I have never formally met "t-Dan", but have many close friends who speak very highly and just love this guy. He has a reputation of not only being an amazing artist, but a really giving mentor and friend. There is a feature and a podcast interview on the CTN Blog this month of T-Dan. In this interview, TDan proves to be the most fair animator I have heard. He describes his experiences in 2D at Disney and CG and mocap at Sony with a positive perspective. Inspiring!
In the CTN podcast interview, TDan explains what it's like to work...both in traditional hand drawn animation, and to create animation on a computer. He talks about how the process works in CG, compared to the solitary position in 2D. I love his explanation of the collaborative efforts between modelers, riggers and animators get a solid puppet that can deliver the right performance. The most important part of a show is that front end of R & D in creating the character in CG and TDan gets to the heart of that...how some shows skimp on a budget without understanding this important part of the process.
One great point he makes in the interview is how he persuaded people to let him work on the computer without ever having done it before. TDan sought out the training and was persistent in his desire to convince management he could do it.
Whenever, I speak to students, I touch upon pigeon-holing and how its a myth in your own mind. Jamie and I even have a section on this in the book. There is only way you are pigeon-holed into a particular position. It's because YOU did not seek out the training to prove to the powers that be that you CAN do something other than the task they have given you.
Shamus Culhane said in his book "Animation, From Script to Screen", "
...over 90 percent of any group of workers are unwilling to further their abilities by study -- unless it happens during working hours and the boss supplies the means. ...So, for the ambitious neophyte, these figures should be reassuring: The competition consists of less than 10 percent of the animation profession."
Remember this when you are complaining that you are still a tracker, but can animate. If you reel doesn't show that you can animate? Go find a mentor and work on your reel until it does!
Finally, I love how he explains his experience with mocap on the movie Polar Express. He saw that mocap never gets every nuance in the the face that is really there and then he had to put it in there. That is his job as the clean-up animator. But! he had to respect the integrity of the broad strokes and timing too! This is the only way mocap will be massaged into something that looks good and is approved by those who took the time to record an actor first. I look forward to the day I might get a chance to work with Dan Hofstedt.
Thanks to Tina price of CTN
0 comments:
Post a Comment