Meet the Artist: Victor Navone

[Zoox]

Hi, like every one else has said before me you make some amazing shots, keep up the amazing work as for my question, I was wondering just how important is going to a animation school? right now I have a great computer and have maya 6 on it and I have been trying to build a portfolio that way. I have lot’s of art experence and acting. so is building my porfolio at home like this a good way to go or should I get my self into a animation program some were? I do have lot’s of experence with a few differn’t apps, just wanted your thoughts on it

thank you for reading this, and any comment would by great.

hopefully one day I’ll maybe work with you on a movie

[cosmonaut]

Hey Victor, longtime reader, first time poster. A few questions:

1. How do you like being a mentor so far?

2. Do you ever do much in the way of “traditional” art now? Your site has a lot of real great paintings and drawings on it (lots of great resource links on there btw - found several really great links on there over the last few years). I was just wondering if you ever find time to do that with all your other responsiblites and if not do you miss it at all? How much did having such a strong traditional background help out in getting your job at Pixar? With your self training were you sufficiently prepared for the job at Pixar?

3. Of all the shots you’ve worked on at Pixar, which would you say was your favorite?

I still remember lurking on the old AM mailing list seeing message titles like: “Does my alien need more diva?” Who knew it would turn out to be such a fantastic piece of animation/internet history. Keep up the amazing work

Kevin Waldron

[vnavone]

-Also at what stage when working on a shot will you start showing your ideas or the work you have done to your director?

Hi Rob, I try to show as soon as the ideas I have a clear in the shot. It could be a simple pose test, or in the case of an action shot, a layered animation with the rough timing and root animation worked out. Once or twice on Incredibles I showed Brad thumbnails of stuff for approval before I started to work on the computer.

[vnavone]

…So my concern is what step I should take next. I have looked heavily into Animation Mentor (which I think is awesome) I just then worry about is it the best choice for ME. Thing is my parents are willing to support my education, so basically if I could get into CalArts, or any school like that or any grad school in Cali, or Canada, etc they would pay for it. So do you think that coming from a 4 year undergrad program I should do that if I have the money? I know how involved the mentors are with the students but my parents question whether or not it would be better to be in a ‘physical’ school with ‘physical’ contact with students…

Hi Justin, I’m not about to make a recommendation to you between AM and CalArts. Both have their pro’s and con’s. A degree is great but ultimately it’s your demo reel and interview skills that get you the job. I can’t make a recommendation about your education without seeing your current reel. I suggest you pop on over to the animationmentor.com thread right here on CGTalk and talk to some of the students and prospective students there.

[vnavone]

1. Are you happy at Pixar? It’s pretty much the Holy Grail of animation studios to work at…so are you content with it?

2. With the enormous number of reels that get sent into Pixar, what are the chances of ACUTALLY getting your reel seen and considered?

3. Who is YOUR favourite animator, and why?

Hi Tyson,

1. Are you kidding? Pixar is the best. My only complaint is that the location is too expensive (Bay Area)
2. I have no way to answer that question. Sorry
3. Milt Kahl. Watch Shere Khan in Jungle Book for the answer.

[vnavone]

Is there anything you would like to change about the world of CG animation?

Hi Robert, interesting question. I suppose I’d like to see it take more risks with aesthetics and animation styles. Usually the experimentation is relegated to short films. I’d like to see some more inventive features. I want to see a look that is completely unique and unprecedented. Realism is boring.

[mberrynk]

any advice for those of us who are making short films on our own, either on the side or while in school, that hopefully will have the same effect as Alien Song did for you?

[ODoul]

Does it ever bother you guys that you’re listed at the end of the movie at hyper speed while the voice talent gets all the glory?

[vnavone]

1.What made you to do ALIEN SONG??

2.How was your experience doing ALIEN SONG that time?

3.Have you reached what you expected to be??

Hi Karthik,

1. It was an animation exercise. I was learning lip-synch
2. I guess you could say it was fun. I was working on my own time for the shear sake of learning.
3. I’ve never had any real expectations of what I would be. I never wanted to be an animator until I started to animate. I try to keep myself challenged and take opportunities as they come.

[vnavone]

How do you animate a crazy scene like the one you did with Mr. Incredible holding on to buddy? Do you just do it strait ahead? I’m curious how you would undertake such a complex scene with so much motion going on.

Good question. That was indeed a very difficult sequence, not only becuase of the complexity of motion but also because I didn’t have any kind of reference material. Thunmbnails were only somewhat useful. We had great storyboards for all our sequences which gave me a general idea of what they were after. It mostly came down to me animating a pass, showing it to the director, him saying “make it wilder”, rinse, lather, repeat. It was very tedious, and I’m not really satisfied with the end result.

[vnavone]

how much thought do u think i should put on classical 2d animation? do u think it would be the best to master 2d animation then go on to 3d ?
thanks a lot!

It could take you a lifetime to “master” 2d animation, so that’s probably not the best route to 3d animation. There’s no reason you can’t study them concurrently. The two mediums inform each other very well. If you don’t have the opportunity to do much 2D I would at least try to do a lot of figure drawing and thumbnailing.

[vnavone]

What was the wierdest experience you’ve ever had at Pixar?

Hi Tevi, that would have to be seeing the King of Jordan and his massive entourge touring the animation department.

[vnavone]

1. I was wondering what your opinion is on cheating in a shot. Being an animator for 5 years doing TV series, I’ve grown accustomed to cheating when ever possible. But is this something I want to avoid when I decide to make my jump into feature films?

2. On the topic of feature films, I was wondering what animation methods you prefer. Like do you prefer “Straight Ahead” for action and “pose 2 pose” for acting? or vice versa?

