"Waking Sleeping Beauty" 9/25 and 9/26 at Ken Cinema

Thanks to Trisha Allex for alerting me to this:



Check it out! It's screening the weekend after finals end! This documentary is about Disney Animation Studios from around 1980 to 1992...   --Jason

By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts: maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits - "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast ," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and more - over a 10-year period.

contest - "17 Swedish Designers"

what does 17 mean to you?

Competition
Are you a thriving artist with design ambitions? Join our 17 Swedish Designers Art Competition for a chance to see your artwork on t-shirts all over town!
As the exhibition 17 Swedish designers comes to visit San Diego, October 9-30, the Consulate of Sweden arranges a design competition for students at local and regional art schools and others with interest in design, art and fashion. The winning artwork will be printed on 100 t-shirts and displayed on Planet Rooth Studios in Hillcrest. The winner will be announced at the opening ceremony on October 9th.

Theme
The theme for the competition is 17. The beauty with the number 17 is not only that it corresponds to the number of participating designers in the exhibition. There are endless ways of interpreting the theme. 17 is not at all a random number. In fact, according to several studies, the number 17 is the least random number between 1-20, meaning that if people are asked to pick a number between one and twenty, 17 will be the most commonly chosen number. The number 17 also represents an age when many things happen in the lives of most adolescents. Both ABBA and Kings of Leon sing about it. In the periodistic table, group 17 is the Halogens. And did you know that the Swedish word for 17 is considered a mild swear word?

What does 17 mean to you?

Guidelines
The competition is open to all participants.
Submissions are accepted September 5-20, 2010.
All contestants must hand in their artwork through e-mail to competition@17swedishdesigners-sandiego.com
EPS format
The file should not exceed 15mb (final piece must be in high resolution)
The artwork should be accompanied by a short explanatory statement (max 150 words)

The Winner
The winner of the 17 Swedish Designers Art Competition will receive a $200 stipend. The winning artwork will be printed on 100 t-shirts and distributed among the 17 Swedish Designers exhibition guests. One t-shirt, accompanied by its explanatory statement and the name of the winner will be on display at Planet Rooth Studios October 9-30, 2010.
The jury will consider the following criteria:
Quality of composition and design.
Clarity of the theme and explanation.
Creativity and originality.
Overall impression; the effect of the project as a whole.

Click here to see the competition rules.

Red Giant Software - check out how they work. Very awesome!

Grady passed along this link for everyone's enjoyment.
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/redgianttv-video.php?id=55

Jason

Dzu's Digital Painting Workshops

Part 1: Figure
Friday August 27 1-5pm room 265

Part 2: Head
Friday September 10 1-5pm room 265

(click image for larger)

Grady's drawing workshop, Thursday Aug 26th 12-3pm

Come get personalized instruction and additional help with Grady!
(click image to view larger)

Max Bartoli - Writer/Director: "Atlantis Down" speaking on campus Thursday Aug 19 12-1pm

Max Bartoli - Writer/Director of the upcoming film "Atlantis Down" will be speaking on campus on Thursday Aug 19 12-1pm in rooms 145-146-147
Please join us to learn about Max's role in creating this film. Perhaps he will show us some clips, pre-visualization elements, or production stories!   

(click for larger image)

Mini Biography

Born in Italy, and having earned a degree in Media Law, Max Bartoli has spent several years traveling and working in England and the US, where he resides. He is the author of two books published in 1989 and 1991 that won him the title of "Youngest European Fiction Writer in 1989.

In 1997 he co-wrote "Metropolis", with Francesco Licata, a TV program, which was part of the Benefit TV gala "Trenta Ore per la Vita" broadcast nationwide in Italy by Italia 1 a Mediaset's station.

Since 1998 Max has worked as a director and Executive Producer for various advertising agencies in Italy and England, directing and producing sports videos, corporate and institutional videos, as well as TV commercials.

In 2004 for MaXaM Productions, Max wrote, produced and directed two documentaries: "Postcards From The Past" and "Time Travelers". From 2002 to 2004, he worked as a director and executive producer for one of Italy's largest advertising companies, Rotella and Partners. For them he has directed several videos and two documentaries: one on the "Coliseum" (which won Italy's "Media Star Award") and one entitled: "Tunisia the jewel of the Mediterranean Sea".

In 2006 Mr. Bartoli produced and directed his first short film, "Ignotus", which has won 25 awards at International Film Festivals in 18 months. Among them are: "Best International Short Film" at the New York Int'l Film Festival, "Best Foreign Language Short" at the San Fernando Valley Int.'l Film Fest in Hollywood, two "Silver Pelican Awards" at the Taormina Film Festival, the Capri-Hollywood Award at the Capri Hollywood International Film Festival and the prestigious "Cisterna d'Argento" for his outstanding achievement in the arts. The "Cisterna d'Argento" is awarded annually for outstanding achievement in the arts, peace, economics, and science and has been previously given to Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev and former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Bartoli's film "Ignotus" is the only short film to have been watched and also praised by Pope Benedectus XVI, the former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"Ignotus" was also the only official Italian short film during the 2007 European Short Film Festival held in Washington D.C. at the Goethe-Institute. Bartoli's short has also been screened at the last "Festa dell'Unità" of Pesaro (Italy) as one of the short films that better represented the image of Italy worldwide during 2007 and 2008.

In 2009 Mr. Bartoli co-wrote, produced and directed the sci-fi feature "Atlantis Down", starring Michael Rooker and X-Files star Dean Haglund. Mr. Bartoli also directed, produced and edited the 8-episode TV series entitled: "Atlantis Rising: the making of Atlantis Down" which has been aired by Cox 11 in Virginia since February 2010.

