One of the most common questions Pixar receives nowadays is, “How can I become an Animator at Pixar?” There’s really no good answer that’s both short and useful, so we’ve put together some information to hopefully provide guidance for people who dream of being involved in the animation process at Pixar.
Pixar places the technology of computer graphics firmly at the service of the art of animation, not the other way around. This priority is expressed clearly in Pixar’s production process, in which the Animators specialize in animation, with virtually all technical concerns handled by Technical Directors.
The implication of this structure and this value system is what Pixar looks for first and foremost in Animators – we want you to be able to bring the character to life, independent of medium. Computer-graphic technical prowess is of course important, but the emphasis is not as strong within the Animation Department. The reality is that computer graphic animators have no advantage over pen-and-ink animators, clay animators, stop-motion animators, etc. So while it’s preferable for someone to have 3D knowledge, it’s not paramount. In fact 3/4 of the Animators on Toy Story were new to computers when hired.
A common question is, “What software should I learn?” The answer is implied by the above: “Software doesn’t matter; learning to animate matters.” Still, you might expect that learning the software that Pixar uses would give you a leg up. However, even this isn’t true: Pixar uses its own proprietary software. Your knowledge of basic animation fundamentals is the foundation for your computer training, not the other way around.
What are the qualities of a good Animator? A Pixar Animator should be able to bring life to any object or character, showing the character’s internal thoughts and feelings through its physical external motion. To do this, the Animator must be a good actor. His or her work should communicate clearly, containing simple ideas with which an audience can empathize. The animation should be entertaining to watch, employing good timing and relying on individualized, believable characters to put forth humor and emotion.
The Animator also needs an understanding of physical motion. Knowledge of weight, balance, overlap, texture, and form should be evident in the work. In fact, in evaluating a prospective Animator, Pixar relies very heavily on the demo reel presented by the candidate.
You could say that three things are important in pitching yourself to Pixar (the reel, the reel, and the reel). Other factors will of course come into play, including collaborative spirit, timeliness, compatibility with Pixar itself; but these issues never even come up unless the reel passes muster.
Of course, the more a reel shows the qualities discussed here, the better.
We want to see your ability to demonstrate a strong sense of acting, more so than movement. Reels that show fast moving space ships, etc. are difficult to judge because we're not able to get a sense of someone’s ability to understand physics and the fundamentals of animation. We would much rather see a simple story line with strong acting. We’re interested in your animation ability – not your ability to model, shade and light.
Acting is the key element and then we review reels to get a sense of weight, timing, staging, physics, etc. People frequently ask if they should include a flatwork portfolio demonstrating their life drawing skills. While this is nice, it doesn’t give us a sense of your ability to animate a character and bring something to life.
There are at least three other issues that can help make the reel a more effective reflection of the person behind it.
First, it can be very difficult to figure out who did what in a collaboration or group project, and correspondingly difficult to evaluate the work, unless there are clearly describable divisions of labor (see item #6 in “Putting Together a Reel”).
Second, it should express what you want to do. The freedom of being in school encourages experimentation and going beyond what you would normally try. However, unless the result shows what you want to do in the “real” world, this tendency does make it harder to see who you “really” are.
Third, realize that whizzy technology is not great art. There’s something about three-dimensional computer graphics that dazzles people until they get lost in achieving this one ray-traced effect, or adding just one more texture map.
When you finally wake up and get back to the content, there’s no time left for great animation.
Good animation is clearly visible through almost any technical limitation. In fact, the thrill of great animation is seeing pencil lines or matchsticks and glue come to life; why would it be any different with a computer.
Or, as we never tire of saying: Computers don’t animate. People do.
And in an effort to hit you with even more information, below are some quotes from our Directing and Supervising Animators about what they like to see in reels:
"I'd rather see 15 seconds of amazing animation than 3 looooooooooong minutes of an unwatchable film. Those 3 minutes can feel like an eternity if everything isn't perfect."
"You’re applying for Animation? Well--show me good animation! Show me acting. Show me thinking. Show me a character that is alive. I don't care about lighting, modeling, shading, particle effects, or how clever you are. Blow me away with something I've never seen. An original character with a distinct personality!"
"Do you draw? Are you a good designer? That's great! Make sure it's in your computer animation as well!"
"Animation. Computer. Drawn. Stop Motion. Sand under glass. If your reel kicks arse, we may hire you regardless of the medium. We don't want to see only computer stuff."
"Keep your reel short n' sweet. We watch a lot of these things in reel review so if there's weird, older, not-so-good stuff at the beginning we might pull the tape out before your great stuff! We don't need to see where you came from--we need to know how good you are right now. Edit down to your best stuff."
