All images from Inspired 3D Character Setup by Alan Lehman, series edited by Kyle Clark and Michael Ford. Reprinted with permission.

A Brief Introduction
Since entering the field in 1995, Andy Jones has played a big part in the ever-increasing role of computer graphics in film and commercials. As a key artist in the creation of several memorable television commercials, including The Opera Baby, at Digital Domain, Andy has typified the role of the all-purpose digital artist with his solid base of animation and technical skills. Andy has continued his success with a string of big films, during which he has begun to share his knowledge and love for animation in a supervisory role. In this interview we will explore some of the key projects in Andy’s career, and get some thoughts from Andy on the future of digital characters.

Michael Ford: Can you give a little history of your career?

Andy Jones: I first developed an interest in computer animation during my freshman year at UCLA. I was a design major, and I was taking a class in computer drawing. The professor showed us the Pixar short, Luxo, Jr., and at that moment, watching those lamps come to life and entertain the class, I knew I had to get into this business. I started taking traditional animation classes and as many computer animation classes as I could find at UCLA. My first job in the business came during my senior year, when I got an internship at a small company in Brentwood. I was hired as a conceptual artist painting stills in Photoshop. I asked my boss if I could stay late at night to learn Softimage on the side. Four months later, I graduated from UCLA and was hired by the same company as a full-time animator. One year later I got a job at Digital Domain. I worked on four different commercial projects before becoming an animation supervisor on Titanic. Shortly after, I took a job at Centropolis Effects, becoming the animation supervisor on Godzilla. I also worked at Square USA in Hawaii, where I was the animation director for Final Fantasy. [I also directed the] 10-minute short film for the Animatrix series, written by the Wachowski brothers, creators of The Matrix.

MF: In your experience, what area of your education has benefited you the most?

Andy Jones.

AJ: My design background helps me with composition and color. I found that extremely useful throughout the Animatrix project. From storyboards through rough animation layout, I was always trying to achieve the best composition to tell the story. Color plays a pretty big roll, as well. Using different colors at different times, essentially playing with the subliminal psyche. Certain colors suggest caution, danger or sexuality. The process of using color to enhance the story made it a lot of fun to direct the lighting and compositing work.

MF: How did the experience on Titanic affect you in your career? What are some of the lessons learned from creating digital characters for a feature film?

AJ: Titanic was a blessing in disguise. Nobody knew at the time that the film would be so well received. We had a lot of fun with those sequences. Believe it or not, it was not too demanding. The most difficult shots were the wide shots of the ship breaking apart when we had to populate the decks with about 1,500 people. There were not too many hero shots of CG characters, and the few that were there usually involved a person jumping or tumbling, thus motion blur was our ally. Titanic was also my first experience with motion capture and the reason I lobbied against it on Godzilla. It was like pulling teeth. The tools were very rudimentary at that time, making it very hard to just filter out the noise — let alone try to edit or change a performance. In the end, we used about 10% of the motion capture and keyframed the other 90% of the digital stunts during the sinking sequence.

MF: On Godzilla, how much of a role did you have in creating the character setup as animation supervisor? What is the typical role of the animation supervisor with regards to character setup?