Meet Nick Bruno

Here's a inspiring interview with Nick Bruno, now one of the lead animators on our next project.  I always love hearing about  the things or events that inspire someone to begin to chase their passion.

Meet Nick Bruno

The Spanish Armada

If you can understand Spanish, check out this interview with some of the animators from Spain workin here at Blue Sky.

Top:  Isaak Fernandez, Julen Santiago, Qcho Sanz

Bottom: Elena Ortega, Pako Bagur

Personal Behind-the-Scenes-y stuff

*Warning: Potential spoilers I guess!*

My first feature film shot!  This was right before the security guard gets "chloroformed" by Nigel, the bird villain.  I think this was a 2nd pass on blocking.  I showed to the director, Carlos, and he gave his initial feedback.  Something he mentioned for the feeling of it was "...Y'know, kind of like a Paul Blart Mall Cop".  Since I had never seen the movie, I took that quite literally and swiped this funny expression from the trailer on You Tube.  I just remember the shot doubling, almost tripling in length, which happens alot.

Since we had a bulldog in our movie, another Blue Sky-er was nice enough bring in her French Bulldog for the day.  We let him loose in one of the screening rooms and played with him for a while.  Here he is with one of the character leads for the Bulldog, Pete Paquette, and Dave Gallagher.  I wish I could remember that dog's name.  He was super outgoing/ active/ weezy.

My first Blu shot!  Also my first dialogue shot.   Though it's pretty simple, I actually couldn't believe they gave me this, (remember, I was pretty scared to even be here.)  Here it is along with my vid ref (which was, pretty bad).  Blu says "What?  Why?  This cage is awesome!" in response to Jewel trying to break out of their bird sanctuary.  I briefly got to work with Blu's lead, Nick Bruno, on this one before he had to jump onto another project.  Fun times.

My first Jewel shot!  When Blu first sees Jewel in the sanctuary and shes flying in slow motion.  Initially I thought I had something good going on here, but looking back at my initial pose on the left, it's pretty 

terrible.  She looks kind of dumpy.  Luckily for me , after feedback from my lead, this is how it turned out in the final film.

 SOOOO much better right?!  He basically wanted to me to try to get an overall stronger graphic, triangle shape, flowing from the wings down to the tail.  Totally made sense.  Since this was going to be the first time we see her, I wanted to make this image as iconic as possible, like it would've made a rad tattoo or something.  And lighting did an amazing job,  since Blu's offscreen comment was "She's like an angel."

The shot, even if they picked a different frame, was even made into a toy!  Cool!

Some behind-the-scenes-y stuff

Some Rio Marketing stuff

As animation production on Rio was winding down, one of the marketing directors asked me if I could do some sketches for Rio Marketing stuff.  So for a day I spent some time to doing some simple sketches for ideas for bumpers/ads, etc.  These are the little ads that show up at the bottom or edges of the screen (that you might find a little annoying, your welcome;) )  I was just excited to spend the day drawing!  Anyway I ended up only having time to do about 5, Here's one of them:

Ha!  Pretty simple eh?  I'm really not even sure if this aired!

More stuff

Rio is doing really well at the box office!

And I'm not a Master Anything, but here's a little Q & A I did for my good friend, Xia's site

Misc Rio Stuff

Here are some simple images I used to pitch an art style for the end credits before they settled on what is in the film now.

#1 Domestic

Thank you everyone who went out and saw it this weekend!!!

#1 International

Photo by Travis Price.

All of the hard work and late nights.

I said Damn!

Solid drawings. Caricature. Entertainment. This shot has it all!

It's too bad the rest of the film is pretty forgettable.  

All the Buildings in New York

This is a fantastic idea!  And I wish I'd had thought of it.  Illustrator James Gulliver Hancock plans to draw every building in New York City.

Jesse Eisenberg

Jesse Eisenberg (the voice of Blu, main character in Rio) stopped by the studio today!

Carlos (our director), Galen (our supervising animator), Eisenberg, Elena, AJ, Mike, Me, Carolyn

I have to sit next to this guy

KOL Electricity shots process (video reference / blocking / final animation) from Isaak Fernandez on Vimeo.

Soundtrack!

*Sniff* Thats my shot!!

Please excuse the onslaught of Rio posts, this movie occupied my whole life for all of last year.

More painting practice last night

I have no idea what I am doing...

Signed Rio Poster Auction

Click image for the link.

 

 A good friend of mine, Rich Fournier, is auctioning off a signed intl. Rio poster for a charitable cause.

From Rich: 

 

"Recently I learned that an old friend from High school was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia or AML. Having family members who have gone through similar struggles, I know how much of a toll it can take emotionally, physically and financially. In an attempt to help Chris and his family, I am posting an auction for the international poster for “Rio”, Blue Sky Studios’ next feature film, which has been signed by the Animation staff & Director Carlos Saldanha."

 

For more information, please click on the image above, Thanks!