" The classic animators were inspired by real life and all of the other films around them. And so are we. We're not looking to hire Animation Nerds. We want people who draw from their own other experiences, from live action, and yes, from the Old Masters!"
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Thursday 23 February 2012
MA 2012 Rough Showreel
This is the rough showreel showing how the animations where built up and designed to be readable. Again all the models and animations where created in Maya 2012
MA 2012 Showreel
Above is my showreel for animation at Masters level for 2012. All models and animation where created Maya 2012
Friday 26 August 2011
The Illusion of Life; Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Chapter 1
An Art Form Is Born
Artists have spent hundreds of years trying to capture a moment but to do that with one drawing, painting etc was sometimes the case where they either caught the moment before or after, trying to encapsulate the entirety of the moment sometimes couldn't be done.
This would be the invention of projectors that could project photos at a speed that would emulate life, this was the birth of cinema and with it aniamtion to, as we know it today. Unlike there contemporaries that were limited to what happened infront of them, an artist could create whatever was in his mind and put this onto the screen.
So far it's not film makers exploring the world of animation its the artists showing that in the early days taht the animation process was born out of an artists need to study and capture a moment, not the technology. Even the realisation of the translation of colour comes into it. When an artist paints or draws its only as bright or colourful as paints are manufactured, but with a light shining through it, the colour can be brighter as film is transparent.
Animator Vladimir (Bill) Tytla is credited as the first animtor to achieve strong emotions and convincng actions with the human figure. He worked on Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo. He described the art form as...
When he was asked how he got such amazing results by a couple of young animators,
Here is evidence of an animator who is also an artist the way he mentions composition a key draw for him to interpret it, and how sometimes he gets it sometimes he doesn't, he also mentions what was said at the start about the artists doing the animation or being animators is that you as an animator are trying to convey emotion and on some level connect with your audience.
Tha above statement relates to how we as humans communicate basic wants and needs that all men & women understand, before we develop speech. This may ahve been due to the fact that in early cinema there was no audio so actions had to be conveyed through body movement or gestures to eachother that the audience could relate to or understand. An actor knows these because these are the tools of his trade, and now that our drawings are moving and must do so realistically we are compelled to becme actors ourselves. The animation problem is different of that of the actors because we have to communicate the action through pictures which is more difficult thn the actors job which is more immediate.
In this instance for an animator to create that spark, we utilize our own experience in that we as part of the audience (as we are people to) we can sympathize, or empathize to. We inter our emotions onto the paper to create a connection and touch the viewer. Again relating to the most basic of communications that al audiences know in turn we convey something that connects us all as people and involves the audience this can be a character or a feeling, idea, or even a situation people can relate to.
One thing that will always grab peoples attention is personality, Charlie Chaplin once said that,
In short personality is the audience window for them to identify with the story, the character has to be human enough so the audience can undertsand and identify with them. A character must be more than one note, they must have other facets to them. One good example given here is,
It is said most of the best story/animation are ones born out of conflict. The goal obvioulsy to get our audience to feel the characters emotions. To care, to show concern, and importantly invest in the character, and in turn the story.
When the art form was first discovered it was till trying to figure itself out, what it could do? and how it worked? One person who had an idea was Winsor McCay who was the cartoonist at the time for the New York Herald. He made many films between 1911 to 1921 with convincing cartoons that made the audience think he traced them from photos. To prove these people wrong he would draw his most famous character Gertie the Dinosaur, which in turn helped discover the importance of a characters personality in connecting with an audience. Although these were great works in history they were commercial flops and McCay had to return to his newspaper for steady income. Historian John Canemaker said that,
"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive", Walt Disney
Artists have spent hundreds of years trying to capture a moment but to do that with one drawing, painting etc was sometimes the case where they either caught the moment before or after, trying to encapsulate the entirety of the moment sometimes couldn't be done.
"Yet, through all the centuries, artists continued to search for a medium of expression that would permit them to capture that elusive spark of life, and in the late 1800's new inventions seemed at last to make this possible".
This would be the invention of projectors that could project photos at a speed that would emulate life, this was the birth of cinema and with it aniamtion to, as we know it today. Unlike there contemporaries that were limited to what happened infront of them, an artist could create whatever was in his mind and put this onto the screen.
"An artsist could represent the actual figure, if he chose, meticulously capturing its movements and actions. Or hecould caricature it, satirize it, ridicule it...he could show emotions, feelings, even innermost fears. He could give reality to dreams of the visionary".
