Moving on

It's been almost a month and I think I've finally recovered from the epic horrendousness that was M.Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender... especially now that Nickelodeon has officially announced a new spinoff series: "Avatar: the Legend of Korra!"

“The Legend of Korra takes place 70 years after the events of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ and follows the adventures of the Avatar after Aang - a passionate, rebellious, and fearless teenaged girl from the Southern Water Tribe named Korra.”

Korra’s quest eventually leads her to Republic City - the epicenter of the world of “Avatar.” A metropolis powered by steampunk-type technology, the city is inhabited by people from all nations. Korra finds that Republic City suffers from rampant crime and is also dealing with an anti-bender revolt. Korra is tutored by Aang’s son, Tenzin, is the ways of airbending."

It's only going to be a mini-series (which means less filler, more intense storylines!) and according to Mike and Bryan, it's set to be released sometime in 2011. I'm really excited for this, and I'm just glad that those two are still keeping their amazing universe alive and kicking.

But seriously... what happened to Zuko's mom? =/

Anyway, enough Avatar-related goodness. Going into art school... I have to say that if you don't take criticism with a grain of salt in this world, people drop out of it like flies. I never thought I'd get a D in a drawing assignment, but then you realize, "wait, there's technique involved" and "dammit, I need to stop holding the pencil as if I were writing a letter!" My knowledge about figure drawing technique seems to fluctuate with every work I do; one day you might be asked to do five-minute quick drawings, but then the next unit involves drawing for 45 minutes a full figure to establish the anatomy. Contour lines are key in this class, which has made me grunt uncontrollably because I love to be "messy" in my drawings. It's all about defining the figure with minimal lines first, and then adding the value (which we haven't gotten to yet).

Here's an example of what I worked this past week, using charcoal:


(I think I overdid the shading, but I'm actually proud with my use of charcoal. It's scary! You can't erase or take back what you already did. =S)

The semester's almost over, and by then I'll be finished with my History of Character Animation class, turned in my paper on Don Bluth's style of animation, and mastered the art of drawing in charcoal and graphite. Wish me luck!

And... if you haven't seen Despicable Me, go see it just to see the yellow Minions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5fKfWMcD48

... like somebody punched me in the stomach.

That's how it felt after I got out of The Last Airbender's midnight showing yesterday.


Before I gather the list of reasons why I am so disappointed (okay, pissed) at M.Night right now, let me just clarify that NOT everything about this film was terrible. There were some really beautiful elements of authenticity in the film that at least made me sit through the whole thing.

First off, the filming locations. M.Night definitely wanted us to see the South Pole with all of its icy glaciers and mountains of snow, and he gave us a lot of great scenery to look at admirably as the characters moved from place to place.

Second, the costumes/set designs. M.Night definitely did his homework and wanted to have each Nation be represented in its own traditional garb and interiors. I admire the fact that he kept the Chinese writing all over the posters/maps/documents that were seen in the film, and that the characters wore their outfits gracefully (although I must say... Aang's cloak looks like it was stolen from an Ewok from Star Wars).

Thirdly, believe it or not, is the bending effects. In the short amount of time M.Night gave us to look at them between scenes, they actually looked cool! I think it's something we take for granted nowadays - where any high school kid with After Effects can make a pretty decent fireball on his hand - but visual effects in a film that requires a lot of intricate detail and movement with more than one person isn't an easy task to do. It's daunting. I give a big 'thanks' to the FX people in the movie, because they definitely did their job well.

So... that is basically everything I could say that kept me going throughout this whole experience. Now comes the laundry list of things that M.Night completely bombed:

1) The writing. It was horrendous, like M.Night had been sitting in front of his TV watching all of "Avatar: Book 1" episodes and jotting down his favorite scenes, and saying to himself "I'm gonna put these in my movie, and make them INTENSE!" Sure. Forget character development. That's not as important as... say... random creative exposition. Good god; there came a point were I was almost sure Momo was going to start talking, explaining to everyone why he's the Last Lemur.

2) The name pronunciations. It's "Aang" not "Ah-ng". I cringed every time somebody said the latter, and that goes with "Soh-ka" and "Ee-roh" as well. Although I must say... it started to get amusing in the theatre, where people started saying "Aang!" and "Sokka!" out loud for correction. I can understand that M.Night would want creative freedom with these characters, but why would he go as far as to change the NAMES, considering there's a huge fanbase out here who's accustomed to saying the names a certain way?

3) The casting. I'm not going to pick on ethnicity, because that honestly didn't bother me as much as the actors themselves. Half of the time I wasn't sure if it was their individual ability to deliver lines, or if it was based off of what M.Night wanted (INTENSITY). First off, Aasif Mandi as Admiral Zhao. What the hell happened!? Here's a character who I thought would be a menacing bully for Zuko, and he just comes across as a wimpy villain who just seems to be best friends with the Fire Lord. That voice, too, was excruciatingly hard to take seriously. Second, Sokka -- oh wait, Soh-ka -- and his deadpan staring contest with his line-delivery. Jackson Rathbone wasn't my first pick for Sokka to begin with (even in the interviews, it didn't seem like he completely understood what he was getting into) and so I ultimately just watched him attempt slapstick humor and actually care for Princess Yue in this film. Painful. Thirdly, Katara. She was... okay... not amazing, but at least she attempted more natural emotion than her sibling counterpart whenever she said something. Nicola definitely showed that she cared about her performance, and her 'bending' movements were graceful and well-practiced. I just feel like there was more missing from her as a character that she just wasn't given to work with. It surprised me to hear M.Night specifically wanted her for this role, but I guess he just wanted her to narrate and be Ah-ng's cheerleader.