Open Labs SU10 - full schedule

Hey everyone,
if you are looking for a lab which doesn't have a class running, take a look at the image below. (Click for larger)

tutoring and workshops

Everyone,

Tutoring is available in the Learning Lab. Check the schedule (click below) to see when it is staffed by the tutors in the topic you need. No appointment is necessary, the services are free.

Workshops are being held throughout the quarter as well! Check the schedule (click below) to see what's offered and when. The topics are interesting and are either outside of our curriculum or they provide extra help in the topics students need most.

how was SIGGraph? Upcoming conferences

Who went?
   I had a great experience there! I saw Dreamworks present on how they created their visual style for "How to Train your Dragon". It was great! They showed the evolution of the characters and the environments. They also discussed their approach to stereo 3D.
   I also went to see Jim Miller, who is head of Pixar and used to be the head of ILM. He shared some great stories of movies he had worked on for the past 20 years.
   I saw Digital Domain do a presentation on their work for Tron: Legacy. They showed an 8-minute trailer and discussed some of their costume design and environment designs. They also talked about how they shot the film for stereo 3D.
   I didn't spend much time at the Expo itself. I went to an 'Education Summit' put on by Autodesk. They reminded us that they offer free downloads of their products and they also showed some downloadable project files and tutorials. Come see me if you want to take a look at them.
  Next year's convention is in Vancouver! To stay local, take a look at the CTN-X show coming up November 19-21 in Burbank. http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com/
  For you motion graphics and multimedia artists (as well as 3D, VFX types) consider road-tripping to Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Motion Conference.  It's October 16-19. http://motion.motion.tv/
   Both conferences offer registration discounts to students.

Jason

electives for FA10?

MAA Students!
I'm working on the schedule for next quarter. What electives do you want to take? Post comments here or send requests to me: jkatsoff [at] aii {dot} edu

two upcoming workshops

Dzu Nguyen and Dr. Wei Xu are both hosting drawing workshops wihch are coming up soon! Click on each flyer to see more information

WIA Club

This quarter, the WIA will be meeting on Tuesdays in room 174. Their first meeting is on 7/20/10 immediately after Stephen Silver's presentation.

The President is Nicolette Celiceo and the VP is Roberta Tam. The email address for the WIA club is aisdwia@gmail.com

Join the club! It is a large and active group with many advantages of membership.

-Jason

STEPHEN SILVER IS COMING!

Tuesday July 20th 9am - noon: room 146-147
Stephen Silver (http://www.silvertoons.com) has worked as Character Designer and Supervisor for Disney Television Animation, Sony Feature Animation and Nickelodeon Animation, designing characters such as "Kim Possible", "Danny Phantom" and Kevin Smith's "Clerks" the animated series, to name a few. Silver is the author and artist of five self-published books on the art of sketching, caricature and life drawing. In addition to working freelance full time, he also teaches an online character design course at www.schoolism.com, a character design course at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) in Valencia, California, and a quick gesture figure class at the Los Angeles Academy of Figuritive Arts. In 2000 he received the Golden Nosey award from the National Caricaturist Network for caricaturist of the year. In 2007 he was awarded the National Cartoonists Society's television animation award for the designs on Disney's Kim Possible. Silver names three treasures to success in life that give him what it takes to keep on drawing: passion, desire and determination.

Creative Heads weekly job posting

sign up for their weekly job postings, even if you're not ready to find work yet. It will be good for you to know who is hiring and what they are looking for in their candidates. Grady pointed out that among many of the good opportunities on their recent list Pixar Canada is hiring as is LucasFilm in Singapore.

Jason

Attend Siggraph for free!

https://www.xpressreg.net/register/sigg070/start.asp?p1=Ai2010 . Your special PRIORITY CODE will automatically appear with your registration, giving you a FREE exhibits only pass.

Go to Siggraph! It's great fun and you'll be amazed at all you see and the people you meet.

-Jason

we need tutors

Please see me this week (July 12 -16) if you are interested. Minimum 3.0 GPA, strong skills in one or more of the following areas:
    Software: Maya, After Effects, Apple Shake, Photoshop, Final Cut Pro
    Traditional skills: figure drawing, perspective drawing, color & design, writing, algebra

If you are selected, you will work one or more 2-hour shifts in the library's Learning Lab.

-Jason

internship available

I am looking for an illustrator of children's books. It is for an old friend's company in La Jolla. Chek out www.starfall.com . The last intern who worked there is now at Cartoon Network. You need to be able to create original illustrations which are sweet and kid-friendly. You should be strong in Photoshop and Flash. You will be exposed to many pieces of software and other tools which are not Adobe and Autodesk products but your strong ability to solve problems and figure stuff out on your own will help you immensely. You don't need to be registered for the internship class but I still might be able to get you into the class if needed. Do not contact Starfall directly. Contact me if you are interested!

Jason

Stash Video compilations

Those of you familiar with this monthly (and expensive) DVD compilation of the world's best animation and VFX will be pretty psyched to know that it has gone online-only.

The good news is that Ai has full access! You can view all content by visiting their website at http://www.stashmedia.tv/ from any computer here on our campus. The login is IP-based. You don't need a password.

If you're looking for inspiration, reference, or just pure eye-candy check it out! Locate the link for "ip-based login" on their main page.

Enjoy!
-Jason

MAYA 2011 FREE DOWNLOAD! 13-MONTH ACCESS

http://students.autodesk.com/
You have to register but it's free and easy!
Though we are upgrading to version 2010 over the summer break, your files from both versions will open and can be used in either version.

enjoy!
-Jason

CTN Animation Expo

check out the site and consider being a volunteer! The conference was very worthwhile last year. It's November 19-21 in Burbank.

Jason