Industry night and workshops

Last week was the 3rd year students' industry night at Gobelins, so we got to see the 2009 graduation films, which were beautiful and meet some of the students. They worked in teams of 3 to 4 to produce a short film in just 5 months. It is all student work. Pre-production is qbout 2 months. Recruiters from many studios visit including Dreamworks.

The 2nd year students are the ones who create the Annecy openers.

This week we have lectures by Alexandre Heboyan whose student films were: Le gouter (2nd yr) and La migration Bigoudenn. Alex went on to be recruited by Dreamworks Animation and to work on Kung Fu Panda and Monsters vs Aliens. He is now back in Paris co-directing a French feature animation that is currently in pre-production.

Alex' s lecture yesterday touched on his advice on creating a demo reel (keep it short and just put in your best work), animation processes and discussions on timing, spacing, silence and comedy. He sited Jim Henson's "Manumanup" sketch as his favourite animation that displays comedic timing.

The photo below is of Max Maleo (student film: Burning Safari) in an afternoon workshop discussing holding on to your vision of an idea as you get lost in the detail of animation. The animators listening in are from California, Canada, Colombia, Italy, Australia and Malaysia.

On the walk...

On the walk to Gobelins there is a lot to see but the lure of animation at the end of the stroll is strong.

We have a workshop each morning in which to animate our class exercises. I'm animating in 2D and it's nice to work with pencil on paper with sound of Parisian streets (Bvd St. Marcel) just outside.

There are about 40 students of 22 different nationalities. Animation discussions are bubbling all around me in French, Spanish, Italian, English, Chinese. The cool thing is that we all speak animation.

The tutors checking my line tests yesterday include Max, who was on the team that made the film Burning Safari.

I have to get back to animating now. Bonjour!