It amazes me how quickly one’s life can change.  Just a few months ago I was on here raving about my passion for animation, and my drive to become a professional animator.  Then, suddenly, things changed.  I got a new day job that fulfills most of my goals, and suddenly the drive the become an animator RIGHT NOW shifted into neutral.  I started coasting through Class 2, not really putting my all – or even my half, or my quarter – into my shots.  At the same time, I became a full member of the Central Florida Puppet Guild, and started spending more time with the puppet community that I love so dearly, and decided to put animation on hold and switch focus.  I was going to wait until the end of class 2, but when I realized I wasn’t putting anything into the class I figured there was no point in staying.  So I went on Leave of Absence.  I figured, better to retake Class 2 if and when I go back to Animation Mentor because I wasn’t going to be able to give to Class 2, so I wasn’t going to get anything from Class 2.

I still may go back to AM next summer, after my Leave of Absence ends.  I still have a passion for animation, it just needs to wait in line behind filmmaking and puppetry.  My previous day job was not fulfilling my needs other than having a good income and great coworkers, but my new one does fulfill a lot of my needs, so I no longer need to use animation to get me into a great day job while I try to become a working filmmaker.  So in the meantime, I’m going to focus on finishing a film I shot last December that hasn’t been getting much of my attention due to having a new baby in February and then going to animation school and then getting a special FX gig right after dropping out of animation school.  Once that is done, I have a script for an all-puppet movie that I’m super excited about, and will even include some stop-motion animation.  The movie I have to finish first combines puppetry, 3D animation, and 2D animation, so it’s not like I’m going to stop animating.  As I said, I still love it, I just need to live it in a different way right now.

So, Class 1 ended a week or so ago. It was far more time consuming and difficult than I realized it would be, but a much better learning experience than I could have imagined. Sean was a great mentor, and always had excellent advice in his critiques.

I was a bit disappointed with myself, because I never really found a groove in managing a full time job, 2 kids, and class. I didn’t think it would be an issue, because I’d done lots of freelance work and personal projects the last couple of years, but that was with only 1 kid. The freshly christened Daciana made the time problem escalate exponentially, and I just wasn’t prepared. She’s 7 months old now, and a more regular routine is established, so I’m hoping I’ll have an easier time making time in class 2.

Class 2, which begins today! In a couple of hours the student site will open up again (students have lost access since the end of Class 1) and I’ll find out who my new mentor and classmates are, and what time my new Q & A is.

While we wait, here is my progress reel from Class 1. I hope to post more than my progress reel for class 2

Tonight I get to meet my mentor, Sean Ermey, and fellow classmates in the first of 72 Q&A sessions I plan to attend.

I’ve spent the last couple of days in the thrall learning the student site. Checking out the forums, cruising the campus, downloading and trying out tools, watching the myriad videos available. I used my Dex puppet to record my first Video Journal, which was fun, but not well-planned.  Good way to verify my webcam and microphone are working, though.  Haven’t gotten any feedback on it yet.  Managed to use the AM Chat tool to chat with classmate Michael Petro, who is also living in Central Florida.   He’s already got some nice animation skills, which can be seen at his website.

Finally got to login to the real site.  It is more awesome than I imagined.  So many wonderful resources!  Watched my first lecture, which was an hour long video that mostly consisted of Shawn Kelley being uncomfortably close to the camera talking about how awesome animation is and letting us know what to expect.  There were also numerous interviews with animators working at various big companies (ILM, Pixar, Blue Sky, etc.) sharing their passion and their stories of why they got into the business.  It felt a bit like, “We know you just committed to spending almost $20,000 on us so we’re going to use this opportunity to make sure you’re really excited about that fact.”  In this capacity, I must say that it worked on me 100%.  I didn’t think I could be more excited about the program, but I was quite wrong.  It is great to see people who are so passionate about what they do, and are genuinely eager to share that passion with you.  There has not been enough of that in my day jobs.  I tend to only find that sort of passion when I get to work in the arts.  Maybe that’s just because that’s where my passion is…

My first mentor is the Dallas-based freelancer Sean Ermey.  You can find his list of credits on the IMDB, and you can find out more about him on his blog.  He seems like a very cool guy, living out some of the things I dream of: freelancing, traveling Europe, animating for a living, animating Ninja Turtles, etc.  I look forward to learning from his experiences!

It is quite late now, but there is still so much I want to see on the AM site.  I could spend all day on there and not be satiated!

I hunger for art and animation, and now I have claimed my seat at the buffet.  Time to feast!

To mis-quote Nicholas Kazan (because I can’t find the exact quote, and I’m not in a position to rewatch Fallen at this particular moment):  Every once in a while something occurs which divides time into two parts, everything that happened before this, and everything afterward.

