Callie Love Halloween and Samosas

Halloween is upon us!! I love costumes and I was very happy when I was allowed to wear mine to work on Friday, even though the high heeled boots made me late. My boots are quite irrelevant to what work I got done this week however, so I'll move on. Monday and Wednesday I worked on my script, using Jeremy's notes and I watched more animated shorts to look at what elements made a short funny or memorable. Death Buy Lemonade by Kyu-bum Lee is definitely my favourite (probably because of the pun in the title).

Friday was my most productive day, by far. I sat in on a meeting and listened to Julie talk about a top secret toy (shhhh) being released just in time for Valentine's Day. It was actually a good thing to listen to because it offered an inside look at the back and forth between the client and the studio. Julie also printed out a script of Chirp and used that to teach me how to format my own script. I didn't do much after that except eat a samosa and write this before it was time to go. People are always giving me food here and I love it. Yum. Anyways, Happy Halloween!! See you next week.

Callie = Claire Standish

David J. Signing Off

Today is my last day as an Intern at Smiley Guy Studios! It's hard to believe just 13 short weeks ago I started my time here. When I first started I was pretty nervous about how my first experience in the industry would turn out. Would I be able to cultivate the skills necessary to become successful in this field? Would I fit into the studio?

I feel very lucky to have been able to work on three different shows during my time here because I think that doing so stretched my skillset and understanding of the different styles and subtleties that making each show look distinct and unique. Getting to do special effects was a lot of fun too!

Furry Force was my first experience in the industry and let me tell you, there’s nothing I won’t animate now. It was a lot of fun working on the shot where Leon timetravels to the past to warn Vivisector because I got to do hand drawn special effects for the lightning, plus it was SO hilarious making Leon shiny. Later I moved on to Chirp.

Doing Scene Setup on Chirp was an interesting experience because it's one of the jobs that I didn't realize existed. I had expected that it would have been the responsibility of the animator to bring all of the characters, backgrounds and audio into the scene. Now I realize that it actually makes it so much easier to get the animations done quickly because the elements are already sitting there waiting for you to make the characters think and act.

Animating on Chirp was really fun! My favourite character on the show is Squawk. I love bluebirds first of all, and Squawk is so fun to animate because he’s so boastful even though he’s always the first to run away. I like that mix of wanting to the great but also having alot of panic and fear. I think Character Animation is by far the most challenging facet of animation. Getting an appealing performance from the characters is always a new challenge every day but I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at it since working at Smiley Guy.

I have been working on Wussywat for the last couple days. I really like the characters. They have really cute individual personalities and it makes the acting choices a little more obvious because there is more variety between how they think and behave. On Wussy Wat the characters have more complicated rigs and they do a lot more moving around than on Chirp. Yesterday I had my first Skype meeting for Wussy Wat. It went well but I will ask more questions for the next time.

I am incredibly grateful to have been given the opportunity to work with such a great group of people who have mentored me throughout my time here as in intern, and look forward to moving into my new role as an employee at Smiley Guy Studios when I return from a week long trip in Montreal.

Keith's Last Blog

So this is my final blog entry, and what a ride it's been.

I can feel all the experience I've gained here at Smiley Guy, and I'm thankful for the multitude of different assignments I've received. On each assignment I successfully learned something new, and became just a little faster and slightly more efficient.

I was especially fond of the sparky graphics . These assignments although small gave me a great deal of creative freedom, so long as I followed the initial sketch as a guideline. The benefit of them being smaller assignments was the sense of accomplishment I got after finishing so many of them.   it's very akin to the Dopamine hit from leveling up in a video-game haha.

Had a bit of a surprise today when I found out Photoshop up and rebooted itself, taking my file that I had worked on all of yesterday with it; and all my brush presets were gone too (still don't get why that happens).

After a few minutes trying to find another copy of the file, I realized I had to do the entire thing again

After the usual few moments of shock and a involuntary eye twitch or two; I shrugged and realized I could do it again in half the time because I didn't need to spend time figuring it out from scratch; and it's still experience in working faster, so it's all good.

It wasn't as bad as loosing over 10 hours of fairly complex animation because of a corrupted flash file. 

