First week of Class 5!

This is my first week of Class 5 and for those of you who don't know, Class 5 at Animation Mentor is coming up with the story for your short. You then illustrate the idea, make an animatic and complete layout in Maya by the end of the term. SO for the past six months I have been jotting down ideas in a little brown notebook that hasn't left my side. I didn't realize how many ideas I had until I started typing them out in a word document. Doesn't mean they are all good ideas, but ideas none the less. There are a couple ideas that I came up with that I like, I just have to wait and see some reactions from other people to see if they are interesting. Because in the end, it is all about the audience!

My new mentor for Class 5 is Cal Brunker! I am really excited to have him guiding me through the story process of my short! He first started out as an animator and is now a Story Artist and Director. He has worked on a large variety of things, all the way from music videos to Horton Hears a Who! You can see his website here: http://calbrunker.com/

He said something during Q&A last night that I haven't heard any other mentors say, and it really made me happy. He said if you are truly and honestly passionate about animation, it is ridiculously fulfilling when you reach your goals. It just makes me really happy to hear, because I have been hearing horror stories on how people hate the hard work animation requires, they hate the long hours, they hate how tedious it is, that it is not all it is cracked up to be... With hearing things like what Cal said and knowing how I feel about animation and the hard work it requires, just makes me realize that animation isn't in those other people's hearts. And how much it does fill mine. I love what I do. I love animation. Yes I struggle, yes I get frustrated, but it only pushed me that much harder. And as I reach certain points in my learning it is, like Cal said, extremely fulfilling.