I'm finally in the last few days here in Chapel Hill, NC before heading off to San Francisco for school. Over the next ten days I will attempt to post everyday, granted I have something to talk about. Today I thought I would start off with an interview with Brad Bird. Bird being the driving force indirectly behind me re-establishing myself in the medium of animation. The interview was conducted by Pixar's Andrew Gordon part of his Spline Cast Podcast. This is an interview recorded on Monday, January 8, 2007 with Academy Award winning Animation director Brad Bird that lasts about an hour. Brads next live action feature film Disney's Tomorrowland comes to theaters in the summer of 2015. Enjoy!
Live Simply: Day 12
Day & Night director Teddy Newton at Siggraph 2010.
In the summer of 2010, I attended the annual Siggraph Conference that was being held in Los Angeles. My goal was to attend the conference, visit CalArts, and see Hollywood in the span of a week. This would be my first trip out to California, step one of my five year plan of positioning myself for a career in animation.
Just as a recap, in the summer of 2004, I had a conversation with my wife about reentry into the world of animation and going back to school to get my degree for it. This decision came shortly after viewing the Disney/Pixar film the Incredibles. It was something very magical about what I was witnessing as director Brad Bird weaved a narrative of dealing with choices. In the film the question of, does one have to sacrifice ones own aspersions in order to fulfill ones responsibilities to their family. A narrative I had been dealing with since meeting my wife and starting my own family.
Fast forward back to that summer of 2010, I had decided to attend the SIGGRAPH conference as a way to meet people in the industry. I had read in the book The Pixar Touch, that John Lasseter was hired on the spot after reconnecting with Ed Catmul while attend the conference on the Queen Mary back in 1983. I figured I could at least make some connections, while attending the panels being given.
It was a Wednesday and I had planned on skipping out of the after the morning panels, to head up to CalArts. Unfortunately, I had poorly planned the excursion and was forced to scrap the trip and settled for the afternoon panels. What I didn't know was that with that change of plan, my world would be changed by an unexpected meeting.
I was attending the Stereoscopic panel on the Making of Day and Night. Afterwards, I approached supervising TD Michael Fu to thank him for the lecture and to have him sign my Art of Pixar Shorts book. After a brief dialogue on the films impact on me, he asked if I would like to meet the director. After waiting for a couple minutes it was my turn to shake hands with Teddy Newton. He was very friendly in introducing himself, and asking of my opinion on the film. He asked what I was doing at the conference and I explained that I was there to see what the conference was about, since I had read about it in The Pixar Touch. I informed him that I was a student and spoke with him about my aspirations of working for LAIKA as an facial animator and showed him a number of my drawings on my iPad.
The conversation led to me explaining that I had planned on checking out CalArts legendary character animation program. At that moment he paused and informed me that "there's a small school in the Northern California neighborhood of Rockridge. A school which for the past two years had been training animators in the same manner that CalArts was. This school is the California College of the Arts and Crafts, and with what I see here you might have a great chance of being accepted." We shook hands and he handed me his business card and said "you've made a contact".
I immediately picked up my iPhone and scheduled a meeting/campus tour for that following Friday. If it had not been for that chance meeting I doubt that I would be entering into the opportunity that lies before me.
Live Simply: Day18
Okay, I've been keeping up the good habit of posting now for almost a week... or at least from one week to another. It's day 18 of the California Countdown and boy was it a long one. I've been working on selling prints of selected work from my portfolio, in an attempt to curb my enthusiasm of finding employment during the first semester at CCA. Mainly in part and thanks to the kind folks at the Weav. for their support of the arts, I'm getting closer to that goal as each day passes.
On another note I just finished reading an article in the LA Times about the directorial change on Pixar's upcoming film The Good Dinosaur', from Bob Peterson (co-director on UP) to Pete Sohn (director of the short Partly Cloudy). One year from today on November 25, 2015 the screen will shine with what I believe will be another hit for the studio. The Good Dinosaur' is a animated comedy film that imagines the moment when dinosaurs met human beings. While dinosaurs are known to have gone extinct, the tale illustrates how the creatures evolved into farmers instead, using their figures to dig trenches and slice tree branches.
When I was at CalArts in 2011, I reached out to Pete about his student animated shorts. Following the advice of Brad Bird "start at the top and see if they respond" worked out to be true. His response pictured below couldn't be more removed from the truth. I was able to find one of his shorts Rain. Even though the second half of the short is just storyboards of his ideas, the first minute is quite imaginative. I'm so happy that he's been given another opportunity to showcase his own narrative, this time on a feature film.
Here's a link to the article for your reading pleasure.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-pixar-good-dinosaur-peter-sohn-20141120-story.html
Mister Kennedy
Live Simply Day 20
My 1983 Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Lando Calrissian look.
Well, writing this blog is turned out to be more of an event than I thought. I had originally thought that I would be able to do entry day but as the days go by… I don't have much to talk about. My life now pretty much consists of working two jobs seven days a week, drawing two images a day.
Today marks the 20th. day before I leave Chapel Hill, NC on my way towards carving a place out in animation history. I understand with each passing day the importance of what I'm embarking upon and its ramifications on how I will view my life after all is said and done. Not many receive a chance to fulfill their childhood dreams, let alone after such a huge hiatus like mine. I've learned that looking back sometimes means accepting that those times will never repeat themselves, so take advantage of the present for it truly is a gift.
You Are Who You Choose to Be...
Day Twenty 29:
Well I haven't been the best at logging my ideas over the past four months, with work taking up 80% of my daily routine; I've had to prioritize where my additional time can be spent. Yesterday was one of the first days I could actually enjoy the space that lies between feeling obligated to someone else's agenda.
