Animation Mechanics - Fall 2011

This is a compilation of student work from a 10-week Animation Mechanics class in our graduate Animation program. Students in this course study and practice the foundations of animation from the core texts "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams and "Timing for Animation" by Harold Whitaker and John Halas. Students also study all 16 disks of Richard Williams' Animation Masterclass. In the class we give special emphasis to the importance of timing, spacing, and weight. It's old school!

Looking for Animators

We're looking for Animators to join our faculty. Production/studio experience is very important to us, so those without MFA degrees will be considered for a full-time non-tenure-track position. There are currently over 175 majors enrolled in our Animation MFA, MA, BA and BS degrees, and you'd be joining a full crew of 7 full-time and 14 part-time Animation faculty members. Animation resources include a stop motion studio, two green screen stages, a sound recording and mixing studio, and a mocap studio. Past visiting artists include David O’Reilly, J.J. Sedelmaier and legendary animator Yuri Norstein (and more coming this spring!)

For more details and to apply, visit http://facultyopportunities.depaul.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=50866

Visiting artist Yuri Norstein demonstrates his
multi-plane technique during a workshop.

The Gift

As a final project in the Animation Graduate Seminar, everyone was asked to pick one thing that resonated with them from the material covered and make an animation based on it. I was extremely pleased to see such a great variety of influences and approaches, so I will be posting several projects throughout the month of December. Enjoy!

Lisa

1. Christal Charlery's "The Gift" (This is all your fault, Devin.)

Animation I: Final Projects

Animation I students finished up the quarter by producing a final project of their choosing, developing the work from storyboard through sound design. Below is a slimy sampling of the great projects produced by students!

First, let me introduce you to "Simba the Snail" -- created by Brian Almalvez.

And what follows is "A Strange Encounter" with the work of Aaron Hunt.

A Strange Encounter from Aaron Hunt on Vimeo.

It was a real treat for me to work with such great students during my first term as a faculty member in the DePaul animation program.

Our new MFA program

The deadline for our new MFA in Animation program is February 1, 2012. Everyone is very excited about this new offering, and to share the news we created a promotional poster that will be mailed to schools nation-wide in the coming weeks. Spread the word!

The Onion A.V. Club interviews Eyeworks

The founders of the Eyeworks Experimental Animation Festival, Lilli Carré and DePaul Animation professor Alexander Stewart, were interviewed about experimental animation and their festival on the Onion's A.V. Club website.

A.V. Club: Animation is a ridiculously painstaking process. What kind of person does it take to be an animator? 

Alexander Stewart: That’s a good assessment. Animation is extremely tedious, time consuming, and exhausting in terms of inspiration. In general, a 3-to-4-minute short film, would take an artist a year or nine months to make. So you need either to be crazy, or else mind-bogglingly patient to be an animator. You’re not depending on actors or a director of photography to make your film; you can sit down and, with the simplest tools, you control the ingredients involved to make exactly what you want to put in. It’s about expressing a singular artistic vision.

Don't forget to purchase tickets from the Eyeworks website and attend Eyeworks this Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 5 and 6, at DePaul's CDM Theater downtown!  We all love Eyeworks, and we're very grateful that Lilli and Alexander have held it at DePaul for its first two years.  

Cameraless Animations

The Experimental Animation class has been working with 16mm filmstrips to create cameraless animations, a la Len Lye, Norman McLaren, or Stan Brakhage. Using drawing, scratching, painting, hole punching, spray paint, tape, glue, and other tools, we created some wild abstract animations. Then, the footage was transferred, edited and manipulated digtially. Some examples are below, and more are on our class Vimeo page.

Dan Kelly:

Anne Petrokubi:

Thomas Swanson (the amazing soundtrack to this film was created by hand-scratching lines into the sound area of the film, McLaren-style!)

Visiting Artist Lecture: Animator J.J. Sedelmaier

The CIM Visiting Artist Series Presents:

ANIMATION GURU

J.J. Sedelmaier

Founder, Producer and Animation Director of J. J. Sedelmaier Productions

The Ambiguously Gay Duo

Beavis and Butthead

Schoolhouse Rock

Founded in 1990, JJSP has received over 700 Awards of Recognition from various film and print competitions, with screenings in over 100 festivals in 25 diff‑erent countries. The studio has worked with clients such as Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, MTV, and Cartoon Network. Come learn all about the studio behind The Ambiguously Gay Duo, Beavis and Butthead, and Schoolhouse Rock!