Today is such a day.  A new reckoning.  At 3pm Eastern Time

Animation Mentor begins.

5 1/2 hours to go…

I stayed up all night on the 10th watching the Orientation videos. They were mostly about each section of the site and what to do there. One of the videos had tips from students on how to get the most out of your Animation Mentor experience. All said, I was up until 2am watching everything and exploring what I could. The bad thing was, 5 hours later I was at work. That was not a good day. Luckily there is only a small overlap between the current crunch time at my day job and the start of classes.

It was all very exciting, but all-too-small of a taste of the site. I was hoping that we’d get to check out the forums and cruise the campus a bit. It was great seeing all that stuff in videos, but not the same as actually experiencing it. Even if we weren’t allowed to post, or if we had a special orientation message board that we could post in, that would have been fine. Actually, having our own board would help us answer questions and start building camaraderie we our new classmates. We got to see the existence of the AM Chat app, but couldn’t use it. We couldn’t start adding people to our buddy list. Really, all we could do was watch videos, fill out our profile, and see our calendar. The calendar was marked with the start date and title of each class session, so that was pretty cool.  I just wanted more.

Regarding editing one’s profile: I was not able to get my avatar to show up. I talked to Jimmy, my friend who just finished up his last AM class, and created a 60×60 pixel avatar according to what he told me, and it was well below the stated 100k size limit. When I upload it, it says “Uploaded on such and such date,” but the image doesn’t show up. Just a 4-pixel black square, which I assume is an HTML border around a non-existent image. Has anyone else had this problem? Did anyone in orientation get their avatar image to show up? If so, what settings did you use?

I mentioned before that we get all kinds of awesome discounts. I was able to purchase my student copy of Maya 2009, which showed up on Thursday. A producer friend of mine had a copy of Learning Maya 7: Foundation, and I’ve been using that and the tutorials included with Maya to learn the program. I already know Blender well, so it’s just been a matter of learning the specifics of Maya. Obviously the book is a few versions behind, but the interface is largely the same, and it is actually pretty educational when things aren’t the same because I have to explore the menus to find what I need. That hasn’t happened often, though.

Included with my purchase were student versions of Mudbox, MotionBuilder, Toxik, and Cleaner XL. I haven’t installed those yet, as I’ve got enough to learn with Maya alone, but I am interested in checking out each of those. I’m not really a modeler, so Mudbox holds less interest for me, but MotionBuilder sounds really cool, and I’m interested to see Toxik’s approach to compositing and see if it has anything to offer me over AfterEffects (which I have a commercial license for and I use in my freelance work). I’ve been wanting to get a standalone video compressor, and my copy of Cleaner does not say Student Version anywhere on it, so I’m hoping I need look no further. I’ll have to look for licensing information once I get it installed. All in all, getting well over $10,000 worth of software for less than $400 is a great deal, even if they are only academically licensed.

Now, the site has gone dark until the 29th. Jimmy said he was in the middle of a chat when the site went down for him. That’s when it hit him that his journey was over. He couldn’t wait to get out of college, but now that he’s finished Animation Mentor he feels sad. The end of an era. I look forward to my own start, and my own sad day on December 17th, 2010.

June 10th is finally here, which means orientation has begun! After waiting impatiently all day, I got my Account Setup email at about 6:30pm, Eastern Time. I got to make my student account and log in for the first time from my in-laws’ computer, during a cookout/going away party for my brother-in-law who is joining a family friend on a small boat heading from Cape Canaveral to New York.

I’m now officially a student, with a Proof-of-Studenthood letter, and at last I can buy Maya at the student discount rate, as well as several other things. I was actually pretty surprised to find out about all the discounts we get. I will definitely take advantage of several of those.

After a pleasant party, I took our 3-year-old and headed home, leaving my wife to hang out with her parents and brother for a while longer. The kid is in bed now, and so I’m off to the site to start watching my orientation videos.

Last night was my first Animation Mentor event as a student: an hour-long webinar with Victoria Tripp where she presented a few slides showing what classes will be like, talked about what life as an animation student (and as an animator) will be like, and answered a constant stream of questions.  The instructions told us to have our microphones ready, so I had mine all poised to go, but we ended up just typing our questions into the chat window instead of vocalizing them.  I don’t know who was answering the questions — I think it was Monique, but I’m not sure.  She would answer some questions, and was either passing them along to Victoria or else Victoria could just see them.  I asked a few questions, and all of them were answered one way or another.  Here are a few highlights:

