Shalom roy!
1. When you are working on a scene, are the story boards that presented to you gives you all the info you need to know about the acting itself? How much space do you have to improvise on the acting?
it depends on the boards, the scene, and the film itself.. oh, and on the director. Some directors really want you to stick to the boards, some think that it should be up to the animator to determine the acting.
for the most part it's a combination.. the director will want a certain "idea" or a certain bit of information to get across to the audience. How that's acted out is up to the animator (based on the director's input and desire). For shows like Over the Hedge, it was great because anything we did, as long as it got the idea across, the directors were happy. With Madagascar the directors were really interested in what we could bring to the acting to make things funnier & they loved when we brought something new!
2. What is your method of animating? Is it Pose-To-Pose? Straight Ahead? Since MADAGASCAR was so stylized, very Warner Bros. style (bless you for that!) , did you have any guidelines concerning the animation?
Again, it totally depends on the directors and what they like. On Madagascar, it was super pose-to-pose.. I'd block everything in step mode & show it like that, then put in the breakdowns.. still in step.. and keep going until I liked what I got. At that point I'd convert to spline and go from there. On Shrek, I started working how I did on Madagascar, but I found that the directors responded better to a spline-based blocking, so I've switched to that method. I still do rough step blocking on my own, but I go past almost to first pass before showing it to the directors. It means that I sometimes have to remove animation that I've done and re-work it, but it also means that it's easier to sell ideas to the directors.
3. Yeah....and here comes the "I WANNA WORK IN "DW" TOO" kind of question:
How many international people work in DW? What does it takes to get accepted into DW as an international guy? Do you have to hold some kind of degree? TONS of work experience or does it all comes down to a killer Demo-Reel? What are you guys looking for in a Demo-Reel? Is it few seconds of amazing acting ? A short film? Is it Animation Mentor on your resume will put your foot in the door (kidding)? Does DW looks at Classical Animation studying as a plus?
We've got quite a few international people working here! Dreamworks definitely hires international animators, so as long as you've got a kick-butt demo reel, you're able to be hired!
Classical animation studying is definitely a good thing, but it doesn't increase anyone's chances over someone with 3d training. We just look for good animators, regardless of their background (2d or 3d).
4. How's life man? Are you happy with it all? ("
life is FRIGGIN AWESOME! how could it not be? I've got a wonderful wife, about to have a family, doing a job I love, teaching animation on the side... I mean sure, there are things that could be better (DARN HOUSING RENOVATIONS!!!), and I wish I didn't have a mortgage.. but with the things that matter, I'm a darn lucky guy.
cheers!
-jason
