Sunday, December 17, 2006
Reviewing the Review:
I dreamed last night, all night, that I was being instructed by the computer generated ghost of Chuck Jones. Chuck would be in the middle of explaining something to me and he would warn me that he only had access to answers that were in his public record but fortunately there was quite a bit in that record.
It was one of those saturation dreams where waking activities continue into the distortion of dreams and you know you are dreaming. So I just enjoyed the personal training. When else are you going to be trained by the the master?
Yesterday was saturated and there is no surprise that the day continued into my night dreamlands. I spent the day at Laguna College of Art & Design taking part in an end of semester portfolio review. Every 15 minutes 3 more students would bring their semester worth of work in to for review by faculty.
LCAD is one of the top schools with a stiff portfolio review requirement for admission so the levels of work are very high. We teachers nit picked and talked about timing. The silhouette quality of a figure seemed to be the big problem as did a good understand of the power of the hold in the animated storytelling precess.
The review started a little before 11:30 AM and ran until 3:00 PM with a very short lunch fit inbetween students. At first I was worried that I would be off the wall. My teachers use to contradicting each other and sometimes themselves, hating one piece one day and loving it the next. It use to drive me crazy.
As the faculty went from review to review I was glad to see we all seemed to focus on the same areas. Made it seem like we knew what we were talking about.
Lennie Graves making a point, animators tend to be animated when we talk.
At 3:00 PM Linda Jones, looking poised and dignified as always, showed up with a DVD of a lecture by her father, Chuck Jones. (this of course explains my dream) It was great to hear a lecture by the master again. It was a lecture to a group of interns at Chuck Jones Productions back in 1997 and it seem like he was in the room and talking right to us.
At one point the alarm panel started beeping as the campus wide alarm system was activated and Chuck asked from the screen is the air conditioning on? It was spooky but in a meaningful way not a scary way. The event ended about 6:00PM and the LCAD semester was closed.
Laguna College meant a lot to Chuck. He helped launch the Animation Program. He designed their logo. His last public appearance was as LCAD back in 2001 just a few months before he died. I feel lucky to have been at that event. I feel luck to have been part of the review event yesterday. Sometimes it seems impossible to believe that I am teaching at an animation program that was started by Chuck Jones.
Chuck talking about conservation of volume with a balloon as a prop
Crawford, the short lived comic strip that Chuck did. He did not like being tied down to one strip a day, 365 days a year.
Larry Loc (ASIFA Blog Guy) ¶ 11:50 AM
I dreamed last night, all night, that I was being instructed by the computer generated ghost of Chuck Jones. Chuck would be in the middle of explaining something to me and he would warn me that he only had access to answers that were in his public record but fortunately there was quite a bit in that record.
It was one of those saturation dreams where waking activities continue into the distortion of dreams and you know you are dreaming. So I just enjoyed the personal training. When else are you going to be trained by the the master?
Yesterday was saturated and there is no surprise that the day continued into my night dreamlands. I spent the day at Laguna College of Art & Design taking part in an end of semester portfolio review. Every 15 minutes 3 more students would bring their semester worth of work in to for review by faculty.
LCAD is one of the top schools with a stiff portfolio review requirement for admission so the levels of work are very high. We teachers nit picked and talked about timing. The silhouette quality of a figure seemed to be the big problem as did a good understand of the power of the hold in the animated storytelling precess.
The review started a little before 11:30 AM and ran until 3:00 PM with a very short lunch fit inbetween students. At first I was worried that I would be off the wall. My teachers use to contradicting each other and sometimes themselves, hating one piece one day and loving it the next. It use to drive me crazy.
As the faculty went from review to review I was glad to see we all seemed to focus on the same areas. Made it seem like we knew what we were talking about.
Lennie Graves making a point, animators tend to be animated when we talk.
At 3:00 PM Linda Jones, looking poised and dignified as always, showed up with a DVD of a lecture by her father, Chuck Jones. (this of course explains my dream) It was great to hear a lecture by the master again. It was a lecture to a group of interns at Chuck Jones Productions back in 1997 and it seem like he was in the room and talking right to us.
At one point the alarm panel started beeping as the campus wide alarm system was activated and Chuck asked from the screen is the air conditioning on? It was spooky but in a meaningful way not a scary way. The event ended about 6:00PM and the LCAD semester was closed.
Laguna College meant a lot to Chuck. He helped launch the Animation Program. He designed their logo. His last public appearance was as LCAD back in 2001 just a few months before he died. I feel lucky to have been at that event. I feel luck to have been part of the review event yesterday. Sometimes it seems impossible to believe that I am teaching at an animation program that was started by Chuck Jones.
Chuck talking about conservation of volume with a balloon as a prop
Crawford, the short lived comic strip that Chuck did. He did not like being tied down to one strip a day, 365 days a year.
Larry Loc (ASIFA Blog Guy) ¶ 11:50 AM
