Sheridan Alumni Event

The Sheridan Alumni Association is holding a reception and screening on Wednesday, April 6 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King Street West in Toronto. There is a reception with food and drink starting at 6 p.m, followed by a screening of The Best of the Ottawa International Animation Festival 2010 and Sheridan student films that have won awards from the Toronto International Film Festival. That screening starts at 7 p.m.

Tickets for the event can be purchased at the Lightbox or online for $20. You have to RSVP in advance for the reception, and details for that can be found on this page.

Scott Caple Retrospective

Scott Caple is having a show of his work at the Toronto Cartoonist Workshop, 486 College Street, just west of Bathurst, in Toronto. The opening is Friday, Feb. 25 from 7 to 11 p.m.

Scott is a 30 year veteran of the business, having done effects work on Raiders of the Lost Ark and layout and design for films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Incredibles. He's worked for Nelvana, Industrial Light and Magic, Don Bluth, Disney and Pixar and has also done designs for videogames and book illustrations. For the last several years, Scott has been teaching layout at Sheridan College, where he also mentors 4th year students in the making of their films.

While the art will be up for awhile, it is in the regular classroom space of the workshop. As such, the retrospective doesn't really have regular hours. Scott tells me that he'll try and set up an additional time when the art can be viewed for those who can't make it on Friday.

Sheridan Industry Day 2010 Addendum

Kevin Parry has posted the opening title to Sheridan's industry screening last week. Besides Kevin, Andrew Murray, Andrew Wilson, Allison Neil and Adam Pockaj were responsible for the concept and execution of this piece, including the voices. It has a playfulness and a spontaneity that exceeds many of the films produced over the course of the full year and it's a reminder to all of us that if we have fun making a film, the odds are that the audience will have fun watching it.

Sheridan College Animation Intro 2010 from kevinbparry on Vimeo.

Sheridan Industry Day 2010

Another school year gone. Another group of graduates stepping out into the world. Another industry day. What's below just scratches the surface of what went on.

Second and Third year student volunteers prepare for the crowds.

The graduates of the four year program get set up to meet the industry.

Veteran story artists Jim Caswell and Warren Leonhardt.

Left to right: Paul Teolis of Nelvana; Michael Carter, President of CASO (Computer Animation Studios of Ontario) and Jim Caswell.

Frank Falcone of Guru Studios.

A view of the post-graduate computer animation program workspace.

Steve Schnier of Vujade and John Lei of Noodleboy Studios.

Kevin Parry with his characters from the stop motion film The Arctic Circle.

Carla Veldman with her characters from her stop motion film The Scarf.

Allesandro Piedemonte (A Cut Above) and King Mugabe (Red Snow).

Andrew Murray (Blind Date) is interviewed by a reporter from CHCH TV.

Advice to Graduates

This was a comment I contributed to a December, 2008 post called The Final Customer. As graduation time once again approaches, I'm giving it its own entry.

Here's some basic advice I'd give to graduates from any year. Network aggressively. If you know people in the business, start talking to them now and keep talking to them. It's good to touch base with people when you're not looking for work, just so they don't think that the only time you get in touch is when you want something. If you're lucky, you'll learn what studios are busy and you can target them.

Apply to any animation-related job you can find. Knock on studio doors and if you are lucky enough to talk to people, get their business cards and send them a thank you email. Stay in touch with them once a month.

If there are any industry associations, join them. [I would add that you should join business networking sites like LinkedIn .] If there any industry events, attend them. Bring business cards and introduce yourself to strangers. Sometimes artists are shy and don't want to push themselves, but nobody has a reason to seek you out this early in your career. You've got to do the work.

Be prepared to relocate. At this point in your career, you need resume credits and experience. The sooner you get them, the sooner you can position yourself for the jobs you want. Sometimes, the only jobs are at small studios in out of the way locations, because nobody with experience wants to work/live there.

If you're not working, keep producing new art. That way, you can revisit studios once a month and have new things to show. That will convince the studio of your commitment. There's no reason for a studio to see you more than once if your portfolio/reel are exactly the same as last time.

Stay upbeat when talking to people, no matter how discouraged you are. No studio wants to listen to an applicant complain, especially if the studio is struggling to stay in business. Stay enthusiastic and be willing to do whatever they ask, even if it's not what you really want. There will be lots of time to reposition yourself in the future.

