Part One

Back in the fall of 2010 I created a demo reel of the animation I had created up to that point. It was based on the exercises of Richard Williams’ wonderful book “The Animators Survival Kit”. I first bought it at the UCF bookstore during the summer of that same year and it would prove to be one of the best purchases I ever made in my life. It really changed my way of animating from that point on.

The book was an immense help in teaching me how old school animation techniques were done. I learned how to create fluid character animation, plan and time my drawings accordingly, and studying different methods of animating I never knew of. I would apply the lessons of the book to my work in Intro to Animation during the following semester in the spring. Had it not been for this book then things would have turned out very differently.

The film was initially titled “Part One” because I had planned on during more installments of similar nature following this video, but that fell by the wayside as I focused on my studies. Eventually the reel would evolve into "All Art is Endangered" in Intro to Animation during the spring of 2011. Most of the clips you see deal with a man or an animal acting out the various poses or actions featured throughout the book. There is no storyline as the purpose of the reel was just to practice so you will find very different types of clips shown in the video. I started out doing some basic walk cycles of generic characters that were used as the book's examples. As soon as I got the hang of it I then began to animate my dodo bird. After years of the bird staying in my head the reel would be his very first animated appearance.

The book’s techniques blew my mind away as I applied them to scenes where he was extruding his head outward, moving in quick motion, and when he was sneaking by the waters. The latter sequence was a mixed media composition with the character moving in front of a real background. The image was actually that of a picture I took by the popular Mythos Restaurant at Universal’s Islands of Adventure. I then gave the scene a film noir feel to make it mysterious or eerie.

The biggest thrill of all the dodo bird sequences was when the creature is walking forward against a looping background like in those 1930's cartoons. I was soo psyched about it when I saw the scene play out for the very first time. Back then I had never created a character that could move in both weight and in fluidity before. While the animation was done on Toon Boom Studio the colors was applied through Photoshop which would also mark the first time I applied the latter to my animation. The burn and dodge tools were used to create an air brush effect for the lighting and shading of the character. Once the animation was compiled together on Sony Vegas I changed the color to a more romanticized purple color scheme through one of the software’s hue filters.

The last section of the reel differs significantly from the rest of the preceding clips because it was not based on the exercises in the book but rather from observations in life. I was always fascinated with the architecture and history of the Twin Towers before and after 9/11. Yet it was really after the attacks that the towers remained in my head for the years to come. I thought it would be great if I could just animate the towers rotating together as the two lone doves gracefully fly by it.

I watched countless documentaries on the history of the towers and used those films as reference on how the towers rotated from the camera’s point of view. They are in a continuous loop as the camera passes by them at the end of the scene. The towers move towards the left to give the illusion that we are flying over them. George Muybridge’s detailed book of still frame photographs of moving animals was also a great resource for animating the birds. When the animation was done the sequence was then compiled together in Sony Vegas as a complex multi-plane camera scene with the clouds being blurred to create depth and perspective. I personally and objectively rank this sequence as among the very best I made during my time at UCF.

The soundtrack you hear in the background is from Spaceship Earth, one of my favorite Disney attractions. Of all the interpretations the ride has the best one was with Jeremy Irons serving as the narrator. I still listen to the ride audio from time to time when I work which can be easily found on YouTube since Disney has since changed the ride again. And lastly I want to give a shout out to Matt Dombrowski, who gave me Richard William's video lectures when I took his course on the History of Animation during the fall semester. Those video lectures were very informative and helpful to my work as well so thanks.