That was unpleasant.

At times like this, I think about the story I'll be telling one day and that makes the entire experience less serious.

The process of painting as much as I have this summer (literally 8 hrs a day) and with a variety of subject matter, has thoroughly improved my understanding of colour and light.

 I'm a hell of a lot faster too.

I leave SGS wiser, and more confident in my abilities, and I thank everyone who helped me evolve, be it directly or otherwise.

Cheeawk! by Mary

This is my last blog post! It seems like I was on a faerie theme from the past posts, so here's the last one for you!

As you can see, I love this little kids show, and it was a pleasure working on it during my internship, and I look forward for more in the next month! Smiley Guy Studios has offered me a job here, so I'll still be animating these birds until my school starts. This means I'll also have more time to ask for some feedback on my thesis film.

I had a really fun experience here with friendly people and a relaxing environment and I think I've already blogged enough about what I've learned from the studio in my past posts, so perhaps here's something funny for my last blog post!

Last week Joel sent us a funny faerie Chirp clip from a future episode, and I had to check out the full animatic - no surprise I loved it! I was also wearing my Tinkerbell t-shirt that morning too. Hehehh.

On the same day, intern buddy David and I had a hilarious skype conversation after watching the episode before work. We really got into the Chirp world...so many deep questions were asked and a future story of Chirp turned into some strange fanfiction...PG-13 rating? David and I don't mind sharing this. I hope our energy entertains you!

The Skype Conversation:We made couple-pairing names?!!!!

David Just: squawk is my spirit animal

MaryT: I KNOW RIGHT???

David Just: ok thats it i offically ship tweet and squawk

MaryT: SAFJDNSAKJDNSAKDSADSA

David Just: i had them holding hands in my shot

MaryT: SQUEET!!!! 5EVERE (squeet = squawk + tweet)

David Just: i kinda changed it though so they aren't rrreeaaalllyy holding hands

MaryT: BUT I WANT CHIRP IN ON THIS. CHIRPAWK. (chirpawk = chirp + squawk)

David Just: cheeawk(cheeawk = chirp + tweet + squawk)

David Just: the ultimate OT3 (ot3 = one true triple pairing)

MaryT:CHEEAWKTHAT IS PERFECt

David Just: so much vowels

David Just: its like a hawk screeching

David Just: wait... aren't they siblings?

David Just: everything is so ambiguous!

MaryT: What colour parents would they have if they were siblings???

David Just: couple of rainbow parents duhhhhh

MaryT: maybe the show ships them as siblings....but NEIGH we shall Cheeawk into the horizon in the sunset

MaryT: PARROTS???

David Just: yellow blue orange purple probably the other colours too ;)

David Just: maybe???

David Just: i feel like tweet is an owl though

David Just: hahahah

MaryT: Tweet would be....Hoot

David Just: yeah!

MaryT: What if Squawk had a crow for a dad because of his beak? He'd be....Caw....Squawk Caw.

David Just: yeah!

David Just: and chirp is like... part canary

David Just: from a pet store

David Just: honestly he reminds me to tweety bird so much

MaryT: His mother was....TWEETY BIRD

David Just: YES! :O

MaryT: THATS IT

MaryT: THIS IS LOONEY TOONS NEXT GENERATION

MaryT: LOONIES

David Just: AAAAAHHHH!!! WB will be so upset :P

MaryT: Maybe the Warner Brothers turned INTO the vole brothers?

MaryT: they are secretly the Warner brothers. watching over Tweety Bird's lost son

David Just: we're in way too deep! write the back story n post it somewhere

MaryT: I'll use it as my next blog post OMG

David Just: who's the dad though?

David Just: Multiple dads?

David Just: :O

MaryT: I dunno but maybe LOL oh Tweety.

