Fest Numero 5, 6 & 7!

An update from Davis, California!

I am still on my extendedly wonderful vacation touring the better part of California and staying with wonderful friends along the way. I have had so many amazing experiences these past few weeks to honestly last me my lifetime!

"Tah-Dah" has made it into three more film fests, I feel so overwhelmed! I just wish I could be there to see each one screen....hmmm....if only I could get a plane ticket that would be free flights forever.......

Anyhoo, the three fests are:

My film will be played at the San Diego Intl Children's Film Fest, which will take place at Comic-Con, so that is uber exciting!

Yay for film fests! I hope to make at least a couple of them but we shall see. Well, on the road again.....

Fourth Film Fest!

Whilst enjoying our jaunts down South [my apologies on lack of posting, but we have been traveling by foot seemingly every waking moment!]...I heard from a fourth film fest that my film,
"Tah-Dah" has been accepted!

Yahoo! [The excitement never ceases for me!]

It's the West Hollywood International Film Fest, or WHIFF. Click on the image above to see their site. Visiting Hollywood this week is extra exciting for me, as in August my film will screen there!

As for our crazy awesome road trip extraordinaire, it has been going fabulously. More pics and sketches to come, but until then here's a few snapshots thus far :)

Moi hugging a HUGE rock formation at the Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.

Tams and I on her 30th birthday at the Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.

Super excited moi up in an air balloon for the first time over the beautiful vineyards in Temecula, California!

Doing some watercolour paintin' at the AWESOME Grand Canyon!

Doc and me, checkin' the time in Universal Studios, Hollywood.

I'm goin' to Disneyland!

Moi rarin' to get going, Tom & Jerry in tow!

Tams is right behind me on her suped up motorcycle!

Tams and I have been planning a grad road trip celebration for what feels like EONS, and now it's almost upon us!!

These last few weeks have been INSANE with getting the film complete, finishing exams, portfolio and other classes, getting prepped for Industry Day, packing up my Oakville life and moving it all temporarily back to Winnipeg...so we are in need of some good ol' fashioned fun in the sun!

We don't have a definite timeline [more like, until the money runs out!], but we plan to see & do as much as we can, maybe visit some studios along the way, I'll paint as much as possible - and most of all, CELEBRATE GOOD TIMES, c'mon! :)

Here's our planned route, if anyone has any suggestions or tips, feel free to leave comments!

Winnipeg > Sioux Falls, South Dakota [Mount Rushmore] > Flaming Gorge, Wyoming > Moab, Utah [Arches National Park] > Flagstaff, Arizona [Grand Canyon] > Anaheim, California [Disneyland!] > San Diego, California > San Francisco, California [Redwood National Park] > Portland, Oregon > Seattle, Washington > Billings, Montana > Fargo, North Dakota > back home to Winnipeg

We leave Wednesday morning, I can't wait!! I'll post sketches along the way!

"Tah-Dah" in Film Fests!

I thought I should update on here thus far: my thesis film from Sheridan "Tah-Dah" has made it into 3 film festivals!

I have applied to many [millions, it seems], but I have only heard from 3 so far, and I got into all 3, so I like that track record :) Most of the others I won't hear until well into the summer, so these were unexpected smiles.

The fests are:

Air Canada's enRoute Film Festival - my film will be shown in-flight on all Air Canada's flights during July & August


Washougal International Film Festival in Washougal, Washington


Beloit International Film Festival in Beloit, Wisconsin

I'm super pumped, it makes every long day of obsessively tweaking each scene and frame that much more rewarding!

Industry Day 2009

Two of my greatest Sheridan gal pals - Alysia Avey and Laurin Wolf
with their films on Industry Day!

Moi by my Tah-Dah station, awaiting Industry peeps :)

The big ol' Industry Day '09 at Sheridan College this past April 30th was, for me, an experience! I knew it could be a big day, but I also knew not to hold my breath and hope to get offered an amazing job immediately following the screening.

It was great experience getting some professional and honest feedback from various parts of the Industry; my first real animation "schmooze" day.

In the end, I met a lot of people, got some really positive feedback on my film, and landed an interview at Nelvana in downtown Toronto.

While I still cannot believe my 4 years at Sheridan are complete, I look forward to seeing what this next chapter holds for me!

"Tah-Dah" Poster.... Finally!

So even though I officially finished my Animation degree this previous Friday [yaaahOOOOOOOO!!!!] and will soon complete the last chapter in this 4-chapter book....it doesn't feel that way!

Industry Day is this Thursday, so I am madly trying to get together my portfolio, update my resume, do my demo reel, design a takeaway portfolio for possible interviews, design postcards and redesign my poster, get that all printed, apply to a bunch of film fests....OH and my family is flying out this weekend and then we will be moving back to the Peg.

PHEW! Time flies :)

BTW, if anyone wants to take a peek at my flat portfolio or my press kit for "Tah-Dah", the links are on the side > > > under "My Jazz".

We'll see how the big screening goes!

Another finished still!

The end is so near, I can taste it! I am muchos excited :)
I'd love to be able to just concentrate on my reel and portfolio now, however I have two electives to take care of, exams and such.

In any case, I only have two official weeks left of 4th year.... which then means I graduate in two weeks! Yipee kay-yay! WOW, how time has flown.

Much excitement to come, but for now, I gotta finish comp on "Tah-Dah"!

A finished still from "Tah-Dah"

I honestly feel like I am developing Photoshop Elbow. [in lieu of Tennis Elbow!!]

