Call of the Wild

2008-06-09T15:27:00.000-07:00

WHOA!!
I'm done school ( not done my short yet.....grrr) so I treated myself to a piece of art from my favorite comic book, Spider-man Blue by Jeff Loeb and Tim Sale!!!!!!!!!

No time to blog! Gotta run!!!!

2007-04-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

WAAA-WHOOO!!
It's April and .... whoa... wait a second... APRIL? What the? Yikes. Time is flying by super dooper quick these days.

School is nuts. I'm getting up on average at 6am and I work until 9, head to work, sometimes go home for lunch and work, come back to work, then head home and 3-4 days a week work late until I'm too sleepy to see
stuff.
Breaking point.... coming .... soon.... but I'm learning a ton and it's a blast. It's just super hard right now.
=(
This past weekend was pretty fun! Brooke and I drove to Whistler where her friend CAT had her B-day!
We went up and boarded on Saturday then hit the town that night!

What else is new... hmmm... umm....I saw Meet The Robinson's with Hopkins! I love the villain. Wowzers he was animated well!
..... must be something else.... hmmm....
Nope.
Just at work trying to animate Rats. Evil rats bent on destroying the world.....procrastination station over here...

Later!

2007-03-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Whoa..... where the hell have I been?
Busy, that's where!

Every time I'm on the computer I'm working at my animation and haven't had time to
post anything! That's not to say that I haven't had anything super cool
happen to me!

-Brooke and I moved in together into a EPIC apartment! 1700 sq feet, sub zero fridge, two bedrooms and a heli-pad!We're having a blast living it up! She's also put up with my Uglydolls so far, but I did find Jerro in the oven the other day. I don't recall putting him in there, but I guess I did....

-My super dooper special Comic Con edition Black Jerro Brooke got me for Xmas is making friends.

AM is closed for the weekend, so Brooke and I
are running up to Whistler to snowboard and relax! Then on Saturday
Hopkins and I are going to watch the hockey game!

I'll try to update more stuff in the coming
weeks, but as term 2 ends and term 3 starts, I think I'm going to be
super busy again, we're starting intro to acting! I'm learning a ton though and thank god ( or the baby Jesus) that Brooke is so supportive or I think I'd be toast by now!

That is all.

2007-01-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

YAAAA!

1st week of school!
I was working on a guy that would run up to a ball, go to kick it, then at the last secind the ball would jump out of the way sending the guy flipping though the air. Then the ball would bounce on top of the guy and then off screen.
My new mentor Mark Behm said that yeah, that's entertaining but I won't learn as much as if I did a guy doing a 180 turn.
Nuts. So I changed my idea. I have to start animating that today.

Oh yeah, I turned 30 the other day. Brooke threw me a surprise party where I crapped my pants.
I had no idea. It took me about a hour to get over the shock. I can't beleve so many people showed up for me, even after all these years of me making fun of them!
Brooke did such an amazing job at puting that party together!
She's a keeper...

Pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/corsiworld/sets/72157594473250903/

Hmm... what else....
I had to buy a scaner to help get all my planing sketches online. I found a little beauty at Futureshop for 100 bucks. Not bad!
I thought I'd test it out!

The new Warcraft game comes out tonight at midnight! I may go to Best Buy and check it out around 11ish, but only if there's a chance of me getting on the news......other wise I'll get it Tuesday.

Later.

2007-01-02T13:57:00.000-08:00

MERRY XMAS!!!!!
I had a rad Xmas full of fun and snow! There's way to much to report, but I'll start by showing off where I was on the 23rd!
A friend of my aunts is a bulldog breeder and just had 8 pups! I've wanted a bulldog for about 15 years now!!!
Brooke and I ran over for a visit during a family get together in Chilliwhack!
DEAR GOD! If you're rich and are reading this can you please by me one.

One more week off from Animation Mentor!

2006-12-17T11:22:00.000-08:00

TERM 1 DONE!!

So I'm now done the 1st term at Animation Mentor, and holy smokes was it fun!!
The sites closed until January 7th...... so what do i do now? I've been living on the site for 3 months and now I can't login for 3 weeks!!??
AAARRRHHHGG!!!!
I'll post some pics and maybe movies of my stuff......

YEAH!

