Travelling Tipits - FMX 2014: Third day

Owwww.... Getting up that morning hurt... My friend's alarm kept going off and everything!
Anyway, an extra 10 minute kip on the coach and into FMX day 3. This was the day I mostly split apart from the main group.

Since we got there extra early I snuck into the Filmakademie screenings which included this lovely and heart warming/tear jerking short

The Present - Trailer / 2014 from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.

So after bawling my eyes out, I stayed in the Meidinger-Saal, for the 'Developing Games for Mobile', presented by Arash Keshmirian from Limbic. This talk gave interesting insight to the evolution of mobile games development and how audiences can change. They started out with TowerMadness, a highly successful game, that powered their company; with paid for unlockables. Later, however, when they went back to make a 2, they discovered that the older audience did a marmite, either loved it or hated it.

Very interesting talk.

I then went to a technical lecture on 'Gravity' and 3D conversion at the cinema, again interesting, but my notes are incredibly vague on it... I think it blew me away somewhat.

Staying there I then saw 'Behind the invisible visual effects of Rush' which was presented by Nathan Ortiz from Dneg...

THIS BLEW ME AWAY IN A DIFFERENT WAY. I had no idea how much Cg was in this film, it was all so realistic, which was crazy. Thankfully I sat with Remco and he managed to shut my seemingly permenant hanging mouth. The team work described in the Dneg team reflects on the time I went to see them, they are very much a community there and they want to work together to produce the best visuals. All fantastic.

I then saw the development of 'Manou the Swift'... I had considered working in Germany before, and after this it cememented the idea. I loved the concept of this film, the art, the models, the passion of the team, it all radiated the potential of the film. Looks fantastic and I cannot wait to see it... Am currently making multiple showreels... Definitely making one to send to Luxx studios!!

I stayed for the best of Siggraph Asia shorts that were shown, all amazing for different reasons.

I then ran to see 'Making Animation Blockbusters in France for Hollywood', which was more businessy than I somehow expected.

Stayed for 'Producing and Visual effects for the Grand Budapest hotel' which left me with the same feeling Rush did, I had no idea how much of it was visual effects. This was presented by Gabriel Sanchez, and others, but Gabriel I met the previous night at the party. So that was a funny meeting again, he's a lovely bloke. Seriously though, there was so much visual effects in that film, and by the sound of things, a great deal of them was because of mistakes made in the original shoot - CRAZY.

That wraps up the day...

But I went out to another party in the evening! WHOOPS... Still, it was an industry meet.

See ya soon,

Claire

Travelling tipits - FMX 2014: Second Day

"Action >Obsticle > Objective"
Ed Hooks' acting for animators 2, fueled more animation ideas in the morning, with crazily important theories and tips for better story in animation. Trust me, if there's ever a talk presented by him go to it, he's fantastic, and has loads of ideas for people to learn from!

-Thumbs to come-

This lunch time was when I discovered a lush pizza place, with huge slices... VERY YUMMY... and great for a pizza fan like me.

Then I spent the afternoon in simulation, which provided insight into areas of animation I previously had very little knowledge about.

Frozen: Simulation was presented by Rajesh Sharma and Lawrence Chai, they dicussed snow and clothes mostly. The snow simulation fascinated me because of my physics background, Sharma and Chai discussed the equations that were used. Here's, more or less, most of that discussion in this video.

 But they also talked about Technical animation, and how that department takes simulated scenes and corrects them... I am now researching that area some more, as they seemed to be the department that pulls the final pieces of animation together, as they still were creating arcs and appealing movement.

Pixar's talk by Samantha Raja, consisted of loads of simulation examples dubbed 'motion that is calculated by software because it is too complicated to animate by hand'.. I wouldn't say too complicated to animate by hand... just tons more work for an animator to do, (but 2D does it)!

Either way, this was another interesting talk that I loved again for the subtle, appealing look of it. Mostly talking about clothing and how it interacted with the clothes in Monster university! FANTASTIC!

 In the evening I attended the afterparty with Remco van Dongen, and managed to speak with loads of people. Gave out as many business cards as I received, so I think I did well there! Met many people from different segments of the industry, all with different roles... Some roles I would not have thought about in the past. So overall amazing experience!

Managed to crawl back to the hostel at 4am.... Ow!!

Travelling tipits - FMX 2014: First Day

So I have been and sadly left FMX... Sad times, had such an amazing experience there, would recommend it for any animator!!
So now to catch you all up...

Day 1:

Travelling -
A lengthy but relaxing coach ride all the way from Cardiff to Stuttgart! Was crazy, but, if I am honest, most of us slept through the majority of the trip. However we all did get up and out on the underground, and played catch... Which was funny seeming the small space! The ball did go under the coach a few times, thankfully though we managed to get the ball, and its pursuer, every time.
Must've been asleep when we came to the German border, as I remember reading french, falling asleep then waking up reading German :)

AT FMX:
First thing, the building that Fmx was hosted in was gorgeous! Second thing, oh I was so hungry when we got there!
So the first thing on the agenda was setting up the stall, which we all did in double quick time- before heading over to 'The art of animation: Advancing Visual Effects in "How to Train Your Dragon 2"' in the cinema....
Which was basically a huge tease for the awesome animation, as well as including some sweet testers of fire effects and other nice visuals (snow for instance) used in the movie. I needed to see the film afterwards, but its still not out yet!!!
Then we ran back to the main building for 'Concept art: concepting for film', which was a lovely insight to some painting techniques and workflows.

For lunch we discovered a Subway like place... Which had some yummy sandwiches.

Then we came back, watched 'Frozen: The Art of Lighting', which summarised the films lighting with saturation = a tense, sad... Negative scene, whereas bright and vivid scenes were happy, or dramatic.

Then there was Ed Hooks' lecture on acting for animators! A fantastic way of thinking, that unfortunately has come too late for 90% of my final project... Although I have some ideas to incorporate it. Future projects though will not just contain animation, but also a motive for the movements in the character, even if it's body mechanics!!

After all that, we tried to hunt for food, failed, were taken to the hostel... Setup base there. Then went out for hunt 2... Found a local restaurant, had chips then had a larger... Got to admit was not fond of larger prior to the trip, now however I do drink the stuff!

Summary:

So much travelling. 

Awesome art,

Amazing animation tips ,

And discovery!

See you all later,

Claire