My Animation Mentor Short Film 2007

[Ranimate]

great one man,

funney, very well animated, it was really fun to watch :)
What else should I say? oh yes "...Byee... Byyyee..."

:thumbsup:

Ranimate

[TheOnlyWoj]

well done. the abrupt silence when the boss caught the one worker celebrating felt off; I think it had to do with the gasp being cut off a bit. at least that's how I heard it.

[richardoud]

Great short.. I agree on the sound that the silence is to silent (don't know if that makes sense), but the animation is top notch (which is probably what you wanted anyway).


Great work sir.. congratulations.

[JamesLane]

I love it, great job! Animation mentor stuff is always great to watch.

[MonteCristo]

ahhaha Really funny and nice animations!!!
great Job!

[KCmondo]

Nice job!. The animation is awesome. Great work, keep it up.
Pixar, hire this guy.....NOW!

[paul.yan]

Amazing job!! I agree the silence could use some white atmospheric noise but with that one exception I think this is a fantastic piece.

[LAZIKAT]

haha great animation, pretty solid to me congrats man!:thumbsup:

[Winner]

what did you render this with ?

[pinnamraj]

U always rock man, amazing animation, like your style and yes the rendering is great toooo....

all the best.

Raju.

[MartinK]

Awesome!! Congratulation :)

[SheepFactory]

That was awesome man. you need to come to our next vancouver cgtalk meetup so I can pick your brain on how you did a couple things :)

*Plugged

[davidbernal]

Awesome man!!! love it!! Rock on!!!

[pochat]

Winner:
It was rendered with Mental Ray in Maya and then put together in fusion. That wasn't me, it was Tony White as specified in the credits. I did the concept, story, animation, edit, etc. but not the render, I'm not that technical unfortunately.

Sheep Factory:
I had no idea there was a Vancouver Chapter for CGtalk, I'm totally new to this website and the word was that it is a great community, I'm glad to experience it! and yes I can gather the few team members of this short film so you can pick our brains.

Thanks a lot for posting it in the front page, wow!

[Slurry]

Whoa! Fantastic! Great models and animation, the sound is off a bit, the dead part when the boss comes in and the game sound fx seem a bit off. Either the fat guy gives up (reacts) too early or the sound is delayed too much...
But I'm being picky, reaaaaaallllly well done.
Congrats on the piece and the plug.

Art

[BartokDesign]

really good, congrats.
:applause:

[king21]

This is ultimate stuff!!

It looked soo good in playblast but now it shines. Bravo Mario.

Jure

[Heber]

awesome animation man, i love all the subtleties in the acting.
well done!.
-H

[liquidik]

Hey Mario! Fantastic stuff!

It turned out really great. Congratulations

Gian

[DrTrent]

Really awesome work! I'm learning a lot just by scrubbing through it! :thumbsup:

[rokandic]

Amazing work! Congrats!

[SkyZero]

Congrats on the front page plug Mario! This is an awesome short man, great job!! :thumbsup:

[dines]

great animation ... realy funny =)...
love it :thumbsup:

[JoPPa]

Very good animation and nice render. Congratulations.

[YoYoYohan]

Hehe, I like the way how they are playing that computer game. Looks more they play Mortal combat or something. :P

I also like the fact the whole wall is getting out of its place when the fat guy is moving back to work. The next scene the wall is back though. But that's just a small mistake. The animation is great. Good work!

[AjaBogdanoff]

Congrats on the front page, Mario! And congrats again on finishing such a fantastic short! :D

[k4karthik]

awesomeee.. :applause: :applause: :applause: :applause:

[DaneC020]

The stills look amazing, I am trying to view it now off your site but it is not loading and I can't save the source. Let me know if I am doing something wrong. I always love seeing AM Student works.

Dane

[jludwick]

This message had to be 10 characters long. There!

[xeffe]

good stuff man!

[d_jnaneswar]

mario! Dude!

you are still rocking hard! see you inside a big studio soon!

DJ

[StefanStavrev]

Ooh man,that was so cool ...

[My Fault]

Woohoo, congrats again on the fantastic short and getting the much deserved front page!

[szuhwa]

The animation and story are great job.:thumbsup:

I like your character model and rendering.
I can feel the style and personailty.:)

Congratulations


Szuhwa




My model:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=4564869#post4564869

[Bennie25]

Wow! Very nice work, I like the style of the characters (a bit like The Incredibles characters). I'm impressed!

