Animation is Awesome

So my last term at university is under-way. I have to make sure I don’t get distracted from work by my birthday. I don’t really have plans though, apart from looking forward to my grandparents visiting and going to see Shrek the Musical.

My flavour of the week is sculpting. By that I mean characters for animation rather than works of art. I was inspired by a show reel I saw in class. The Flynn brothers are twins who went to Glamorgan University and took the animation course together. They have a very impressive stop motion show reel showing elements of the production for their graduation film ‘Opening Night’. It is like a miniature Laika (Coraline and Paranorman) production and just shows you what you can do with talent and hard work (and a double?).  You can see this at www.sculpt-double.co.uk.

I was amused the other day because I have been voting for the NBA All-Stars. If you don’t know what I mean, in Basketball each season they have a game with two teams, made up of the best person that plays each position as voted by the fans. So the fans choose the best two forwards, two guards and centre from the east and west. My amusement was because of an article that said the voting is inaccurate because novices only vote for people they have heard from and girls vote for the players that are smiling, the latter of which I am guilty of.

I like it when DreamWorks release an extra story for fans of their films. I liked Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless, this Christmas I got the Kung Fu Panda addition ‘Legends of the Masters’ and one for How to Train your Dragon (HTTYD). The HTTYD one was really good a proper separate story about the Viking Christmas and the dragons having babies, which are adorable, a definite must see if you like the film. The Kung Fu Panda one was not in full blown 3D, and the story was not quite as good as HTTYD but if you like Master Oogway it’s a must. If that makes no sense I am sorry!

New Year

Happy New Year! This is going to be a scary year for me, I am on the very last part of my degree, doing the major work that will secure my classification and I have no idea what will happen after that. I have been stressing out about whether everything will turn out well enough, but realistically although it will be hard work, this should be an enjoyable time. It is possible that making animated films and 3D content may never again be my main occupation (although of course I would like it to be).

I enjoyed a relaxing holiday because all my deadlines were prior to it. Christmas day was quiet and Boxing Day was spent with friends, children and dogs. Yes, the dogs get presents too, but not too expensive as they will mostly just get destroyed. Although saying that, my boyfriend bought one of the dogs a purple toy cow a few years ago and she goes and gets it and shows him it every time she sees him.

I finally got to see Puss in Boots on New Year’s Eve. It’s good, it’s not Shrek, but it’s good. I very much enjoyed it and it stood alone as its own film, it had a good thought through story with some very humorous moments. The effects when the magic beans are planted are spectacular. Zach Galifinakis’ character Humpty Dumpty didn’t seem to be as vocally funny as he was physically.

I got some super Christmas presents. I got three ‘Art of’ books, the most impressive of which was ‘The Art of Finding Nemo’ which has got quite expensive as it went out of print. So I very much look forward to reading that, also Bolt and Shrek Forever After and another animation book ‘Setting the Scene’ about animation layout by Fraser Maclean (a guest lecturer at our university). Now I just have to tidy my room so I can put them all in pride of place.