2010 In Review

If high school me thought 2006 was one of the greatest years ever after graduating high school and moving to Chicago.... BOY WAS SHE WRONG!!!

Highlights of 2010

1. SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles, California

The best week ever! I got to sit by the band All Time Low at O'Hare airpot, and I met Giovanni Ribisi at the SIGGRAPH store. I met a ton of awesome artist from all over the world! The Blur Party, the free stuff, zero sleep, lack of food, constantly running around, seeing the animation shorts at least 3 times, being in LA, meeting with studios, meeting professionals. I already blogged about SIGGRAPH once so go read it... but seriously, the best week ever.

2. Manifest 2010/Graduation

I'm putting this all in one group because well due to lack of sleep that's what it felt like. The completion of Suds, screening it at Manifest, the aftermath at Wabash Tap, and graduating with my APS Class. Awesome. The people I worked with are really amazing at whatever they did on Suds and I know they can do so much more. I'm trying to get together with some of them to make more shorts, but life gets in the way people so hold your pants on we will get around to it. If you haven't seen Suds yet, what is wrong with you.... It has an IMDB page BTW.

3. FanFoto

So this summer I got hired at Fanfoto, which seems a little weird to be putting on my highlights for 2010 considering everything that's happened but I really love this job. I get to walk around Wrigley Field and US Cellular Field talking to fans and taking their pictures to put on the Cubs or White Sox Fanfoto pages. I watch baseball and get to practice photography, plus I'm getting paid for this! BONUS: Due to the White Sox inability to make it to the playoffs, the Chicago branch was asked to go to Cincinnati to help out during their playoff games. I was one of the lucky ones who got to go. I went to a play off game, visited Ohio and Kentucky. It was a grand time!

4. RPM Visual Media

Starting in April I got my very first ever internship at RPM Visual Media! I was so nervous for the interview but everything went great and for 3 months I learned After Effects and helped great Motion Graphics for EPK's for a variety of clients that I cannot even remember... haha smooth. Now I'm contracted with them in their Morgan Stanley Smith Barney campaign and I fill orders for EPK's. If you want to see a video I created check this link out! Click it.

5. A website to call my own. jenniworks.com

If you people have not seen any of my web stuff than I am failing at being noticed. First of all this is my new blog for all things related to my animation career and such. Welcome. You have successfully found this one. Now you can follow me on Twitter, Vimeo, Linkedin, and I also have a Facebook page. Go follow, add, like, favorite, whatever it is you do! Coming to you soon HD VIDEOS!!!!!


As always STRENGTH, HOPE, AND LOVE! Dream Big, Go Big! Trust in yourself, and things will get better.

jenniworks.com

Update!

Just thought I'd let you peak into the madness that is my life. Fanfoto has finished and my contract work has been flat lined for a bit.... so I've been doing other animation stuff. For instance!


Started to mess around with some effects in Maya

Then I modeled my castle coriddor! This is not the lighting that I will be using but I figure I might as well light it to make it look semi-ok. The sconces will have fire, the grass will be blended in to the ground better. There will be an epic wizard fight with effects flying all over the place. I will have to design 2 characters to blend with my environment. It is kind of difficult seeing as my character design and environment style are drastically different so we shall see how it works out. So far it's been a fun project and I've learned a lot making it.

You can always start following my vimeo or twitter!!!

Now I must Texture!

Film Festival!

I'm proud to announce that the hard work of my awesome Animation Production Studio class from Columbia College has been awarded by being accepted into our first Film Festival! The film "Suds" will be screened at the 6th Annual LA International Children's Film Festival. Sadly I don't think any of us can make it to LA to see it.

In other news! On Saturday I leave for the big city of Cincinnati to Fanfoto it up at the playoffs game of Reds vs. the Phillies. After today's no hitter, it makes me worry that the Reds will not be going far and my season will end on Sunday. It should be a fun trip though!

Also since the White Sox and Cubs baseball season has end, I suddenly have a ton of free time to work on animation again. I followed a quick tutorial a couple days ago and this is what I got.




Now I am currently working on my wizard dueling project, also starting a project with ninja's and hopefully my group of lady friends will be producing our very own short very soon! Especially since I live with one of them! (Did I mention I live in the city now?! It RAWKS!)


After the recent string of suicides in the LGBT community I have to remind everyone that Hope is Alive. TWLOHA is a great organization. I am always there if you need me, call me anytime and I will be there. You are never alone. Depression is real and there is hope! You can get through it, don't do it alone, reach out! DREAM BIG! GO BIG! Strength Hope and Love

Pictures

"It's only a picture."