2006-11-26T01:13:00.000-08:00

Just got back from an amazing adventure in Thailand with Brooke!
I'll post more pics soon as I'm still in Singapore and have a ton of work to do!

But here's one of the best pics so far. A little diving issiue with my mask and too much pressure resulted in this little baby.
The Doctor said it'll go away in 1-2 weeks...... eek!

2006-11-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

Before I started this course, I scoffed at the students that wrote, "Whoa, sorry I haven't updated my blog, I'm just so busy!!"
Doing what!? Animating bouncing balls? BAH!

Yes..... Sadly, I've falling from grace and haven't updated my blog because of these dreaded "boucing balls".
usually I'd animated them, then be done with them, but the caliber of talent in Animation Mentor makes you push yourself. Which I love, but no blog for me.

I'm heading off to Singapore tomorrow and have a 16 hour flight, I plan on blocking out my walk cycle then. Before the class, I'd be able to bang one out in 2 hours! But now, I don't think the flight's going to be long enough.......
Animation.....Mentor......so...... cool..... and...rad....must ........rememer to.....breath....

2006-10-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

They say that you have 70,000 bad drawings in you. So keep drawing and you'll get them out as soon as possible.... I think I did 10,000 of those this week.... wow..... drawing.... tough........
More on this later:

2006-10-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm working away at home .... do do do dum dee dum dum ( if you ask anyone who has ever sat next to me while I'm working, those are the sounds I make) and all of a sudden, "SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" This hair raising, crazy banshee scream starts coming form my monitor! You know those ones that you can hear just enough to make you want to bang you head against a wall until it stops! UGH!
It goes away when I turn it off, which makes animating tough.

Blast.... Looks like I have to fork over some cash for a new one. It is only a 15 inch guy form the early 90's that I bought for 30 bucks... but still.....
I found a picture of it on the net next to some nerd.

2006-10-20T10:36:00.003-07:00

2006-10-17T15:43:00.000-07:00

Waiting for sound again from my editor for this promo I'm working on..... doo. doo.. dum dee de dum dum...... What's new.... let's see....
AH!

I did another assignment for Animation Mentor!
THE BOUNCING BALL! and then a pose of their model ( named STU) in an excited pose!

My mentor Steve liked the ball, but didn't like the pose AT ALL. HAHAHAHA!
Ah well, you win some, you loose some!

This week I have to animate TWO balls, each with a different property. Like one a bowling ball, the other a ping pong ball.

I want to get this done asap so I can get people to look at it and help me make it perfect. PERFECT I SAY!

What else..... OH.. I babysat on Saturday night, Jordo(1)aka Jordan and the BEAST(4)aka Lauren. It went pretty smooth until I had to put Jordo down. My sister didn't tell me she was teething. I walked out of her bedroom and hour later, bloodshot eyes and ears ringing.
Thank Cripes Brooke could hold the Beast off with a dvd of Little Mermaid. I'm not sure if Brooke saw much of the film, The Beast didn't stop talking, not even to breath..... she's a crazy one that Beast.
I'll post a pic of them later, I don't have any recent ones at work.

AH, my sounds here. Gotta go!

2006-10-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

GAH!

SCHOOL: I started the bouncing ball last night after an hour or so planning. Man.... it's tougher than I thought when you actually think about it instead of just laying down keys and making it up as you go!!! I kept trying to do it the old way and just go straight ahead, but stopping myself and trying to animate it with a layered approach. It's working, but it's just getting the timing of the y axis down before I even think about the Z axis! Then as soon as I throw some Z into it, the timing on the Y looks off!
EEK!

It's rad though, I also got my critique of my pose I did, my mentor Steve liked it and said that the only thing he'd change would be the shoulders, which is fine because the model I was using didn't even have shoulders!

PERSONAL: Went up to Whistler this weekend with Brooke and had a rad time! I cooked a steak for dinner on Friday... a little too much, but ah well! Then on Saturday we wondered around and took in the sites, then went to ELEMENTS for dinner. If you ever in Whistler, check it out! AMAZING food.... the cheesecake was a little hard though, but I'm only picky about it because it's my favorite desert. Great time!!!!
(this picture is from last year on the way to Whistler, I don't have any pictures from this year, so just pretend )

Here's a picture from our trip!!

