Class 1 - Session 3

I wish I could say this week was easy for me. ofcourse it would be a lie - It was quite difficult (not complaining though).
This week we had a double mission - making Stu in an excitement pose and FIRST ANIMATION: A Bouncing Ball.
I really like making the poses of Stu and I think I'm getting the hang of it. My mentor Eric Lessard gave me an e-critique which opened my eye to the way of looking on poses: Weight (it could be nice if you character won't fall down because it's center of balance will be out of place), Parallel lines (the shoulder line against the direction of the waist line), motion line (curve - the spine and head flow), and ofcourse - silhouette (including negative space, twinning and tangents).
We also had to make a planning for the bounce itself - this was the most difficult part for me, to understand the Spacing and the Timing - you might say I bust my ball over this one :)
I think I've managed to do a pretty good bounce for a first time.

Class 1 Session 3 (103) - Bouncing Ball on Vimeo

Class 1 - Session 2

This week was great, since first of all, I've managed to finally have a normal Live Q&A with Eric Lessard - he's so great.
Well, the task for this week was to go out to a public place and start skeching people - just poses for now.
I must admit it wasen't coming very naturally for me, and I had a few days when I just couldn't "get it" and felt frustrated because of it.
At the end, I had to ask my darling wife to pose for me - several of the Stu poses are hers.
Tonight there is another Live Q&A with Dana Boadway, and it's going to be really fun!

BTW - I also won a T-Shirt of AM!!!! That made my day :)

Class 1 - Session 1

I would like to tell you all about how amazing it was for me, but due to a technical difficulty I couldn't here nor see anything of what being said.
Luckely, there was no assignment yet, only a group meeting, but I was really looking forward to meet my mentor and classmates - to get to know who they are.

I also had trouble in the streaming lectures on the site, so here' s a tip for any one who have the same probelm I did:
In case you see the movie does'nt play or get stuck every few seconds, go in the EXPLORER browser to INTERNET OPTIONS, then go and disable JAVA and restart your computer and log on.

It did the trick for me, hopefully this would help others (and I hope I won't suffer other Tech issues in the future).

My Q&A with Shawn Kelly

I'm after the first class, and what I had to do was to send my mentor a private message about who I am, what do I do (so he could get to know me) and what is the reason I registered into AM.
I looked for some new friends and started connecting around the campus (it's an amazing feeling, like everybody are just like you).
This first experience was amazing for me, the chance to know so many people who are CRAZY for animation as I am, in such a short time. Everybody are so full of energy, it's overwhelming.

Today (7 AM Israel time) I woke up especially early to meet Shawn Kelly on my first LIVE Q&A - another great experience.
Shawn is one of the three people who established AM, and he's working in ILM (Industrial light and magic) for about 10 years now, and have a lot of knowledge and experience in the animation industry.
Poor Shawn, what should have been a session of one hour, became nearly two and a half hours because we kept on asking questions, but during the intire time he just kept smiling and answering everything we threw at him - his such a GREAT GUY!

Well, that is all for my first day at school :)
I hope it would continue to be as wonderful and as fun as it was yesterday.

After a short weekend in the north, I've returned home and finally I got to know who would be my mentor - Eric Lessard.
I took the liberty to do a little background check on him - He's been working on Shrek 1+2+3, Antz, Madagascar, Reboot and also on Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas,
My first simester is going to begin today.
Oh ye, almost forgot to mention it - tommorow there is a little bonus for the new students - a live Q&A with Shawn Kelly (ILM).

It's going to be a GREAT start!