Job hunting is a skill. The sooner you start applying for jobs, the sooner you'll learn the ropes. Do not sit at home and wait for the phone to ring. Keep putting out feelers and keep producing new work. Sooner or later, you'll catch a break.

When you do, live below your means. Don't assume the job will last as long as promised. Don't assume that the studio will have another project when the current one is done. Save your money because you will spend time unemployed.

If you're working, keep networking. Let the other studios know that you've been hired. They will take you more seriously if other studios want you. Keep talking to friends in the business, monitoring the situation wherever they are working. That way, when you're out of work, you can hit the ground running in order to find your next job.

While you're working, keep your portfolio and reel up to date. When a project is finished, ask for samples of your work from it, even if you can't show the samples until the project is released. You don't want a studio to shut down and leave you with no access to the work you've done. It's happened.

Graduating in tough times could turn out to be a blessing. Those people who manage to make it through the recession are going to be smarter and tougher than those who don't (though luck does play a part in it). When the business goes through other slow periods, you'll be more ready to deal with them while others disappear.

Something I would add is the concept of a "best-before" date. When you go to the grocery store, perishable items have a best-before date stamped on them. After that date, an item is no longer fresh. Graduates, too, have best-before dates. Their freshness expires one year after graduation. At that point, if people have not yet worked in the industry, they are competing against a new crop of graduates whose skills and enthusiasm are fresher. Someone who has gone a year without being able to break into the business raises questions in the mind of a prospective employer.

For this reason, I always tell grads to take any job offered, even if it's not a preferred studio or task. Getting that first job immediately separates a grad from all the people who have yet to find work. It also provides a grad with a new network of co-workers who may be able to provide future employment or a reference.

Grads have a tendency to look at their first job as the culmination of their educations, but it isn't. It's merely the first step in a career. Just as you go from knowing everything about your high school to knowing nothing at all about your college or university, you're now going from knowing everything about the school you are leaving to knowing nothing (or very little) about the animation industry. It's no fun to start again at the bottom, but that's where you are and over the course of your career, you may find yourself starting over several more times. Recognize your position for what it is and accept it. With luck, it's only temporary.

Luck and timing play a major role in a career. If John Lasseter had been born 10 years later, he would not be where he is today. Someone once asked actress Lillian Gish what it took to succeed. She responded that it took talent, persistence and luck, though she thought a person could get by with two out of three. Since you can't control luck, focus on the other two and hope for the best.

Clarity, Logic and Entertainment

Last week, the 4th year students at Sheridan had a screening of their story reels. I mentor 10 of those students, out of 108 this year.

I've been looking at my students' reels as they developed since September, but it's always different seeing work with an audience. It struck me that there are three stages the students have to tackle in order to make a successful film, and various films were already at different stages.

The first is clarity. Can an audience understand what's happening on screen? I've asked students to explain something I don't understand about their films and their explanations make sense, but what's in their heads hasn't been communicated on the screen. Things, often important things, get left out. Clarity is pretty easy to achieve once a storyboard or story reel is shown to a few people, as they inevitably ask questions about things they don't understand.

Logic is a bit tougher. Getting the events of a film and the characters' behavior to be consistent and logical takes some doing. Some films have problems with tone; they signal to the audience that they're one type of film and then become another. That could potentially work in a longer film, but it's tough to get an audience to make a sharp emotional turn in less than two minutes. Other times, a film starts off with a theme and then contradicts itself by the end. Sometimes, there's a lack of consistency in terms of plot or character; events don't make sense based on what an audience would expect.

Logic is harder to fix than clarity. It sometimes means tearing up a story and rebuilding it, which can be a lot of work. It also means sacrificing something that the film maker probably wants to keep and getting a student to give something up is often a difficult task.

The toughest problem is entertainment, and you're never really sure what you've got until you get an audience reaction. I had a couple of students doing films that built up to punchlines. While they were clear and logical, the punchlines didn't get the expected response. Reworking the endings to evoke a laugh is going to be difficult as entertainment isn't as clear cut as clarity or logic.

If I could wish for anything for animation artists, it would be for more audience contact. Stand-up comics get good by constantly honing their material based on audience reaction. Actors or directors who start out in theatre do the same. Even bands that play bars get feedback.

Animators (especially those working in TV or games) exist in a vacuum. Feature animators have it a little better but still have to wait years to learn whether what they've done is successful or not. Animation people as different as Walt Disney and Bob Clampett viewed their films with audiences on a regular basis, measuring their intentions against the results. It took both of them years to solidify their ability to entertain, as it did Chuck Jones, Tex Avery and Friz Freleng.

