NEW! flash player!

So I'm continuing to teach myself bits of action scripting. I still don't really have a firm grasp on what I'm doing, but I'm learning a bit here and there. I'd really like to be able to take a class on it sometime. I'm sure it would be mighty helpful. Anyway, here's what I made:

FLASH AWESOMENESS!!!!

The bunnies are so damn cute I couldn't help but squeal when I was animating them.

Let me know if you have any problems with it or have suggestions to make it more user friendly!

Total Bummer

So I finally heard back from Soup2Nuts:

"We have received and reviewed your test and unfortunately your skills do not coincide with our current job openings."

This was disappointing to say the least. I wonder what was so bad about my test that I didn't pass. I've always been told by people that I'm very strong in Flash, so why can't I get a Flash based job?

In ToeJam and Earl there's a present called TOTAL BUMMER. When you open it, it kills you immediately. Unfortunately I'm afraid I just opened one.

Rainbow Rabbits and the Employment Drought of 2008

I illegally downloaded Toonboom (don't tell anybody!) a few weeks ago. I finally decided to give it a go. I thought it was ok, certainly a nice drawing interface, but I suppose I'm so acclimated to the Adobe setup that it took me a while to get used to it.

Then I decided I wanted to play around with some stupid effects in AE, since I had never really explored the possibilities of cheesy particle generators and such. Here is the result- strange I know.

I finally called Curious Pictures today, only to find out that they don't want me to start until MID JANUARY! OH NO!!! I was originally told I was to begin in mid December. Now I have a month of nothing to do and my parents continually breathing down my neck to get a crappy job at Target (this is not an exaggeration). At least when I'm interning my parents leave me alone because they feel like I'm doing something productive. I was so excited about starting there so soon. I can't believe I have to wait another month and a half. What the heck.

PLEASE DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO ME:

So I've begun the never fun task of sending out rounds of emails searching desperately for paying work before I debase myself and ask for an application at another department store.

I saw another RISD friend the other week (also unemployed and living with the 'rents). It seems most everyone from my graduating class is in my shoes. Who knew 2008 would be such a bleak time for artistic opportunity?

I need a Christmas Miracle.

In some good news, a nice man whom is a friend of a friend's family found my page and referred it to a founding father of Curious. Apparently it was then sent on to the talent/development people. HOPEFULLY something good will come of this. Looks like I've got more emails to write!

Some day in the not too distant future I plan on getting back to my trampoline film. More of that to come.

But.... I am now a volunteer at a cat shelter! Kitties!!!

Acting Robots

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7749932.stm

This is insane. I wonder how long it will be until they have animator robots. Then I really won't be able to find a paying job!

In my career news, my internship with Tiny Inventions is already over. I'll post the little clips I animated as soon as production is finished and I get a copy of it. I animated squirrels and bunnies! Too cute for words.

I supposedly begin an internship at Curious Pictures in mid December. I'm supposed to call them about it in early December. I'm just worried that they may change their minds or forget about me. I'm probably being ridiculous, but well, I haven't had much luck lately getting any sort of job at all.

I sent my work to another guy at Little Airplane at the suggestion of my Tiny Inventions employer. I still haven't heard back from them. Both times I've emailed people at that studio I haven't gotten so much as a peep back. Either they have absolutely no interest in me, or they are not hiring production assistants or animators. I wish I knew which one it was.

I'm still broke, still unemployed, and still trying to find someone to give me my first break. I really hope it comes from Curious. I just have to wow them.

I'm working on a silly little animation at the moment. I was teaching myself ToonBoom and have been fiddling around in AE to learn more about effects. It's totally cheesey and pretty stupid, but it's fun none the less. I'll post it later this week when it's done.

action scripting magic

This was my first foray into the mysterious land of action scripting. I was just trying to figure out how the coding worked for simple buttons. It took me forever to figure out, but here's the result. I think it's quite funny.

http://www.vanessaappleby.com/buttontest2.html

the ball is rolling...?

I didn't get hired at the jewelry store or Dick Blick. Bummer. I could've really used the money.

Despite my continuing lack of steady income, I have had some successes since I last wrote. I went to my first ASIFA open screening which can be read about here: http://asifaeast.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/asifas-open-screening/
I showed my senior film and it actually went over quite well. People laughed when they were supposed to! Hooray!