So far it's not film makers exploring the world of animation its the artists showing that in the early days taht the animation process was born out of an artists need to study and capture a moment, not the technology. Even the realisation of the translation of colour comes into it. When an artist paints or draws its only as bright or colourful as paints are manufactured, but with a light shining through it, the colour can be brighter as film is transparent.
"Their apparent brightness is relative to itself, a range from dark to light of about 20 to 1, but with the light intensity of thr projection lamp and highly reflective screen, this brightness factor increases 200 to 1... Just as the stained glass window had brought dazzling brilliance after centuries of relatively dull frescoes, the introduction of light behind the film made whole new ranges of colour possible to the artist. Add to this the potential for stronger empotional response and, an artsist has before him an incredible medium for self expression".
Animator Vladimir (Bill) Tytla is credited as the first animtor to achieve strong emotions and convincng actions with the human figure. He worked on Snow White, Pinocchio and Dumbo. He described the art form as...
"It was mentioned to me that the possibilities are infinite, There isn't anything you can't do in it as far as composition is concerned",
When he was asked how he got such amazing results by a couple of young animators,
"The problem is not a single track one. Animation is not just timing, or just a well-drawn character, it is the sum of all factors named... What you as an animator are interested in is conveying a certain feeling you happen to have at the time".
Here is evidence of an animator who is also an artist the way he mentions composition a key draw for him to interpret it, and how sometimes he gets it sometimes he doesn't, he also mentions what was said at the start about the artists doing the animation or being animators is that you as an animator are trying to convey emotion and on some level connect with your audience.
"Conveying a certain feeling is the essence of communication in any art form. It is one of animations gretaest strengths and ceratinly one of the most important aspects of this art for the young animator to study and master".
"As artists, we now have new responsibilities in addition to those of draftsman and designer; we have added the disciplines of the actor and the theatre".
Tha above statement relates to how we as humans communicate basic wants and needs that all men & women understand, before we develop speech. This may ahve been due to the fact that in early cinema there was no audio so actions had to be conveyed through body movement or gestures to eachother that the audience could relate to or understand. An actor knows these because these are the tools of his trade, and now that our drawings are moving and must do so realistically we are compelled to becme actors ourselves. The animation problem is different of that of the actors because we have to communicate the action through pictures which is more difficult thn the actors job which is more immediate.
"In animation we are trying to show that a charcater is sad we droop the shoulders, slump the body, drop the ehad, and add a long face. Yet those same symbols also can mean that the character is tired, or discouraged, or even listless. We can add a tear and pin point our attitude a little better.... The live actor has another advantage in that he can interrelate with others in the cast... There will be chemistry at work that will create charisma, a special excitement that will elicit an immediate response from the audience... in animation we start with a blank piece of paper! Out of nowhere we have to come up with characters that are real, that live, that interrelate".
In this instance for an animator to create that spark, we utilize our own experience in that we as part of the audience (as we are people to) we can sympathize, or empathize to. We inter our emotions onto the paper to create a connection and touch the viewer. Again relating to the most basic of communications that al audiences know in turn we convey something that connects us all as people and involves the audience this can be a character or a feeling, idea, or even a situation people can relate to.
One thing that will always grab peoples attention is personality, Charlie Chaplin once said that,
"Little as I knew about movies, I knew that nothing transcended personality"
In short personality is the audience window for them to identify with the story, the character has to be human enough so the audience can undertsand and identify with them. A character must be more than one note, they must have other facets to them. One good example given here is,
"a simple golfer getting ready to make a crucial shot. He shows concentration and determination as he prepares for that important swing. Then suppose he misses the ball entirely. His true character will be revealed at once!"
It is said most of the best story/animation are ones born out of conflict. The goal obvioulsy to get our audience to feel the characters emotions. To care, to show concern, and importantly invest in the character, and in turn the story.
When the art form was first discovered it was till trying to figure itself out, what it could do? and how it worked? One person who had an idea was Winsor McCay who was the cartoonist at the time for the New York Herald. He made many films between 1911 to 1921 with convincing cartoons that made the audience think he traced them from photos. To prove these people wrong he would draw his most famous character Gertie the Dinosaur, which in turn helped discover the importance of a characters personality in connecting with an audience. Although these were great works in history they were commercial flops and McCay had to return to his newspaper for steady income. Historian John Canemaker said that,
"Gertie was the first animated personality, showing shyness, stubborness, and even actually weeping big tears when jeered".After the other studios appeared and had "gimmicks that where successful and made the cartoons popular. Out of the Inkwell, by Max Fleischer was one and Felix the Cat, by Otto Messmer was also out there. Out of all the followers of McCay's "Gertie" only Felix the cat seemed to have a personality that the audience could relate to and in the end by 1923 people in the biz felt that everything that could be done in the field had been done.