People with the ability to entertain an audience are the ones most in demand. While some people may have a flair for it, I believe it's like any other skill and can be honed through practice. The problem for animation artists is that they have so few opportunities for audience feedback.

The Sheridan students now have their own experience of watching their films with an audience as well as feedback from friends and instructors. The films generally get better between the story reels and the final films as the students continue to polish their work. However, I wonder how much better the films would be if the students had more experience with audience reactions and I wonder the same about the whole animation business.

Sheridan Workstations For Sale

I'm posting this for Ken Walker, the technologist of the post-grad CGI program. Here are the details:

Hey All,

Three years have gone by so fast!!! It is time again to sell off all of our current workstations to make room for the new ones for the next 3 years. We are only selling the workstations not the monitors. We are using the Monitors for next year so we can have Dual monitors to work with for all machines in the lab.

Note: These workstations have been very well cared for. They have been cleaned every 6 months. All the dust bunnies blown out. They have been the most reliable equipment we have used to date.

Here is the config of the workstations we are selling: IBM model: 6217-pju

IBM A-PRO series IntelliStation

Nvidia Quadro FX 3450 video card - is open GL and Direct X compatible
(works great with Maya and for playing Games)
4 gigbytes RAM
2 - Dual Core AMD Opteron model 280 @ 2.4 Ghz
80 Gbyte SATA Hard Drive - note the mother board is a server mother board and has RAID built in and has connectors for SCSI, IDE and SATA all built in.
DVD Multiburner - Burns DVD's and CD's - will burn Dual Layer DVD's as well.
Comes with optical mouse, keyboard, powercord and the original OEM disks for device drivers.
Windows XP Pro 64bit editions installed and a valid windows OEM license/serial # for WInXP 64 bit.

The price for a workstation is $995.00 which includes the tax. You get a workstation, keyboard and optical mouse and the OEM device driver disks, Win XP Pro 64bit Edition installed and updated to service pak 2 and the Nvidia video card drivers updated and installed. While suppies last we are also throwing in a RGB monitor.

If there are any questions or you want to make arrangements to buy a workstation just contact me either by email ken.walker@sheridanc.on.ca or by phone at 905-845-9430 x8724

Bloor Cinema Reminder

The Magic Cauldron by Andy Zeng

This Tuesday at 7 p.m. (and repeated on Wednesday at 9:30 p.m.), a selection of this year's films by Sheridan animation students will be running at Toronto's Bloor Cinema. The program runs approximately 90 minutes and admission is only $5. You can see a trailer for the program here and a list of the films here.

Below is a map of the Bloor Cinema's location.

View Larger Map

List of Films for the Bloor Screening

For those of you in Toronto, here's a list of the Sheridan student films that will be screened at the Bloor on June 9 at 7 p.m. and again on June 10 at 9:30 p.m. It's open to the public and admission is $5. You can see a trailer I cut together here. The one line descriptions are mine, not the film makers.

Higher Education – A mean teacher faces the Last Judgment. A film by Hernando Bahamon, Zélie Bérubé, Christian Camaroschi, Sheng-han Chang, Mélanie Daigle, Amber Holowaychuk, Angela Kim, Alex Kung, Henry Lidstone, Michelle Moger.

Smores – A day in the life of a chocolate man in a graham cracker world. A film by Inigo Ahedo.

El Cacto – When a desert town runs out of water, who ya gonna call? A film by Garrett Hanna.

Hopetown – Hope springs eternal for a stuffed bunny. A film by Will Postma.

Lobster Boy – The story of an underwater outcast. A film by Tracy Qiu.

Homework Hydra – So much homework, but so many distractions. A film by Ben Hu.

Monkey and the Moon – Based on a Chinese folk take, a monkey tries to rescue the moon. A film by Yajun Wang.

Nanu - Two animals battle for a meal. A film by Alex Donald.

Sneaks on a Plane – It gets lonely in the desert. A film by Serena Leigh

Process – Do not go gently into that recycling plant. A film by Jake Fullerton.

Coned – A dog struggles with a cone collar. A film by Terri Sajecki.

Ama – An animation student searches for a subject. A film by Chih Kuang Jack Yu.

Creatures of the Night – Don’t poke the zombie. A film by Kieran McKay.

