AM301+: Introduction to Acting / Acting Overview

Just wrapped up the first week assignment for this term, In this assignment we have to think of a simple scenario for an acting test without any dialogue, this test should consist of two distinct and contrasting "beats" that tell a basic story contrast in ideas, such as: Patience / Anger, Confidence / Insecurity, Hopeful / Devastated. I came up with 3 situations,


















































My first idea, is somehow complicated, I had to use online video reference for that, my 2nd idea is the most convenient & I like it because It reminds me of college days, I can relate to it more than the other 2 ideas, the 3rd idea is cool, but after I did the video reference I felt like I lost the contrast of emotions, so I'm personally excited about Idea #2, thanks to Yazan for helping me come up with this particular idea and developing it, I uploaded below idea #2 with its final video reference pick, and a rough 2D blocking using flipbook,





Thumbnails,


































Finally I end up with my other ideas & the video reference, now waiting for my mentor's feedback.

Class 3 Again: Introduction to Acting / Jalil Sadool

Back in business, I just had my first live q&a for this term, retaking intro to acting again.

This time my mentor is Jalil Sadool, currently an Animator at Weta Digital cranking through James Cameron's "Avatar" and A. Adamson’s “Prince Caspian”. Before that he worked at Rhythm and Hues as an animator on “The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe”, “Garfield 2”, “Charlotte’s Web”, and “A Night at the Museum”.left for Weta in 2006 and was part of the team on “The Water Horse: Legend of the deep”.

Thinking about my pantomime shot, not sure what to do yet, I was thinking of doing the tennis serve, a change of gears from confidence/insecurity , starts with confident tennis player, but somehow at the end he loses grip of the racket and it bounces back at him, something humiliating.

Still searching & thinking of more ideas, now thinking of a Samurai sword master who wants to cut an apple on the head of his assistant, after he successfully do that he wave with sword in celebration and accidentally cuts off part of his assistant... I think this one could be nice
but still brainstorming & looking for reference, any ideas are most welcome.

here's my latest Reel update, no tweaks on the animation itself, just made it more presentable, fixed the shot titles, its order, got rid of some shots & added some music using garageband.

LOA Week 10: Tennis Serve 2D

I just finished the 2D planning for my next shot...

Getting ready for AnimationMentor, I'm refreshing my skills with a tutorial by Jason Ryan, I just finished the 2D animation(planning stage) using flipbook, should've been just a stick figure but I got dragged with my passion to draw... I really enjoyed it... I just love to draw more than fixing curves in the graph editor!!!

I also feel I understood the principles of animation more after this exercise... squash & stretch, overlap & follow through, opposite action...etc

now I'm ready to start blocking this shot in Maya, I have 4 weeks before I start AM, so its gonna be 2 weeks of blocking, 2 weeks of polishing, pretty much like most of AM's assignments...



This image bellow shows the simple sticky figure for this tutorial

LOA Week 9: Tennis Serve WIP

Continued working on this Tennis serve animation tutorial by Jason Ryan... some clean up & added inbetweens for the first part bouncing the ball before the serve...
Its taking me more than It should, I guess because I decided not to follow the tutorial's sticky figures & have the character more closer to the 3D rig I'll be using later in maya...
It was tempting for me to spend more time giving it some nice rough render than having it just lines, which for future planning purposes I will keep it simple & without any shade or shadow...

more inbetweens for the second part tomorrow

My First PEARL JAM Gig

Not an animation related post, but It's one dream I had since I was a teenager & last night I had it come true... & since this blog is a record of my journey to make a bigger dream come true, I felt like posting this.

Yeah!!! Last night was so GREAT that I will never forget, It was my first time to see Pearl Jam live, "bless the day I moved from Jordan to the United States". The biggest events back home were Sting & Bryan Adams, and the funniest thing I remember when I was ushering for Bryan Adams show, people were so dumb they thought the guy tuning the guitar was Bryan Adams himself...

so since I've moved here I've been trying my best to see all my favorite bands live, I've seen Metallica, Slayer, Coldplay, No Doubt, but PEARL JAM had the best vibes... my soul was about to take off :D
I enjoyed the show & can't wait to see them again.

they played so many good songs, long great show I remember playing Corduroy, Black, Alive, Even Flow, State of Love & Trust, Better man, Daughter, Yellow Ledbetter, Porch, Nothingman, Do the evolution, Crazy Mary... & more

here's a sample that I found on youtube, I wish I can find betterman

Black


Alive


Nothingman