Late Night after a long time
Well it has been quite a while everyone. I wish this was not the case as my hope is always to keep this updated bit alas I have been slacking.
Well I have been very busy with multiple things. I thought I was going to teach at our local college here in Columbus but that did not work out so now it looks like I will once again be moving. I cannot yet say where but my hope is that it will dramatically help with getting employment in the VFX industry. And speaking of VFX I have been using and learning much more such as camera tracking and compositing and I have started modeling again which is really a lot of fun! Well that’s about it on the little update. I once again hope to keep these posts more updated. So, until next time.
- James
Moved In
Finally, after four days of moving, my wife and I are completely moved out of the old apartment and into our new house! We went over and picked up the last item (a futon) last night and drove it over in my little Honda Civic. That was a lot of fun driving over brick roads with a trunk open and a futon matress and frame hanging out. It was actually pretty funny as we bounced over the bricks. It was also a little sad leaving what we had been calling home for over a year now, but I am so glad to be done with moving! Its great not to be moving heavy washers and dressers. I have to thank my friends Jon and Emily, who helped Allison and me so much with moving. We will have to return the favor when they move in a few weeks. Now I need to still get that hot tub cleaned up. Its starting to cool down here very quickly and I would love to use a nice warm hot tub at night after work. I was just thinking about my pal, Adam, who is out in L.A. now. I hope he is doing well and hopefully on the trail to finding a sweet 3D modeling position at a studio. There will be more on this later, I’m sure. For now I just wanted to wish him good luck.
Late August Homebuying and Everything Else Update
I’m back once again. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to update my blog but here it is anyway. Nothing has changed too much for me other than the following:
1. I will be wrapping up my time with Dream Machine Studios shortly. It has been a great experience which I have learned so much from. Scott was a great guy helping me get in some work on games and helping with some R&D and rigging for some of Dream Machine’s game endeavors. I thank you Scott so much for all you have done for me in my learning in the past eight months. Wow, I can’t believe it’s been eight months already!
2. I was planning on moving out to L.A. in about a week with my friend Adam, but due to my current financial state, I will have to remain behind as I continue to better my animation skills. I wish all the best to Adam in his endeavor to find a job in modeling and I hope to be out there animating sometime in the future.
3. Since I am now having to stay in Ohio, I am looking all around for freelance work in animation and hoping to score some project in the near future (in fact there may be a good chance I’ll be working on an Imagitorium project once again).
4. Along with searching for animation positions, I am very happy to say I have been looking for opportunities to teach as well. I have done some teaching in the past and always enjoy it so much. It is truly amazing when you can help others learn something that you are so passionate about and I am currently applying for these positions that would allow me to teach 3D art and animation (which I obviously love so much)!
5. Last and probably the biggest news item from me is that Allison, my wife, and I just recently bought a new house, barring nothing major is found in the inspections. I am so excited and I know my wife is as well, to be home and property owners now. We absolutely love the house and the yard is perfect for us and our little Bella. Also, there will be garage parking for the two of us. Woohoo, no more street parking at our own place! I just can’t describe how elated we are about this new purchase. The house and yard are just beautiful! I will hopefully be able to update with pictures in the future.
Well, I think that’s it. I think that wraps up what’s been going on with me lately. Oh, one more thing. My parents and sister each got a Jack Russel terrier and they are apparently a ton of fun. I can’t wait to meet the little rascals.
Until the next update,
-James
Our new family addition (Bella) and MvA
Hey, If anyone has not yet seen Dreamworks Monsters vs. Aliens, you really must go see it. I watched it at the Imax in s3D and it was terrific! The animation was solid, the characters were very entertaining, and the story was great. I was super excited to go see this because my friend Jacob Gardner worked on several shots. It is really cool to see a friend’s work on the big screen and then see his/her name in the credits at the end… Way to go Jacob!