J. J. will be here to share his extensive knowledge of the industry, as well as his expertise in the areas of animation, comics, print art and illustration. A moderated Q and A will follow the screening.
RSVP on facebook and invite your friends! https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=274719809227709

6pm Friday, October 28

CDM Theater, Loop Campus

14 E. Jackson, LL105

This event is FREE!  limited seating

LBJ Orders Pants

This animation from Put This On is a great example of animating to found audio.  And it's hilarious.

Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation 2011

Lilli Carré and I are planning the 2011 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation for Nov. 5 & 6. We'll be showing about 35 short animations, focusing on abstract animation and unconventional character animation. It's going to be held at the DePaul CDM Theater in 14 E. Jackson. Full details on our website.

Winter 2012 Animation Electives

In addition to the normal required courses, we're offering a number of interesting electives next quarter (click on the course name for more info):

• Anime History
• Advanced Motion Graphics - NEW
• Advanced 3D Character Animation
• Graphic Narrative (comics)
• Environment Modeling (for games)
• Advanced 3D Compositing
• Acting for Animators
• 3D Texturing and Lighting
• 3D Topics: Organic Modeling with Zbrush
• Topics: Advanced Hand-Drawn Animation

You can find the details on these and other ANI courses here.

Esthesia

Esthesia by Kyle Sullivan (Animation BA, 2010)

Malcolm Sutherland at OIAF 2011

Meghann Artes and I went to the Ottawa International Animation Festival this year, which was a valuable and inspirational event for anyone in the field of animation. One of my favorite filmmakers in attendance was Malcolm Sutherland. He had two short yet substantial films featured in a very competitive category in the same year. He mentioned that he cranks out a film in about 3-4 months. He picks up an occasional freelance job, then works like mad for a concentrated period of time on his own films. Here are the two screened at Ottawa.

Animation I: Evolving Cycle Projects

Last week in Animation I, we dove into Flash with a fun "evolving cycle" project. In this assignment, students had to make a short 3-5 second animation that repeats. With each repetition, they were to add a new animated element until they completed 5 full cycles.

Diana Moya-James created "Out at Sea," which you can watch below:

David Shastry took a non-narrative approach, instead drawing inspiration from Rudolf Arnheim's writings about symmetry and color.

Live! Nude Puppets!

Here's an exercise from last winter's Stop-Motion class by grad Mary Omelina. The goal was to animate an unadorned armature performing a subtle action, with the intent of the movement describing the character, rather than the surface detail. I love the little nuances in this.

Experimental Animation: Found Object Project

There's some insanity going on in ANI356, the Experimental Animation class, this quarter. Here's a couple of pieces from the Found Object project, where we all collected fifty objects and animated them using replacement animation.

Ben Austin:

Katie Kapuza:

Chuck Viane, President of Global Distribution, Disney Studios

RSVP on the event facebook page

A DePaul Commerce graduate and Chicago native, Chuck Viane is just completing a 25-year career at Disney in which he worked his way up to the top position in global theatrical distribution. This included worldwide distribution for all Disney motion pictures including its subsidiaries and partners such as Touchstone and Pixar. With Disney setting numerous box office records over the past decade, Viane is easily considered one of the most knowledgeable and influential people in the in global theatrical motion picture distribution in the world.

Viane will participate in an interactive onstage conversation, moderated by CIM faculty member JoAnne Zielinski, on Friday, September 23, 2011 at 2:00pm in the CDM Theatre on the lower level of The Daley Building at 14 East Jackson. Viane will present a brief excerpt reel of the many projects he has been involved with during his time at Disney and then move into an extended Q&A discussion with DePaul students and faculty moderated by Professor Zielinski. For cinema and media students and anyone interested in the past, present, and future of cinema distribution in the new media landscape, this is an rare opportunity to hear from a top executive from a top major Hollywood studio.

The CIM Visiting Artists Series presents Viane in partnership with the College of Commerce.

DePaul University's CDM Theater, lower level, Daley Building
247 S. State Street.
Chicago, IL
Friday, September 23 · 2:00pm - 4:00pm

it's not about breakfast

it's not about breakfast by Dan Wilson (Animation BS, 2010)

Neat Meat

Neat Meat by Kevin Eskew (Animation BA, 2011)