"...only the films about Felix suggested the idea of giving a character personality, but his creators had failed to develop this past rudimentary beginnings, relying on visual tricks that got audience response. Most people felt by 1923 just about everything had been done that was possible, and the exhibitors were looking in other directions for something new to keep their audiences laughing".Enter Walt and Roy Disney. Walt by no means was an overnight success, but he fought hard through fights over the rights to his cartoons, staff, contracts, even when he got a studio people tried to run him out of town. He was supported by his staff, and family who in the end like all there predecessors cared more about keeping animation alive than making money.
"Walt was fighter and had great determination; he was no aesthetic artist living in a dream world...There were constant battles, many defeats, endless disappointments: he lost the rights to his contracts. And then when he finally began to achieve a bit of success, his studio became a prize to be taken over! Yet through all it all he never lost his love for people or his faith in their judgement."
Monday 22 August 2011
Wednesday 20 July 2011
The Art of Anatomy by Sarah Simblet (History)
"The body has always been a core subject for the artist, be it to honour God, or to question and doubt the very nature of humanity itself"
"Claudius Galen (AD 129-201) is the most dominant figure in early European anatomy. He was the medical officer to Gladiators in the Roman Empire, and later physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius... In the middle ages, translations and derivations of Galens works were read from a pulpit, while below, a barber cut open a body, and a demonstrator pointed with a stick to the salient parts."
"Leonardo da Vinci's place in the history of art and anatomy is unique. The detailed observations and speculations that fill his notebooks are both inspirational and startlingly original. His studies were driven by intense curiosity... His knowledge of mechanics, architecture, and engineering guided his understanding inside the body. Leonardo saw structures taht demonstrated how the body should work, and although not wholly acurate, he invented a new attitude and mind frame that carried the subject forwars to greater heights... The level of detail in his work asks for gretaer insight, the level of imagination demands that we see the physical structure of the human body in relation to other things in the world...However, da Vinci contributed nothing to the development of science, and was overtaken by Vesalius becuase he did not publish his work. After his death his notebooks passed through generations of private hands, remaining largely unknown for 300 years. They were not published in a facsimile edition until the late 19th century. In spite of this they are still regarded as the finest anatomical drawings ever made, and when they finally came to view they had agreat impact on the representation of the body in 19th and 20th century medicine".
"In 1540 Thomas Vicary, surgeon to Henry VII of England, persuaded him to unite the London Guilds of Barbers and Surgeons. He was elected there first master, and int he same year they were granted Four hanged criminals (per year) for dissection".
"Methods of anatomical preperation were significantly developed during the 19th and 20th centuries. Donation is now sufficiently popular for all departments to be highly selective in their choice of suitable subjects".
In 1747 the University of Leiden published "Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani" which is a human atlas, that unified the work of artist Jan Wandelaar and eminent scholar and anatomist Bernard Siegfried Albinus whose friendship and collaberation lasted more than 30 years.
Albinus began with the skeleton and built the body from it's architecture of the bone. He would soak the ligaments of a prepared skeleton in vinegar to preserve them, he would suspend the body with a frame of a delicately adjusted ropes that filled the room, and he would then freeze them.
Meret Oppenhiem's X-Ray of a skeleton, 1964, is a witty and elegant self-portrait in the European vanitas tradition where the presence of the life and death share the same moment, the same stage, without anxiety or morbidity
"Claudius Galen (AD 129-201) is the most dominant figure in early European anatomy. He was the medical officer to Gladiators in the Roman Empire, and later physician to the emperor Marcus Aurelius... In the middle ages, translations and derivations of Galens works were read from a pulpit, while below, a barber cut open a body, and a demonstrator pointed with a stick to the salient parts."
"Leonardo da Vinci's place in the history of art and anatomy is unique. The detailed observations and speculations that fill his notebooks are both inspirational and startlingly original. His studies were driven by intense curiosity... His knowledge of mechanics, architecture, and engineering guided his understanding inside the body. Leonardo saw structures taht demonstrated how the body should work, and although not wholly acurate, he invented a new attitude and mind frame that carried the subject forwars to greater heights... The level of detail in his work asks for gretaer insight, the level of imagination demands that we see the physical structure of the human body in relation to other things in the world...However, da Vinci contributed nothing to the development of science, and was overtaken by Vesalius becuase he did not publish his work. After his death his notebooks passed through generations of private hands, remaining largely unknown for 300 years. They were not published in a facsimile edition until the late 19th century. In spite of this they are still regarded as the finest anatomical drawings ever made, and when they finally came to view they had agreat impact on the representation of the body in 19th and 20th century medicine"."In 1540 Thomas Vicary, surgeon to Henry VII of England, persuaded him to unite the London Guilds of Barbers and Surgeons. He was elected there first master, and int he same year they were granted Four hanged criminals (per year) for dissection".