[RyanDHale]

Excellent Film Here!!!

There is no doubt that his would not make the front page ***** material!

Hopefully by the time I get to Class 5/6, I will be able to come up with something as graceful and well executed as this!

Nice one!

R.D

[HappyCalaveras]

Another great animation from a hard-working Animation Mentor student! If A.M. had been around when I went to school, I would have definitely enrolled there instead of where I went.

Great animation, the two distinct personalities show in how they move. Have to agree about the block of sudden silence, but that's something easily fixed - maybe adding quiet background noise of a busy office would help carry it? Excellent work, keep it up!

[cglolipop]

Amazing work!, im out of words, congrats!! it looks like AM is teaching to some of the best animators around the world!!

[enjoyu2]

The animation is Awesome,and the render is so nice!!

[damncreative]

simply awesome. nice animation. 5 stars from my side:)

[Joanimation]

Hey Mario,

It's simply great, man! Otto and Murdock did never look better ;) Really impressive what you've done there.

Congrats on the frontpage, you really deserve it.

Juan

[TeresaNord]

Wow, Mario! Simply amazing! I love it. I can't wait to experience more at Animation Mentor... I'm so excited to finally be a part of it! Anyways, this is just so inspirational! Congrats again!
Teresa

[rcronin]

It was rendered with Mental Ray in Maya and then put together in fusion. That wasn't me, it was Tony White as specified in the credits. I did the concept, story, animation, edit, etc. but not the render, I'm not that technical unfortunately.

I see that you had a whole team to assist with everything technical. Is this an AM team? If so, I think AM has seriously hit animation training on the head. All of your man hours that would have been used on modelling/texturing/rigging/lighting can now be funnelled right into animating. With the guarantee that your rig/set/final render can come out with that much quality, all you have to do is seriously dive into every keyframe and make it perfect. Way to go AM. Way to keep the focus on animation. R. p.s. nice timing on the characters.

[kyoto]

great animation :applause:

[mistasam02]

Wow really amazing animation and camera work! Loved it! :thumbsup:

[JavierLoredo]

Hi Pochat!

Awesome job with the animation!

Each personality fits very well to both characters including the boss. One of the best things I like about this short, is that the characters were able to tell a simple story or message with the minimum dialogue and with a strong character performance. The rendering came out very well, wish complements a good character animation. Again very well done and goodluck with your career.

Quick questions!

I will be attenting AM for the fall Term and I wanted to know a little bit more on the process of making a short film at the end of the program. Would you mind explaining the process of making an animation short for the final project at AM? Thinks I wanted to know more in details are like the modeling, texturing, and rendering process. Did AM helpted you all this stuff or you have to do it all in your own spare time?

Again, very nice animation and very inspiring!

Francisco Javier Loredo.

[firstsingle]

Nice one Pochat.

[send2raj]

Excellent output!!! :thumbsup:

[Scob]

Simply great !! :thumbsup:

[chints84]

hey work dude.... simple idea... brilliant animation... simply cool :D

well done...
all the best

[mnm|cg]

i am not in to Animation like you guys are..i mean i don't know what is hard to do or what is easy..I'm sure this animation has loot of work in it..i respect that..
But, as i audience, i watched it..my son watched it..
Well sorry to say we didnt like it..it is ugly..it doesnt make you watch it again..
the sounds are disturbing...earggg..i would kill that character.
anyways, i think an animation should be more interesting..
it shouldn't be just keyframes and camera..i'm sure this animation has looot of keyframes and looot of work in it...but the story, character, environment..music...characters sound....
these are very important..

[willog]

Really nice to watch, the animation is good and the study of body language is superb to say the least.
Looks like you got a very nice future and I wish you well.
My grandson is now showing an interest in animation his school is about to start a course and he is really excited about starting he's just 14 years old. When he comes over I'll show him your short film, should enspire him.

Well done

[PhuongDPh]

very funny lol
I like it http://forums.cgsociety.org/images/icons/icon10.gif

[IestynRoberts]

Fantastic Stuff Mario! Well done!

[WesVasher]

Great short Mario and congrats on the front page, awesome!