David Just: i feel like squawk's dad is the crows from dumbo

MaryT: YEAH

MaryT: omg

David Just: tweets could be owl from winnie the pooh

MaryT: Oh my god

David Just: and chirp is immaculate conception from god

MaryT: WELL THEN TWEETY WHOA THERE

MaryT: he's the precious one born in a cage

David Just: sweet summer child

MaryT: the golden child. who's grandmother will never visit him

MaryT: imagine the angst when he'll never see his grandma in person

David Just: he is his own grandma

MaryT: OMG

MaryT: YOU'RE RIGHT

David Just: come on Mary, it's obviously just chirp in a dress ;)

David Just: she doesn't even have wrinkles

MaryT: FOOLING SQUAWK AND TWEET EVERY DAY HE HIRED THE MAIL SQUIRREL IN THIS DAILY SCHEME.

MaryT: TO PROVE TO THEM THAT AT LEAST HE HAS FAMILY.

MaryT: WHEN TWEET FINDS OUT ABOUT HIS EVIL LIES SHE LEAVES THE BIRDS AND MARRIES THE VOLE BROTHERS. SQUAWK FINDS OUT HE FORSAKEN THE CANARY'S HEART AND SINGS A SAD SONG AND ATTRACTS SPARKY BUT THEIR LOVE CAN NEVER BE. AND THEN CHIRP IS ALL ALONE AGAIN.

MaryT: oh i just had caps on. omg

MaryT: messed up chirp angst

David Just: lmao

David Just: so much angst

David Just: holy moly

MaryT: coming up next "the friendship is broken. the season finale. Will they ever be together again?"

David Just: the answer, YES

MaryT: a loud battle cry was heard because love is a war. love is...CHEEAWK.

David Just: lmao

David Just: i wanna draw like a mega bird with 3 heads called the cheeawk

MaryT: OMHG

The end! Well you can tell we're into the show.

Thanks a bunch Smileys!

Mia Starts on Chirp!

For last week, I worked on pose sheets for Vampire PI.I just created them of two characters from its very cute character design sheets. It takes more time than I expected maybe because I can't work fast with pen tools. Sometimes, I got crooked line instead of nice curved line on my intention.

I got assigned some works to work at home on last week and I borrowed my sister's Mac and this was the first time that I used it because I have been using Windows in my life. And it went over my head! Their mouse scroll direction is opposite of Windows and they have command key which I couldn't figure out its exact functions. That key functioned similarly with control key but mac has control key too and it was confusing which key should I use. Mac was challenge for me and I am afraid to use them again for fear of losing my work by pressing wrong key...

For this week, I am working on a layout for the underwater scene from Chirp! I made a big dumb mistake from the beginning because I worked on very small canvas size. Therefore, I should work all over again.I will never make the same mistake again!

David Just Learns to Walk

This week I got my first scene that was longer than ten seconds. With about 14 seconds to animate for one scene, I’m pretty busy. The shot has the three birds in a hot air balloon and there is a lot of dialog. I think I’ve figured out how to get faster with the lipsync, but I'm still struggling to get all of the acting done in a quick and effective way. Luckily I was able to get some tips from Darien, the Animation Director on Chirp, and improved my scene.

 One of the things I’ve learned this week is how to modify walk cycles to prevent foot positions from sliding. I was told that the producers on Chirp aren't too concerned with feet sliding, but for my own sanity I needed to keep Chirp from look like an ice skater. I was able to fix the problem by making the cycle repeat a few more times and then shortening the distance the birds needed to travel as well. Darien told me that in some cases the whole cycle may have to be sped up and all the tweens would then need to be re-adjusted. Luckily I didn't need to do it that way.

I also learned from Joel about how to make better acting choices. Normally I follow the storyboards as closely as I can but in one scene I was able to improve the performance by making Chirp look more excited. By using the recorded dialog as a basis for finding the “beats” animators can emphasize the character's actions in sync with the line delivery to help the audience understand the message as clearly as possible.

Audio Book Reviews by Meghan

The last couple weeks at Smiley Guy I have been doing more prop building. I enjoy the challenge and like that I'm able to listen to audiobooks while I work. Last week Mary and I decided to listen to a book called "I've got your number" by Sophie Kinsella and we absolutely loved it!! I would recommend it to anyone who likes romantic comedies. She's also the author of the book "Confessions of a shopaholic" which is a movie. Another good book of hers that I read a while back is "remember me?". So if anyone who's reading this needs a light-hearted entertaining book to read, choose one of these or another of Sophie Kinsella's books. 

