Star Wars in Concert

This weekend was the "Star Wars in Concert" in San Jose:


The concert consists of selected montages created from the Star Wars movie while a symphony plays the music from those scenes. And a prominent character actor who was in all 6 movies narrates the entire saga's story in person.

I loved it. And I was not the only one...

If you love Star Wars, or even just music by John Williams, you owe it to yourself to attend this show. You can find the tour dates here.

If you are going to attend then stop reading here as I am going to spoil a few of the surprises that impressed me:

The opening was beyond brilliant. From behind a curtain, the symphony actually "performed" the THX Sound Test and then the 20th Century Fox theme just like you would hear at the movies. Suddenly the curtain drops and the Star Wars logo appears on the screen while an unlit symphony plays the opening notes. The lights turn on and you are watching the live symphony and Star Wars montage play on screen!

The montages are brilliantly edited and are timed to the music (or rather, the symphony plays synced to the videos). It is amazing how good the prequels look once you edit out all of the bad dialog, annoying secondary characters, retconned storylines, and only show all the bad-ass fight scenes.

When you least expect it, giant fireballs will erupt from the stage. I was in row 12 and the heat felt like someone just opened an oven. I feel sorry for those in rows 1-4.

There is an amazing laser show after intermission. You don't need to have video playing on screen to be visually entertained by this music.

Go to this concert!

The encore is worth the price of admission alone.

Get Out - A little splining and polish

New animation update!
I received A LOT of feedback on my update last week. I forgot how wonderful it was to share animation and discuss it with others. I am still trying to get over the "it is not perfect so I don't want to show it to the public yet" mentality.
This week's update is actually in worse shape "polish"-wise but in better shape planning-wise. Based on all the feedback I received last week I completely redid some poses and removed the non-essential gestures. As such there are a lot of "pops" and some ugly arcs in this shot, but I feel like the animation is in a better place and will be even better as I polish it this week:


Some of the changes from last week:

• Early pose is straighter, "rashly" pose is held longer
• Hips move throughout the entire piece ("don't forget the hips!"), I may have pushed them too far in some places, but it is better than not using them enough
• Hands move less and took out needless poses around upper chest. Dropped unused hand to side of body. Still need to polish the fingers more and fix some IK'ness
• Emphasized important syllables. I tried to restrain myself when blocking them as one of the biggest mistakes in lip sync is to focus on every syllable. By avoiding this I ended up not emphasizing the important ones.
• Head overlaps spine even more.
• Really pushed the spine C curves before "plague". My poses weren't as strong as they could have been.
• Added frantic looking during "havoc and chaos", still needs polish and head arc control but it is getting there
• Had character jump at the end and feel less "rooted" to the ground. Final pose is pushed even further.

Here is the previous shot for comparison:



I still need to focus on the "why me" and confused/angry sections of the piece, I have lots to do before Sunday!

Raeleigh's visit

My oldest daughter flew to California with my mother to visit me this weekend. We had an amazing time and hopefully she will treasure all our various activities together. I will post photos of each event over the next few weeks, but for now I just wanted to remind myself how much fun I had and my motivation for why I am doing what I am doing.

Plus, Raeleigh is really funny. Her excitement about the moon consists of this phrase "Look at the moon, daddy, it looks like a cantaloupe!". And she described my T-Rex vs Raptor diorama as "the mommy dinosaur is eating the baby dinosaurs, that's too bad."

Life is good...

Jay's Playlist: Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

Welcome to my playlist, where I discuss the music which is currently entertaining me. Below you will find a video, press play to begin the song and then read my feelings on it.

Today's piece is...
Chicago by Sufjan Stevens


I have no clue who Sufjan Stevens is. My indie music friends swear by him and are appalled by that last phrase. One of them sent me some music to introduce me to the "miracle" that is Sufjan Stevens. I listened to his entire "Illinoise" album and didn't find much to like. But I love this one song. From the opening string motif to the infectious drum beat to the final chorus chant, this song hits all the right notes for me. I haven't actually sat down and listened to the lyrics (I listen to enough foreign language music and classical operas that a voice is only an instrument to me, sometimes it takes years for me to actually notice the singer is trying to force a message on me) but the voice pitch and timbre just work for me. I can't listen to the piece and not cheer up, the energy is infectious. This one attribute has put this song into a rare category: it is now a ringtone on my phone. Whenever I hear the ringtone I am energized and excited to talk to the contacts to which it is attached. Although sometimes this backfires as I end up listening to the entire rigntone and have to call the contacts back when it is over. Funny enough, I think the song's message is supposed to be somber and about searching for redemption (again, I really need to listen to the lyrics).

