Sometimes you just have to go to Bali..

Great week in Bali.. A place that I've spent a considerable amount of time in the last 15 years. I realized that I've thought of practically every one of my animation and art concepts while on that island.. going back for another round before heading back to the states for Dec and Jan.

Epic Sketchbook: Don Low..

Don Low is Singaporean. Which is Awesome. Don is also a member of the epic group Urban Sketchers. His drawings inspire me to get outside and appreciate this wonderful city state more often. I hope you enjoy his drawings. In his own words:

"My passion is drawing and sketching as much as time allows me to do so. I am a digital artist who loves to paint and draw with traditional media such as watercolor".

LA, the Lost Weekend (Part 2)

I woke up on Friday October 29^th, it's my LA premiere! I buy the local papers, the LA Times and the LA Daily News and anxiously turn to the film review page. How would they critique my film? Thumbs up? Thumbs down? But after turning every page – I couldn't find my review – how could that be? We sent them numerous screeners, they were definitely aware that the film was coming out. I freaked. I called both my PR agents and they both accused the other of sabotaging my reviews. I tried to call the film editor, but she was away for the whole weekend – lucky her!

So, I had no idea which agent was telling the truth. In any case, I had to go to the premiere. My good buddy, Ken Mora, put together a dinner for over 20 fans and I had my cousins Christina, Nikki, and Kelly come down from Sacramento with a case of celebratory wine. As we rushed to the cinema, I was not surprised to hear that we only sold 1/3^rd the capacity for the opening night. This was not a good sign!

But I still worked the publicity machine. I did a masterclass at Dreamworks and told them all to go see the film. Also, Jerry Beck set up a great screening at the Cinefamily that was packed with fans, and they all said they would go see “I&A”. And we did get a nice review and article in the LA Weekly. But the thing that really pissed me off was the fact that the LA Times is the journal of the film industry. It's the paper read by Steven Spielberg, Jeffery Katzenberg, and all the members of the Motion Picture Academy. Without a review in the LA Times, my wonderful film is non-existent. It's like it never opened in LA. It's a phantom film. And everyone who saw the film raved about it! The final insult was as I was about to board my flight to return to New York, the people from Disney called and said that they wanted me to come by to talk to their studio..! AAARGHHH!

Oh well, my only consolation is the Chicago opening on December 2^nd. And I have one PR person, Gabe Levinson, and he's very dependable and I know he'll pack the Music Box Cinema.

Glen Keane Gallery show in Paris..

Glen Keane will have a show at Arludik Gallery in Paris from November 10-January 8th. The gallery will show over 60 pieces both personal work and from the Disney Studio. Wish I could be there for this one!
"We will discover some studies of Gorillas made in Burundi by the artists in a preparoty time for Tarzan, some sketches coming from his traveller note book, charcoal nude studies, but also some watercolors of female dancers and head of hair that let us forsee the genesis characters like Jasmine and, of course, Rapunzel".

Rare Pinocchio Pencil Test..

This is a great scene.. I've studied it for a long time. It was very helpful when I was figuring out the "burst" of the arms coming out of my characters chest in Puppet. Enjoy!

LA, the Lost Weekend - Part 1

After the big success of Idiots and Angels in NYC, I was very excited about opening at the Laemmle Sunset 5 on October 29^th. I felt that it would be a huge success, given the NYC success, and the fact that LA is an animation town. Also, two articles were planned about the film in the LA Weekly and the LA Times. On top of that, I had two PR agents working the town – I couldn't miss. Upon arrival in LA, I was feeling great. The weather was perfect and I had a great hotel in Studio City (The Days Inn) and a lot of sessions with the industry folks.

My first gig was an ASIFA Hollywood Q&A at Woodbury University with the inimitable Tom Sito. Although it wasn't a packed house, we had a very enthusiastic crowd. Animators Rick Farmiloe, Bill Kroyer, and Antran Manoogian (head of ASIFA Hollywood) came by, plus the original voice of Tinkerbell Margaret Kerry was there. It was a wonderful show.

The next day was a very busy day, I did an early morning appearance on Pepper Jay's Cable TV show, then Ken Mora rushed me to Santa Monica College for a master class for the art and animation students – it was a packed house. That night, I appeared at the great Amoeba Superstore where a live rockabilly band The Sidewynders played a set as I joined them on stage to do a live group cartoon portrait. Afterwords I sold “Hair High” DVDs to the gathered crowd. I want to publically thank Cara, who was such a wonderful host at Amoeba, and I'd love to return again.

After that, I rushed to the Aero Cinema in Santa Monica for a screening for Academy members and friends. After the screening, I was joined on stage by my genius music producer, Corey Jackson, for a discussion moderated by Timothy.

As I drove home, I was full of optimism for a big success as “Idiots and Angels” opens the next day.

Monday Randoms.. Enjoy.

Because you can't always talk about animation..

Rare Mickey Mouse Pencil test..

I've posted another rare Line Test here, this one is from Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983). No audio. There's some really great work here, especially the donald stuff (scrooge), also you gotta love the film line test!

Animation 101: Five Teaching Tools for all the Prof's out there..

Being a teacher is particularly challenging to me due to the fact that I'm self taught. I'm currently professor of Animation at New York University Graduate program in Singapore. Here's a few tools I've used this past year.. Enjoy! Please comment to add your own methods of teaching, or how you would like to be instructed.. all are welcome. There really is not such thing as "Teaching" anyway.. it's more like "Revealing to others" if you ask me.