Then I did dinner with the MOM, GRANDPA, Trish and fam for Thanksgiving on Sunday. Ya!!

What else....hmmmm.... only a few more weeks until I head to Toronto with Brooke for a week, and then a week after that we're off to Singapore! I'm kinda getting worried about the program while I'm over there, but I think instead of sleeping in everyday, I'll get up REALLY early and work, plus take advantage of the long flights and use the time to animate!

This is a really long post... wow... I'm sitting at work waiting for the editor to cut some sound for me to animate too....

Later!!

2006-10-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

ASSIGNMENT #1
YEAH!
I just finished uploading my 1st assignment to Animation Mentor! We had to go out and draw a ton of people, take a drawing we liked then pose it up in the computer. Neat-o.
Here's mine!

I'm off to Whistler for the weekend to do some mountain biking and hopefully some relaxing with Brooke! This juggling a job and doing AM is getting stressful..... THIS IS ONLY WEEK 2!!!!!!
HAHHAHA!

I see a glass of wine and a cigar in my near future....

NEXT WEEK: Bouncing Ball..............

2006-09-27T14:00:00.000-07:00

Whoa... I've started the course. This is going to be CRAZY! I spent in total, 17 hours on the computer on Monday!!
HAHAHAHA!
The Animation Mentor course is going to be so amazing.... SO MUCH WORK, but so good!!

YA!

I wore this when I went golfing with Brooke's dad after only meeting him once!It could have gone really bad, luckly it didn't and he, like everyone I meet, loved me! We golfed Nicholas North in Whistler. I'm going there again this weekend, I don't think I'll wear the same thing though....This has really nothing to do with anything...... rambling.

2006-09-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

It's Christmas morning!!

Well... no, not really, but it felt like it when I woke up at 5:30 this morning to jump on the Animation Mentor site for my 1st day of class, but it was down due to the new semester starting up!
BLAST!

It's probably a good thing, I'm in at work now finishing up a scene that I didn't' get done last week.... checking the site every 5 minutes though....

2006-09-22T10:14:00.000-07:00

I found out who my mentor is:

Steve Cady is a French-Canadian born in Montreal, Canada. He is a 1997 graduate from Sheridan College's Classical Animation programme. For the past 9 years, Steve has worked for numerous studios across north america from gaming to films. His most recent film projects have been Scooby2, Ring2 and The Chronicles of Narnia at Rhythm & Hues.His other passions include learning to fly, Golf, going to the movies and hanging out with the kids!

Lets get it on!

2006-09-19T10:54:00.000-07:00

WHOA!

Rad link:
http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/

They take photos almost everyday of New Yorkers fashion!
Great fashion and great reference from drawing!

That is all.

2006-09-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

Okay..... Animation Mentor has my cash but no word yet..... ARRGGHH!!! I hate waiting for stuff like this! I start a week today!
Who's my mentor!?
How does the login work?
Will my video camera work as a webcam?
Who's my mentor?!

I'm sitting here at work animating realizing how much work I need at this craft. I feel like I'm just going through the motions right now, laying down the same poses I always do. I'm not really getting inside who the person is and why they'd move and act the way they do...

Well.... it can be pretty tough when you're animating something like this. He's cute but pretty flat:

2006-09-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

Another art studio contacted me with an amazing deal!

They had a original BG from Lilo and Stitch, one of my most favorite Disney films of all ever!
They guy said that they hadn't put it on their site yet, he wanted me to have first crack at it seeing as I was looking for Lilo/Stitch and Emperor's New Groove art!

Cels are hard to find, but the original BG's are even harder to come across! Lilo and Stitch used water color in their backgrounds and I think it gives the film a lot more heart and depth then the regular Disney blah blah backgrounds. They have a feeling that your seeing the world though a child's eyes! So much beautiful art in that film.

I love this pic...... but not enough to for over $5000 US for it.

The search continues.

2006-08-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

Quick news:

I just got excepted as a student into Animation Mentor. If you don't know about it, check it out at animationmentor.com...... holy crap this is big.......

Crap..... crap..... crap......

I'll do a bigger post later on, I'm running out the door with Brooke to her cabin this weekend!!!!!!!!
( she was a HUGE help in me getting this. I had to write a 500 word essay as to why I should be acepted! She fleshed out all my idea's and made this RAD essay!)

