1st two-week assignment - Mime

My 10 sec mime animation idea was about this really dunk guy in a house Party who grabs the wrong bottle filled with toxic and drinks from it...

Work in progress

The Idea

The Thumbnail "storyboard"

After I got the clear idea I went to shoot the reference video which helped me to define the movements. Of course it is not about trying to copy frame by frame but get the feeling of it.

Animation with Michelle Mikker

Wohoo... Things are going really fast here in Viborg.
We had Michelle Mikker for 4 weeks to teach us animation. She worked at Dreamworks on Shrek, in Lord of the rings on Gollum and she is also a mentor at the Animation Mentor online workshop.
She gave us very interesting lectures every second day about rules of animation, ways of working with the character compare to the story. I'll attach some of my note pages because they are really clear principals for every animator.
On the other days we had dailies where we got feedback. Michelle had this funny idea that the class had to decide and vote after every dailies for the best animation. The winner got this Twinkie (american cookie) keeper toy, and had to write something on a paper and put it in the toy and then give it to the next winner. From the 10 occasion my lovely classmates voted for me 5 times. Thank you : )

The Twinkie award

The Process of the 4 week

We got our assignment on the first day. We had to come up with a 10 sec long mime idea where something happens with the character. We also had to involve an object that the character could interact with.
Michelle said that she had two best friends while animating in Maya: "the Reference video and the Graph Editor". So we drew the thumbnail storyboard and then shoot the Reference video - it proved very useful and my acting skills worked quite well. I also helped some of my other classmates to act out their scenes. For 3D animation you really need those little details and have to understand the poses.

Croquis

Here in The Animation Workshop people have the great chance to go to croqui sessions twice a week for 2 hours of drawing.
Why is it so cool?
We have papers, many different kind of drawing and painting tools, and good models for free.
I like when the model doesn't try to do "amazing poses" but imagine him/herself in real situations and acts them out… Then I'll have a very strong impression of the pose, filled up with a character. (Unfortunately that isn't always like this.)

I love the strong simplicity of Picasso's and Henri Matisse's drawings. Their works influence me a lot when I'm drawing.

 

  

  

 

Postcards

Since I`m here I got used to send special post cards...

 





Birthday present

Møni from Peter Vacz on Vimeo.

I made this short film in my free time for my girlfriend's birthday. First animated one of her graphic then recorded a few live action footage around the school in Viborg then composited them together. This was my first time using AEffects and I really enjoyed it.  Also many of my classmates helped me. Thank you guys! She was really happy on her birthday : )

IMPRO

There is this guy Bjarne in the school who organizes IMPRO workshops with other guys every second Wednesday. I really like acting. When I saw this poster "impro makes people happy" I liked it a lot so I went to the next workshop and took part of it. There was also audience, the other students of the school. It was great and a lot of fun doing all these brain refreshing games, creating characters and running into a weird story where funny unexpected situations happened that you'd never get into by yourself. 

The audience enjoyed it a lot… so did I.

Doing Impro means being able to laugh at yourself without feeling ashamed, being able to relax your mind and think crazy and let others idea guide you. A big focus on everyone.

I also undertook the duty to make the poster for the next IMPRO DUKEOUT.