The Magic Cauldron – A cauldron that doubles its contents. A film by Andy Zeng.

My Hero – The perils of hero worship. A film by Nael Al Hamwi, Amir Avni, Adam Black, Lee Ann Dufour, Adam Hines, Wayne-Michael Lee, Sopheak Meak, Marvin Mugabi, Allesandro Piedimonte, Samantha Smith Mark Stanleigh.

Kitty Kitchka – A lesson in feline agriculture. A film by Cheng Long.

Junko Jango – A boy is caught between bullies and a junkyard dog. A film by Rachel Chalk.

The Missing Sock – Guess where it went? A film by Jason Teeuwissen.

Humpty Dumpty Scrambled - What happens when a weapon has a mind of its own? A film by Yuriy Sivers.

The Bacteria That Could – If at first you don’t succeed... A film by Jordan Benning.

Hog Wild – This little piggy went to market. A film by Michael Alcock, Markus Bajin, Tanguy Barker, Weiran Ji, Sun Lee, Chris MacDonald, Boris Maras, Clayton Tsang, Carla Veldman, Andrew Wilson, Di Yao Amanca Zima.

Princess Story – A fairy princess awaits her prince. A film by Kayla McIlwaine.

The Ballad of Amelia Von Earl – A little girl has an unusual hobby. A film by Tapan Gandhi.

Space Chase – A mad scientist gets madder. A film by Behram Khoshroo.

Foxy Hotmamma – An homage to the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s. A film by Justin Salgado

Just Desserts – Sweets revenge. A film by Jonathan Coit, Lawrence, Lam, Kyu-Bum Lee, Kaming Mak, Andrew Murray, Braden Poirier, Linval Smith, Ben Thomas, Chris Thompson, Junghoon Yeo.

Tang – A monkey struggles to stay warm. A film by Han ung Lee.

Ooh aaah oouch – A recliner with an attitude. A film by Manish Thorat.

The Chronicles of Turghot and Dragam – An urbanized barbarian yearns for the good old days. A film by Kelly Turnbull.

The Peasant and the Root – A peasant covets the amazing power of the mandrake root. A film by Brock Gallagher.

Electropolis – A walk sign seeks to break the monotony. A film by Amanda Stocker, Hank Choi, Adam Pockaj, Jason Walmsley, Dimas Mohammad, Adam Trout, Dan Seddon, Griogio Mavrigianakis, Ki Eun Suh, Debbie Yu, Dawnson Chen, Allison Neil, Kevin McCullough.

Upcoming Screening at the Bloor in Toronto

Here's a trailer I put together for the Student Animation Showcase, featuring the work of Sheridan College students. It's June 9 at 7 p.m. and again on June 10 at 9:30 at the Bloor Cinema, located at Bloor and Bathurst in Toronto. Admission is $5.

(If you're a Sheridan student, all the films in the trailer are in the screening, but there are additional films that are not in the trailer for various reasons. I'll be emailing everybody the list of films to be screened in the next few days.)

Sheridan College Industry Day 2009 Part 3

An article from the National Post. The student on the right is Tapan Gandhi.

Sheridan College Industry Day 2009 Part 2

Courtesy of student Frank Macchia, who uploaded it, here's a TV news report from CHCH in Hamilton on Sheridan's industry day. Laura Friesen and Frank are featured as students. Other people visible include instructors Scott Caple and Jim Caswell (1:11-1:15), instructor Tony Tarantini, and student Brent Dienst (1:34).

Sheridan College Industry Day 2009

Once again, it's industry day. The work of graduating students is screened for people who are looking for talent. Below is a collection of photos from today.

Robin King, founder of Sheridan's cgi program and currently a consultant.

Students and guests inside the cgi lab.

Frank Macchia (left) and Mark Sperber prepare to receive the industry.

Left to right: Animator Stephen Barnes, John Mariella of CORE and independent producer Doug Masters.

Sheridan alumnus Marceline Gagnon-tanguay, currently at Blue Sky.

Two aerial views of the learning commons, where the students met the industry.

Three excellent animators I've had the pleasure of teaching. From left to right: Jason Teeuwisson, Brock Gallagher and Kelly Turnbull.

Naz Ghodrati-azadi's film is called Gobbled. She'll be moving to Los Angeles this summer, so west coast studios should keep an eye out for this talented animator.

Tapan Gandhi's film is called The Ballad of Amelia von Earl.