Other news as of late is that my wife and I have just adopted a new puppy. She is really great and so cuddly, which both my wife and I love. We saw her last weekend at the Montgomery County Animal Resource Center when we were just walking around. She is supposedly a German Shepard/Chow mix, although we suspect something different since she is so small (only 4 lbs. now). We were not really expecting to get a puppy at all, but when I saw her, I fell in love with the little girl. After filling out some paperwork Monday, we finally were able to pick her up last night. She is so soft. I think she was a bit of a surprise for my wife and I though, as we were up much of the night, taking her outside to use the restroom. I’m so happy my wife was able to work from home today to take care of her on her first full day at home. It will be an experience to see how she does with children as we take her to see Jillian, our little niece, and the rest of the extended family on my wife’s side. I’m sure it will be so much fun. Those little girls are so adorable. Anyway, I have posted some images of Bella (our new dog) below. I am so happy that our little family is now growing!
Bella the first night in my mother's arms
Bella in my arms the first night
Bella with me at the ARC
Bella's first meal at her new home
Bella face first in her food bowl
Bella staring at Allison and I while sitting in front of the couch
Bella sleeping between my pillow and Allison
Bella asleep next to Allison
This is Bella playing with her bone the first night at our house (picture compliments of Jim Carroll)
Bella with her toys the first night (picture compliments of Jim Carroll)
Here is Bella looking at/playing with Mary Carroll (picture compliments of Jim Carroll)
Quick January Blurb
No posts for a while, so I thought I’d say at least a little something and try out this QuickPress on wordpress at the same time. Anyway, I’m still around. I’ve been playing a lot with this new theme (Modularity-Lite by Graph Paper Press). I have been customizing and altering the code to fit my needs. The last couple of days I have been consumed with getting up some header images and getting them to work as I want them and appear on the correct pages. Finally I figured it out. I have three different images up as of now and hopefully will add a couple more in the near future.
Now that’s what I have been doing for the site. I have also been working a lot on my AM assignment. We are currently trying to flush out some story ideas for the short film I will create next class. As I whittle my story down further, I probably will post a little here.
Now, a little more personal information. I am very, very happy to say that my wife and I celebrated 6 months of marriage yesterday! We went out to dinner on Sunday at a nice Irish restaurant and had some good clam chowder and pub chips, mmmm! I can’t believe that it has been 6 months already and can’t wait to share the next 50+ years ahead with her. She really is an amazing woman and I’m so happy to have found her!
Happy New Year
Well, we’ve finished up another year and are now excited about all of our new goals that we hope to accomplish in 2009! I hope every enjoyed their holiday season. I know I did.
I’m currently staring outside at the snow coming down in lovely Columbus and am just thinking about how beautiful it is and how much I definitely feel like its winter again. You know, its funny that a lot of us in the northern part of the states always complain about the cold winters and talk about how much we’d like to be somewhere warmer, but when I slow down and actually enjoy the winter instead of looking at it only as a nuisance standing in the way of my next destination, I recognize the softness and miracle of it. Winter brings so many magical thoughts. For many children, they dream of reindeer and Santa Clause. For me, I think about things I enjoyed as a kid. I think about the Grinch and Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas. I think about how much fun it is to roll around in the snow and go sledding. It really is something wonderful and we should all take the time to slow down and enjoy it. Instead of complaining, we should take advantage of it and do only the things we can do during the winter, like skiing. Anyway, I encourage everyone to enjoy the snow and winter as much as they can. I always enjoy a brisk walk through the snow-covered woods.
Now moving onto more relevant, animation thoughts. I started my second to last class (class 5) at AM last night. I really think I’m going to enjoy this class. It is all about story. We will be creating the story for the animated short that we will animate in class 6. I think there should be a lot of really great discussions to help flesh out ideas and contemplate reasons why some stories and story elements work and why others do not. Last night, we had a great couple of mini discussions about Kung-Fu Panda and Wall-E and I look forward to the rest of the Q&A’s being that interesting! I look forward to exploring my ideas in this class and hopefully becoming a more entertaining story-teller and animator.
By the way, I changed the look of my site. Did anyone notice? Hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll be able to find some time and tweak the look even more.
