So a bit of a back story….when I was in college I thought I was the bees knees. I had no idea it was my animation was a steaming pile. I never got any solid crits on my stuff through college and I even went on to win "Best Portfolio" of my graduating class. So I packed a duffel bag full of VHS tapes and headed off to Siggraph in LA (this was pre 9/11, I couldn't get away with that today) to throw my 50 some copies of turd in a plastic case to anyone that was hiring. Blowing all the money I saved living in my father-in-law's basement not only did I fund this waste of time but I also bought a hand held camera so I could force seasoned pros a live on the spot viewing of my gem of a reel. All I got were a few "Well, Good Luck!" "That's great!" "Wow! Its long!" It was like I was the kid that had a giant booger hanging out of my nose but nobody wanted to tell me because they'd feel bad. Or the reason why girls didn't want to date me in high school was because I always smelled like Indian food...
So this is the glorious excrement that resulted from my brilliant education and complete lack of ability:
So after my LA trip I remember asking one of my stellar profs, why the industry thought I sucked but I was still "King Demo Reel". The reply:
"My job is to get you out of this class not necessarily to get you a job."
Thanks admissons. Can I have my 70K back?
Wondering why I wasn't offered a six figured deal when I returned and even the Midway A.D. who showed interest in my full color resume wouldn't return my calls I finally posted my reel on CG-Char. You can still find the post HERE
What Nigel told me was that I had no idea what animation was or what I was doing. He used terms that were completely foreign to me: arcs, secondary, inbetweens, poses, balance, skills. I suppose to my credit I had never used a blasted graph editor of any kind. At the Art Institute of Colorado we used 3DS Max and learned to rig and animate with Character Studio which at the time used TCB instead of Euler. (probably half of you don’t know what that means) Also the rigs were IK and FK blending rigs hat you needed to key "plants" on both hands and feet when you wanted the IK to take over. Needless to say Nigel pointed out that I sucked and that baby I was about to have was going to starve unless I decided to give up on looking for a character animation job and just get what job I could. (Which turned out to be Best Buy.)
So what did I do with my new words o’ wisdom from Nigel the Great? This:
Changed the shirt color. Oh ok I also took out the horrible intro whatever the hell that was and made some new animations. A TON of new animations. I replaced the shots from my short films (the ones with the crows and that horrible purple thing that is supposed to be a toothfairy) with….you guessed it VIOLENCE. Sword swinging, ass kicking, body slamming, Jackie Chan shit!
Oh and I also changed the angle on Pete the Pirate. Like that made his performance look less crappy. Actually now that I look at it again I’m not sure what the hell I fixed….OH! The background is blue in the new one. Ok well that does make it better. The best improvement was ending the second reel with the dude SHOOTING the monitor. Yep more violence. Did it get me out of Best Buy? You bet your ass it didn't! But luckily I had interned at a theater advertisement company where I began to think I was the chosen one at the company for character animation. We'll save those animations for another day....
Also the irony in my delusions of grandeur were that I had always wanted to work on the next Shrek because that’s the movie that got this ride started for me. But all my reel showcased was a bunch of fugly demons, a giant satan with a spiky Q-Tip, and violence. Glorious violence.
The blatant lie right from the start:
What I dislike:
Not enough violence.
In conclusion:
Learn how to character animate before you throw the words “Character Animator” in shiny chrome text onto your reel. Oh and listen to Nigel.
HEY KIDS! Here's a fun little drinking game you can play. Take both demo reels and play them back to back and let em loop forever! Now! Take a shot every and any time you see a random act of violence!