(Above) Patrick and NYU Grad Student David Huang
during "Drawing in Motion" class on the beach in Sentosa Island.

1. Get the hell out of the classroom.
That's right. Have class outside. Even a computer class can be mobile these days. Artists are too often chained to their desks, blow the dust off that sketchbook or grab some lap tops and have class in the sunshine, or even the beach (easy for me to say since I teach on the equator). I think it's important to go where reality is, if we are to observe and represent it within our art. Perhaps the best thing about getting out of the classroom is getting away from the internet.

2. Real time animation demos using the cintiq and flash.
My favorite thing about flash is instant playback. When teaching a class how to do a particular walk, why not animate directly before their eyes and hit play? it's one thing to talk about how to do it, and another thing to SHOW how to do it.

(Above) Revising a students animation via dry erase board and projector.

3. Move the dry erase board in front of the projector.

When viewing students work on the screen, move the dry erase board so it projects onto it. Now you can pause films, revise poses, suggest things, etc. For example, there's nothing like mapping the arcs (or lack thereof) of a joint or a hand onto the board, totally revealing the path of that joint and any problems that may exist. It's also excellent for cropping/suggesting a different field size.

Above, sketches from "Pull", my latest film that
I'm doing along side Tisch Aisa Thesis students.

4. Make a film along with your thesis class.
Making a thesis film is one of the most difficult things your students will ever do.. and it helps when the professor is struggling through the same steps. I like to stay about a week ahead of the class so I can show them exactly what the next assignment is (ie a rough storyboard) and how it should look and be presented.

(Above) NYU Grad Student Maryellen Atkins tapes a peg bar onto a white screen to convert a $3k cintiq into a simple light box;)

5. Use the Cintiq as a traditional light box for drawn animation.
Oh the IRONY! You're lucky to find any animation tables or light boxes at the technology happy modern university of today. Who needs a light table when you have Cintiqs! Just tape a plastic peg bar to the bottom, set your desktop to blank white (nice and bright!) and you're in business! This also saves the school space and money;)

Halloween at Tisch-Asia!

It was a good party. Some of my animation students above. From left, Prof. Patrick Smith, Shreyom Ghosh, Sandhya Prabhat, Yang Liu, Wendy Weng, Kai-Sen Chan, and David Huang. Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Emilio Gomariz GIF's..

I love GIF animation.. and this one caught my eye the other day. Epic.. "xtremity" by Emilio Gomariz.

Emilio is an industrial designer and art director working in Madrid.

"I love creativity and I like to see how the people express it in many different ways: photography, art installations, product design, architecture, animation, technological and digital projects. That’s why I did TRIANGULATION BLOG, a meeting point and a source of inspiration opened to artists and designers around the world".

Animation 101: Importance of Thumbnails..

Animation takes planning.. it's not something you can just throw yourself into and expect anything to work. I'm often frustrated when my students get ahead of themselves and just start vomiting lines everywhere, and then act disappointed when it doesn't move like they wanted it to.Do yourself a favor, get off the computer, open your sketchbook and PLAN your action. Every hour spent planning will save you twice that time animating. Animating is difficult and takes some patience.. you need to come to terms with this difficulty and start from there. Below is a page from my sketchbook dated March 1999, from when I was working on my first film "DRINK", (note the sketches on the top from MTV's Downtown, the show I was working on at that time). I found this the other day, and my first thought was that I had "over thought" that scene.. but being that I was a VERY beginner animator, I think I did exactly the right thing. I was so worried back then about whether I could actually do it, that I planned everything out way ahead of time... I even showed my thumbnails to experienced animators that I was working with at MTV to get feedback on design and timing. I remember that I showed some thumbnails to animator Eugene Salandra (he was the best animator at MTV).. he looked at it and paused.. and said.. "this might work. Are YOU going to animate it?" Below: more sketches from "PUPPET"

Rare Milt Kahl Pencil Test...

Digitized this beauty by Milt Kahl and Frank Thomas (I think he did Penny) from an old VHS tape given to me by a buddy at Disney years ago, enjoy. View the Quicktime here.

Drawings of Mayumi Haryoto..

Mayumi Haryoto has several drawings that ring close to my heart. I can't get enough of configurations made up of people! (below)Here's an interview with Mayumi... her own website is here, but it's tragically commercial and difficult to navigate. Enjoy.

The Town

Now that the awards season is starting, as an Academy member, I get preview screenings of all the award-worthy films.

It's an interesting cycle. January to February they play all the films that need the members' votes to win the Oscar, because they are nominated.

After the Oscar event, the winning films play themselves to death, trying to squeeze as much box office as possible before the summer blockbusters open and it's closed season on films with smart content.

Then from September to early October is kind of a grace period in between the big Hollywood extravaganzas and the award season prestige pictures. This is the area that I decided to release “Idiots and Angels”-- it's the easiest time to get screen space.

In any case, in order to get a jump on the awards rush screening, Ben Affleck's “The Town” is being released at the end of September to get an early start on the other quality films.

And what a wonderful film it is! Directed by and starring Mr. Affleck and Rebecca Hall, and supported by “The Hurt Locker”'s Jeremy Renner.

The film is a wonderful slice of Charlestown-- north of Boston. The accents, the bruising hockey culture, and the preponderance of bank robberies makes this film a real treat to watch.

On my scale of enjoyable films, I give it an 8 out of 10. Check it out, you'll love it!