Sunday, February 04, 2007

Gallery

First of all, I want to thank God so much for what I have right now. My internship at July film started from last week, and it's the greatest learning opportunity I have ever had.

Mike Nguyen, the director and owner of the studio, has been teaching another intern from Calarts and I about animation. Mike has been giving us animation presentations, they're not about how to animate nor techniques or anything like that, but it's more about animation theory, and the thought process.

One thing that really hit me was animation is simple. Animation occurs from forces, which can be a physical force such as gravity, or internal forces. Internal forces come from our inside body, and depend on our emotion and motivation.

When I was at school, I felt like I was caring about techniques too much, like about all the 12 principles, timing, secondary action, and acting, etc... But it shouldn't be acting. It should be real feeling, and it's from inside of us. And like everyone is different, every animator has different ways to animate, and it creates different unique animation, which makes us artist. When we put all of ourselves into the animation, the animation will shine to audiences. The 12 principles are important, but to bring it to the next level, we need to think of why we use them, and there's no rule for how to apply them. It all depends on the scene, and experimentation is required if we want to become something other than good draftsmen. We shouldn't try to copy the work of other animators, each animator has his or her own life experiences, so we should develop our own animation based on our personal observations and experiences.

So, that's some of the things I've learned from Mike's teaching. From now on, every week, Mike is giving us an animation presentation, so I will try to share it in here, too.

At the same time, I am relearning how to draw. Until now I was drawing from drawings by other artists, and I didn't draw enough from real life, so my poses have become cliche'. Mike has also suggested I try drawing with a different line quality to keep the energy in the drawing and to communicate the force in the pose. So now I'm trying to adjust my way with his, and keep working on it until it clicks. I have been drawing over and over the characters from their film. I am having so much trouble and I have been frustrated. But I can see the improvement in just one week since I started. Hopefully, I am going to begin animating this week...


The second thing beside the internship, Matt and I are having a gallery! The opening reception will on Saturday Feb. 17th, from 6pm at Cal state Fullerton, Exit gallery. Everyone is always welcome to our gallery. It's also going to be open from the 19th to 22nd. It's going to be about animation, drawings, sketches, some actual filmed animation, and maybe some flipbooks. Matt 's style is a bit more cartoony than mine, and he's also working on 3D animation. It should be a lot of fun, and we'll have food there.

Anyway, I hope everyone can make it to our gallery!

6 comments:

Charles said...

thanks Miyuki, i found the information about animation very helpful, but i still wouldn't consider it easy. I cant wait for yours and Matt showing. Will you be selling a sketch book?

chia said...

good luck with the gallery show!
Those are very interesting theories about force. But for me, acting and storytelling will always be the most important thing because that's what brings characters to life.

laudbobner said...

My name is Bob Laudner, I remember seeing pencil test in Brian Kennons class my first semester at Fullerton. I just now got your blog through the PMC. Congratulations on your internship and gallery show. I hope I get to meet you next time I see you. Could I add you to my blog page as link?

Miyuki Kanno Long said...

Hey Charles, thank you for the comment;) I am glad it is helpful. It was something hit me so much, and I've been learning from him a lot. So I am glad that I was able to share with you. About a sketch book....we are trying....!

Hey Eric, thank you for comment. That's true that acting and storytelling is important, but Mike was more talking about animation, not a movie. I hope it makes a sense...

Hi Bob, thank you for visiting my blog. I am taking only one class this semester at Fullerton, so I don't know when I will be around. But I am trying to be at ACME on Thursday! I hope I will see you, too. And you can add me to your blog page anytime!

katzenjammer studios said...

Miyuki! Please share these great presentations with us! I'm happy that you've got all these great opportunities. You deserve it! You work hard!

Miyuki Kanno Long said...

Hey Chris, I am glad you liked the information. Thank you so much. I will try to share with you guys as much as I can, thanks!