Mark Taylor walked in pretty early in the morning and sat down and had a nice chat with us. All the animators in my office (about 6 of us). It was awesome. Its so funny, he treats us all like we’re friends, and just has such a way about him of instilling comfort in other people when he talks to you. He genuinely wants to know about you, and what you’re doing. So nice to feel that way when talking to someone of such importance (to us). That was a really nice way to start off the day. Then, it was time to get down to work.
So I’m working on my Idling shot with Maurice and the other characters, and trucking through that. Then I submit it for some review from Myke before turning it in. He has me come into the office to show me some things I need to change. Granted, small things, which is great. I kind of assumed if I was “called to the principal’s office” that there would be some major changes. But no! Awesome. Ok, so anyway, that went over really well. Myke and I were talking and joking back and forth cause Friday was SUCH a busy day with the Mayor coming in, and us wrapping up two shows, plus the party that night, and Nickelodeon being in the house… everything. Anyway, then Myke mentioned to me the 8 new shots that he had handed me to get started on this coming week. I said “yea, wow, I was NOT expecting to get any shots with Julien!!!”
THAT’S right…you are lookin at someone who is freakin animating JULIEN, one of the harder / more fun characters, that only a few people get to animate (or so it sounded to me, not sure) AFTER MY SECOND WEEK OF WORK! How crazy. I was SO stunned, and flattered too, that I get to try my hand at working on him. I also have an INSANE amount of shots with Savio the snake. He is flopping around all over the place in the shots… wow. SO crazy. I seriously surprised / excited. The coolest part was: when Myke brought it up, he said that this is to show a continuing build of trust and confidence in me, which made me feel extremely good. I was expressing that I feel that I struggle just a little, in getting to know how far to push the characters and whatnot when animating, cause watching it is one thing: making it happen is another. He told me that I am doing great, and to “continue with confidence.”
Talk about a confidence boosting afternoon. Now: I just need to hold up to the standard I have been set at! Haha. We will see. Im one shot behind though after Friday with all the crazy going on, so I will probably try to get in on the weekend to work some. Either way, this coming week will be awesome.
Now on to the other best part of the day: THE LAUNCH PARTY!
First, check out this link about the studio to get an idea of whats been going on, and what my awesome office looks like! (they don’t show the room Im sitting in unfortunately, but its IN FRONT of the news caster woman when she’s talking): http://tvnz.co.nz//technology-news/nz-s-newest-animation-studio-open-business-3893754/video?vid=3893715
Anyway, so 5:30 comes around and Rob Difiglia and Chris Waters come around and are like “hey guys, gona come join the party?!” We were all working, cause some people had to meet the show deadline before the party started. But man, when everyone was ready, we headed over to the sound stage area (its literally the room we used for green screening. It was all painted white, but it has NO corners in it… just a gradual slope upward into the wall from the floor. Such a neat room!) to get some drinks and get the party started. Wine, champagne, beer, whatever you wanted pretty much. And they had decorated the room with a little stage, funky orange carpet squares in nifty patterns across the floor, as well as standing tables and a little couch sitting area. Awesome.
Re-cap in Photos:
(photos courtesy of Animator Tiffany Wang, I unfortunately did not have my camera on this night. GRR)
Had a great time, talking with people and hanging out. Then the REAL party got started. We had to choose a song to sing for the Karaoke contest. OH NO.. KARAOKE!! Yes, it was the Animators vs the Assets Team, and how could I not participate?! So we had some debate over what songs, since we had to sing two. Fraser picked “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” to start with, which unfortunately I don’t know the words to, but they hade a huge screen with the words, thank goodness. Fraser and Peter took over the mics, and we all danced in the background….WITH OUR NURF GUNS. It was classi. Fraser got really into it too! The man has no fear! Haha, what a show. So we finished the song and shot off the nurf guns at the ceiling. What better way to end a song? We got very high ratings for our performance as well, though we did get rated a 4 out of 10 from one judge (we were judged by all the Nickelodeon people, including the founders of it, and the writers of Penguins), who we all gracefully pummeled with our nurf guns. Thankfully he was ok with that. Haha. That’s the last time he will give US a 4!
So then the other teams went, and I have to say, there were some really entertaining performances. This studio is full of awesome and fun people. I love every minute of it! The night was great. I hung out with Warren, my past office-buddy, the head of Assets at Oktobor, hung out with Rob, one of the partners. Had a really nice one-on-one conversation with him actually. Great guy. And just had a blast! They had pizza for us too, which was awesome. And then, we got ready for our next song: Living on a Prayer. YES. Talk about a good song to have. We got REALLY into it! I had to hold the mic, so Im sure I ended up belting out something badly, but whatever, at that point, I think we had all had enough to drink where it didn’t matter! I mean… we were all so exited about the party… that we were… just so happy. :-P
That song went over well, and we ended up WINNING THE COMPETITION! Fantastic! Of course, Nurf was involved here again too. Good stuff. Could not have asked for a better night. Of course, after winning we had to do an encore, so we chose “We Are the Champions,” appropriately enough.
Then Mercedes and I just hung around, participating with other people on their songs, dancing on the dance floor, and enjoying more champagne. It was an amazing night. I felt like I was with a huge group of friends. Talk about a blast!
OH, the craziest part: I was told by the writers of the show…. That they read this blog. HOW CRAZY IS THAT?! I was stunned… and seriously flattered that this blog has gotten that much attention! I had no idea people were interested in my pseudo-online-diary. Haha. Well, I will continue to write to the best of my abilities, and continue working as hard as I can at what I do. I feel like I have finally made it to a place that I want to be. I am still a very young animator, and have much to learn, but man, this is where I wanted to be. In a job that I love being in, at an office that I want to spend time in. SO: thanks everyone J Talk about an amazing studio. And its only going to get better.
The end of the night came around 11:00, and fortunately Warren lives near me in Grey Lynn, as well as Rob, so we were all going to walk home together. We lost Rob somewhere in the mix, so Warren and I made the trek home. Hilarious. Haha, a walk like that doesn’t seem so far away after a fun night.
Anyway, could not have asked for a better Friday, all around!
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