In case you all didn't know, I am a fan photographer for the Cubs and White Sox. That picture was not taken by me but to be used as a reference. So yesterday while working the Cubs game I came upon a customer and his girlfriend or wife or something was all for taking the picture and he just responds "It's just a picture." I smile and say thank you and carry on my way but I can't get the phrase "It's just a picture" out of my head!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Pictures are memories. Pictures are history. It's not just chemicals and paper and light and mirrors or pixels on a desktop. It's so much more than that! You are capturing a moment in time that can never be revisted again except by you're memories and let's face it. Humans minds are not capable of remembering things. We forget all the time.

As an animator though one second of animation is 24 frames long. 24 pictures. If you take just one of those frames out, just one, it can mess up everything. For one frame your eye isn't seeing something, possibly a key pose, and it just skips. It takes you out of the moment. It takes you away from the film, the story that's being told because you can no longer focus on the beauty of the sequence of images but on the one little glitch that your eye caught and now your trying to catch up!

Just a picture....... A simple "No" would be better next time thanks....

SIGGRAPH 2010

So in case you've been living under a rock for a while last week I was in LA for the SIGGRAPH Conference. It was an amazing experience and I met a ton of cool people. So I guess I'll tell you all about it!

Highlights of my trip:


Meeting a ton of awesome people.
-I met people through the volunteer program, met people from the Weather Channel, NASA, ILM, Riot Games, WMS, Dreamworks, Pixar, Nickelodeon, MPC... This doesn't mean I have a job people calm down. I just met awesome talented people this week.

Getting great advice
-I got to talk with a lot of professionals. The cool thing about hanging out with a bunch of people who love doing the things you do is that you can talk for hours about all sorts of things about the business. It now has me wanting to learn a little bit of programming language and I'm debating whether or not to change from a Character Animator to a 3D Generalist, until I get into the field and gain a little more focus.

The conference in general was awesome
-So I did have to work 30 hours of the conference but during my spare time I did manage to explore the Exhibition floor and snagged a Pixar poster plus a ton of other swag. I got to see the Electronic Theater a million times. I saw a ton of talks on Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon, Alice in Wonderland, and Avatar the Last Air Bender. I even met this guy!
He came to the Sig Store and asked for a bag. William Shattner was there but of course I missed it because I was working in the Siggraph store. Honestly keep up....

So what's next for Jenni?

Currently I'm waiting for orders to come in from my internship turned into contracted animation work. A lot of networking and emails and trying to find a full time job. But I'm not just sitting around doing nothing. I'm in the works of a couple short films, now that I'm back from LA hopefully those can get started. I want to create my own character, rig, texture, and animate like crazy with it. (Advice from Riot Games) I'm also thinking of making a 3 part tutorial on how to texture. Part 1 Diffuse. Part 2. Bump and Spec maps.... Ok maybe it's 2 Part I lied. I have a ton of projects in my head that I want to work on. I just haven't had a spare moment since coming back from LA, crazy how busy I am without a job.

DREAM BIG - You can do anything if you work hard and believe in yourself.

Jenni 411!!!

I haven't blogged since graduation!!


Goodness what have I been doing with all this spare time NOT being in the lab? Well I got Siggraph coming up in less than a month. That should be AWESOME! In the meantime I've been working at my internship animating logos and doing some motion graphics. Everyday I learn something new there and I'm getting a little better at this motion graphic stuff and understand design concepts. It's pretty sweet. We'll see what happens within the next month because my internship ends on the 19th! Whoa! That's not long from now....

Anywaaaays. So I'll admit I've taken a break from Maya. One can only lock themselves in a lab for so long working at mastering a program for so long until they go crazy and gosh darn it if we weren't all insane after that month long of non stop rendering. Not to mention I needed to finish my Environment! I've never had so little sleep in my life. I'll get back to it pretty soon, but I haven't been slacking off!!! I've been learning more and more about the Adobe package! I've updated my computer to a Macbook Pro with 250 GB of Hard Drive Space 4 GB of RAM (which I already had.....) and finally an Intel Core 2 Duo!!! The speed!!! AHAHAHA!!! Since I got the much needed update I also go the CS5 package. I've been reading non stop Photoshop tutorials because I never really learned how to make anything cool with it. Well.... What do you think?


I think they are pretty cool. I try and use a different style or different technique everytime I make a picture. Maybe I'll bust out my Nikkon and actually start taking my own picture instead of stealing pics from Facebook and making them work for me. Only time will tell. I also did a little After Effects special FX tutorials.




Color Correction, Sky Replacement, and shooting something out of my hands. Someone get me an HD camera quick! I've caught the bug!!!!