3. Do you have any tips for animating eye brows? When it comes to facial animation, I’m quite confident in every aspect but the brows. Finding the right time to do a brow shift from say sardonic to confused etc can be very tricky. Especially when you try to do this without a blink. At least that’s my experience.

4. Just wondering if you’ve ever seen the 3D series [Dragon Booster](http://</a></font>) (Shameless Plug :P) and I wonder what your thoughts are on the series.

Hi Fredrick,

1. We cheat all the time at Pixar. As long as it looks right in the camera that’s all that matters.
2. The method I use will depend on the shot and the characters I’m working with. I did a lot of pose-to-pose on Incredibles for the acting shots, and I would work in a more layered approach for the action stuff. On Cars I’ve been doing some straight-ahead work because the models play back in realtime and I can get instant feedback. It’s a wonderful way to work! I tend to animate lip-synch layered or straight ahead, but I do eyes and brows pose-to-pose.
3. Try to keep the two brows connected so they look like a continuous line. I usually have the brows lead the eyes by a frame or two. Make sure the brows relate to the lids, too. Try to mirror the angles of the brows in the eyelids, and have the lids open and close subtley in reaction to up and down brow movement. Facial muscles, especially around the eyes, are very short and quick, so I usually wouldn’t take longer than 5 frames between extremes.
4. Sorry, haven’t seen it!

[vnavone]

Could you go over the process Pixar/You use for facial shape animation? The shapes in the Incredibles were great, and I can’t figure out the process. The characters’ entire heads seemed to be squashing/stretching, along with their faces, etc. Is it just a simple layering of shape deformations? i.e., mouth shape over face shape over head shape…

Hi Patrick, I can’t go into the nuts and bolts of this too much. We don’t use large blend-shapes, but rather we have lots of small controls that we layer together to get just the right shapes. I.e. there’s no “smile” control, but you have controls to move the corner of the mouth Up and Down, Left and Right, In and Out, etc. and you can overlap these to great effect. We also had squash & stretch controls over larger parts of the body, like the head, jaw, neck, torso, limbs, etc. There were probably about 200 controls for the face on hero characters.

[Nedved]

Mr Victor navone
can i konw
you are working with wich software?
and
how long you have been work with 3d?

[tntcheats]

Hi there, Victor.
I haven’t seen The Incredibles yet, but I really liked TitanAE–well, music setting the mood a bit better would have made it a little less dull IMHO but that’s not your field.

I just want to know a few things:

1. How would you say (if you can) Animation:Master adds up versus Pixar’s proprietary software? Is Pixar’s software extremely good, or just about average for animation?
2. You’re a very skilled artist, I can see from your portfolio. So I wonder: how did you learn to draw/paint/whatever like that? Did you use tutorials, just practice, do you use your brain or reference objects you can see?
3. Do you look around Pixar and see that everyone’s about your skill level, or do you see everyone else as being a superior animator and you’re in over your head, or do you see yourself as the Zeus of Pixar, or do you just not ever think about that?
4. So often I see people asking everyone about the hardest things they’ve had to do, so I figured I’d throw this one into the mix: What was the easiest project or scene that you’ve had to do for Pixar.
5. Are the computers at Pixar nice? Do you ever find yourself angered by how slowly they run? Do you think they should upgrade them?

Thanks, and keep rocking the boxx.

[vnavone]

Hi Victor, I haven’t got any q?s that haven’t already been asked but I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for inspiring me so many moons ago with alien song, if not for that piece (as well as other timely stuff by Anzovin and Lew) in the late 90s, my career path would’ve led into engineering yawn… Which I’m so far from now thanks to you! So, quite simply, Thanks a mountain good sir:bowdown: for the invaluable inspiration!

Thanks for the nice post, Robert. I’m glad to have been of some inspiration!

[vnavone]

-Do you feel that it is important to have a degree in film to at some point direct an animated short/feature film in an industry pipeline like at ohhh, I dunno, Pixar? (I’ve been taught to shoot for the stars :)) In other words, does a degree in animation restrict you to just that in the eyes of people in hiring positions?
-On a similar line of thought, once you are a character animator in said industry pipeline, does that mean you will always be a character animator and/or in the animation department, or is there still room to be able to get into the story department or wherever in that same group?

Hi Eric, I really don’t have any good answers for you here. I don’t know what you would need to do to become a director, or if there even is a clear path, and I’m sure the qualifications vary from studio to studio. At Pixar it happens occasionally that an animator will do a tour in Story and vice versa, but I don’t know if that happens at other studios. Again, no gaurantees!

[vnavone]

Should a reel focus more on motion and simple acting or have a short story. Does fancy schmancy editing and music make a better impression than a nice, simply cut demo reel? What can a student expect while looking for his or her job, based on your experiance and stories you have heard.

Hi Rob, the most important thing on your reel is to show good acting and understanding of the traditional principals of animation. Editing, music, etc. doesn’t matter. Keep it short (under 3 minutes) and only show you BEST work. And don’t use copyrighted characters or mimic existing animated performances. You don’t need to have a complete story, but do show emotional changes and clear beats. What can you expect when looking for a job? Lots of competition! Good luck, Rob!

[vnavone]

I noticed alot of studios using MAYA, I personally am a all out XSI user. Does it matter what program your rockin when you enter the field of 3d/CG. Maybe you can give me some feed back to prepair myself. Like I said im a XSI user, but know the basics in many other 3d programs.

When your a modeler or animator do you ever get the chance to create the charecter? Or do you mainly animate and model someone elses charecter[s]?

Hi James, I’d like to say that a reel is all that counts but I imagine there are studios out there who don’t want to have to train you in there software. It’s in your best interest to maintain some familiarity with Maya. As for building characters, at Pixar the animators just animate. We have character TD’s to do the models for us.