 

I'll be moving back onto Scene set-up this week and will be moving to Wussywat next week! Looking froward to the challenge!

David Works on the Birds and the Bees

This week was Canada Day so it was a short week! I’ve been finding Mondays are usually my least productive days but this week on Tuesday even though I came in late (for good reason!) I still managed to get all five of the scenes in my que finished! I feel like I’m starting to get a better handle of the animation style of the show along with streamlining my work-process. 

I’m finding that Chirp is a fun show to work on because the birds are always pretending to bee somewhere else and someone else! This week in the episode I’m working on, Chirp and friends are pretending to be bees so I changed my desktop to a screencap from Wickerman to get me in the the mood:

Mary's Faeries and Romantic Comedies

I've been animating for Chirp episodes this week and I'm still enjoying it! In fact here's an adorable still from a momentary glitch I got animating one of the scenes:

Isn't he so cute?? Hahaha! I joked to Joel about how I was animating the next Jurassic World with this little guy. Hahhah! Imagine that? JurassicChirp World!

Anyway, I had even checked out the magazine this show was from. I say, this tv show really did a good job redesigning the characters. (Though I still don't know what kind of bird Tweet is...) I told my little sister that if I were to create more bird characters for Chirp, they'd be named, Hoot, Caw, and Quack. You can guess what birds they may be. 

Also here's Meghan as a faerie:

Thanks for introducing me to an awesome romantic comedy novel Meghan! :) If anyone's curious, the novel was "I Got Your Number" by Sophie Kinsella. It was really entertaining and I really hope they make a film out of it one day. I'm reading the "Lunar Chronicles" by Marissa Meyer now. So far the scifi/dystopian world is really interesting, especially with their android female protagonist.

Mia Works on Chirp

For this week, I drew concept art for the layout from Chirp and this was the first time that I worked something for Chirp! I drew the rough layout first and then continued to work on painting it which was pretty interesting. The backgrounds from Chirp has its own unique style like the sharp edges, bold outline and realistic textures. I used pen tool for blocking all the layers first and then searched for good textures for the layout. The scene that I worked on was a desert canyon scene and I found various different rock textures for the canyon. I played around with them and it was a lot of fun. What I am working on now is making the characters from a concept art to be able to build and animate in Flash.

Keith Talk about Bubbles and Books

This week has been very fruitful, learning how to flow with the creative current as opposed to resisting it, when I second guess myself. I did several Sparky graphics, and some equally challenging grandma post cards. They are sooo very fun to do. I'm really enjoying the whole playing with colours and calling it  "work" thing.

A highlight- someone got a surprise birthday cake that looked very much like a huge burger. It was hilarious!!

That and gigantic bubbles!!!    on the rooftop!!!     soo fun!!!!!

 

Brad demonstrating how to make massive bubbles

Finally caught up with "the girl with the dragon tattoo" series, and am on the last chapter of the audio book. its really exciting, I love the sense of divine retribution the author put into the book, it makes it so much more enjoyable, like everything gets wrapped up, and everyone gets their just desserts. 

Spoiler alert lol

I mention the audio-book, because I find they work much better than movies, or t.v. shows at keeping me just on the edge of my seat and alert so I don't get fatigued when painting all day.

It really adds to the experience, almost like you're on the adventure with them, feeling their sorrow, their joys all from the safety of the office.

The Birds and the Faeries and Mary

I've been animating scenes for Chirp for the past two weeks and I'm having a blast! I'm learning how to play with timing and secondary actions in my animations, and so far, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable using Flash puppets. The Chirp characters were entertaining to animate, and it was fun to play with their poses. I especially love playing with Chirp's character - I like giving him that smug, sassy look for some reason. Maybe I'll make them do the 'french pose' next for fun. Hahah! I wonder if I can show funny pose screenshots...

The voice acting of the birds were really well done in the show too - the kids were animated and funny to listen to. Kudos to those talented kids~!

Anyway, I'll write more next post, but here's a little faerie me drawing on a leaf! I'm on a faerie hype right now for some reason...

