Jobs & Careers Playlist at YouTube

For all our graduates currently looking for work in the animation and vfx industries, take a look at out our jobs and careers playlist at YouTube. There are plenty of opportunities to find work in the expanding animation industry, but it is important to have a solid demo reel and a well-curated LinkedIn profile - recruiters live at LinkedIn. Our jobs and careers playlist at YouTube offers advice and support on how to land that crucial first job in industry.

History of Who Framed Roger Rabbit

We're enjoying this "Deep Dive Documentary" into the History of the 1988 animated film "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".  The documentary is based on a range of source material, including Ross Anderson's well-researched book Pulling a Rabbit Out of a Hat.   It's a thorough documentary that shows just how many twists and turns Who Framed Roger Rabbit took before finally making it (and even then only just) to the big screen. 

Jobs and Careers Playlist at YouTube

One of the most common question I get asked from students is "how do I find work in the animation industry?" The answer is deceptively simple - have a great demo reel, and then apply for as many jobs as you can find. In practice, things are a little more complex.

To dig deeper into the subject, follow this link to our blog post on "12 Rules to Find Work in the Animation Industry".  And, if you'd rather listen than read, check out our jobs playlist at our YouTube Channel, where we discuss in detail what you need to do to break into the expanding but still competitive animation industry.

Webinar with YouTube Animator and Entrepreneur Charlotte Gimbird 26 Jan

QC Animations at YouTube - the future of animation?

On Tuesday 26 January at 11.30am I'll be interviewing Charlotte Gimbird, one of my most entrepreneurial animation students. 

The webinar is hosted by Escape Studios, and features undergraduate animation student Charlotte Gimbird, creator of QC Animations.  QC Animations is a YouTube Channel with over 80,000 subscribers, and hundreds of thousands of views every month.  To see how Charlotte has created her own successful animation business out of thin air, sign up for the free webinar here. 

Falling Dice FX Tutorial in Maya

Take a look at the free tutorial below to see how to animate falling dice using the FX tools within Maya. 

Specifically, the tutorial covers how to use Active and Passive Rigid Bodies in Maya to simulate the effects of gravity and the collision of solid objects.

The tutorial also shows how to bake your curves and then edit the keyframes. For beginners in Maya.

Dream On Silly Dreamer

Dream On Silly Dreamer is now available at YouTube - anyone interested in the history of the Disney Studio should watch this film to see how the magic of the Disney Renaissance came about. It's also a window into the making of traditional 2D animation.

Keith Lango Tutorials Available Free

Keith Lango YouTube Channel

Animator and teacher Keith Lango has made his animation tutorials free for everyone to learn online.

Keith's animation tutorials include animating a James Brown dance, rigging and skinning animation, and how to approach the business of animating a scene.

It's a great resource, and a very useful supplement to the growing body of online resources available for learning animation.

Download Reference Footage at GetVideo.at

GetVideo.at 

Keepvid.com, the website that used to be very useful for downloading video from YouTube, doesn't work anymore, most likely due to copyright problems.

Animators download reference footage from YouTube all the time, not for the purposes of copyright violation, but so that we can step through the video, frame by frame, and study the mechanics precisely.

Now that Keepvid isn't working, there are a number of other sites that work well, including GetVideo.at - a very useful website for downloading video.

Where Do Animators Find Live Action Reference?

Where can animators find useful live action reference? Reference is often a necessary starting point for producing believable animation. Of course, YouTube is a great resource, but it can be hard to find what you want, and you may need to dig within YouTube to find particular channels that specialise in what you need.  Below is a list of some of the best online resources that we are recommending to find the perfect live action reference.

100 Ways to Walk by Kevin Parry

"100 Ways to Walk" is an excellent video by Kevin Parry, a collection of walk cycles intended as inspiration for animators. The key point of the video is that the way we walk says a lot about who we are, how we are feeling, how our day has been. A great walk cycle is the entry point for character animation - can the animator describe a character simply by the way he or she moves? It's one of the first things we teach at Animation Apprentice, but a good walk cycle can remain elusive even for an experienced animator. Acting one out yourself, and filming yourself doing it, is a great way to get started.

Free Sound at YouTube Sound Effects Channel

Where can you find free sound effects for your animation? Sound design is something that animators at a big studio take for granted - because someone else does it for you.

But when you are creating your own animation, and your own animation demo reel, you need to think (at least a little) about sound effects, and sound design, for your shots. One excellent resource for royalty-free sound effects is the YouTube Sound Effects Channel.

