Introducing Lucas, Our Newest Highschool Student

Wooh! First blog!

For those of you who are reading this; I am Lucas Tennen the Smiley Guy Studio Co-op student for the year. I enjoy Adele and long walks on the beach. Not really, although I find it's usually a good ice breaker. 

    

So you could sort of say that this was like my first full week at SGS, although it was a bit of a rocky start. Last weekend my computer went through a series of crashes (both physical and software related) which resulted in some programs and files being unable to reach in my computer. One of them was flash. When I tried re-installing I was greeted with the ever so frustrating "Unable to download software." So I did my best to not let my time go to waste by reading about and watching many flash tutorials as I could. Although I haven't actually gotten into the program, I do feel well informed.

On a side note; I got a desk! It may not seem like a big deal, but it's my first so I'm pretty exited. It's relatively plain so I want to bring in a figurine or something somewhat representing of me. Now this next bit may need some explanation: I have a bit of an odd uncle. For my bar-mitzvah he gave me a figure of a dancing Jewish man. I keep it on a shelf near my bed. It seemed harmless at first, but it's starting to freak me out. I swear it's eyes follow me sometimes. So, I figured my desk would be a perfect place for it. It may not be well received, but if one person walks by and gets a kick out of it then it will have served a better purpose then it does in my room. Which pretty much is watching me sleep.

Thanks (sorry about the lack of animation I'm able to upload this week)

Welcome Humphrey! Our First International Intern!

Alright, here's my blog entry:

Humphrey Erm here, I'm a Swedish animation student from The Animation Workshop in Denmark.  From what I have understood I am the first international intern that Smiley Guy Studios has ever had, so I have by nature of my geographic location made history here.

I've been here a workweek now and am so far simply impressed and pleased with my internship.  The studio itself is nice and large, capable of housing quite a few professionals.  There's a comfortable meeting room and even a rec room with a ping pong table and table football which I'm looking forward to trying out.  I even get my own desk and computer to do all my work at which is much appreciated.

The people here are also really cool.  Everyone is working hard on separate tasks but they have all had time to give me some pointers or simply showing me what they're up to.  They have done a good job making me feel welcome in this studio and I for one appreciate that.

The work so far has been manageable, starting off with a tutorial on how to create a Flash puppet.  Working through that I got many great tips from Joe Lague regarding how to better organize the symbols as well as subtle changes to the design that makes the character look more dimensional and volumetric without sacrificing the ease of use for animation.  I'm now placed on Flashifying (taking a bitmap picture and translating it into Flash vectors and symbols) character concepts for the online show Teleporting Fat Guy.  It's working out really well so far thanks to the amazing feedback I've gotten previously, though there are still improvements here and there that I can do.

That's it for now I think, I'm looking forward to 12 more weeks of this in the beautiful city of Toronto!  Have a good one everyone!

~Humphrey Erm

Eden Wraps it Up

What a crazy beginning to start the week in Toronto! Power outages and floods, what a mess! Some trapped in the GO train, subways, and floating cars! Super grateful that my fellow interns, co-workers and myself got home safely.

Currently working on Warren prop designs! Last week it was weird to come back into Flash after using Photoshop for the while with Captain Canuck.  Sometimes I forget how detailed some of these props can get!  But sometimes I spend too much time on detail and not consider the time that it actually gets on screen.  I learned a lot from designing the vase for the July and Mascot episode. The prop in the end becomes almost like building a character; preparing it for the animator to work his/her magic.

Looks like this will be my last blog entry for Smiley Guy! My experience here has been awesome. Everyone has been friendly and super helpful with any problems that we have encountered, really awesome mentors. I've learned a lot, and my time here has put me in the right direction for the future.

Take care everyone!! Have an amazing summer! (Hopefully no more floods!)

