In the mornings when the day would start and students would begin to flood in, I would be waking up from never having left the animation class lab rooms to grinding away on my animation projects and homework. A text from my wonderful friend Nicole would come in asking "I'm passing by Starbucks, want anything?" and my reply was always yes and even if I didn't reply she would come wake up and hand me a hot venti green tea latte and a spinach feta wrap. I could kiss her for being such a great friend, not because she brought me Starbucks or became my class alarm but because during the moment when I had in my hands a film as big as a bomb that was ready to blow up like a 9month pregnant lady, she walked in and put the fire out on the chord. No pressure at all, I sat back and conversed with her, I need to make a new story and flush this one down, not because its bad but because I want to live. 2 months left live the life of a soldier crawling through a puddle of mud under spiked wires and scattered explosive mines through out the ground. Not an idea living situation but it is living at least. I start brainstorming with classmates ideas for my character Trixie, when in to the conversation comes Nicole who comments, "Just make her sleeping since you know all about that". at this point, i let that actually soak in until it suddenly hit me. My eyes opened up in excitement that she was actually right. My great teacher Mike Dietz who I would call my mentor once mentioned in class "Animate what you know best", and that is exactly what I knew I had to do.
I thumbnailed the story and then put it together as an animatic to get a full feel of the film. It was all very rough and quick which put it all together even better.
thumbnails storyboard animatic
2016 College Grind CSUF finished version
shot after
shot I hit the road animating like a squirrel hits the road when its diving
through your wheels to fill its need of suicidal adrenaline. I would get
through shot at a time, key poses, breakdowns, and in-betweens enough to fill
in the story. Asset modeling and rigging was the icing on the cake which might
have felt like that leg someone puts on top of you while you are crunching out
your 50th push up on the way to 100. Then finally the day came, everyone handed
in their long worked on films and we all sat back to the spectacular film
festival help in 2016's production class with Wendy Grieb. Somehow the night
before I managed to put it all together and made After Effects render out this
cut and edited thing we call a film. Not going to lie, but it was actually one
of the greatest moments in my life, even if the fired burned close enough that
i was left with a hole in my pants.
