Demo Reel December 2010

Well...Here It Is...

This is what I turned in to Randolf for the Portfolio Preparation final. Next week I will find out if I passed or not and I will also get to read some anonymous critiques from faculty members at the school. I think I have a good idea what they will say...critique wise. But I don't know if they will think there are too many problems for me to handle or not...they may want me to take prep. again which would totally suck. I don't know...it has improved SOO MUCH! Spending more time on my pieces wouldn't hurt, it would just suck to have to wait longer to graduate. But I need to up my game until I'm totally satisfied with it. I wonder if that EVER happens.
There is still some color lighting I want to incorporate, more objects and storytelling aspects, some tighter editing since I was messing with some new render techniques (damn Adobe Media Encoder!). Little details though, like the towel, certain textures, weird things about the lighting and the sky in certain scenes. The horizon on the in n out one, the sliding on my moving holds, the overexposure on a bunch of the 3d...shit! I know I could do it though. I just need to get focused and go into full on beast mode! But I keep getting distracted haha!

Step...Step...

My website totally works! And my reel's on Vimeo! YEAAAAAAAAH!!!! Okay...well, there is still lots to do. Check it.

http://dtanimation.com/index.html

Adjustments

YO. I did some more work on my reel. Randolf helped me make a list of things I should change and I got about halfway through it. There are a few other things to do that are more intense...so I'm saving those for last. If I get all of the quick, easy stuff out of the way it will bring up my momentum for the heavy work. I think it's getting better, but I know it's going to keep on changing.

INTRODUCING...

So here is my intro after some more tweaking. Changed the comp size, replaced some shapes, changed the main font, changed my title...doing lots to it. Like Randolf would say..."Needs more sugar, man!" I was trying to figure out ways to fill up space after I expanded it to HD720, and I noticed that my spoke shapes are elliptical! When they rotate it looks a bit unusual...oh well, I've been working on this forever and I've got tons of other stuff to do!

Reel Talk

I've been messing with my demo some more. I am still not totally sure what I am, I think I am a character/graphic animator...But I am looking at my pieces and seeing the levels that I want them to be at in my head, so I am taking some notes on how to make them more story-driven. I've got a lot of good ideas, it is just hard to get motivated to work on a piece sometimes. Especially when you start running into difficult technical issues, or seemingly unavoidable and tedious solutions.

Reel Dumb

Yo. I was messing with my reel just a little bit today. I threw in an updated version of the Wrhythm Flash which I will probably have to remove anyway...and I cut out some illustrations and silhouettes. I feel sort of down. My prep. schedule that I made is a just big list of what I wanted to have done by now. I don't want to have to take this class again and I am starting to feel like they will probably say some shit like that. Which blows because I know I could do better with more time but I still have some left.

It looks like I will probably have to go 3D for character animation and maybe some After Effects motion graphics stuff. But I feel like I have learned so much more than that and I am way more valuable than that. It seems, though, to graduate from the school...your reel needs to be more specialized and focused. I may have to remove all my illustration and Flash work which sucks because then it makes me feel weak and crippled...

Blah! I have this 3D lighting hurdle to get over, shit just isn't working out. A lot of my animations still need tweaking too before they are really noteworthy. And if I have to do 3D animation to pass, I would rather do it all the fucking way. So that means to satisfy myself in that manner, I have to do a LOT of work to create some new pieces and make my old pieces mean much more. I have to create stories behind this shit, adding environments and combining elements to show how creative my mind truly is.

*EDIT: I tried to use the render farm for the first time and it worked! But I accidentally messed up the lighting on one of my scenes so it looks like ass but at least I figured it out and can start making a work-flow. So I threw in those re-lit pieces real quick.

Keep It Reel

Yo. So I took some stuff out and changed the music. I think that's basically it. Yeah.

Reel Edit From 7-30-10

Yo. This is what it's looking like now. Of course, there is a lot of strangeness going on in my mind. Renders I have to re-do, animations to tweak, animations to FINISH, lights to mess with, photos to take, things to scan...blah blah blah. I will probably change the song too because I've got something else in mind. Basically this just sort of cements the fact that I am still not satisfied because I feel like it isn't representative of my true potential. Fuck...At least I finally put some of those other pieces in there so I can feel out the overall groove.

OH! ONE, OH! OH ONE!

"Come on sucker, lick my battery." I was working on this motion graphics kind of piece as a potential demo reel intro. But after showing Randolf and some other students, it feels like I need to start from scratch and steer a bit into another direction. I was using photographs from Google then taking them into Photoshop and editing them into some usable PNGs. Randolf suggested I should draw the assets myself and create a strong logo and a good final key frame before I start messing with my comp and its motions. Guitar Hero came up as a possible reference because of their entertaining and goofy 2D intros. Maybe I will use Flash or ToonBoom...

FAIL!

Wow! What a load of shit! This was my 4th quarter reel and I remember I didn't have any cool MACROMEDIA Flash stuff I did before I went to the Art Institute or any knowledge about dope programs like After Effects, Maya, Final Cut Pro and lots of other cool ones I've learned about over the past couple years...This is totally what not to do and it is way boring and stale. I used Imageready(!) to insert class projects that other students did as well, bad typography, jump-cuts as transitions...it breaks nearly all of the rules! But the icing on the cake is that I left two text boxes with a misspelled "fundamentls". Hilarious!

DEMO REELS!!

Wow man that other one had a little bit of decent stuff in it...but the ending sucked balls! This is the most recent version I created after that sometime in April 2010. I changed the music and swapped a couple things, shortened it a bit...you know! But I like the energy of the other song and I STILL think it needs to be more specialized. I can still remember my 4th quarter reel though...HA! I have come a long way. I will post it later for another laugh...Sadly I can't get rid of the feeling that my repertoire of work remains unorganized. So much to do! Portfolio Prep is on the rise and I have been at this school too long to want to take it twice.

DEMO REELS?!

Everybody has been working on their demo reels and it has a been a while since I have even looked at mine so I decided to post it somewhere so people could check it out. This is the one I remember showing Ken and Dennis for the 8th Quarter review. It has changed a bit since then but I think this one is alright so far...Needs to be more specialized and I have a lot of new stuff to add.