Internships

I was just browsing around looking at internship possibilites, and decided to compile them here. Also so I can show the rest of you guys places to think about too.

LWT - An advertising company from my hometown, that I've dealt with before.

Adult Swim or Cartoon Network (really they have tons for Turner Broadcasting Companies)

Another listing of other Internships with Turner

These two are mostly Atlanta based jobs, from what I've seen.

Radical Axis - Atlanda based company know for great shows such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies, Archer, and more.

20th Century Fox - Most LA though, but a few scattered around.

Valve - One of my favorite game companies, and they appear to be hiring. Though no specifics on internships, I can still try. Seattle based though.

Electronic Arts - Another game company, although California based.

Google - has a lot of locations and seems to offer alot of internships, but it looks mostly for computer science. But hey someones gotta design the awesome visuals in their software.

Forge104 - Birmingham based company.

Activision - Another another game company.

Blizzard - An awesome videogame company, from such fame as Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, and that offers internships. CA based though.

Disney Interactive - Kinda cool.

Rockstar Games - I mean GTA, Max Payne, and more - damn I love video games.

Curse - Interseting looking, and Huntsville location.

Viz - The entry point for much of America's Japanese media (manga, anime, and moar!) CA based.

Lucasfilm - Hell yeah Starwars.

Sony Pictures - Both Paid and College Credit, also Summer or fall. Neat.

Dreamworks

Epic Games -Pretty awesome, has done internships before. Also the Unreal engine they make powers goddamn everything, well a lot of games atleast,

Theres a pretty good list so far of places to keep in mind. Now I think I may be setting my sights kinda high on some of these, but damn it a man can dream.

Works done in Aftereffects.

http://vimeo.com/channels/aftereffects

I found that Vimeo had a channel full of just animations made in After Effects. Theres tons of work in there, some straight videos, and some demo reels. Check it out, as it showcases really what you can do with the program.

Character Portrait

As we are preparing to start a character based project in this class, we've started with attempting to nail down who we want out character to be exactly. Starting with the presentation of ourselves and our ideas, we are getting slight more exact by writing a one-page character portrait.

Prompt:

Write a one-page character portrait. Things to think about: Choose one single theme. Explore a concern you care about. Have one main character. Make the character interesting. Describe three characteristic actions by this person. Guess at this person's long-term agenda (that is, what her or she seems to be trying to get, do or accomplish in life. Suggest experiences that might have implanted these drives. Predict where this person's agenda might take them in ten years' time. What is this person's point of view in the immediate, moment-to-moment circumstances. What are others point of view of this character?

My Response:

Loneliness, and abandonment, are the themes that I'd like to work with. I feel that one or the other just doesn’t quite accurately describe the feeling that I'm looking for. Particularly the feeling of loneliness that accompanies being abandoned or being left alone by someone you care about. As far as what I want this theme to accomplish is to lead the character, and hopefully the viewer, into learning self-reliance, or learning how to be alone. This could be seen as my concern that I want to explore.

A character that I'd want to use to portray this theme and concern is a superhero's sidekick whose abandoned by his superhero. For the longest time, the superhero and his partner have always been a duo, living together, fighting crime together, and doing everything together. The superhero was the dominate one in their relationship, as he was the one in charge. Always telling the sidekick what to do and basically controlling his entire life, up until where my story starts to take place. For some reason or another, one that I'm not entirely sure what it is or that doesn’t even have to be explicitly told, the hero kicks his sidekick to the curb, literally. With no direction or instruction from his superior, the main character of my story doesn’t know what to do with himself. Aimlessly and desolately, he wanders the city streets looking for direction, and trying to learn how to live as a single person. I want the juxtaposition of a colorful usually upbeat sidekick to be cast in dark and lonely light to be used to convey my themes. This contrast of character to situation should be reminiscent to that of a sad clown.