However, since I am on the almost-last stage of my film, I can deal with this never-ending Photoshop colouring frame by frame! By the end of all this, I will have felt like I ran 14 marathons. With my pencil :)

So here's a finished still from my upcoming film, "Tah-Dah"! I am excited to finally start to see it come to Technicolor life – I have been staring at the grayscale animation and backgrounds for what seems like eons, so this stage is exciting for me!

Stay tuned!

Straight to your airwaves...

I'm on the radio! Or, I was.

First off, a huge thanks to Toni Pennacchia at MergingArts Productions, who invited me to come and do an interview with her on Spoiler Alert Radio.

It was great fun! I have never been on the radio before, not even as a call-in for a contest, so this was an entirely new experience for moi. It's now available as a downloadable podcast on the Spoiler Alert Radio website here.

For more info on Toni's awesome film festivals, Short Short Short Film Festival and Womanimation!, click here.

The cello stands alone.

Here's another painted layout from my film - this one is basically my master layout where the farmer is playing his cello. I can't wait to finally get to colouring my animation!

The deadlines are fast approaching....just keep colouring....just keep colouring......!

Paintin' fences

I am done clean-up [yay!!], and I am starting now to colour my backgrounds. I have 13 backgrounds total, and 2 minutes worth of animation.....and I plan to paint each frame in Photoshop with texture SOOOOOOOOOO....

I gots a lots o' colouring ahead!

For now, background 01 is done-o!

Animation Yearbook design

So this has been the year I have been waiting for [in more ways than one!], but also in terms of our annual Animation Yearbook. We can design one page of artwork each year to be included in the Yearbook, black and white; however when you get to 4th year, we get 2 pages - one colour AND one black and white. Wowza!

I spent last night and this morning finishing up a design to represent my film and be sufficiently well designed--at least to my liking!

Above are the pages individually; the black and white page will be on the left and the colour page on the right. I only tried to remember one thing this year when I designed them - LESS is more!

The pages together as hopefully they will appear in the Yearbook:

And now....back to clean-up!

Rough "TAH-DAH" Poster Idear

Amid working like a nutbar on cleaning up my animation, I am also trying to compile a few promotional pieces for my film right now. I am confident I will have more artwork when the film is closer to being finished, but as it stands I threw together a few pieces.....here's one of them, a rough poster idear.

Stay tuned for more!

Colour Concoctions

Right now I am trying to clean up all my animation [as quickly as humanly possible, which is not easy with clean up!]....so I thought I'd post my newest colour script for my film.

I really want an earthy palette, but one that's also a bit wacky to work with the UPA-ish stylings.
I hope this works, but the real test will be when I start to paint my animation and backgrounds!

Must.....keep...........drawrrrrrrinnnnnnggg......

Ruff animation stills from "TAH-DAH"

I thought since I am starting clean-up today [FINALLY!!], that I would post some stills of my ruff animation. I am actually happy with how it's turning out, which is a rareity when it comes to me liking my own animation!! So I am staying positive and moving forward!















I am sooooooo anxious to get to the painting stage, I just want to see it all finished now, but clean-up is a necessary evil, I suppose...... :)

Onward and upward!

The Stars of "TAH-DAH"

I'm pausing inbetween scenes to quickly post some character designs...I realize I haven't posted too much artwork from my film as of yet - 'cause everything is in the works!

But I have to say, I am actually really excited with the direction my film is going. Even though it's crazy insane amounts of work, I'm really lovin' seeing my characters come to life and my story take form.

It won't be complete [knock on wood!!] until end of April, but for now, here's my designs for the two main characters: Farmer Henry and Bentley Bug.

I hope everyone else will enjoy it as well!

Gesture paintin'

I'm a-still animatin' away on my film, so I thought I'd post some gesture studies I did from life drawing last semester.

Lookin' back at these, I do actually kinda miss it this term!

I'll definitely try to keep taking life drawing on the side, wherever I end up; it's such great practice for sharpening your drawing technique, and it's also a great way to experiment with styles. Unlike caffe drawing, the models don't move, so it's a great opportunity to take more time to study details.

Back to rough animating I go!

A "TAH-DAH" test

I am madly ruff animating as we type.....HOWever, I thought I shouldst post a test scene I did before Christmas to see if I could ACTUALLY animate the way I was thinking in my head. In order to get the result I wanted, I mean. It's not perrrrfect, but it helped me work out a LOT of pipeline bugs, and is definitely helping me not lose sleep during the ruff animation stage....wondering how I am gonna clean up and colour all those frames.....

As you can see, I didn't finish colouring all the frames, but it was good enough for moi.

So enjoy the sneak peek!
Stay tuned for the real flick, April 2009 :)

Kaj sketches

Still workin on film stuff before I post...but I came across these rough Kaj Pindal sketches I did of him a couple months ago when he was kind enough to critique my film leica.

He gave me some great tips and comments, and regardless, it's always a bundle of enjoyment to be in that man's company and share in his vast animation experience and wisdom!

Cheers to Kaj!

Tips from Leo

I know, I KNOW, I have NOT posted in what seems like 8.3 months, but I am madly working on bits and parts of my film in its chaotic state at this moment! It's gotta be complete in 11 weeks, ack, ack, ACK.

Things will be posted toute suite on the aforementioned film....

....but in the meantime, here are some great tips on doing a short film from leonardo.
I found it both helpful and enjoyable.

I will post soon, I promise!