Tracy Qiu's film is called Lobster Boy.

Industry Day coordinator Tony Tarantini presents an award to Kayla McIlwaine for her film A Princess Story.

Mark Simon (left), coordinator of the post-graduate cgi program, presents an award to Inigo Ahedo for his film Smores.

A panel of industry professionals giving advice to the students. From left: Tom Knott (formerly of Laika, Warner Bros. and the Ottawa Animation Festival), Evan Spiridellis of JibJab, Doug Masters (formerly with CORE and currently an independent producer) and industry day coordinator Tony Tarantini.

What's above is only a fraction of what transpired. More than 4 hours of student films were screened.

I will be screening a selection of this year's films at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto on Tuesday, June 9 at 7 p.m. and again on Wednesday June 10 at 9:30. Admission will be $5 and it's open to the public. I'll post more about this screening as it approaches.

If you were at industry day and have any thoughts about the films or the days events, please leave a comment.

Upcoming Sheridan Industry Day

For those in the Toronto area who might be interested, this year's industry day at Sheridan College will take place on April 30.

In addition, I am in the process of booking the Bloor Cinema for a selection of this year's films. The dates I am trying to book are June 9 and 10, with both dates featuring the same films. Once details are confirmed, I'll pass them along.

Industry Day Revisited

Here are two local news reports about Sheridan's recent industry day. The students and facility shown in the reports are from the post-graduate cgi program. That program's films screened in the morning and I'm assuming that the reporters featured those students as they needed time to edit the stories for the evening news.

Industry Day at Sheridan College

In this neck of the woods, there are two times of the year where there's something resembling a gathering of the clans: the Ottawa International Animation Festival and Sheridan's annual Industry Day, where the graduating students screen their films for studios looking to hire. Lots of friends can be counted on to show up for the screening and this year I had the pleasure of seeing former students who are now working and who came to recruit for their companies.

Several people from the industry told me that they felt this was a very strong year. My own thought is that there were some excellent films and the overall batting average was pretty high. I'm sure that many of these films will show up in festivals and eventually on YouTube and other video sites.

I've got to acknowledge Tony Tarantini as the faculty member who has organized this event for the last two years. Tony has to invite people from all over North America, create printed material to explain procedures and list films, arrange award presentations for the students and make sure that there's enough food and drink to keep everybody happy. Industry Day takes as much preparation as a wedding and Tony makes it look easy.

Finally, congratulations and best wishes to the graduating class of 2008. I hope that the industry provides opportunities for them to grow as artists and to realize their ambitions. If that happens, we can look forward to some wonderful animated films.

Below are some photos of the event.




In the four pictures above, some of the students from the B.A. program display their work for the industry.
Above, the students in the post-graduate cgi program host the industry in their lab space.
Above, Marilyn Friedman of DreamWorks is interviewed for a local newscast.
Above, Director Larry Jacobs is under the rabbit ears and Steve Schnier, whose independent live action film Pubic Lice is nearing completion, stands next to him.
Above at left, Tom Knott of Laika speaks to Evan Spiridellis of JibJab.
Above at left, animator Stephen Barnes listens to cgi program coordinator Mark Simon
Above at left, animator Charlie Bonifacio speaks to retiring instructor Vivien Ludlow. Vivien will return part-time in the fall to help mentor 4th year students during the making of their films.
Above, a display of the set and characters from the stop motion film Crema Suprema by Elenora Ventura. Sheridan will be starting a regular stop motion class starting in September, taught by Chris Walsh, who missed industry day due to the arrival of this little fellow:

Finally, Brock Gallagher, a third year student, has cut together a highlight reel of the films from his year. These films are group projects, made by teams of about a dozen students. Next year, they'll all be making individual films and I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Good Luck Sheridan Grads

Today was Industry Day at Sheridan College, where members of studios come to view the films of the graduating animation students. Tomorrow, students will be interviewed for positions by these studios.

This is the first graduating class of the revamped Sheridan program, now a four year course instead of three. It's fair to say that the transition hasn't been a smooth one and the current grads, some of whom were my students two years ago, have suffered more than their share of bumps and bruises on the road to today. Ironically, their difficulties may make them better prepared for the peculiar world of animation production.

Best of luck to them all. Animation is a wonderful and maddening profession and I hope that the industry will provide them with the opportunity to work and grow over the coming years. We could all use better cartoons.