I've listened to the acoustic version and for once I actually like the original version over the simple guitar version (this is rare):

This version just depresses me to no end. It is beautiful in its own right, but without the drums, chorus, and spirited trumpet the music just feels so sad. Its amazing how the same lyrics and notes can create different feeling by using different instruments.

Regardless, Chicago is a great piece and in the future I plan on giving a new Sufjan Stevens song a listen to see if it is either another "Chicago" or another "Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I shake the dirt from my sandals as I run" (seriously, its not worth listening to)

Raeleigh vs the Blue Man Group

One of the eccentricities of working an animation school is that people tend to be creative. And they also tend to leave random things lying around. Case in point: this Blue Man Group instrument that Taylor built for his Halloween costume last year. Of course, something as odd as this is guaranteed to attract the attention of a visiting 3 year old, and much hilarity ensued.


And for those of you unfamiliar with Blue Man Group:

Toy Story 3!

We took Raeleigh to see the Toy Story double feature in 3D tonight and she loved it (well, the first one, we left before the 2nd since it was late). I haven't seen Toy Story in theaters since it came out 14 years ago so this was a special event both my daughter and me. The biggest surprise, though, was the completely unexpected Toy Story 3 trailer that was attached to the film. (video may disappear so watch it while it is hot!)


Yes, the movie looks great and I am interested in seeing what direction it takes the story. I love the fact that they got the original voice actors for the humans to return to play older versions of themselves (and even modeled the characters' appearances after them). I've heard from people working on the film that the ending is the "perfect" ending for the trilogy so I have high hopes. But the biggest surprise of the trailer was a. I hadn't seen it, and b. I didn't even know about it. For many years now, trailers have either been announced or even leaked on the internet before they are seen in theaters. I can't remember the last major movie whose trailer I first saw in theaters (or at least did not know to expect it). Kudos to Disney for keeping this trailer under wraps and surprising this impatient animation fan with a marvelous trailer to the series that started it all.

More on the actual story of Toy Story 3 to come in the near future...

Alma Mater: Photos with Daddy pt 5

My final stop during my trip in September was to my Alma Mater Henderson State University. It was a dreary day outside but the rain stopped long enough to take the girls outside and run around the quad. Few activities bring more joy to toddlers than given free reign to stomp in puddles and scream without anyone complaining...









My only complaint is the new lettering adorning the prominent building on the quad. Blech.

Mentor time! pt 2

Had my second Q&A with my mentor this term and it was even better than the first. This class is shaping up to be one of my favorites. Instead of going over traditional tips and tricks based on the mentor's work experience (something we experienced about 72 times before as students in the original program), Dave brought each of us up with our polishing assignments and then worked together with everyone in the class to suggest areas to improve. I got so much feedback from Dave and my fellow alumni that I couldn't wait to animate my shot again. Is this what working in a studio with other passionate animators feels like? Because it is AWESOME!

New update to my Get Out shot will be uploaded at the beginning of next week!

Welcome back 2D, we missed you

As the first Disney 2D film in many years, and the first "Princess" film since Mulan (well, Enchanted doesn't really count), "The Princess and the Frog" has a lot of people excited for its release. This video is the first gorgeous 5 minutes of the movie, I cannot wait to see this film. And I hope on the star shown in the film that this film is a success so we see more animation like this soon. There is still a lot of life left in hand drawn animation and the first 5 minutes show there are plenty of spectacles we have never seen 2D do. I will definitely be seeing this movie with my children in the near future!

EDIT: Looks like the original video was taken down. Maybe this one will work:

Get Out - Even more splining!

Today was my first day to upload my Get Out assignment for Animation Mentor so I spent the entire week improving the the shot for its debut. Sadly, for the non-animators this is the part of the process where the changes are less visible, and the polish process can be one of the longest steps in the animation cycle. But it is also the one which separates the good animators from the best animators. That extra 10% you focus on adding to the hands/eyes/elbows etc may not be noticed consciously, but it is felt. Here is the new shot:



Here is the previous version. While it may not look like a lot of changes, it took more time to go from this update that it did the previous one...



Did you see the differences? Here's some hints:
In the new shot, the hands/fingers are no longer frozen bricks that move with the wrist, they now flow, overlap and have stronger arcs.
Toned down the breathing overlap in hands after "Why me?"
Arms now anticipate the larger movements instead of just flying to the next pose
I accented the lip sync in a lot of words ("camel" and the"why me"s were too reserved).
Eye lids now squint in the more serious sections of the piece
Eyebrows flow more and move less on areas they were too distracting
Pupils dilate and contract in emotional sections
Blink and Eye darts when character is confused
Final poses slows down and settles instead of just stopping
The pause before "Get..." is now longer

And these are just a few... The next few weeks of polish are going to a lot of fun!