"Methods of anatomical preperation were significantly developed during the 19th and 20th centuries. Donation is now sufficiently popular for all departments to be highly selective in their choice of suitable subjects".
In 1747 the University of Leiden published "Tabulae Sceleti et Musculorum Corporis Humani" which is a human atlas, that unified the work of artist Jan Wandelaar and eminent scholar and anatomist Bernard Siegfried Albinus whose friendship and collaberation lasted more than 30 years.Albinus began with the skeleton and built the body from it's architecture of the bone. He would soak the ligaments of a prepared skeleton in vinegar to preserve them, he would suspend the body with a frame of a delicately adjusted ropes that filled the room, and he would then freeze them.
Meret Oppenhiem's X-Ray of a skeleton, 1964, is a witty and elegant self-portrait in the European vanitas tradition where the presence of the life and death share the same moment, the same stage, without anxiety or morbidity
Monday 13 June 2011
The Walt Stanchfield Lectures
1. Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is essential in any form of animation. One thing animator must be good at is gesture drawings. Necessary to good gesture drawings are acting, caricature, anatomy, body language, perspective etc.
Your mental and emotional processes are you.
Without motivation you would accomplish nothing, and without enthusiasm, motivation would atrophy before you could make a quick sketch. A good example would be that your mind is a projector - Whatever you choose to put into it is what will be seen on the screen.
"Enthusiasm is the mainspring of the mind which urges one to put knowledge into action"
Wally "Famous" Amos
2. Principles of Animation
There are some principles of animation that can be consciously used in any scene. You should familiarize yourself with them for both animation and animation clean up. These rules can be applied in any scene as very rarely is a character doing nothing. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty spend a short time in complete inactivity, but even then certain of these principles were used. The following list of (principles) are what should be found in all animation.
Pose and Mood Planes
Shape and Form Solidity
Anatomy Arcs
Model and Character Squash & Stretch
Weight Beat and Rhythm
Line and Silhouette Depth & Volume
Action and Reaction Overlap and Follow Through
Perspective Timing
Direction Working from Extreme to Extreme
Tension
Straights and Curves
Primary and Secondary Action
Staging and Composition
Anticipation
Caricature
Details
Texture
Simplification
Positive and Negative Shapes
The purpose of studying and analysing a scene is to acquaint oneself with the possibilities in the use of the principles in animation. Above is 28 principles, although they may be more at first these will have to be consciously, then hopefully in time will become second nature. When emotions are lax, knowing these principles will enable the artists to animate his scene intellectually, logically and artistically as well as emotionally.
Enthusiasm is essential in any form of animation. One thing animator must be good at is gesture drawings. Necessary to good gesture drawings are acting, caricature, anatomy, body language, perspective etc.
Your mental and emotional processes are you.
Without motivation you would accomplish nothing, and without enthusiasm, motivation would atrophy before you could make a quick sketch. A good example would be that your mind is a projector - Whatever you choose to put into it is what will be seen on the screen.
"Enthusiasm is the mainspring of the mind which urges one to put knowledge into action"
Wally "Famous" Amos
2. Principles of Animation
There are some principles of animation that can be consciously used in any scene. You should familiarize yourself with them for both animation and animation clean up. These rules can be applied in any scene as very rarely is a character doing nothing. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty spend a short time in complete inactivity, but even then certain of these principles were used. The following list of (principles) are what should be found in all animation.
Pose and Mood Planes
Shape and Form Solidity
Anatomy Arcs
Model and Character Squash & Stretch
Weight Beat and Rhythm
Line and Silhouette Depth & Volume
Action and Reaction Overlap and Follow Through
Perspective Timing
Direction Working from Extreme to Extreme
Tension
Straights and Curves
Primary and Secondary Action
Staging and Composition
Anticipation
Caricature
Details
Texture
Simplification
Positive and Negative Shapes
The purpose of studying and analysing a scene is to acquaint oneself with the possibilities in the use of the principles in animation. Above is 28 principles, although they may be more at first these will have to be consciously, then hopefully in time will become second nature. When emotions are lax, knowing these principles will enable the artists to animate his scene intellectually, logically and artistically as well as emotionally.
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