Second Year Film

Wow, so this is super late. Here's my 2nd year CalArts film, 'Under a Big Tree'.


Under a Big Tree from Michael Piazza on Vimeo.


Making this film was an adventure into the unknown for me. Having just barely used Maya before this year, and never seriously, I had a lot of learning to do in not very much time. This whole year was a constant "oh god I have no idea what I'm doing" moment - it was humbling and gloriously fun and sort of depressing all at the same time. I should make a list of all the things I learned, because it would be ridiculously huge. And I'm definitely going to make a 'making-of', just as soon as I beat Skyrim.

It's really fun to get lost in the forest of the technical (at least for me), but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that your audience doesn't notice any of it. I certainly don't feel that my film succeeded on all levels (or most levels?), but I'm proud of the journey. And I'm starting my Disney CG internship in a few weeks, which is also an exciting scary unknown, so wish me luck!

More rambling: I found out that making a CG film involves uniting a bunch of different disciplines that artists and technicians spend their entire careers perfecting. Which is scary at first, but it just so happens that at this point in time, the tools exist (and are artist friendly enough) that it is possible for one person to learn how to do all this stuff and make a film in a little over a year (you will hate yourself though). 

It's all about evaluating your own skills and knowledge, figuring out where you'll be when you have to actually start production, and then making smart design & story choices that mask your own incompetency. We weren't always provided with the resources we needed at school, which was frustrating - thankfully, my classmates are awesome and we helped eachother all day long, every day. I feel decently competent with The Mayas at this point, but my laundry list of things to learn is still far longer than the list of what I know.

just a flying snail

that is all.

48 Hour film!

This is my CalArts 48 hour film (meaning that we made it in 48 hours) that I completed with my friend Toniko.



The theme for the year was cactus! Our film was actually pretty tame this year, compared to many. The weekend after everybody finishes their 48 films, we show them in a rowdy, debaucherous screening. This year we even had a legit tumbleweed, in honor of our theme. 48 hour films is easily my favorite character animation tradition.

We both animated (Toniko did a bit more than I) and figured out the story, I comped everything and edited the music to work with the piece, and Toniko did sound design. It was the most brutal crunch time ever for those three days. I was referred to as a 'slavedriver' on perhaps more than one occasion.

It was technically a 72 (75 maybe) hour film, but we nearly finished it in the first 48. Stupid sound design.

Some Animating

You perhaps have already seen this! An assignment for CG animation.

animatin'

I arbitrarily promised myself I'd post something today, after neglecting to for one month and 13 days. So here's an unfinished gangster walk (of a gangster) that I did at the beginning of the year.



And then a little thing I did today.



There's a CG test coming soon too! I suck at finishing stuff.

Animation Practice

(Character copyrighted by Valve, obviously)


I found some awesome Team Fortress 2 rigs earlier, and I just got around to making my first little test with one of them. The rigs are really nice, too - with all the IK/FK switcheroos we nerds could ever dream of. And we do. A lot.

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I woke up one morning to find all my desktop icons were cleared out, replaced by one mysterious video. I don't quite to know to make of it, but it's pretty spooky.

Work

So this summer I managed to land myself a gig doing this banner for an 'insurance lead finding' company's website.

I have no idea what that means or even what they do - but thankfully, I'm just an artist so I don't have to understand, 'real world' things such as these. All I have to do is dick around in After Effects until my eyes bleed. Ah, bliss.


Sidenote: This thing really needs shoowshy sound effects. Please make them at your discretion.