-Buck Lee

2006-08-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

YA!

I'm BACK!

I almost bought a original Chuck Jones drawing. The guy wanted $1600 US for it, but then he saw how much I loved it and he brought the price down to $1400 US. What a sweetheart.

I said no.
But I'm still looking and I'm in talks with a few art galleries right now....

Here's a pic of our ramp and Ben with a Power Ranger. We were paying guys $20 who were dressed up to skate the ramp. Some pretty rad bails....

2006-07-31T23:33:00.000-07:00

Chicago!? WHAT THE CRAP!?

So I'm heading to Chicago on Thursday to some sort of Comic convention to represent my company's new movie which I was the supervising animator on: Tony Hawk's BOOM BOOM SABOTAGE.
I'm going with the Producer, Ben and a skate pro ( pro jerk if you ask me) who worked on the show, Mike.
We're going to be doing some sort of panel, talking about the making of it on Friday around 11:30 in the Christopher Reeve theatre.
Neat-o!

I've never been to a comic convention, but I hear it's a riot! A RIOT I SAY!

The three things I'd like to do while I'm there:
1) Give a destructive wedgie to some guy dressed as a Storm-trooper
2)Bitch slap a Kilngon.
3)Fork over some major cash for amazing original art from the 40/50's by animation god Chuck Jones

It's going to be rad.

http://www.wizarduniverse.com/conventions/chicago.cfm

2006-07-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

Okay!
This animated short thing is harder than I thought, with work getting in the way it's almost at a standstill.... ALMOST!
I'm going to take the next few days and start listing influences of mine so I can start getting jazzed about this again!

I've got to get back to work ( super tight deadline on this feature film pitch I'm working on.... dear god help me) but when I get a spare sec I'll rip something out!

The 1st post will be on Chuck Jones for sure though, that I know!
Love that guy... just going frame by frame though his stuff makes me crazy.

This is a fantastic bio on dvd of him. YOU HAVE TO GET IT!
( that and the Frank and Ollie dvd which I will never give back to Graham, sorry pal. Mine now.)

gotta jet..... ack.... work.... pressure.... so.... dark... help ... me......

2006-07-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

News on the short? Kind of. This one is more about the staffing of Call of the Wild:

My good friend Alison has been hounding me forever to cast her in my short. Not having the heart to tell her that it's an animated short, thus no real humans, I've been telling her that she will have top billing as the Lead.

Oh well.

Also, my wonderful Production Manager Brooke is starting to really hound me on getting this thing going. Problem is, it's stuck in a modeling nightmare and the burden of making Bare is falling from person to person with no one really taking ownership.
So trying to get Brooke more involved in the process of 3D animation I started to give her a 101 lesson in Maya. I was thinking, if I can get her up and running in 3D, she can help model some of this stuff and have more of an active roll in production!

The second she realizes how much fun 3D animation is, she'll cast away the glamorous role of Marketing Director at Chalk Media in Yaletown, to take up the role as Head Super Dooper 3D Maker of Stuff for Chris Buckley Productions in Surrey BC.

Here's the two culprits in action for a photo shoot of Call of the Wild. Note the party favors. Always a party with these two.....

2006-06-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

PRODUCTION GRINDS TO A HALT!

I've been waiting for a week for Monkies guy to get back to me with his pics. I may have to send off my primitive drawings to the guy who maybe will model Bare so I can get started on this bad boy.

Until then I have a Mistress to keep me busy, but keep this between you and me.....here's her picture:

2006-06-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

Quick post: Monkey emailed me today saying that his buddy is now working on the 2d drawings of Bare's face! Hopefully that'll flesh out his personality a little more!

WHO-RAY!

On the tech front I'm using Maya everyday at work right now and becoming more and more familiar with it..... Which is good seeing as I want to animate my short in Maya..... hmm.. what else.....

That's all, have a wonderful day and or night!

2006-06-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

HEY!!!

So here's my design for Bare! He's a little stiff right now, but I've sent the pic to Monkey and he has a guy that's worked in 2D for a while that's going to sproose it up a little!!!!!!

I hope you like him!

YA!

2006-06-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

ARRGH!!

I've been sicker than I've ever been in my entire life the past week so there's no new updates.
So sick......