• The new cirriculum started in the Fall 2008 term, which means that the first students who took the new courses are in their 3rd term right now, and will be starting their 4th term when I begin.  This means the new classes will have been done only 3 times by the time I get there, and they will have had 9 months to work out any issues with the courses.
• The most important information given out was information I’d already given you: Orientation starts on June 10th, 2009 (20 days to go!).  On that day, we create our login for the site, get some orientation videos, and can start cruising the campus.  We also get our Student ID Number, which we can use to purchase the Academic Edition of Maya.  We will not be given physical ID cards, so no discounts at the movies, unless the theatre accepts an official letter from the school as proof of student-hood.
• She talked for some length about entering the job market, and reiterated the school’s 78% placement rate, and talked for a little bit about why that is.  They have someone on staff with contacts at all the major studios that works with students to get them interviews.  She also said that the school is designed like a studio, in that you work for 6 different directors in 18 months (your mentors), and you get notes from the directors once a week, and you feel the time pressures to do your shots on schedule at a high quality.  She said that studios really like students with this type of training, as it is very similar to how they operate.  She stressed the importance of “Cruising the Campus,” leaving helpful comments on other students’ work, and getting yourself known as a helpful, talented animator.  She said they have recruiters from major studios that log on to the site and look for talent, and the mentors do this as well.  It’s a great way to form relationships with working animators, relationships that can turn into jobs.  And don’t forget that the 78% placement rate means that 78% of your classmates are likely to become working animators after graduation, and if you treat them well they might pass your name along.
• I asked about the Maya Springboard, which is a $500 12-week training course to get you familiar with the AM website and with Maya and how it is used at the school.  I was somewhat interested in the class, but you have to take it before you start your first term — it can’t be taken simultaneously with class 1, and they said it wasn’t really worth taking if you already have a lot of experience with a different 3D package.  So, $500 saved!  I’ve got the trial edition, so I can start getting used to it.  I’ve got some experience with 3D Studio Max and lots of experience with Blender, so I’m not too worried.  I’m also looking into getting a book, and am currently leaning toward Mastering Maya 2009, but haven’t decided yet.  I’d love some input on this, if anyone has any thoughts.

I’ve gotta say, I really enjoyed this talk.  Even though the slides were pretty much all available on the public website, and I already knew at least 90% of the material covered (I’ve been researching the school for almost two years, after all), the atmosphere of the whole thing really got me excited.  I wish this school had existed 10 years ago, though my mindset was so totally different back then that I doubt I would have considered myself able to be an animator.

One thing she said early on that really got to me was about animators being “a rare breed.”  She talked a bit about her experiences coming to work at Animation Mentor, saying that she’d never met a CEO as passionate about his company as Bobby Beck is, and never met such passionate coworkers or students.  She said that she’s come to learn that while most people tend to be either strongly left brain or strongly right brain, animators are very strong in both.  Animation requires carefuly, technical planning, and a strong artistic sense.  I’ve always been this way.  I didn’t realize until that moment that I was born hard-wired to be an animator.  Suddenly, my whole life made sense.  I already knew that this is what I wanted to do, but that erased any lingering doubts that lurked in my head.  My purpose is now fixed.  I’m not an “Aspiring Animator.”  I am an Animator.  All that’s left to do is spend a lifetime sharpening those skills.

I’ve started my Animation Mentor blog about 6 weeks before actually starting Animation Mentor.  I was accepted to the school on April 14th, 2009.  Since then, I’ve been going stir crazy.  I want to know everything that will happen, and when it will happen.  There are tons of Animation Mentor blogs out there, but I’ve found very few that talk about the stuff that happens before anything happens.  So, I’ve taken it upon myself to document this part of the journey for future students.  May it be of some use to you.  Here’s a brief  summary of what’s happened so far:

Some time before April 11 – Decided that I couldn’t possibly live any longer without attending Animation Mentor.  Convinced my awesome wife of the same.

April 11 – Applied to School

April 14 – Accepted to School.  Acceptance email said I needed to send a copy of my college diploma, and to email Victoria about how to do this (even though this email was from Victoria), and I had to e-sign the Enrollment Agreement, which was also not sent.  So, I emailed Victoria about this.  A couple of days went by and I hadn’t heard anything, so I just emailed the diploma to her.

April 24 – Got email telling me how I could pay my tuition.  At this point I was still debating this question myself, so I held off.

May 1 – Enrollment Agreement sent.

May 10 – Paid 1st term tuition.  Signed Enrollment Agreement.  Time gap was due to me figuring how the finances were going to work.  Also, I went to LA for a film festival and Alaska for my day job, so that slowed me down a bit.

May 11 – Animation Mentor signed my Enrollment Agreement.  Everything’s official now, I guess!

May 12 – Got an invitation to participate in “Coffee Talk with Victoria,” which seems to be an orientation done Q&A style.  I’ll be attending the May 20th session of this, and it will be a discussion with Victoria about what the school will be like, and she’s going to show us our calendar, an eCritique, and what the Forum is all about.  It will also be a chance for us to ask her questions.  Jimmy said they didn’t do anything like this for him when he started, and he wished they had.  I’m very excited about it.

