Pleased to post that I started my new job as a Senior Instructor at VANCOUVER FILM SCHOOL located in downtown Vancouver BC Canada.
I will be involved with the ANIMATION and CONCEPT ART courses leaning heavily towards story and design work. Very excited to help make this the best course for the students :-)
Anyone who has followed this BLOG ... sorry for the lack of action this past year. Family, full time job and freelance story boarding on a series has been keeping me pretty focused and busy. This week during my Story-Visual language class that I teach here in downtown Vancouver at Vanarts, the junior students are starting the 'research and development' process as they begin searching for creative ideas for their upcoming Senior Term 4 Project. During this time I bring in examples of original backgrounds, color keys { before digital }, original animation drawings, character designs and other visual pieces I have collected over the years at the different studios. It's always nice for them to see original artwork.
A quick shot that was taken yesterday morning. Our senior students have just started Term 4 in the Animation course here at Vanarts Media college in downtown Vancouver B.C. The fingers the students are holding up represent the remaining months they have left in the course before their final short films are to be completed for graduation. It's going to be a fun intense focused summer.
As the senior students here at VANarts begin their research and development for their senior short films, I bring in some of my various pieces of artwork from the studios that i have collected over the years to inspire them. They love seeing some original work.
Had a last minute gathering at my house yesterday with some of my old college friends. We have all been very fortunate to have made a living being passionate about the arts. These guys are great. From Left to Right > Jon Hooper, Andy Bartlett, Greg Sullivan, Michel Gagne, Terry Pike, Ralph Zondag and myself.
Don Bluth and story artists Larry Leker and Dan Kuensterworked together as the storyboard artist crew during the features 'Land Before Time' and 'an American Tail'. All 3 of them did beautiful work. Here is the last part of the Tyrannosaurus sequence.
The legendary Disney animator Glen Keane, who invented characters such
as Ariel, Tarzan, Pocahontas and the Beast, perfectly remembers his
first encounter with the Paris Opera : as he was sitting in a nearby
café, he could not stop drawing “the most beautiful building I had ever laid eyes on”.
Dancing has always inspired his art which circles around the creation
of movement, and he was excited to lift the curtain and enter a world
which seemed even more magical than the performances on stage. His film “Nephtali”,
which refers to Jacob’s blessings and Psalm 42, was born from the
comparison between the grace of a dancer and that of a deer. In a
choreography which Glen created with Marion Barbeau, he depicts the
journey of a soul that is drawn towards a higher power, fights a
struggle and is eventually liberated. By using both film and
drawing, Glen Keane and Marion Barbeau manage to overcome the
constraints of gravity and attain the freedom towards which a dancer’s
body and spirit always aspire.