Here. I'm stealing this link from Hopkins. He steals half of my jokes and links to post on his site, so I thought I'd return the favor!
TAKE THAT!

Click!

This one's a little much, but cool:

YEAH!

This is a great little short. I love it...... I don't know what the kid's saying, but I love it.

WEEEE!

The End.

2006-06-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

HELLO!
Long time no talk.... yeah.... so..... umm...

I've finished the final drawings for my Bear, Bare. I really wanted to post them up tonight, but I can't because I don't have a scaner.
Boo.

So I tried taking pictures of them and they came out all blured and blah.....
One pic came out ok, but it's not a final design, but I thought I'd post it anyways so that the three of you out there can see that, yes I'm actually doing something other than surfing the net and watching cartoons ( there has been quite a bit of that lately though)

Enjoy!

2006-05-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

While I was trying to figure what my background sets will look like for this short, I remembered a scene from Chuck Jone's Duck Amuck where Daffy is going all crazy and yelling at whoever's messing with him.
(it ends up being Bugs Bunny)

The background has a child like drawing quality to it, very simple. I might do some tests to copy this. I think with a white background with very little detal, Bare will stand out that much more showcasing my animation........hmm..

The two pics below are kind of what I'm thinking. The 1st one is from Duck Amuck and the second is from a CG set some guy made. It's way too realitic for me, but you get the idea... I hope.

2006-05-27T18:17:00.000-07:00

YEAH!

So my process for this thing is going to go like this:

1) Get the idea out in a script format.
2) Start boarding this whole thing.
3) Get an idea of what everybody and everthing is going to look like.
4) Get those drawings to people who know how to make it in Maya.
5) While the models are being created, I'll re-do the boards and figure out what needs to go and stay story wise. I may have a "kick off party" where I'll show the short in the boarded stage to friends and ask them what to keep and loose. I think that's going to be pretty tough, while all of my animator friends are great and skills are amazing, showing something to them that I'll be asking them to tear apart might be tough on my fragle ego. I'll buy a brand new cry pillow for that night.
6)Test the models while setting up the 3d animatic
7)Start animating
8) When I get the animation to a place where I can't take it any further, I'll have a animation party ( yes I'll buy the booze) where I'll invite people that I know are good animators and get them to help me go over the animation and help me push it.
9) More animation
10) Now this is when it's going to be tricky. I'm either going to try and shop this thing around just as a reel and maybe get a new job, or I can try to see if where I'm currently working would want to use it to shop around as a short film..... I dunno yet, let's see if it's good enough......
11) Sleep.

So far I've done steps 1-4 and I'm starting 5.

My Production Manager , Brooke Van Hatten is cracking the whip to get a kick off party sooner than later so that my story will be a little more solid that it is now with the imput from my friends. So hopefully I can agrange that in the next week or so.

Buck Lee

2006-05-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

SO!

How the hell amd I going to get this done?

Good question and I'm open to any answer you have.

2006-05-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

OKAY!

I've finished the first pass of my boards for this monster of a short so I thought I'd post a couple. I'd like to go over some of the drawings again, but if I get my 3d models made sooner than later, I'll re-do the whole animatic in 3d.
Hopkins pointed out that I've got way too many close up shots and that I should mix it up a little....
I think that's due to my lack of drawing skills.

Pic 1:Here Bare ( yes Bare not Bear) wakes and then get's up.

Pic 2:Bare sees a place where he can hide from the crowd and hopefully go about his business.....

Pic 3:Here in a fit of rage he runs to a baby who has fallen into the bear-pit to tear the poor thing apart! Dear god! Will someone stop him?

When I get around to it I'll try and post the full boards timed out.......

Call of the Wild starts pre-pro!

2006-05-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

Ah HA!
BLOG!!!!!!!!

I'm starting a short animated film called Call of the Wild which is about a bear in a zoo who has to go pee, but is too scared to with all the people watching. I'd like this blog to be an online progress report on how it's going, and the highs and lows of this animated adventure. As well as an insite to me and how I'm going to balance my life seeing as I'm a part time ninja as well as a full time animator!

I'd like to ( when I figure it out) post pics and when animation starts, animation tests for friends and enemies to critique.

Thanks for dropping by and keep coming back to check out what I've done, also feel free to comment on anyhting you see here ( except spelling) .

Buck Lee