David's To-Do Lists

So I’ve been giving the opportunity to work on something other than Furry Force, which I am thankful for. It was starting to ruin my brain, even though it was HILARIOUS to work on. For example here are some of my favourite notes from a shot i was working on just the other day.

Now I'm on working on Chirp in scene set-up and I get notes like “switch the instance of Squawk’s torso” and other such mild mannered instructions. Its a good change of place and I'm learning that there is a lot of different elements that all need to be properly organized and labeled and checked and double checked.

Keith's Musings on the TTC and Sparky Graphics

Wacky Wednesday:

I wake up to the sound of  the radio show host saying that all the subway lines are shut down. With a groan I fall back in bed, while his co-host tells everyone to just take a day off. I drag myself out of bed and trudge along to start what promised to be the start of a terrible day. As I dose off on the bus-ride to the subway station, I wish the subway lines would magically just be open when I get there, that they were never closed in the first place.  

Imagine my surprise when I got to Islington Station expecting a crowded shuttle bus and instead see the subway functioning as normal.  Bewildered I get on, did I dream that the subway was closed? Did i fall asleep and dream that it was open?  I ponder these questions as I drift off once more. 

When I get to work, I'm still confused. I ask Joel if he heard about the subways, and he confirms he heard they were closed. 

With a shrug of disbelief I start painting...

 

I do love the crazy rain we're having, it always manages to put me in a better mood.

Been working on Sparky Graphics, which is something completely different from what I'm used to, which is great. It's funny, whenever I begin to feel the strain of working on something too long, I get a new assignment to balance everything out.

Really enjoyed playing with colors on the surfing grandma postcard assignment I got to do.

 

Meghan's Dogs Love the Birds!

The last couple of weeks I was finishing up scene planning and starting on prop building. So far so good, I’m really enjoying it. The designs for chirp are pretty adorable and I like how textures are applied to them to give them something extra. There have been a couple challenges but only because I’ve just started doing it and thankfully I have a really patient teacher who’s pretty awesome.


The other day as I was getting ready to leave for the train, I turned the TV on so my dogs would have some noise while I was gone. I usually just turn on whatever, but I managed to find Chirp on TV! It was pretty cool seeing an actual episode on TV so now everyday before I leave I turn Chirp on for my dogs to watch. I’m excited for the day I get to see a couple of the things I worked on, on TV!

Smileys, Dracula and Biiirds!

I had just finished my last prop/FX today for Smiley Guy Studios' tv show Chirp! It involved snow and icebergs and what I'd call...snowbergs! I'll miss doing props. It was so fun and relaxing! I've learned so much, from masking to animation techniques. I've made a collection of bananas, flowerpots, toilet papers, dog dishes, pickaxes, sandcastles, megaphones, nuts, leaves, playsets, snowballs and now snowbergs! 

There were times when I was just frustrated with my slow pace, but there were also times when I get so caught up making a prop that it actually turns out "Good!" according to Joel. I'm surprised by how much I know a lot more about Flash at this point. Thank you so much Joel! 

Aside from my Flashy adventures, I also acquainted with more Smiley faces like Tom, who had apparently worked at Elliot Animation (I've heard that studio did the show 6teen and Stoked, which are shows that I was a big fan of) and Cherry, Ashley and Kosta among others who talk about comics and superhero movies. It's really cool to get to know people in the studio with similar likes. We even have awesome lunch adventures, like last week, Julie took us to Kensington Market, and ugh oh...I think I found a new knick-knack store to lose all my money to...

There's so much more to talk about, like how I'm starting scene-planning and animating in Chirp this week, but because my ice-cappuccino beside me is crying out to be emptied...that's all folks! :)

P.S.

The Dracula part in this week's title was because of two things. 1) I had just finished Bram Stoker's novel Dracula and it was awesome, and 2) I had just got a part of a Romanian character - with fangs of course, because Transylvanian vampires, yoo - for an upcoming Q&A panel in a comic convention in Hamilton! (I can't believe I still have time for these things. pfffft oh well it's my summer) Anyway that means, it's time to practice being a vampire while animating.

  Here's a sneaky birdie for ya! Inspired by WussyWat's bird design.  Birds, birds, birds!