Rio Animation Crew

Here's a group photo of the animation team on Rio!  Including Technical Animators and the Animation Coordinators.

At my previous job, I worked with 

a team of about 8 animators.

Rio float in Carnavale. Rio De Janiero, Brazil

Our film had a float in this year's Carnavale, a 4-day celebration down in Rio.  Our supervising animator went down for it, and I heard he dressed as one of the characters in the parade!  Ha!

More drawings for work friends

Sheldon and Chantelle , for Sheldon's last day here @ Blue Sky.

The Junior Animators.  Done last year but colored this year for going-away gifts.

My first shot on Ice Age 4 starts...NOW!

Art Blocks

These are the 2 Art Blocks for Ghana that I'm bidding on:

Celine Gobinet

Ricky Nierva

I'll let you know if I win them=)

Update:  I won Celine's!  

RiOreos

Whaaaaaaat.

Isaak's NY Journal

Check out my cube-mate, Isaak's personal NYC photo gallery .  His site also has an animation section where he's posting some of the awesome work he's done up until Rio.  Prior to Blue Sky , he was one of the handful of animators that came from Illion Animation in Spain working on Planet 51.

It begins....

In a couple of hours, I get kicked off on my first Ice Age 4 shot .  Not animating on production shots in a while can give you  butterflies.  I remember this feeling starting out on Rio.  But I'm ready to hit the ground running.

 Here's another clip from Rio.   I got to do the last 4 out of 5 of the last shots, starting at 00:47.  Wes Storhoff did the very last shot with the birds flying from the trees.

Blue Sky Blues by Ramon Lopez

Animator Lluis Llobera.

The sculpting/maquette room.

"Last month I took a bunch of pictures about the studio aiming to show something about the people of Blue Sky Studios." -Ramon Lopez

Click either of the images above to check out Ramon's gallery for a peek inside the studio!

Nigel's Song

I'm a huge, HUGE, Flight of the Conchords fan.  So I was super excited to have Jemaine Clement in our film .  Even on boards, this sequence was one of everyones' favorites.  His animation was lead up by Nathan Engelhardt and Lluis Llobera.  Actually, both Animation Mentor guys!  Both amazing animators.

Dice Demo - Learning from the master!

Yesterday , on our work's network, I found a painting workshop video that Dice Tsutsumi (former Blue Sky color key artist and current Pixar art director) gave while he was here at Blue Sky!  That guy is so dang good.  Needless to say, the workshop was amazing, simply demonstrated, and so inspiring that I was excited to give it a go when I got home, as verbatim as I could.

I've been making my way through the Academy Awards' Best Picture noms, and the other night I watched the Fighter, which was great .  Here's my interpretation of Christian Bale's character Dicky Eklund.

Suuuuuper amateur status for sure, and it's nowhere in the ballpark as what he ended up with. But it was fun to learn how he does things.

If you're not already familiar with his work, do yourself a favor and check out his amazing paintings!

On Artistic Growth

" The one thing I have noticed about people who are exceptional in their creative work is that they are always trying to get better.  That's how they got good in the first place.  These people judge themselves against the best work.  They aim for the top."

-Brian McDonald, Invisible Ink

( A book I just finished, and highly recommend!)

Rio Site Animation

Hey wanna see some animation I got to do that won't be in the film?!

Yes? OK go to the Main Rio Site.  Wait about 5 seconds for the main cast photo to dissipate.  One at a time, random characters from the movie will come across the screen dancing.  I did these two guys:

Haha. Party Fowl. The power of homonyms.

Here's the vid ref Garrett did for my dances.  Oh Shikumes.

My cubemate Isaak did Blu, Slemmer did Jewel & Toucan, Keith did the monkeys, and Pete did Bulldog!

Day in the Life

7:30 AM.  A case of the mondays.

8 AM.  My car barely fits into this garage.

I usually have a commuter buddy that lives down the street.  

But he's in Aruba right now.

 

8:10 AM Starbucks.  

Everyone knows my name and my order.

8:30 AM Into work.

Bagel Mondays.

 

Morning work surge go! 

Getting as much work done as I can before...

...Cube-mate Isaak gets in.  

Tells me about his weekend.

Drawings between playblasts.  Usually pretty crappy.

12 PM Lunchtime downstairs.

Joe talking about Australia.  Most likely. Or Radiohead.

AJ made Red Velvet cake over the weekend,

and saved me some.

 3PM.  Animation Inspiration Meeting.  

This weeks Pete gives a talk on the comedic stylings of the 3 Stooges.

Haven't watched these in years.  Pretty pretty funny.

Valentine's Day confection in the big kitchen.  

Strawberries.  Dipped.  In CHOCOLATE.

Afternoon work surge!  

Those splines are goin' into IA 4!

6 PM.  Gym Time in the tiniest gym ever.

7 PM. Going home.

8PM. Drawing time.

Wee hours of the morning.  Bedtime.  

Looking back at this I realize how much I still live like a student.

Dang.