Some nice little Halloween fun
So I was on my workspace at AM and a friend had attached this clip to my workspace. It is certainly fun for the holidays. I had never heard of Shaun the Sheep until now. I have to say I have always loved the stop motion and design of these characters. Anyhoo, here is the clip she sent me:
And here are some others:
If you would like to see even more, go to http://www.shaunthesheep.com/clips/
First time with Bishop
Hey all! I am back after some time away from this page. There is some good news though. First, I have completed my first dialogue piece with Animation Mentor and the Bishop rig! You can watch it below. Although this animation by no means is spectacular, but I am happy with the outcome.
Now for the other good news. I have recently been hired by Sam Gebhardt to help start up a 3d studio in Columbus. All of us involved (along with my wife because it means that we do not have to move) are very excited about the opportunity that this presents to Columbus and us! We all have high hopes for the future of our little shop, which is entitled Imagitorium. Check out the animation below and be ready and expecting some very cool things from Imagitorium in the future!
http://jamescditmer.com/wordpress/wp-content/fgallery/animation-mentor-works/rightsFinalPost.flvWedding Time!!!
This was sitting in my drafts folder for sometime apparently. It was supposed to be published July 17, 2008. I thought that I would just go ahead and publish it now though, so here it is.
Well, it has come upon me very quickly. It is time for me to go to my own wedding. This Saturday I will be getting married. I am so very excited and a little nervous too. I’m curious to see how it affects my time with my friends what this means for the activities that I normally participate in. I have a feeling it means a lot less time at any bars. On a serious note though, Allison is the love of my life and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for the path the two of us are now forging. I am sure it will be filled with a lot of challenge and fun, which hopefully I can learn from and apply to my animation in the future.
Wall-E & Some Opinions (contains mild spoilers)
So I went to see Wall-E last week. I personally, was impressed. I have been reading several other blogs about this topic, and how they compare Wall-E to Kung Fu Panda, which most everyone comes to the conclusion that one cannot truly compare the two because they are conceptually different. I think that you will find a fair opinion of the movie if you go to Keith Lango’s site. He has a small post but then links to Tim Hodge’s page and he has a lengthy post about it and KFP. I think that these are fair opinions, but I disagree with Tim’s view.
I think that this is mainly because I did not look at the movie and think, “wow, the visuals have built up my expectation of this film and now I expect an epic.” In my mind, I went in looking to see how they built an entire story around two robots that barely utter any words. I will agree with one of the replies from Tim’s post that the adults were like large children, but for me this was the entertainment and the social commentary in the situation. Also, this made sense to me. I see us as humans constantly getting lazier as we develop more technology that either removes us from outdoor activities or makes it easier to do things without getting out of our chairs in front of the television. I think that some people are trying to combat this, but I have not seen too large of a change in the area where I live. I think being in a climate that has cold winters is a big reason for this. In this reply, the author states that the people were also a little disturbing. In my opinion, this appears intentional, so Pixar appears to have succeeded. I would think that this was the message, that we do not want this to be our future as humans, so we must do our part to counter this today. So now that I am finished commenting on other posts, I have a few things I would like to point out about the film.
I think Pixar did a great job with pantomime. This is something that we are working with now in my AM class. I think it had to be difficult to come up with ways to make Wall-E move like a robot but still have a human personality. They did a great job using his eyes and hands. There are many subtle movements that truly explain his thoughts and feelings at each moment.
One aspect specifically that I think worked very well was the hand holding. The way that the studio built up the importance of holding hands and what that meant to Wall-E over time was excellent. By the time it happened it was like watching a couple’s first kiss in live film. It took so long to accomplish that it held that much more meaning.
Another part of the movie that I thought was great for the character development of Wall-E was after EVE went into hibernation with the plant inside. The care and love that Wall-E displayed really meant something to me as a viewer. It was like watching a Father protect his wife and baby, or maybe even more like watching a mother bird protect her eggs.
Finally, although I could go on with other examples, I have to say I loved the, what I’ll call, dance-flight sequence with Wall-E and EVE. This scene was great. It did a great job showing the care that each character had for one another. It demonstrated their individual personalities as well by how the two propelled each other while at the same time staying somewhat in sync with each other. This incorporated quite a bit, making me laugh from Wall-E’s movements, smile because of the affection I felt for the two characters in their time of re-uniting, and also just allowed me to enjoy due to the appeal of the shot. For me, it was very much like watching a figure skating pair.
Anyhoo, I think that Pixar has a very successful film here, particularly as an animation. It remindeds me of Chuck Jones’s The Dot and the Line in its simplicity but great story-telling primarily through animation. I think that a lot of animation is delivered to us through dialogue, sometimes to the point where the animation is hardly even needed.
I will wrap up this large post by saying that I suggest that everyone take a look at this film. It was very entertaining and I believe that is due to the above, but also because a lot of themes the film deals with are adult topics, more than Pixar has dealt with before, in my opinion.
Wedding Season
So… since I have been off from Animation Mentor this past week, I spent the week getting things ready for my friend’s wedding and did some more planning for my own wedding as well. I also had some time to catch up on some needed sleep, but unfortunately I lost some more sleep this weekend while having a blast at my friend, Adam’s, wedding. He had the ceremony and reception up near Cleveland and it was beautiful. We had a bunch of rain, but they were blessed that the storm held off until after the outdoor pictures and ceremony were over. They had the ceremony at a beautiful park which actually had its own castle. It was Squire’s Castle. The setting was just perfect. Afterwards, the reception was a ton of fun. We danced and partied into the night. Due to all of the excitement, my fiance and I are now even more eager for our day! On our drive back we kept commenting on how much fun we had and how lovely everything looked. Good luck and congratulations Adam and Jen!
Whats been going on?
So, It has been quite a while since I posted an update. I really was hoping to keep updating more regularly, but I’ve been really busy with my wedding stuff and my friend’s wedding and Animation Mentor, that I have been unable to update for a while. But, I am back and will continue to stop in and update this little journal of mine. So, enough about why I have not been around. Lets get into what has been happening.
I just got back this weekend from having a great bachelor party that my brother organized for me. It was great! It was the first time I had been in a real casino. I know, can you believe I’m 25 and have just now gone into one! We went to the Argosy Casino down on the Ohio river. We had a blast! I ended up in the positive after the weekend was over so that’s always good. We also went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner and a few drinks. That is always fun. If you’re ever in the Covington/Cincinnati area, I suggest stopping in for a few drinks there on the Newport levee. They brew their own beer, and it tastes quite good. The food is good too. Anyway, it was great fun and a great weekend!
Now, for animation info. I have now finished my second class at Animation Mentor. I look forward to the next one. We are starting into acting. It should be a ton of fun! I have learned a lot while at Animation Mentor. Mike Walling was a great mentor and I learned so much from him. He seemed to be able to make me see things so much easier while I was animating. He did a great job pointing out movement choices and explaining why I should change the way I move the character or a limb. My last animation is a great example of this. It is much more entertaining because of Mike, and my fellow classmates. I have included my last progress reel below. Please feel free to take a look at it.
/wordpress/wp-content/fgallery/animation-mentor-works/Class2_progressReel.flvUpdate for the site
I have been a little behind on the updates for my site. Wordpress has updated to 2.33 and a lot of my plugins all had updates. I went ahead and updated those today, so I am all up to date now. The next big change here will be to change the look of the whole site. That is an ongoing project at the moment. Keep coming back and you will see the change hopefully within the next couple of weeks. I am hoping to make this little site of mine more of a personal portfolio site with a blog, rather than a blog with a portfolio. We shall see what I come up with.
Its been a while
Well it has certainly been quite a while since my last post. I know I should have been more diligent, but I slipped. I’ve been really busy since coming back home from California, a place I can’t wait to head back to. I have got a new job at MI Homes in IT in Columbus. I moved into a house in German Village, which is a great place to visit if you’re ever in Columbus. There is a lot of culture and history here. The worst part about this hiatus is that its also been for my animation and 3d work. I can’t wait to get started again with it, and I think I will soon. I think I’m going to finish my human sculpt soon I hope. I’m definitely going to get some work done on it before this week is over. I need to kick myself into gear and start using these creative juices that seem to be ready to just spill out. I will hopefully get some posts of updated work soon, plus I’ll try to add some photos of German Village because it is a beautiful place!
To continue my time at camp…
So now I have been here at camp for over a week and am now going into my second week. I am very happy working with everyone and its a real pleasure to be working with these teens. We took them all to San Francisco yesterday to see Pier 39, a real tourist trap, but fun. The food was great there! Then, we took them downtown where we split up and some went to the Metreon, a large arcade, and some went to Chinatown, and I took a group to the Virgin Megastore. Below you will find some pictures and hopefully I can continue to post them here. Most of the pictures are from our excursion to San Fran, but there are a couple that show the tower, the art museum and the main quad here at Stanford. The lab was cramped, so we have moved things around and split our one lab into two. I will grab some pictures and post those later.
Summer Camp
So, I have been instructing at a summer camp this week. Its not like summer camps that I went to long ago. This camp is very educational as well as being fun and a great place to meet new friends. It is a tech camp. Here I have been teaching Maya and next week will do the same. These teens are really soaking up all of the information that the instructors have been showing them. I am truly impressed with their progress and cannot wait to see their finished projects. Along with the instructing, we also have large LAN games. At night we’ve been having Battlefield 2142 and Quake tournaments here in the lab. Also, a lot of people have been playing on the Wii in the other room. I was able to play all three for the first time last night and man was it fun, especially Battlefield 2142 - there were so many people playing together, it was a blast. We went to the fireworks display here at Stanford University on the Fourth of July as well and that turned out to be a nice escape from the lab for just a little bit. Yesterday, we taught the teens how to model a character’s body at very low poly counts and some of them figured it out right away and took off with it, creating characters for their game, which they will make on the third and final week. Today, we teach the teens how to model a head and I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the heads of their characters. I have tried to take some pictures. I have more with the teens in the pictures, but I will probably not post pictures with the teens in them, so for now, people will have to be ok with some scenery shots and just quick snaps of our lab. The first three shots are from the San Francisco Airport. That is the first thing I saw when I came off the plane. According to the woman sitting next to me on the plane, the fog in the mountains is what cools down San Fransisco every couple of days. The third photo is a view of the San Francisco Bay. The final two are obviously of our lab.
Art that had some people surprised
I was in Dayton the other day and was walking around looking at these sculptures. This artist, J. Seward Johnson, has a sculpture walk called “City Life” that he created to tour different cities. Anyway, some of them are pretty life-like, especially the window washer. I have spoken with several people who got spooked when they saw them. They thought they were real. I have a friend who was waiting on one to cross the street. It took his mom pointing out to him they were bronze 
. He would have been waiting a long time, until August 17 actually, that is when the exhibit leaves Dayton. Well while I was down there, I took some photos which I am posting for everyone to see here. Enjoy, and if you are close and have the chance to stop into Dayton and see them, I suggest doing it.
Movies anyone?
If anyone hasn’t seen it yet, you should check out the new trailer from Pixar. It is a very cool way of doing an early trailer. The movie is called “Wall-E.” The whole trailer is a build up of previous sketches from earlier movies with some Pixar creators talking. Then the last couple seconds they show a tiny teaser of the movie. If there was ever a resemblance to Short-Circuit, this is it! Anyway, go check it out, because its a really cool trailer.
Also, it seems there will be another epic-like movie. This one is called “The Golden Compass.” I look forward to these movies. I am a sucker for movies like this one. I love it when futuristic times are mixed with past - where machines resemble older 19th century machines but do things we cannot yet achieve. Oh and witches and talking Polar Bears are sweet too. Plus, you have to love Sam Elliot in a role like this one. Check it out, I’ll be waiting to see it.