 

Keith Commutes, and Smiley Guy Video!

So I've been working on backgrounds of the actual show and things are getting a lot more intense. Lots more to do, but I've started to see improvements in my work and am getting faster. I believe I'm nearly ready to work from home some of the time. Love working in the studio, but the commute is still exhausting. I also like that every morning at the subway there's a street musician doing his thing, really brightens up the day.

Loved the little "featurette" CBC did on the studio: 

Meghan Makes Mistakes...But That's Okay

The last week and a half at Smiley Guy I’ve continued to do Scene Set up on Chirp. I’ve learned even more about Flash and am now confident enough to work on my own and solve most problems on my own. I still make mistakes however… a lot of mistakes, but my supervisor continues to tell me that mistakes happen and everyone makes them, even people who have been working there for a long time. Although I try my hardest to not make mistakes, I’ve noticed that after I make them I learn something new, or become more aware and am able to catch them after I send them in so I can correct them before the scene planning supervisor sees them… or sometimes I just make incredibly stupid mistakes and can’t believe I did it. I’m improving though and that’s what matters. I’m getting faster, and setting up more difficult scenes, which are both fun and challenging. I’ve come to hate masking and shape tweens more then anything, but at least I actually know how to do them. They are incredibly useful, just a pain. 

Overall, things are going well. I’m happy with everything so far and am looking forward to moving on to prop builds in the near future!

Smiley Guy For The Win! - Introducing Meghan

I learned more about flash in the last week and a half here at Smiley Guy then I have in the last three years at school. The first few days were a little rough. I was constantly asking my supervisors questions (sometimes the same one more than once), I did the two tests at a snails pace and even managed to lose most of one of the assignments when my flash crashed. I learned a valuable lesson from that however- Constantly save your work.

After a few days of trying to figure flash out, it started to become easier. By Friday, I was working on actual production stuff! I’m currently doing scene set up for an episode of Chirp and resourcing other episodes in-between. With every scene that I finish, I become more and more confident with the program, and less annoying to my supervisors (although they don’t think I’m annoying… or are too nice to admit it haha). I’ve also finally downloaded Skype so the other artists in the studio don’t have to listen to me calling my supervisors over to my workspace every 5 minutes.

The people at the studio are friendly, helpful and very sociable with each other. In my first week we had two organized lunches and a game night. Apparently game nights are a regular weekly thing too!

I’m very happy to be interning here at Smiley Guy and I’m excited to see what the upcoming weeks bring.

Mary Meets Toronto

Hey there! I'm Mary, one of the summer interns at Smiley Guy Studios, studying Animation at Sheridan. C:

 

Today is my sixth day here, and so far I'm enjoying it. I'm learning a lot of new stuff in and outside the studio, and my first week was filled with learning curves! 

 

Inside the studio I learned new things in Flash CS3, from puppet rigging, to animating with new commands. I've never explored the Ease feature, nor have I ever built a puppet in it.

I'm really grateful for Matt on the ease feature (his tutorials were helpful, and I hope to learn more of his neat tips and tricks in animating), and Joel for teaching and helping me learn more about the program. I learned a lot more about symbol animation, and did you see their library of hands for the characters in their Warren United show? They're so cool!

Joel also introduced me to Rich, a fellow director of Smiley Guy's "Cloud 8" short film a few years ago, which I found impressive. They used After Effects to composite, and I hope to learn more about that program too. Aside from making an animation look professional from it, AE can mask things with a green screen feature, like what they do for Lord of The Rings.

 

Anyway outside the studio was also a learning experience. My first day I had arrived to work early enough to explore College St. for a bit, and I ended up all the way to Spadina. I've barely explored downtown Toronto, so hopefully during my time working here I'd get more familiar with the streets and perhaps find the best little food places.  I am also super glad that Julie toured us around for lunch a couple of times. 

Furthermore I even made it all the way up to Bloor and Yonge St on foot! 

When I get home I'm either hungry or exhausted, but I feel that everyday, traveling to TO and learning from industry professionals are always worth the train rides.

Here's me as a Chirp character, makin' my way downtown!