David's Stages of Design Grief

Dear diary, 

The past week I've been doing the design thing still. While one might complain that it seems I do this a lot and is thus repetitive, I'm finding it pretty interesting.  Each new task in designing an object or character always starts with how the hell am I going to do this, then it's followed by despair with a bit of bargaining thrown in. Eventually it is followed by acceptance, and then I get to work.  It definitely keeps me on my toes. This past week I've been struggling with the task of when to keep or let go of design elements on a prop that have been previously worked on by someone else. It's tricky, as when you design something on your own you start from a blank slate, with a redesign you have a precedent to work from which can colour your approach to the object. Not something I ever thought could happen, but that's why this internship has been helpful. I'm learning how to deal with situations they can't quite show you in school because it's more of an individual experience thing. Pretty cool

David

P.S. here is a wet cat because its been raining a lot the past week. ( I only made him look wet, I didn't do the overall design of the cat)

Lea Admires Smiley Guy Meetings

I just noticed I never introduce myself in my blog posts. Good thing Julie covers that in the titles. Titles are important. How else would you know what To Kill a Mockingbird was about?


Anyway, what I'm going to talk about today: Meetings. I've had the privilege of attending a few meetings regarding Warren. Not only do these allow me see how the show has been progressing, they give me hope.

Yes, that is right. Hope. Let me explain:

Over the past school year I worked with a number of other students to create a film. My group was amazing - we managed to complete a good piece of work on time with little drama between members. However there were still bouts if indecision, squabbling and chaos that irked me. Sometimes things would go offtrack and issues wouldn't get resolved, or there would be arguments over details that no one could agree on. I was vaguely worried that this is what it would be like in an actual work environment.

Meetings for Warren have been different. Julie comes in with notes and a list of all the assets that have been completed written down. Just with that these meetings have structure. Everyone sees the score, and what needs to be addressed gets addressed.  People still discuss things amongst themselves and give suggestions and input, but the ones in charge are the ones who make the calls. I feel these things give meetings at Smiley Guy a different dynamic than the meetings I had at school. In a lot of ways my experience with both has been similar, but in these ways they are not.

This makes me glad. Overall the group film meetings were great, but for awhile I was fearful that actual studios had those problems. I'm sure they do. I've only actually been to three meetings at SGS - for all I know everyone is just behaving in front of the interns. Maybe it's different at various stages of production. Maybe they do crop up, but so far so good. I'm sure I will see for myself someday!

Jordan's Week: From Super Hero's to Popcorn Makers

Hello again! Jordan here.

So I just wrapped up on colouring animation for Captain Canuck, which was a lot of fun! You can view the finished episode right here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsTuqytpC84&feature=youtu.be

It's so cool seeing the progression, the end result looks really fantastic and I'm glad I was able to play a small part in making it happen. :)  I just love what they did at the compositing stage, the effects and shadows really add a nice polish.

Next I was moved onto props and character builds for Warren like all the other folks. I wasn't able to work on them very much, so I've slowly been playing catch-up, getting used to building stuff in flash.


I sort of jumped into character builds right off the bat and was a little daunted before my fellow pals here recommended I just start with props. When building things in flash, I learned that it's not at all about doing lineart, but rather literally "building" these props out of solid shapes and then adding details after. It's fun and looks a lot better too this way.

Here is a popcorn maker I made as a first pass:

Erica's Last Day at Smiley

Alas, my time is finally up. I have had so much fun at Smiley Guys and have learned so much.  For a girl who came in here with NO IDEA what flash even was to almost completing her very own animation. I got as far as to do the actual animation, not completed, including lip syncing.  I am very sad that I was not able to finish a complete product but I will keep working on it so that I could at least have something to show, even if it’s just shots, they are still good enough, it’s like the animation but not put together and without effects, still good right?

So this will be my last blog, sadly, I wish I could stay longer.  I had such an interesting co-op opportunity and I am certain that it will help me throughout my future. I am very grateful and happy for the help from everyone.

Thank you and goodbye!

The picture below is one from my shots. In the time line you could see like a blue-ish purple bar. That’s a motion tween (^_^) Keith blew my mind away teaching me all about it, t’was a fun time.