Hi Keith,
              Here are some Questions? ( been studying your vts)
            1) What was you biggest obstacle you had to climb over from beginner animator to advanced animator?
            2) How did you get hired on your first pro animation job?
            3) I'm working on a short on a group of kid like a goonies type deal and I need pointers on how to animate them           that they move in good offsets, if that makes sense.  Just a good way to make em belivable.(I have their character definitions varied)
            4)Another animation teacher was talking to me about "Subtext" and how 98 percent of the time most people say things with other things in mind,  in vts 15 I believe you where using it for murray when you where posing him ?
            5) lastly,  where did you learn how to hook up the techinical rigg and facial stuff for murray?
                                                 
                   Thank You, for your time and Keep on rockin the VTS.

Recently I've been sturggling with focus issues. I feel that I'm called to where I'm headed, but there is so much history, tradition, culture, controversy and changes in the animation world that I find myself getting lost in it sometimes. Really, massive conviction of Idolitry. You are obviously a christian brother in this biz, and I was wondering how make and KEEP what you do about Jesus?

So BLAM! How do you like that one? Thanks Keith! Keep it up with the VTS series. They're grrrrreat!

Thanks for the kind word about the VTS. I'm glad you're digging it.
The question you pose is really one about balance. Regardless of one's personal beliefs (whether one has a faith in anything other than the material or not) I do think it's a basic human tendency to lose track of keeping things in balance. nd I think it's a natural human longing to want things to be in balance. The difficulty is in the matching our actions with our ideals. Heh. I think it takes some measure of personal maturity to maintain a life in balance. And a lot of your choices will reflect how you really feel about your beliefs (whether they are mere lip service or if they are meaningful).

Still, life has cycles. Times of great work, times of rest, times of high emotion, times of a slower pace. There is a typical infatuation phase with animation when we start it. When we start out it seems we pour so much of our time and effort into getting our head around it, and every new discovery or victory is a mountain top experience. That's a nice thing, actually. Animation (like a loving relationship) requires SO much work and effort that you have to be a little insane at first to even stick with it. The trick is to not stay there in that state forever. Sooner or later we all need to make decisions and take actions that put life in balance. Often life will do that for us. We get married. we have kids. One of our parents dies. A friend dies. We get hosed out of money out of blind ignorance. Studios and other businessmen types will exploit youthful enthusiasm (unpaid overtime, free weekend work, etc.) These have a way of making us sit up and notice there's more to life than just f-curves. Life has a way of making us grow up- and if it doesn't we end up burnt out and probably strung out as well. So keep an eye on it, try to maintain a alance, but don;t get too caught up in beating yourself up over it. You're probably just in that initial infatuation perido where it seems this stuf is so freakin cool that you want to spend as much time as possible with it to bettr understand it. That's OK. Just know this about yourself and be willing to pull back if you need to. One good way to pull back is to declare certain days as "No Animation" days. Force yourself to get away from the computer and live life a little. I try to make at least one day a week like that. (think of it as a Sabbath rest from animation if you like.)
For myself I have to make a conscious effort to draw a line in my work. I allow that everything I do can be for God and should be (I believe that distinctions between sacred and secular are the invention of religionists in order to glorify themselves). So while I animate I am mindful that this is one of the reasons God put me here- to animate! I figure when I animate it makes him smile, much like I smile when I watch my boy play soccer with the other kids his age. So I animate my best to fulfill that purpose and by extension to make God happy. But I have other purposes as well. Father, husband, helper, friend, teacher, human being. These are also meaningful purposes I've been given here on this earth. To neglect those in favor of one I like more is to be out of whack, and I figure that'd be displeasing to the one who put me here.

-k

Hey Darrin!

Firstly, hope all is going swimmingly over there and I'm looking forward to downloading the 17th VTS, can you believe you have done so many? Did you think it would still be going over a year later?

Sure I had hopes, but to be honest the response has exceeded my humble expectations. Every day I am thankful for being so blessed. And it's fun to be able to help folks out and interact with them. I get a lot out of helping others achieve their goals and dreams.