This character should seem aimless, as hes lost without someone telling him where to be or what to do. Not knowing what to do himself, where to go, what to be doing, or what he should make of himself, this character should be lost in just about everything. My sidekick should pine for the days he spent with his superhero, and always seem distracted by memories of the past and the life he lost. Sad and distraught, my sidekick shouldn't know how to deal with himself or live now that hes alone, and thus spiraling into a depressed state. Thus, I want this former sidekick to go through the five stages of loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then finally Acceptance.

Originally, my lead in this animation to not have a long-term agenda, as his previous view of the whole world and his original life plan to be disturbed. As a precursor to the story, I’d like to make it seem as if he was entirely dedicated to the crime fighting lifestyle and serving his superhero mentor. Now that hes out on his own, he doesn’t have an agenda. This should be part of the story is, him discovering what he should do for the rest of his life, now that everything in his life has been disrupted. Although he should have an overwhelming desire to be a do gooder. To be honest, the experiences that influence these should be pretty evident. The desire to find his own way in life is attributed to his abandonment by his superhero, and his aspiration to always do good is a remnant of his past as a crime fighter, as hes been doing it all his life. Lastly, as to where this agenda is going to take him, both the character and myself don't particularly know his future, as that is an integral part of the story.

This characters mindset is that of a lost child. Immediately, he will be sad and distraught without direction and completely lost in an overwhelming city. Without a direction his first course of action would be to try and find someone or something to point him in a direction, and originally all he would want is to make it back to his superhero. His gaze will be hopeless, and hopefully by the end of the story to change to a more upbeat attitude in tune with his old personality. Finally, others in this world, would probably view this character as a hasbeen or a shadow of his former self. He should seem hopelessly lost in the big city and without his caretaker.

Oral Presentation.

Here's a skeletal break down of the notes for my oral presentation

1. Peculiarities of my life that have made me see with special eyes:

1. Being a twin

- For my entire life, I've been part of a duo.

- It's always been John and Rachel

- Sharing birthdays, first days of school,

- Competition

2. Technology (geekdom)

- Since before I was born, my families had a computer in the house

- Technology has surrounded me my entire life.

- Had my first computer to share with my sister while still in elementary.

- My Older brother and I built my first personal computer while in early middle school

- Dual phone lines for Dial-Up

- Older brother went on to get a masters in computer science

- Accountant Parents, also huge Sci-Fi fans

- Star trek ornament collection

- Science Olympiad (both brother and I) – built first robot in middle school

Used to dream of going to MIT

2. Conflicts formative in my life are:

1. Break Ups (Relationships)

- Constantly in and out of relationships since middle school.

- Always in it for the long-term - Committed

- First girl I dated was for two years

- Been in emotionally abusive relationships before

- Currently in a long-distance relationship with my girlfriend of almost 3 years (22nd oct)

- Attempted to make remain friends with all those whom I’ve dated, but learned which relationships weren’t healthy to keep.

2. Competition

- Mentioned before with siblings

- I have become a very competitive person in certain aspects

- Had to constantly be compared to both older brother and twin sister

- One National Merit Finalist, the other valedictorian

both Full Ride scholarships

- Had to find a way to excel besides academically – art

- Gaming

- Been doing for as long as I can remember

- Online gaming

- Outlet for my competitive side.

- Been gaming online since around ~10 or 11 years old

- Introduced by my older brother

- Counter strike, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3

- Being chubby as a kid, I was never competitive at sports

3. Themes that I'd like to work with are:

1. Loneliness or abandonment

- Refer back to relationships and being a twin

- One of my biggest fears is being alone

2. The future of Technology

- I'm constantly wondering what the future has in store

- Fascinated by outer space

- ever expanding limits of technology

- Moore's law - # of transistors on ICs doubles every 2 years

- Now the density of storage compounds

- Unoffically the rate of technology advancement ever increasing

- Smart phone now has more ram and cpu ghz than my last computer

- Where can it take us?

