la película, pero no la película

The film, but not the film.

the animation that almost was, but may be again

Part of my apprenticeship with Charlie this past summer was animating a two-person scene. I'd roughed in the keys, he'd given amazing feedback, and then the monster that is fourth year took over my life. I might find time to come back to this, but it will have to wait until after grad. Nonetheless, here are a few snippets.

The Sculptor

After a long haul, our 3rd year group film was finished last April 2010. It feels far, far in the past by now (after two internships and a semester of fourth year having come and gone), plus I think we've all made significant artistic growth since third year. Nonetheless, we did it, we learned a lot, and hopefully it was a good dress rehearsal for this year's independent films.

I suggest watching it full screen & in a dark room.

website

I'm alive. Barely, but I am alive. Thanks to those who continue to visit the blog despite my absence. School has gotten incredibly busy, but we're in the home stretch now, so I'm just trying to push forward until the end.

In the meantime, I'm also working towards being one of those professional animator peoples, so I've made a website! jamiemetzger.com is my first website, so please give me any feedback you want to.

(click on the image to go to the site)

I'll be constantly updating it as my demo reel evolves, and there's some new life drawing posted. Still feelin' like a rookie, but jumping in nonetheless!

Charlie B . 02 . The Wine Lover

The Wine Lover from Jamie Metzger on Vimeo.

Coming up for air. It has been a crazy two months here in the Philippines, and things are just winding down. I'm off to India in a few days, and will take a short break before continuing on with the summer internships. The amount of knowledge and skill I've acquired is more than an entire year at school. Of course, I couldn't have even started these placements without the prior learning done at Sheridan.

Here is the second test I've been working on with Charlie. Again, only keys for now. It needs some fixing, but we're running out of time, so it's on to the next assignment. This was a long one (almost 30 seconds), but the character was so much fun to work with. Thanks also to Robin for the design loan, and to Charlie for helping me modify it for animation. Now moving forward to the next and final assignment!

Paso Doble . 02

More sketches for my film. For those who asked...

Charlie B . 01 . The Sultan

The Sultan from Jamie Metzger on Vimeo.

Here are the keys for my first assignment with my animation mentor, Charlie Bonifacio. Working on this piece was like an animation boot camp. Think about fitting two years of education into 4 weeks. It was pretty great. There are tweaks to be made, and in-betweens to fill in, but that will have to wait because it's on to the next assignment.

*character design by Robin Joseph, and revised by Charlie.

Paso Doble

Now that my final year at Sheridan is creeping up, I can finally talk about my thesis film! Paso Doble is a Spanish dance between a matador and his cape. I am using this inspiration to metaphorically compare the discovery of marital infidelity to a bull fight. That all sounds very technical, but it's really heated, passionate, and aggressive. I am hoping to marry my musical theatre and animation passions in this fantasia-type piece.

When I first came to Hans, I had nailed down the storyboards after many revisions, but he felt that I was playing it too safe with the style. (I was.) This month he had me explore many abstract and modern artists, and to my surprise a style was actually emerging. Being more of an animator, I've never developed a style for a film before, but I now see that the story and the style must inform each other.

Above is a one of my very quick explorations of a potential style. It most likely will differ from this look, but it's one idea along the way...

show me the light

Hans showing us a sliver of his personal
animation archives.

The summer of the internships are upon us, and everyone says it's the best summer of your Sheridan career. I believe that's true, but I have my whole life to work in a studio. I figured since I'm not going to get paid anyway then I might as do something that money can't buy. I am spending my summer in the Philippines apprenticing under Hans Bacher and Charlie Bonifacio.

Both Disney vets, Hans will be helping San and I develop our visual aesthetic while Charlie will be working on animation with me via Skype. Needless to say, I am pretty freakin' stoked about the summer. As requested by many classmates, here is a photo of us getting a tour of Hans' personal archives. I will be posting some work soon, as doing two internship should produce something worth sharing...if I can live up to their standards. Wish me luck!

knight in shining armour

Third year has ended, and I have to admit I am glad to see it go. Although I learned a lot, it was quite a headache and much too stressful. I am grateful that I had hard-working groupmates on our film. We finished on time, so there should be a clip to post here sometime soon. For now, here are my last two life drawings of the year.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that Mitch (my fiancé), San, and I are going to Asia for the summer. San and I are completing our apprenticeships for Sheridan, so this will be another challenge and a fantastic learning opportunity. Stay tuned for more on that!

Portraits

Sooooo, it's been a while. Thanks for checking back. The group film at Sheridan has taken over my life, and doing extra art on the side has been postponed for a while. I have, however, managed to get in a little bit of life drawing. I am really liking portraits. So much so that I am neglecting the rest of the body. Ha. Will get back to that shortly.

I would like to promise to post again soon, but the moment school ends I am on a plane to South East Asia for the summer. Things will be busy for a while, but with any luck I will have lots of stuff to post from that working holiday. As for now, wish me and my group members luck getting through the last few weeks of this film!