Endless Reference - Free Live Action Reference!

Using live action reference to inform your animation can be one of the best ways to get started as an animator.

I have used live action reference many times on many films, especially movies with human characters, such as The Road to El Dorado and Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron, and especially on action shots where the motion was complex and hard to get right.

Gesture Drawing by Proko

Gesture drawing is an important skill for animators - it helps us learn how to capture a pose, and to master the art of visual storytelling. After all, planning your animation with quick thumbnail sketches that tell a story is still one of the core skills of the 3D animator - it's why we still need to know how to draw - at least just a little bit.  Here at Escape Studios we're recommending this series of videos by Proko, all hosted for free at his YouTube channel. There are lots of great videos but the particular playlist we're interested in is titled "Figure Drawing - How to Draw People". You can find it here.

How to Stop Feet Sliding in a Walk Cycle.

How do you stop the feet sliding when you animate a walk cycle? It's a question often asked by students starting out at Animation Apprentice.  The answer is a little technical, so here is a video which explains how to tackle the problem. It runs about 10 minutes, and should help explain how to get it right first time, and stop those feet from slipping around.  Also check out the free Lock To World Tool to stop feet from sliding. 

History of Pixar

Above is an excellent short film about the history of the Pixar studio. It's a promotional piece, but also a great introduction to the history of the modern medium, the second "Golden Age" of animation. Among the impressive insights into the story-telling process at Pixar are John Lasseter suggesting that "every Pixar film at one point in time was the worst motion picture ever made". Why? Because "it's a process". In other words, it's not the doing of the thing, it is the re-doing of it that really counts.

The Amazing Mike Hermes

Here at Animation Apprentice we focus almost exclusively on the art of character and creature animation, apart from two weeks at the start of the course where in Module 1 we lightly cover the basics of the 3D pipeline.

However, many students want to go beyond these basic workshops and dig deeper into Modeling, Texturing, Lighting and Rendering.  So where should students go for a deeper understanding? One great place to start is Mike Hermes' videos at YouTube, which offer excellent short videos on pretty much every aspect of the Maya pipeline. They are short, easy to follow, and refreshingly free of unnecessary information.  The playlists are well organised and, best of all, it's all completely free.

Chuck Jones Animation Tutorial

In this excellent 13 minute animation tutorial, actor and director Ron Howard introduces the work of animation legend Chuck Jones, the creative master behing the Road Runner and Bugs Bunny. There are other great voices here too - such as Disney animation stars Glen Keane and Eric Goldberg (the latter the author of the excellent "Character Animation Crash Course" - one of the books on our rstudent eading list).  The video is a great introduction to the basic principles of animation, such as anticipation, squash and stretch, secondary action and overlapping action. We're recommending it to all our students.

Character Walk Reference for Animators by Houman Sorooshnia

Above is an excellent video of walk reference by animator Houman Sorooshnia, who has done a whole series of different live action character walks. It's a great resource, and it looks like he had a lot of fun acting them all out.  As animators, tackling walk cycles is a great way to learn the craft of animation and also a very good way to dig into character.  After all, how someone walks tells us a lot about who they are, and what kind of mood they are in.  If you can convey to an audience the personality and character of someone just by the way they are walking - then you are well on your way to becoming a professional animator.

Cake-O-Mation is Here at Last!

Some say 3D Animation is the best, others argue for a revival of hand-drawn 2D Animation.  Others still argue that Stop Motion rules.  But here at Animation Apprentice we are loving the work of French animation Alexander Dubosc, who makes animated cakes - both extraordinary and delicious.  Dibosc creates spinning zoetropes, a technology that goes back to the mid 19th century (and, arguable, ancient China), which he has re-invented as the Caketrope.  Or, as we're calling it, Cake-O-Mation.

Free IBL Lighting Tutorial for Animators

Here at Animation Apprentice we focus primarily on character and creature animation - we don't dig deep into the rest of the 3D pipeline.  But we do expect our students to master the basic skills in Maya - such as modeling, texturing and lighting.  Students need these skills so as to be able to make a killer demo reel, or even make a short film of their own.  Fortunately, for those who want to expand their skills beyond animation, there are now many, many free resources on the web, especially at YouTube, to learn many of the basic disciplines in Maya.  Above is a great little free tutorial on Image Based Lighting (IBL), which is a great way to light your shot using beautiful images, such as a seascape or a sunset.