Being in New York was quite exciting. I really needed to leave the Valley for a while. I got to see some old friends from school, the Upright Citizens Brigade, and the Metropolitain Museum of Art (an old favorite). All very wonderful indeed. I can't believe how hilarious (and cheap!) the UCB was! I've got to go back there again.

As soon as I got off the bus back home, I threw my butt into my car and speeded over to Kutztown U for a lecture given by Tom Waburton-http://warburtonlabs.blogspot.com/

I was anticipating a small affair, but there were far more people than I expected. I wanted to show him some of my animation since he works at one of my dream studios, Curious Pictures. I wanted to get some feedback on how I might go about getting a job there (even if it's just removing coffee stains from desks or something). Unfortunately, despite the extended Q&A there were a lot of people who also decided they wanted to speak with him afterwards. I waited until the very end so that I could really talk with him and wouldn't interupt anyone's autograph signing. However, I got to ask him a few questions (although I wonder how succinct I was), and then the woman in charge of shutting down the auditorium kicked us out! Poo. Poo, Poo, Poo. He did tell me that if I drop by Curious I should ask for him at the desk. That sounds like a plan to me!

He, like Dave Levy, spoke of when he was first starting out, and he pounded the pavement checking out studios door to door. I mentioned that I was really nervous about doing that, but it's what ultimately landed him a job. He said some places would slam the door in my face, and some places would gladly find someone to check out my work even if they didn't have openings. I should really plan on doing this despite how invasive and terrifying it may seem to me. If it means paying work, I'm all there.

I start my internship on the 6th, and I'm very excited about that. I figured I'd make some pilgrimages to other studios around that time.

I completed my Soup2Nuts animation test, but haven't heard back from them either. I'm wondering if
A: did they get it in the mail?
B. did I do horribly?
C. do they just not have any openings and they're being lazy about telling me I did a swell job?

It makes me nervous. I was really hoping this would lead to some paying work.

Speaking of paying, it looks like my friend's parents may pay me to make a website for their business. Sounds good to me! I updated my website as well- http://www.vanessaappleby.com/

Land Ahoy!

It finally looks as though I can see land from my sea of unemployment. I suppose I'm a preemptive worrier. I get worried that life if going to end when all I really have to do is wait it out a day or two. I forget that not everyone is currently unemployed and has the time to email me immediately. Oh well. I should remember this for the future.

The big news is that I was able to get in touch with Max Porter from Tiny Inventions www.tinyinventions.com. He offered me an intern position working on the next music video for They Might Be Giants. Although it's not a paying position (which is sorta a huge bummer since I'm almost broke), it's a project that I'm actually really excited about working on. I loved the last video they made for TMBG, and I'm sure this one will be equally awesome. It sounds as though it will be a collage of all different mediums: cut paper, After Effects, stop-motion, and 3d CGI. I'm really stoked about working in stop-motion again and hopefully learning more about After Effects. Not only is the project itself exciting, but finally getting my foot in the door at a New York studio is most exciting of all.

My hope is that I do well on the Soup2Nuts test (which I still haven't received in the mail thanks to Columbus Day...) and I can get some freelance paying work through them. It sounded like they do most of their work in the studio though, which I hope isn't a problem for me since I'm currently so far away from Boston.

I also applied to work at a local jewelry store which is owned and operated by an award winning jeweler. Everything in the store was made from precious stones (no synthetics!) and a lot of it was hand crafted there at the place. There was an $11,000 platinum and diamond necklace I was dying to own, but sadly, I'm sure I'll be dead before I could ever own it. I met with the owner, we talked jewelry for a while, and she seemed to like me. The position is for general help in the store ranging from sales to jewelry repairs. I have jewelry making experience, so I'm hoping that plays in my favor. It'd be a steady job, and it'd be in a creative setting. If I get it, I'm hoping to work on the TMBG video while earning bank at the diamond encrusted jewelry store and perhaps even doing stuff for Soup2Nuts at the same time. Certainly jewelry is unrelated to my field, but I've always loved it and what girl doesn't want to spend her day looking at diamonds???

I'm still twiddling my thumbs waiting for this animation test. I think I should take it before I start contacting anyone else about employment. With that said, I believe I'll spend my day cleaning the fence and going to the gym.

A Wee Bit of Progress...

So I may have finally come across a small glimmer of success in the sea of dissapointments I've been experiencing lately. Looks like I have an animation test being sent my way from Soup2Nuts. Hooray! Finally! Let's hope this works out well for me. I can't bare the thought of getting a job at the mall. It's degrading. I filled out a bunch of stupid applications yesterday and realized that I appear grossly overqualified for retail jobs.