Now I'm trying to find some Cinema 4D tutorials or some Flash tutorials so I can animate something. I might start a small Environment project to brush up on my modeling, UV layouts, Texturing, Lighting, and Rendering Skills. We shall see what this week brings.

Until Next Time! DREAM BIG!

Graduating

Four years ago I was taking the AP tests with walking pnuemonia, playing varsity soccer, hanging out with some of my bestest friends, all with this unnerving feeling of the unknown future. I was still debating whether I should go with computer science, physics teacher, or the craziest of them all: an animator. Suddenly I was pushed into being accepted at IADT. I hate that school with a passion but without their pushing me I would have never decided to become an animator and I would have never found Columbia.

Since Toy Story came out and I watched in the theaters I knew I was going to an animator. I just never knew how I was going to get there. I told myself, "I'm going to make Pixar great." I've always had big dreams and you should all know that by now.

I left high school with doubts that I would make it. I was in all these advanced classes and I did a complete turn around and decided I wanted to be an artist. Not just any artist, but an artist that would animate characters in Motion Picture Films. I thought I had gone crazy. How on earth was I going to make a living as an animator.....

Fast Forward four years and here I am about to graduate Columbia College Chicago with a bachelors in Film and Video with a concentration in Computer Animation. I went from never touching Maya in my life to creating my own short film and working with 12 awesome animators to create Suds. Believe me, when I signed up for Animation Production Studio I did not know that I would be such a vital part to actually bringing this film together. It's been such an amazing year, I've met some of the most awesome people, I've learned so much about myself and about animating. I still can't believe it's ending. I just want one more semester please!!!

To my family: Thank you for supporting me. Thank you for having faith in me that I could do anything I put my mind to. Thank you for letting me follow my dreams. Thank you for letting me be an artist.

To my friends: We've laughed, we've cried, we've fought. Each and everyone of you have impacted me in some way for me to be the way I am today. Some of you have helped me through a lot to figure out who I am today. I will always be there for you, even if I live forever away and even if sadly we are fighting.... I know I can be a pain some times and I love you so much for dealing with it. Thank you for helping me find my way.

What my future holds: In case any of you have been wondering what on earth I'm actually going to do as animator, let me tell you my future is wide open. I have an internship right now. It's still a lot of learning but I'm really excited that I'm learning and gaining experience at the same time. It's awesome. Once that finishes up I have been accepted as a student volunteer at Siggraph 2010. Unfortunately alot of you are now scratching your heads going...What on earth is Siggraph?! Siggraph is an animation convention held every year with all the big studios bringing all their new technology, new techniques, best films, new films, it's pretty epic. I will be going to work like 20 hours greeting people and then I have free access to everything and I will be handing out my demo reel like free candy hoping that I find something there. After Siggraph who knows. I want to do commercial work, I want to freelance, I want to work on short films with some of the people I have met this year, I still want to make it to Pixar. So like I tell everyone: DREAM BIG!

I'm working towards making the world a better place. Equal Rights for everyone, no more hate. I'm volunteering for the Human Rights Campaign. Once my schedule opens up a little bit I'll start actually working on projects with them.

Strength, Hope, and LOVE. It's my motto for life and I'll work every day to spreading it to everyone I know.

I love you all. I can't believe I'm saying this: My life begins here. (Damn you Peter Pan for not picking me up)

jenniworks.com (If you haven't been to my website people what is wrong with you...)

May 14th: Screening of Suds. Be there. It's going to be so awesome. I have lost a lot of sleep and sanity working on this film.

It's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!!!

I'm so ridiculously excited for this movie. I think I'll go camp out at AMC until it comes out. I don't know if I love the girl or the minions more, guess we'll have to wait until I get the whole film experience. I can't stop quoting this trailer. So good.

Anyways.... I have made a rough cut of my rough environment warehouse. Now that I think about it I re cut my character animation reel too... I must post this!!!

REMEMBER MY WEBSITE!!!!
"Wow this is garbage, you like this stuff?"

The exciting life of an animator

I will be graduating in one month, well more like five weeks. There's only one way to express how I feel about this.

My senior capstone project is coming to a close. I just hope we can finish on time!!! I can't wait to see how it will all look together. You can all see it Friday May 14th on the 8th floor of the Conway Center during Manifest!!!!!

**Manifest is the Urban Arts Festival held by Columbia College every year to celebrate the work of graduating senior students. It's awesome and you should all go. Especially to see the animation screenings.

Check out my website: jenniworks.com To see my demo reels. It's a work in progress. Coming soon concept art and a leicca reel of something I'm working on in my free time. ALRIGHT KIDDOS PEACE!