Monday, January 19, 2015

2 weeks in - Testing

Hey Guys!

   Here I am after surviving my first 2 weeks back at LAIKA.......It feels Amazing to be back in the building.....and I was Overwhelmed with all its Glory.

First Off .......KUBO is going to be cinematic Awesomeness!!! You guys are gona LOVE it!!

Laika continues to Push the boundaries of what stopmotion is capable of.....and it will be like nothing you have seen before On the Big Screen....Pure AMAZING...

So.....

My personal journey-

First days are pretty easy......-  read the story - watch the animatic and Feast my eyes on the characters........

This is incredibly exciting. You are both watching-thinking as a { FAN - audience member} but then your mechanical brain is thinking?? How the heck are we gona do that??

Then I find out what sequence I will be working on.....

......and I got a Doooozy....... My sequence is chock full of ?? How the heck are we gona do that??

This is where alot of the MAGIC lies in stop motion.....the problem solving.....the hidden wires....the slight of hand. I cant wait to see how it all works.

Then....its onto testing -


I get my first Puppets that will be my Focus for my time at LAIKA....

On Paranorman.....I mainly animated Norman and Alvin for 95% of the time I was there. So I spent my time testing them before I hit the stages.....although you do get other characters that you have not tested ......the majority of the time you will animate your expertise.

On KUBO ....I am specializing again in 2 characters....And spent the first 2 weeks just testing one of them.

Pushing the puppets to the extents - Finding and staying in character in all actions - and testing for situations that are coming down the pipe eventually.

This is a very fun time and also very good for building confidence moving forward.

I was very filled with anxiety coming back to LAIKA since they are soooooo freaking amazing in what the do.....and also because this last year I focused mainly on  my CG animation and was not practicing daily in stopmo which is all these guys do at the highest levels.

so in short - I felt I was going to be - Not up to Snuff.

Testing is a way for me to find my footing and confidence before I start shooting film....and also get used to working on 1's which is a whole different ball game that animation on 2's like most TV shows .
so....here I am headed into week 3....with a few good tests under my belt and nothing but PASSION to pour into this film....

I'll check in as soon as I get my first shot assigned in 2 weeks!!

           jriggity



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