[levent]

very nice animation.:applause:

[RyanDHale]

Hey JavierLoredo (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=244192)

Although I am not in Class5/6 yet I can tell you what I know about the short film assignment. Hopefully some of the AM higher class members can fill in the rest. Basically when you hit class 5 you are given 3 months to plan, write and prep your short film. This include modelling all your environment, texturing, storyboarding, animatics, everything. AM does supply you with some character like Bishop and a few other ( the fat guy you see here) a thinner guy with a big nose, a lass and a dog! I think there may be more. but you can customise these if you have the knowledge. They all have names too but I forget what they are. Anyways, If you also have modelling and rigging knowledge you can just make your own and use those. It seems like this is a sole effort. The AM students don;t animate together on a short. But past students have had their mates help with modelling, texturing rigging etc. The community is great here. If you have a question or problem, people leap to your aid and help out with all your projects. So in this 3 months you have to get everything ready and signed off ready to start animating the time class 6 begins. You then have 3 months to complete all the animation on your short. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don;t believe that render time comes into play at this stage. I think you can hand your work in as a playblast or at least not a fancy rendered version as that would really eat into your 3 month of production. It then seems the norm that after they submit the film they spend time adding the correct lighting and rendering it to make it look pretty! :)

AM is basically about concentrating on Advanced character animation. If you want to learn about other things such as modelling, rendering texturing and the like then you can in your own spare time, or discuss topics on the forums, but they do not really play part in the lessons.

Hope that clears some stuff up for you

If you have any questions give me a shout

Like I say hopefully some of the Class 5/6 peeps will answer too to clarify what I have said

Take care and look forward to seeing your work come fall! You are gonna love it!

R.D.H

[cgmadvin]

very nice work,


top animation.

:thumbsup: :eek:

[tinytimw52]

Nice job! I would not mind seeing more of your work.

[shahabp]

cool...
Good luck

[harmonic01]

Hey Mario, Great short. :D Very funny. Heh heh, looong ago at a College I used to get my friend, who worked in the library, to play games on library computer. And I'd always win too :D Except, I wasn't such an annoying prick about it..... at least I hope I wasn't. heh heh. :D

Anyways, lots of things to identify for me. I enjoyed it a lot. :thumbsup:

[warriorash]

Love it ... ! :buttrock:

[luizmaggessi]

very very good, great animation... congratulations...

[KUTTYSAM]

Small Idea , Funny and Fantastic Work.

Congrats................................................

[nalan]

Great job!

[LouisEX]

Awesome! What a nice job!^^

[Paul McLaughlin]

I thought the animation was pretty good, but I honestly didn't find it funny at all.

[HenningK]

Great character designs, you instantly hate that guy with the hairdo and want the fat guy to prevail. I don't know how much of that is you and how much AM, but that's what character design should accomplish in a short... in the first second.

Beautifully animated, of course. In my opinion though, you missed some beats as a director that would help with clarity. I'm not such a fan of stories that you can't understand til they're over. Body language is so important in a (largely) wordless short like this one... EG:
-a subtle taunt to "get over here" or an invitation to take the keyboard after the douchey guy says "hey, hey". Instead, he just sits there waiting.
-its not clear the fat guy is looking out for the boss before he agrees to join douchey guy at his console. We can't see what his face is doing when he turns around, so get it across some other way, strain his body as if looking around the corner tensely, or else have douchey guy coolly glance where fat guy is looking.
-before the second round (we still don't know exactly what they're doing) some stronger acting on fat guy would help get across that he's defying douchey guy's obnoxious dismissal. And also, there's no acknowledgment of fat guy's rematch challenge, so if our eyes were on douchey guy waving the whole time, we would miss it altogether. Douchey just goes from "bye bye" to playing the game again.
-its weird each round that fat guy looks away from the console before he has verified that he's lost. And doesn't look back. Maybe his first concern is how annoying douchey guy is, and glaring at him, but still, not to look?
-lastly, the weirdest acting point is that douchey guy appears not to notice or care that fat guy has rolled away from the game. He doesn't look like he's too intensely absorbed in the game, he just sits there. Not even a scornful "quitter!" look or a gloating "finally now I can play by myself" look. Its weird. It turns him into a dummy.

Anyway, this is the first short ive critiqued where the animation technique itself is flawless, and so I can nitpick on the acting. Hope you understand what I'm getting at.
love,hen

[pochat]

Hi guys!

