For the last many years, I’ve been working with a few different groups trying to put together a rather big “thing”.  I’m not at liberty to really discuss.  Let’s just say that it has been going on for what feels like an eternity.  In actuality it has been close to 7 years.  Yikes!  While it always feels just around the corner, it has been “just around the corner” for a really long time.  The economic meltdown couldn’t have happened at a worse time.  It certainly put the squeeze on and put an even bigger hiccup into the mix.

With these potential “things” knocking on the door, it has shaped the direction of my professional life.   Arguably too much so.  No longer!  Time put a plan in motion that has been sitting idle for too long.

So what is this grandiose plan?  Mum’s the word.  What?  Another secret?  Seriously, I can talk about this openly without violating all kinds of trust.  Unlike the “thing” mentioned above.  It just that I want to wait a tad bit longer. There are a few ducks I need to align first.

More to come…

The rough economic times are being felt everywhere.  Even in an industry that has been said to be recession proof.  Layoffs, studios closing, and projects losing their funding, have all been recent indicators that we are just as vulnerable as anyone else.

The Orphanage, a studio up here in San Francisco has closed its doors.  These guys have been creating effects for both films and commercials for years.  I’m not privy to the exact reasoning for the shuttering, however, I have a feeling it is related to the same woes that has hit practically every industry in this country and beyond.

Face it, times are tough.  Freelancing and subcontract work has slowed down too.  Even for people that have been in the industry for a long time are feeling it.  The old supply and demand principle says that there is too much supply for the demand.  Hopefully things will turn around soon.  However, I wouldn’t  count on it.

Imagi, the studio that produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and has been working on Astro Boy both in LA and in China has been hit as well.  While they haven’t closed their doors, they have basically run out of money.  Financing has fallen through and the LA office is pretty much shut down, while the Chinese studio is supposedly working for free (another topic in itself).

Tough times all around.  There is work available, you just have to look a little harder and be prepared to make less money or simply move to a new location.  Those that have jobs, don’t take it for granted!  If The Orphanage and Imagi are any indicators, we may see even more studios close shop and more artists and techs put to the streets.

I decided to take a couple of shots from my short film, Till Death Do Us Part, and put it on Vimeo.  I wanted to see how good or bad their HD looked.

The short was rendered at 1920×820.  However, for the upload to Vimeo, it was scaled down to 1280×546.  There is some loss right there.  It still looks pretty good.  Especially when you compare it to all the crappy low res internet streaming videos out there.

Check it out for yourself here.  There is no audio.  And the shots are not together in the actual film, but are placed together here.

Till Death Do Us Part- Shot 97/99 from Rick May on Vimeo.

Download a high res video here

Something that I like about the animation itself on these shots are the eye movements.  I knocked these two out in a day.  But, I was still able to get some pretty decent movements that suggest thought.  The eyes are pretty much doing everything in these two shots.

Much of my work over the last so many years is locked away under NDAs.  While it is great to work on these projects, it can be a real problem when I’m trying to load up my reel with new material.

The obvious solution is to animate a few things on my own so that I can stick them on the demo.  The problem with that is just finding time to do it.  So, the answer was to take a few moments and animate something short and sweet.

I gave myself a weekend.  The result is the animation posted below.  All in all, it took me around 20-25 hours to complete (not including lighting, rendering or rigging).  For those of you familiar with the 11 second club, you may recognize the audio.  I went to their website and grabbed last months and used that.

Animation Weekend #1 from Rick May on Vimeo

Download a brighter HD version here.

The model came from one of those freebies you can download for Maya.  Unfortunately, the body rigging had some issues, so I spent some time and re rigged it to my liking.  The face rig was left as-is and worked pretty well.  If I have more time someday, I may re-rig it too.

The video was uploaded to Vimeo.  Mainly because you can send them/view HD res video.  Unfortunately, the video is darker when viewed on their system.  Lucky for you, you can download the HD quicktime if you’d like to see it a little brighter.

I plan to do another “Animation Weekend” before too long.  Next time, I may try for something a little more physically driven instead of dialogue.  We’ll see.

With Wall-E just around the corner, we’ll have an opportunity to watch the included short film “Presto” in all its glory.  For those of you that can’t wait, it is available online.  Probably not for long, but for now…

This is such a well done short, the story is funny and cute, the editing is slick, and the animation is incredible.  It really reminds me of the old Warner Brother shorts.  I wish more people would push CG in this direction.  Kudos to Doug Sweetland for directing this thing and to Pixar for allowing it to happen.  Great work.