I spent the afternoon of November 14 over at the Historic Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC. A place I must admit I've only ventured to a hand full of times in my 17 years living in Chapel Hill, NC. As luck had it the NC Comic Con is in town this weekend and on hand the theatre decided to feature Brad Bird's 1999 animation classic The Iron Giant, released on August 06, this film is the benchmark of when I realized that my goals of entering back into animation had only been sidelined by the lack of guidance and support during my high school years.
To date this film ranks in my top ten animated features of all time, a post that I should get to writing... Anyway, I looked at this as a perfect opportunity to view the film once again on the big screen, but also to study it a bit further.
I purchased the DVD of the film some years ago and copied a digital version to my G-Drive as a way of having it on the go, as I do with all my films. As a bonus you get an audio commentary with Brad Bird, Tony Fucile, and Jeffery Lynch, Steve Markowski. In July I purchased a Lacie Fuel 2T wifi external hard drive, for my studies at CCA and it came in handy when I decided to use this moment of wide screen film watching to pair it with the commentary version I had archived some ten years ago. Besides the small details of the day, it was a experience that felt like I was attending a panel given by the four members of the crew.
Much can be said on the film itself but, I'm not choosing to go into an analysis of the film at this point. I would however like to talk about the technical advancements that where achieved during it production, in a post to come. I have finally found where I'll spend the majority of my efforts with this blog though. I'm working to showcase the evolution of the art form of animation during my studies at CCA, this coming spring.
Live Simply Day 86
Blue Ridge Parkway. September 2014.
So, I've received a lot of feedback base on my decision to postpone things. I can best sum up the experience as understanding how to create tone and a sense of balance. As of a month ago I have been without my family, with them moving to Texas until I get situated in San Francisco. This opportunity to reconnect with myself as an individual, separate from the ongoing responsibilities of being a parent and a husband, is allowing more time to reflect on the eternal, and return back to myself; rather than the immediate cinematics of creating a future that's filled with obstacles.
Live Simply: Day 87
September 17, 2014
Achieving the act of living simply in the digital age, is no small task of focus. In the environment where technology is at ones finger's at any given moment, this connection has allowed for less contemplation on issues that arise throughout the day. I myself have found that straddling the fields of parenthood, work, and career has forced me to view life in a particularly special way. Does one need to refrain for personal career satisfaction, in order to be seen as a responsible adult? Sould one decide that I have had my chance at goals and dreams, simply because one isn't in the twenties? I recall a fellow student last semester when I was applying to theCalifornia College of the Arts saying "I get it. You want to fulfill that childhood dream of drawing for Disney. But, your in you mid thirties. Shouldn't you be more focused on just get a job that pays well? After all, animation is a young mans game..." I saw his argument for what it was, a hard look at many truths of a business culture that seems to be centered around youth and trends. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most up-to-date with the current state of technology. After all, I still love the way in which 2D animation looks in its handcrafted display such as when one flips a stack of drawings bring to life the inanimate. Needless to say this is what I intend on creating with this blog as I count down the days until my travels across this land to San Francisco in December. Mostly what I'm aim at is a method to explore my struggle to understand me and the life I'm creating. To me life is much like the deceiving spare interface of the Google search engine, which is ready to aid you in your discovery with unlimited possibility, if you're able to enter in the right search phrase.
Of such search phrases is the word postpone. According to the Oxford American Dictionary means: arrange for something to take place at a time later than first planned. For me this word began with a conversation with my wife about timing, in relationship to our family needs. After a month of pondering with the idea I decided to postpone my studies for a semester in order to play a bigger supportive role with the family structure. So, that's what has led me to this very moment.
Class Scheduled...
Yep... I'm scheduled.
Reached... Part Two
Thanks to everyone! To be candid, I see this opportunity of attending CCA as an way to share my experiences up to this very point in time, with you; and also as a means of personal fulfillment. Words can not express the gratitude that I have for everyone's time and effort, in this first pledge drive. It has been an amazing first month and hopefully I'm offering everyone some insight into what I'm exerting myself for. The point of the "You've Got A Friend In Me Pledge" drives are not simply a means of fund raising, rather I'm looking at the role in which identity plays in both the individual sense and in relation to my community as a whole.
Personally, I remember being taught of the importance of identity, calling and purpose by my parents. Growing up in a blue-collar household in Fairfield County Connecticut, my father a plasterer and my mother an insurance agent, they often explained to me and my two sisters that "identity is important, but knowing who we are is not enough.." How I "needed to act on my identity in order to make a meaningful moral difference in my life as well as the lives of others." What I remember most out of all those years of hearing how best to understand ones true identity, is the last few conversations I had with my father before his death in the autumn of 2007. He continued to question where I was headed with my life, what was the wait on children and marriage, and why I hadn't revisited the artistic talents that he had helped to foster in me as a child? He paused for a moment and said "son, the meaning of life relates to who you are. There will be pretenses inside of you as well as externally, that how life works. Yet, you must not forgot that distinctive spark that I saw in you, as your mother gave birth that allows you to stand before me as a man today..."
My life really took a turn for the great good over the following months, as a strong friendship would begin to flourish with a mentor who has imparted that through to ups and downs of the past seven years of my life indeed:
As the years go by
Our friendship will never die
You're gonna see it's our destiny
You've got a friend in me.
John Lasseter Comes Home: The Commencement Speech at CalArts 2014
Photo by Scott Groller Photography. 2014.
It's always great to see the impact that people have on a community, especially when that individual is someone you look to as a role model for never giving up on dreams and aspirations. Below is the full speech that John gave to the class of 2014, full of his perfect pitched humor and advice for perseverance as an artist.