I just came back from Siggraph 2007 and the Animation Mentor graduation. I'm a graduate! It was an amazing experience. The graduation was very formal and professional, same as everything inside AM.

If you want to find out more about the grad, look at Bobby *Boom* Beck Blog:
http://www.bobbyboom.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all your great comments! I am reading each one of them, great input here. Things that I didn't even thought of.

:)

[pochat]

Another great animation from a hard-working Animation Mentor student! If A.M. had been around when I went to school, I would have definitely enrolled there instead of where I went.

Great animation, the two distinct personalities show in how they move. Have to agree about the block of sudden silence, but that's something easily fixed - maybe adding quiet background noise of a busy office would help carry it? Excellent work, keep it up!


Hi Happy calaveras!
I actually took the Classical Animation Program at Vanarts in 1999. When I knew about Animation Mentor, I spent no time making my mind. One of the bests ones of my life. Its an amazing school, the mentors, students, the community, lectures, info, examples, ahhhhh!!

I'm so glad this came out still in my time!
thanks for taking the time to comment on this thread, calaveras!

[pochat]

Whoa! Fantastic! Great models and animation, the sound is off a bit, the dead part when the boss comes in and the game sound fx seem a bit off. Either the fat guy gives up (reacts) too early or the sound is delayed too much...
But I'm being picky, reaaaaaallllly well done.
congrats on the piece and the plug.

Hi Slurr,

Guess what!
I'll be looking into that audio option soon, as soon as I free up!
You are one of the people who pointed that out, I appreciate it!

:)

[pochat]

Hehe, I like the way how they are playing that computer game. Looks more they play Mortal combat or something. :P

I also like the fact the whole wall is getting out of its place when the fat guy is moving back to work. The next scene the wall is back though. But that's just a small mistake. The animation is great. Good work!

Yoyohan!
Great eye, I didn't see that coming, doh!!

:)

[pochat]

The stills look amazing, I am trying to view it now off your site but it is not loading and I can't save the source. Let me know if I am doing something wrong. I always love seeing AM Student works.

Dane

Hey Dan,
You need the latest quicktime for sure, and there's also a YouTube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7arGFUT0uU

thanks,

[pochat]

The animation and story are great job.:thumbsup:

I like your character model and rendering.
I can feel the style and personailty.:)

Congratulations


Szuhwa

The characters are from Animation Mentor, we just animate them, they are great!!
I believe the rigs are made by Taylor Mahony.

[pochat]

Wow! Very nice work, I like the style of the characters (a bit like The Incredibles characters). I'm impressed!

Benny!

Its the Animation Mentor signature!

[Shreds]

Hey dude! This is great work and congrats on the front page man!! The story and setting is nice and simple keeping everything clear. It's been great watching your work progress!

[pochat]

I see that you had a whole team to assist with everything technical. Is this an AM team? If so, I think AM has seriously hit animation training on the head. All of your man hours that would have been used on modelling/texturing/rigging/lighting can now be funnelled right into animating. With the guarantee that your rig/set/final render can come out with that much quality, all you have to do is seriously dive into every keyframe and make it perfect. Way to go AM. Way to keep the focus on animation. R. p.s. nice timing on the characters.

Rcronin,

Yeah, at AM we just animate, the characters are provided by the school as well. We use maya, the rigs are great and always improving. The render on this short is not from AM, is from Tony White, he is amazing at all this technical stuff and I'm not!

thanks for your comments,

[pochat]

Hi Pochat!

Awesome job with the animation!

Each personality fits very well to both characters including the boss. One of the best things I like about this short, is that the characters were able to tell a simple story or message with the minimum dialogue and with a strong character performance. The rendering came out very well, wish complements a good character animation. Again very well done and goodluck with your career.

Quick questions!

I will be attenting AM for the fall Term and I wanted to know a little bit more on the process of making a short film at the end of the program. Would you mind explaining the process of making an animation short for the final project at AM? Thinks I wanted to know more in details are like the modeling, texturing, and rendering process. Did AM helpted you all this stuff or you have to do it all in your own spare time?

Again, very nice animation and very inspiring!

Francisco Javier Loredo.

Hey Javier,
Sorry for the long delay, I'm a bit busy!