- Brings me back to the growing up with a sci-fi loving family

4. Types of characters I empathize with are:

1. Sidekicks or supporting characters

- Rachel always being the outspoken one

- Me being the more shy, less likely to be outgoing

- Never like to hold much of a leadership position

- Being a twin as a part of a duo

2. “Freaks” (abnormal)

- Punks, Skins, Goths, Emos, Metalheads, Nerds, Geeks

- Music Taste

- Being shunned as a nerd through half of my school life, and going to a richy private school in which I never felt like I belonged

- Fringe of society

- One of my other interestes is Body Modification

- Tattoos, Peircings, Branding, Scarification, Implants, anything.

5. Story Topics I'd like to explore are:

1. Similar to the themes answer

- A culmination of current science, science fiction, the future, technology

- A wonder at what is to come or what is or will be possible

2. Refer back to loneliness and abandonment

- Always obsessed with a connection with people

- The opposite of that or the denial of that has always been a fear and interest of mine.

6. Ways I'd like to act on my audience:

1. A sense of wonder

- I'm always amazed when a piece of media leaves something with me

- inspiration, hope, amazement,

2. An appreciation for their lives and all they have in it.

This video...

Awesome:

http://vimeo.com/15425583

Research

Well onto the research into whats out there in terms of motion graphics today.

First up, Haley, the photo teacher, sent me a link to this video no that long ago, because it is pretty freakin' cool and it reminded her of a animation I did for her class, that was stop motion done with composed dslr pictures. I wanted to share this link with all who would possibly read this too:

http://www.lomography.com/magazine/news/2011/08/24/500-people-in-100-seconds

Its almost like a video within a video, cool stuff.

Next up, poking through the links of the class blog, a couple of things caught my eye:

The demo reel for Big Film Design, stood out to me because not only did it show the final result of their work, but they included transitions that showed the footage before, a little bit of the process, and the footage after of certain scenes. The concept of not only showing your final piece, but the work that went into was pretty intriguing.

- http://www.bigfilmdesign.com/

Curious Pictures website seemed to stand out, because of it minimilist approach along with a strong logo. It stuck in my mind after I left it. - http://www.curiouspictures.com

(also they made Kids next door, and Sheep in the big city so they're alright by me)

Finally another demo reel stood out to me, just because of the interesting way they portrayed their name and said who they were. By hiring a graffiti artist to paint it as the reel plays, throughout the loads of their work you see his brush strokes and him working along till its finally over and hes done. It was for Imaginary Forces - (which is a cool ass name too)

-http://www.imaginaryforces.com/featured-work/reel/montage-spring-2011/

Now onto unofficial research topics:

OMG, second half of season 6 for doctor who started. Freaking win.

Also I just watched an pretty neat movie called The Nines, starring Ryan Reynolds (one of my favorite actors.) It was pretty interesting with him changing characters along with the story. Its pretty cool.

"Three short films, each depicting the same actors in different and sometimes overlapping roles. Together the stories illustrate the relationship between character, that role, its creator, and the creator"

Watch it here: http://www.crackle.com/c/The_Nines/The_Nines

Motions

Well I finally got to do something with my scene, but I realized I was better off remaking it as a wholey illustrator file. Since I still wasnt sure exactly what I wanted to do with it, I wasnt sure if I wanted to zoom in or expand certain things. Therefor my original scene was a composite of vector shapes and photoshop, and therefore not nearly as scalable. So that was the first thing I had to overcome.

Also I had to learn the gradient function of illustrator, apparently I never had to really use it before.

The second problem I had to overcome was being too ambitious with the first project. I really had a lot I wanted to animate with rain, fog, film grain, and the final car moving. Asides for the rain, the fog and film grain proved too much a challenge with my still limited knowledge of After effects.

Finally on a side note of learning new things, I found the wiggler in after effects to be pretty awesome. I thought the car just moving smoothly from side to side was a bit boring to be honest, and with a bit of internet research I discovered the wiggler and how to use it. The big hurdle I came over was that I had to select both the beginning and ending keyframe for it to allow me to use it.

To sum it all up, here you go: