These are going to be quite random, but here we go...
1. For those who are animators, what would you say your job is like? Do you like it? Why? What company do you work for?
2. What is your favorite way to do animation? (EX: Do you record the voice overs and THEN create the animation to fit?)
3. About how often do you watch cartoons and animated features? (I have to ask this one because I have some school friends who say they're too old and I just wanna prove them wrong! :P)
4. Which programs and equipment do you think are best for the animation that you do? What kind of animation do you do?
These probably sound more like writing prompts directed at your personal stuff, but I can assure you that they weren't meant that way, exactly. I hope everyone is okay with answering these... I need some answers because I need to start learning more asap.
I pledge allegiance to the Princess Celestia
Of the united kingdom of Equestria
And to the Pony-Public for which it stands,
One pasture under Derpy Hooves,
Always dependable, with Elements Of Harmony
And muffins for all!
Sure they are random questions, and when one doesn't know what you want, it's difficult to start answering interview, when we don't even respond to continuous stream of survey forms coming in. So yes, we do watch cartoons, and use equipment like lightbox, pencil and sometimes the computers. What do you do and what would help you get around?
http://www.3danimationtrainingstudio.com I still have not told my story! - Vineet Raj Kapoor
Also, show us some of your work.
Tedious, tiring, meticulous, demanding, exhausting, frustrating, terrifying, all-consuming, satisfying...........there's no one emotion that sums it up.
No.
Yes.
For many of the reasons mentioned just above. My work ends up on screen, but its the travails of getting that work up on screen can be taxing. Animation is a LOT of work for little gratitude or reward ( financial or otherwise), and for projects that you often have little or no control over.
I freelance, so I work for various clients.
That is the most sensible way to do it, because the animation then takes its cues from the track and the voice actor's performance. Doing it the other way can be fraught with problems because there's little to gauge the performance of the animator. Mind you, a tepid bit of voice acting can animation very hard too, because of the acting doesn't have a lot of life to it, the animation will not either.
Heh, maybe you should ask said school friends what the heck do they know about professional animation when they themselves don't actually do it?
For the record, most of the colleagues I have worked with DO in fact watch cartoons and features. There's a wealth of information and problem solving in the successful work that has gone before our own. We don't watch it like most people watch it though, more often its watching a section of the film, then rewinding it and playing it either in slow motion or stop-frame to study exactly how the individual drawings look.
So the answer is daily, constantly--and because there's tremendous value in doing so.
I don't animate much any more, I actually storyboard. But not a day or drawing goes by that I do not have to consider what animators do. I have animated, have done it with all kinds of different drawing apparel from 12-16fld paper and discs, to various kinds of pencils from Tombow Blackwings, to waxy crayons.
These days I work on a Cintiq monitor, and its probably the tool of the future. It can do everything that paper and pencils can do, complete with onion-skinning drawings and offers a variety of software options to work off of.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
1. Taking a great leap into the field, as a postgrad student. Whether I get a job at the end remains to be seen. Animating is terrifying, make no mistake about that. But there's always the "ZOMGITSALIVE" moment when you see your work move well, and there's nothing quite like it.
2. So far I've been working to music, often hitting specific beats. The good thing is it takes out a lot of guesswork with regards to timing. The bad thing is you can get tied to less-than-ideal story pacing, if you're like me and cutting music feels like sacrilege. Haven't worked with dialogue yet.
Because animation is so labour-intensive, you want to do as little of it as possible, and have the maximum impact. So, pre-production is extremely important. Storyboards, animatics, rough drafts of sound and dialogues. As is planning out what you do and how you do it, so you don't run into problems with different software packages not playing nice with each other.
3. I'm not a huge fan of Saturday-morning cartoons, or anime. There I said it. I make exceptions for Studio Ghibli and Cowboy Bebop, but...yeah. As a starry-eyed teenager I really really really looked forward to every Disney feature that came out, but that was in their glory days of the early/mid 90s. There's an awful lot of dreck out there, but there's also stuff like Beauty and the Beast...
4. I've gotten the spiel from a lecturer about the importance of not chaining yourself to one software package. And also on the importance of moving cameras :D My main interest is 2D character animation. Would love to work on paper with a light desk, but the romance of old-master Disney paper drawing is more than outweighed by being able to scrub back and forth, with audio, in Flash. So. Rough animation in Flash, cleanup in Photoshop (now with animation capabilities!), effects animation in Photoshop (funky Photoshop brush action with animation capabilities!), maybe a little more effects animation in After Effects, compositing in After Effects.
And a few more cents' worth of advice:
- Draw, draw, draw.... you want to be utterly fearless. Or at least able to draw from a reference setup.
- Copy, and copy good. If you see something you like, steal it...because they did too.
- If you can't at least amuse your friends with funny sound effects and wild gestures, animation may not be the ideal career path for you :D
- Drink lots of water, and remember to stretch. And maybe put aside some money for physiotherapy.
- Go easy on the energy drinks. At least coffee tastes good if you make it right.
- All-nighters are a bit of a wash. Sure you get heaps done in one night, but feeling horrible all of the next day kind of cancels it out.
liebestrauma - http://rach3.animationblogspot.com