Yeah, as Ryan mentioned. The shortfilm takes place on classes 5 and 6, 3 months each class. Class 5 is only for developing your story and 6 to produce it. Remember that AM is constantly improving their curriculum so this might change. AM already has a family of characters for the students to use, but there are also people that have been modeling them because they want something in particular. Note that its very time consuming and risky, you really have to know what you are getting into.

The only thing from this short film that its not from AM, its the Render, Tony White did it using maya 8.5 and Mental ray. Then put it together using fusion.

AM focuses on the story telling and animation.

thanks for your comments!

[pochat]

Hey Mario, Great short. :D Very funny. Heh heh, looong ago at a College I used to get my friend, who worked in the library, to play games on library computer. And I'd always win too :D Except, I wasn't such an annoying prick about it..... at least I hope I wasn't. heh heh. :D

Anyways, lots of things to identify for me. I enjoyed it a lot. :thumbsup:
__________________
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Harmonic01,

Thanks for your comments, yeah, its funny how people identify with the characters in different ways based on their personal experiences, I love that! I'm very glad you liked it.
I have a friend like that as well, so quick when playing games!

thanks,

[pochat]

tinytimw52 (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=289019) vbmenu_register("postmenu_4571801", true);
New Member
tim
none
des plaines, USA

Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 18


Nice job! I would not mind seeing more of your work.

Hey TinyTim,
If you are interested in seeing more of this entire progress, go to www.mariopochat.com/blog surf through the blog, there's a lot of things from the 6 Animation Mentor classes.

[pochat]

Really nice to watch, the animation is good and the study of body language is superb to say the least.
Looks like you got a very nice future and I wish you well.
My grandson is now showing an interest in animation his school is about to start a course and he is really excited about starting he's just 14 years old. When he comes over I'll show him your short film, should enspire him.

Willog,

Thanks for your kind words. I received and email from a 15 years old boy and I don't know if its your grandson. He was asking about what to do to learn animation at his young age. For now, your grandson could watch a lot of movies, animated and live action movies and start paying attention to the acting and story. Also, if he is able, start fooling around with computer animation software is not a bad idea. I don't think this will be a problem, since younger generations learn more quicky!

thanks a lot.

[sachin3d]

great short man....liked it very much......great animation, good look and feel...keep it up...

[Kristofferic]

Cool short! Nice work

[pochat]

Great character designs, you instantly hate that guy with the hairdo and want the fat guy to prevail. I don't know how much of that is you and how much AM, but that's what character design should accomplish in a short... in the first second.

Beautifully animated, of course. In my opinion though, you missed some beats as a director that would help with clarity. I'm not such a fan of stories that you can't understand til they're over. Body language is so important in a (largely) wordless short like this one... EG:
-a subtle taunt to "get over here" or an invitation to take the keyboard after the douchey guy says "hey, hey". Instead, he just sits there waiting.
-its not clear the fat guy is looking out for the boss before he agrees to join douchey guy at his console. We can't see what his face is doing when he turns around, so get it across some other way, strain his body as if looking around the corner tensely, or else have douchey guy coolly glance where fat guy is looking.
-before the second round (we still don't know exactly what they're doing) some stronger acting on fat guy would help get across that he's defying douchey guy's obnoxious dismissal. And also, there's no acknowledgment of fat guy's rematch challenge, so if our eyes were on douchey guy waving the whole time, we would miss it altogether. Douchey just goes from "bye bye" to playing the game again.
-its weird each round that fat guy looks away from the console before he has verified that he's lost. And doesn't look back. Maybe his first concern is how annoying douchey guy is, and glaring at him, but still, not to look?
-lastly, the weirdest acting point is that douchey guy appears not to notice or care that fat guy has rolled away from the game. He doesn't look like he's too intensely absorbed in the game, he just sits there. Not even a scornful "quitter!" look or a gloating "finally now I can play by myself" look. Its weird. It turns him into a dummy.

Anyway, this is the first short ive critiqued where the animation technique itself is flawless, and so I can nitpick on the acting. Hope you understand what I'm getting at.
love,hen

Hi Hen,

Thanks for your comments, they are great. Yeah acting will be the next thing for me to start exploring. For now I think I'm just scratching the surface. There were so many different approaches to this piece, unbelievable! it is just a 1 min shortfilm and the options are wide open.

thanks a lot!

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