In other news, I emailed Victoria and asked her when I’d get the information I need to purchase Maya at the student discount rate.  She said that I’d need my student ID for that, and it won’t be issued until Orientation starts on June 10th.  Seems like a long time to wait, but I have a new Pupsock & Wendell project that I need to get done (a major studio actually wants to see it!), so I should really be focusing on that.  Which, clearly I’m doing right now…..

In the meantime, she gave me a link to get the 30-day trial version of Maya to play with.  I registered for it, but the download didn’t work from Firefox.  So I had to open up IE and re-register.  I started downloading it yesterday morning, only to discover that it had gotten stuck at 81% for over a day.  I paused it, waited a while, and restarted it.  It went from 81% to 99% pretty quickly, and stalled again.  Hopefully I’ll have the last 1% in the next few days.

So, I suppose there won’t be any AM related news until the 20th.  I’ll keep you in the loop.

Also, note that this is pretty much just my Animation Mentor blog.  For news on my professional projects, watch my Poem Pictures blog.  Thanks!

I sit here, staring out across the endless maw in front of me.  Preparing to go where hundreds have gone before me, but still I sit in fear.  For as many who have tried, there have been countless others who haven’t.  Most people, it seems, are content to let their dreams be only dreams.  If their dreams can’t be handed to them on a silver platter, then they won’t dare risk following them.  I have chosen not to be one of these.

They are brought into existence by the rise of the Failures.  AnimationMentor.com claims a 78% placement rate in the industry for their graduates.  This admits a 22% failure rate.  Lower than most animation school’s failures I’m sure, but its presence remains present, looming heartlessly over my thoughts.  I hope not to be one of the 22%.

30 years old.  Wife.  Two kids, 3 years and 3 months respectively.  House.  Good job, but not the job I dream of.  Always…. always …. have I wanted to make movies.  Began performing and modeling at age 3.  Writing at 6.  Directing at 14.  First writing award at 16.  First directing award at 17, handed over by no less than Steven Spielberg.  International acclaim at 27.  Movie in the Smithsonian at 29.  Lots of success, but still I work a day job as a computer programmer instead of a filmmaker.  At 30, this will not stand.  Though actually, I found the answer over two years ago:  Animation.

In preparing to raise financing for my first feature – which was to combine live action, puppets, and animation – my team and I decided to make a short film incorporating all of these different mediums, to prove to investors that we knew how to pull such a thing off.  So, in late 2006 I began prepping for the production of PUPSOCK & WENDELL in THE GALLERY OF DOOM.  Animation was something I always admired, but never thought I’d be able to do.  I figured I’d have to somehow find some animators to help me pull this crazy short off, and that I’d need to know something about their craft in order to direct them effectively.  To that end, I bought my first animation book: The Animator’s Survival Kit.  This was a purchase that forever changed my life.

I began reading it slowly at first, unsure if the tasty morsels inside were fit for my palette.  Once I began to sample them, however, I found a whole new world of delights.  The book pulled back the curtain, allowing me to see how the magic of animation worked.  And yet, the very workings of it were magical.  I knew the secrets, and became even more impressed.  More importantly, I felt like I got it.  I suddenly felt like it was something I could do, and wanted to.  I devoured the book quickly.  My search for a 3D animator for GALLERY OF DOOM slowed down a bit.  I decided to give it a try myself.  I started animating a shot using Blender 3D.  I started remembering things I’d read, and started applying them.  My character came to life.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was hooked.

I hired myself as my CG animator, and enlisted coworker Jimmy Compher to do the 2D animation.  From then on, I’ve lived and breathed animation every day.  My Christmas wish list became a list of animation books.  My blogroll filled up with animators.  My Netflix queue overflowed with animation documentaries and animated entertainment — in that order.  Jimmy confirmed his suspicions that he really want to be an animator and signed up for Animation Mentor.  I, for my part, wanted to do it, but thought I couldn’t afford it.  Thought, I really want to direct, and animation is just a distraction from that. Yet, every project I’d planned since then revolved around animation in some way, and the budget always included sending me to Animation Mentor as well.

Now, Jimmy is getting ready to graduate, and I’ve turned 30.  I’m confident in who I am, and what I want to do.  And I want to animate.  Sure, I want to direct, but animated films need directors too.  If I can follow my passion into the world of animated features, then I will plant myself deeply in that field, and blossom.  Sooner or later, if I apply myself, I’m sure I’ll get my shot.  Even if I don’t, I look at this way: Spending the rest of my life as a computer programmer is not awesome.  Spending the rest of my life as an animator is awesome.

And it’s only 19 months away from happening.

That’s why I’m here.  The journey begins now.  I invite you to share it with me.