MY VERY VERY FIRST POST!

I've spent a few days thinking about what I'm gonna write as a first post. The first post is fundamental. If the subscribers read the first post and don't like it they will not come back here again, maybe they will even cancel their subscription, or maybe they will punch me in the testicles if they meet me on the street.

But then I said to myself, "I don't care!"...

I don't mind a punch in the testicles, actually I like it.

So here I am, writing the first post of my Animation blog.

"How to be an animator and still be happy".

You will probably think the title implies I believe animation is an unhappy job.

It's not sure.

This title comes from a few years ago when I was preparing a talk for an amazing Animation Festival in Barcelona ( B'Ars is the name of the festival and MINIMO Vfx is the organiser).

The talk was about me and how I got into animation and how I got to work for all the big companies and how I got to direct my short-film BEANS with Cinesite and with Eamon Butler as Producer.

So, the organisers of the festival were pushing me to provide them with a title for my talk because they were supposed to print out the brochures and it was already too late.

I didn't have a title...I was in panic....and all of a sudden, the "HOW TO BE AN ANIMATOR AND STILL BE HAPPY" slipped out of my mouth like a punch in the testicles.

I didn't know what that mean but I remember they loved it and so everybody was happy.

Eventually i thought about that stupid title again and again and I tried to give it a meaning...a reason why it came out of my mouth that day.

Animation is either the most amazing job in the world and the most horrible job in the world, it depends on many, many factors.

I will write about this a lot in this blog, because this blog, at the end of the day, is about the love+hate for animation.

Ok, now feel free to punch my testicles next time you see me.

ANIMATION TIP OF THE DAY

Even though this blog is not intended to be technical, I want to provide the junior animators with some kind of tip that I've developed throughout the years animating in this industry.

So this is gonna be the TIP #1:

MOVING HOLDS ( when the character doesn't do much...but it's not perfectly still ).

Animating moving holds can be very tricky, especially in vfx animation.

I found quite helpful to playback your playblast at a much faster speed ( i.e.: rather than 24fps, try to play the animation at 90fps ) to check if there is any odd movement that you couldn't notice if playback the animation at 24fps.

The same trick can be applied when you are animating slow-motion shots. If you animate in slow-motion but you playback the animation much faster you will notice immediately if there is something odd in the motion.

Thanks for reading me up to the end.

#animation #testicles #punches #Animationtips