they speak, so I have to make sure that the head is on a different layer than the body and either in front of in back of the body layer depending on the character design. Likewise, I want each character to have some eye movement, so I have three or four different eyeball layers for each character that I can key in and out as necessary.

After that I got some backdrop images of Seaside Heights, Jersey Shore online to use. One of the boardwalk and one of the beach. I still haven't had a real chance to talk with Dan or Andre about what exactly it is I'm doing and since classes at Pratt started today and they both teach I'm not sure if I ever will. So I decided to just start animating something anyway and I placed three characters onto my backdrop and had them say a few lines and look at each other. The timing was awful but its a work in progess.

Here's Everyone

Vector Drawings

Over the weekend I designed my characters and now I am spending today doing the tedious process of digitally inking my drawings. Effin pen tool that I've avoided using for four years. Here's an example of Mike aka "The Situation"

Red Bull and Spicy Tuna

Today I installed Final Cut Pro in a completely lawful way onto my computer (thanks DK) so that I could start organizing and editing my soundbites. This was a painful process...

Next I began creating my characters, finished all of them and then decided I didn't like it. Lunch was at a small Japanese restaurant around the block that obviously doubled as the owner's home since we ate surrounded by baby toys and a rack of T-Shirts. We talked about different places we've been and how not all of New Jersey is like Seaside Heights.

Now I'm stuck on a Red Bull high trying to figure out my next move. I'm trying to get my dumbass friends together so we can finally do something with our lives tonight but its not looking good. The only one completely down is Phil... and well... its Phil.

I started my day watching a documentary about Star Trek hosted by William Shatner himself. It was pretty ridiculous.

Jerseytar?

I came up with a bunch of ideas along the lines of the Jersey Shore parody. One that I like the best goes something like this...

-Corporate guy talking about the world's largest supply of "blank" and it's right beneath the Jersey Shore.
-Problem is, the native guido tribe resides there and they won't move.
-So the plan is for Private Jake Sully to become a "Jerseytar" and blend in with the natives; learning their unique language and customs and gaining their trust...
-So they give Sully a guido makeover and send him in. To become part of the tribe he has to complete the GTL (gym, tan and laundry)
-After T-Shirt Time, Sully goes for his final test with the crew: to creep on girls
-After deflecting some grenades and getting some chicks for the hot tub, Sully is accepted and starts to become one of them.
-The military sees Sully's mission as a failure and decides to bomb the boardwalk, killing lots of guidos and exploding a tanning salon.

I think it has potential but I still need to discuss it with the guys here. Other than that I've been watching Jersey Shore and recording soundbites for two straight days now and am losing my mind. Good thing I'm looking "fresh to death" today.

Snow Day

Got snowed in today, killed some zombies, shoveled and watched Jersey Shore.

DressCode Company Portrait

Here's the painting I made the first two days I worked before Christmas. Dan is on the left and the right is Andre. Andre laughed at the facial expression I gave to Dan, but Dan liked his ripped forearms.

Getting Started...

Today I went over some ideas with Dan and Andre over what I would be creating for them over the next couple of weeks. After some brainstorming we decided to animate a new take on the Jersey Shore; replacing the characters with actual trash or sea creatures in their likeness. I haven't completely settled on this idea yet since parodies of that show have already been so overdone but maybe there's something we can still squeeze out of it that's new and entertaining.

Spent the rest of the day so far watching AfterEffects tutorials, testing what I learned on some personal projects and taking soundbites from the Jersey Shore using Snapz Pro.

Started my VC winter internship at Dresscode on Dec 15th. My first assignment was to paint a company portrait of Dan and Andre which I completed and will post when I get a chance. They requested that I paint them in the same style that I painted Rambo once and also asked to be packing heat (specifically a Tech 9 sub-machine gun and an AK-47). They loved the way it came out and are planning to have it hung up in their studio.

Anyway, today's my first day back since Christmas break. There are two other interns here now; a girl from Chile and some dude from Brighton, England. For the remainder of January I will be working on an animation of my own concept and style; using both analog and digital methods. I'm hopefully going to learn my way around AfterEffects and some of the other programs used here.

Still thinking of ideas as of right now.