In other news, the quest to get fellow 2d character animators to converse with me via email is still going miserably. I heard back from one person so far, and they gave me a helpful tip or two, but never responded to my second email. As for everyone else, I can't say I've heard a word. Is this normal or am I doing something horribly wrong? It's really hard to tell. I get familiar with their work, ask them questions about themselves, drop the reference names, and send them a link to my reel asking for nothing more than advice. According to the How To Survive and Thrive, Your Career in Animation by Dave Levy, I seem to be doing this all right. It's a pretty simple formula, yet it's proving ineffective for me. I wish I knew why so I could change it to better suit my needs.

Perhaps the key is calling people and trying to weasel in an appointment in person? That method seems a bit invasive though, and last time I called a studio looking for a specific person they weren't even there. It's quite hard to get in touch with animators I'm finding. Maybe I really do have the worst timing in the world. It sure seems that way sometimes.

This just about sums it up:

In other totally unrelated news, I am so sore from the aerobics class from hell that I can barely walk! Getting up or down from a chair or step is excruciating. I think I'll spend my day on the computer so I don't have to get up. Ha.

Technical Education and a Rotoscoping Experiment

So yesterday in a panic-stricken fit, I realized I needed to learn WAY more about After Effects than I already know. I pulled out the tutorial that Guillaume sent me about working with the filmstrip format, and I ended up rotoscoping for the first time. I found some of my old video projects from sophmore year and worked on a little chunk of Senan and me playing patty cake. I did run into some snags however. Despite what the tutorial said, filmstrips do not automatically save transparencies. You have to select your drawings and add them to the preexisting alpha channel (you can't even create a new one!!). This drove me bananans. Despite hours of searching online, I couldn't figure out what to do about it. Every filmstrip layer is exported with a white background unless it's been manually alpha channeled out by hand. BOGUS if you ask me.

Anyway, this is what happened:




Ta-Da! I kinda like it. I've got to figure out more of what After Effects is capable of. Once I have an idea of what tools I'm working with, I'll get more ideas for projects as a result. I really wish I took that After Effects class when that guy who was totally awesome taught it. Too bad stinky ol' Dennis took it over after one semester... I need some technical education...

In the beginning...

I've blogged all over the internet since I was a tweenager, but now it's time I've graduated to my very own big kids blog.



I spent the last year of my life working on my senior film, Rise and Shine Recycle Time which you can see here:


http://www.vanessaappleby.com/rise%20and%20shine.html


I submitted it to the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Chicago Children's Festival, and the Animation Block Party. I didn't get into a one of them. Perhaps I was shooting for the stars with these, but I was quite discouraged. I haven't even looked into sending it to another fest since then. If nothing else, submission fees ripped a hole in my pocket. I dropped about $85 on fees and I my work didn't even get screened. For someone in the throws of post college poverty, $85 is a small fortune. My professor said I should keep trying, and he's probably right. I suppose I just need the right encouragement. My prospects for employment (or should I say, lack there of) and the rejection of my film has made me feel like I should probably go back to the drawing board.



And so I did.



I'm in the midst of creating a new personal film about a fat woman on a trampoline and the subsequent havok it causes in her surrounding area. I haven't completely boarded it out, because frankly, I haven't been able to decide how it should end. I'm completely open to suggestions from anyone who reads this.



So far I've animated the opening sequence which contains these first 7 shots:

I also animated a cycle of this little dog bouncing off the shaking ground caused by her impacts. The backgrounds are temporary at the moment. I just wanted to see how it would look with the panning and the camera shaking.



Needless to say, the damage caused in cut away scenes needs to grow as her jumping increases. I figured I should start small, probably with that dog I showed, then perhaps move in this order-


1. flowers in a garden getting uprooted. flowers like this -->

2. a baby breastfeeding. the boob flies up in the air and hits the kid in the face when it starts crying. I want to make this an infinite loop.

3. a team of professional badminton players (whom may be instrumental in the fatty's demise)

4. killer whales in their tanks at sea world

5. houses cracking and jumping off their foundations

6. earthquake on the news and shots of people picketing claiming the end of the world

If any of these don't sound potentially funny, alert me, immediately. keep me from wasting my time. Also, feel free to suggest something else. Actually, don't feel free. You're OBLIGATED to give me suggestions. I want to hear them!!!