If you could have any living animator work with you on your short film, who would you like? Don't worry, I'm sure your friends won't get jealous Wink

There are dozens of guys & gals who I'd love to work with (again). Most of them are my friends, too! It'd be hard to pick just one. I generally don't settle on a single answer for things like this. There's just so much enthusiasm, experience and talent out there to exclude it all for one name. These kinds of things usually end up being a popularity contest anyhow and we all know the usual winners of those. 

Lastly...
If you could go back and chose any career, which would it be and why?

I chose this one the first time. No need to go back and change my mind. 

Thanks Keith, especially for your answer to my question no 6 (all-time-favourite animators) which is more than awesome. I don't even know all of them, so I'll have to do some research. Since there are no new questions, I'm going to dare for some more.

8 - What exactly is this digital pencil shooter you're talking about?
9 - What kind of software do you use for drawing animation?
10 - Again, on posing: how would you describe a good/great pose, what are you looking for in a pose, how much time do you spend on your key poses, how much detail do you put in your drawings if you plan stuff on paper (or digital paper), what are the parts (of a drawing/pose) that you spend most time on and which parts seem to be the most difficult for you to nail down accurately?

I'm asking all this stuff about posing because I've read Walt Stanchfield's notes on gestures (from Animation Meat), a couple times, and some of that stuff still seems pretty obscure to me, especially what he sees in a good pose - his corrections sometimes seem to be less expressive than the students' original; maybe more accurate as to what that action should really be/feel, but anyway, confusing stuff, so I hope your commments on posing might clearify some of the confussion. So, my last question (for now, and if people don't jump in, I'm going to ask some more) would be

11 - What's your take on gestures and on Walt Stanchfield's stuff, if you've read/seen it?

Thanks again Keith for doing all this!

Oy Herman!

    1) What was you biggest obstacle you had to climb over from beginner animator to advanced animator?

For me it was getting past the point where all I thought of was the mechanics of motion and breaking through to where I was able to master performance. It's necessary to study and ingrain yourself with the mechanics (12 principles stuff) first. This is because they need to become so natural that you no longer think about them primarily. You still think of them later on, but mainly as an means to an end, not an end of themselves. The period where I was good at the technical stuff but hadn't mastered performance was a rough time as an animator and I dropped away from animating for a bit. It was so easy to fall into a rut where it becomes a formulaic application of mechanics (principles) without any real depth or soul (performance). Once I pushed past that and discovered a way to tap into deeper performances I found a new excitement for animation.
The second toughest part was getting beyond the computer and thinking like an animator- regardless of medium.

            2) How did you get hired on your first pro animation job?

Some entrepreneur saw my stuff on my old website back in 1995 and offered to pay me to make an animated sales video for his downloadable movie idea. Interesting stuff, but it was 10 years ahead of its time. But the money was good and it was a good exprience. From there my career kinda took its own course.

            3) I'm working on a short on a group of kid like a goonies type deal and I need pointers on how to animate them           that they move in good offsets, if that makes sense.  Just a good way to make em belivable.(I have their character definitions varied)

Let the root drive the fruit. ) Think of how the motion originates and then let things flow from there. You can't get away with just offsetting keyframes in time and expect it to work perfectly. The biggest thing that helped me with overlap and offsets and stuff was realizing that I needed to built the overlap right into the breakdowns and pose extremes. That's the way it's ben done in pencil for decades and I don't think the CG computery short cuts really work all that well compared to this old tried and true method.

            4)Another animation teacher was talking to me about "Subtext" and how 98 percent of the time most people say things with other things in mind,  in vts 15 I believe you where using it for murray when you where posing him ?

Subtext is one of those 'critical questions' I ask myself whenever I deal with any character. In my opinion it's a fundamental tool for exploring the deeper meaning of the moment for a character. It's not the only investigative tool or perhaps even the most important one, but asking about the subtext is a very effective way to find something deeper than the surface cliche's.

   

         5) lastly,  where did you learn how to hook up the techinical rigg and facial stuff for murray?

through years of painful trial and error, combined with collaboration with some very talented friends who also endured their own years of trial and error. And even now I wouldn;t say I'm completely happy with where things are on my characters. Everything in facial rigging for me is an experiment. Some things I find worth keeping, others I discard after use. Always keep digging for something new, better, different. There really aren't any short cuts to that stuff, I don't think. Well, maybe Face Robot. But who has $100,000 for a short cut? heh.