4) Fire Lord Ozai. This guy gets his own number, because the fact that we actually see his face is awful. AWFUL. There's a reason that Mike/Bryan kept Fire Lord Ozai's face hidden throughout the first two seasons of their show, and that was to build apprehension and FEAR of the guy. The Fire Lord IS the enemy, and we as the fans (seeing ourselves through Aang's eyes) have never had to face him, and yet we know that day is bound to come. That whole feeling of intensity was just lost for me, and it sucks because I actually respect Cliff Curtis's acting. M.Night gave him very little to work with.

5) Suki. I'll brush over the fact that King Bumi, Jet, and Jeong Jeong were all written out of this film... but I SPECIFICALLY remember seeing images of Suki and the Kyoshi in the film's offical website. She never shows up. Not a single Kyoshi Warrior shows up to wrestle Sokka. Thanks, M.Night. I had a this nice Suki wallpaper on my desktop for months, for nothing.

6) Appa and Momo. I mean, I knew that Appa was a great mode of transportation, but I wasn't expecting that to be his ONLY purpose. And Momo... what did he do? I can't even remember...

7) Aang/Zuko conflict. Maybe the film just sped by too fast, but I just couldn't see the too of them feeling conflicted at all. It was too one-sided: Zuko needs to capture Aang, Aang needs to get away from him. One thing I loved about season 1 is that you see how much Zuko STRIVES to capture Aang while not being exactly genuine about it... and somehow... Aang notices that and tries to change Zuko around. In the movie, all you get is a quick "we could be friends, you know," and Aang scampers off in his merry way.

This is as much as I can come up with, and I'm not going to gripe about all the differences that M.Night made from the series, in terms of story. Basically, it was his choice what he wanted to keep, what he wanted to blend together, and what he wanted to take out completely. Still, I can't help but say that I was really disgruntled by what I saw as a whole in this film, because it really DID have so much potential. With better writing, and more 'bending' moments, I think this film could've been as good as a Harry Potter film. I saw the "Airbender" trailers and was excited about all these familiar scenes they'd be putting in, with awesome backdrops and bending effects added in... and in the end, it's the writing that made it flat.

I went to this movie with a packed audience at midnight, and ten minutes into the film, the cheering faded. =(

Yeah... I think I'll stick to my "Avatar" series and pretend this film never happened.

I miss my toys.

I have to put a little grain of praise to PIXAR for doing an amazing job with this one.  

It was surprisingly good (which is saying a lot, considering it is PIXAR) and it brought a satisfying closure to this story and these characters.  Twelve years!!!  After twelve years, the studio decided to make one last adventure with the toys, and the way the writers used that inevitable conflict of kids growing up was very cleverly done.  It's true that some kids let go of their childhood toys easily (trashing them or donating them to child-friendly places) but others just feel so emotionally attached they want to stick with their toy-friends all the way into adulthood. 

Toys always encouraged an imagination.  They made me mentally escape the walls of my bedroom and feel like I was the storyteller/narrator in my own life for just a few minutes.  It brought fun, laughter, and lots of silliness in my childhood... and I guess the reason I was so attached to toys was because of the fear that letting them go meant letting go of fun.

Watching this film made me miss my childhood boardgames, Barbie dolls & her multiple outfits, those colorful Trolls and My Little Ponies... and to be honest, it made me almost sympathetic to this new generation of kids in the 21st century who're surrounded by digital media and gadgets.  Nothing can replace a teddy bear, and yet every time I look at these 8-year-olds with Nintendo DSs or listening to their iPod lazily in a waiting room, it makes me wonder how child's imagination will survive in the distant future.  Will they go on adventures with the characters they see in a videogame, or be emotionally attached to these gadgets the same way I was attached to My Little Ponies?

I love the fact that I had a crafty, active imagination as a child because of the toys I played with.  I'm just hoping kids don't lose themselves in technology that pretty much does all of the imagination for them.

--->  In other news, I start my grad school classes today!!!

It all started with an idea...

Don't worry, this isn't another "How much do I love this show? Well let me tell you..." post. This book came in the mail for me yesterday (I'd preordered it back in January!) and calmly, I opened it and immediately went to the back page. There was a small afterword from Mike & Bryan, commending their fans about making it this far in a book they had put together solely for them. I was really touched by the fact that these two guys had created a universe that had affected so many people - young and old - and it had all started with a simple idea.

I love these kinds of books, where the animators just sit back and reorganize all of their thoughts and their work from the preconception to the final product in order to give their fans the creative process. I have a PIXAR book about A Bug's Life stashed away somewhere, too, and I'm definitely the type who'd disect every "behind the scenes" footage from an animated film DvD. It's like playfully fitting the pieces into a giant puzzle, discovering where the ideas for certain scenes came from and why animators decided to give characters a certain "look" rather than others.

It's hard to explain but I feel like the reason my enthusiasm for art school hasn't been completely present is because I know there will be bumps along the road. I know I still have a lot to learn, and that I'll have to work collaboratively with others (which isn't my strong suit all the time, and that at some point... I'm going to have to push myself really hard and not give up on that competitive, sometimes cruel world in the animation/entertainment industry. Ideas evolve, and that's the scary part. Sometimes the final product is so different from what you initially worked on, and it doesn't always feel like it's yours. But it's all part of the creative process, and that's what I continually learn from reading these books.

If anything, I need to take a breath, face the challenges, and realize that creativity needs to come with an open mind. I can do this.

=)

Art School advice!

Hello Sandra, I want to welcome you to our community of artists and designers at the Academy of Art University. This is a collection of tips and observations that I have accumulated over almost 8 years of being an advisor and from taking a number of studio classes, including fashion, drawing, painting and sculpture. I hope this information will help you make a smooth transition into graduate school. Art and design is hard work: I don't mean hard as in astrophysics, but it is the most time consuming thing I've ever done. Most students, who do not come from a studio intensive program, underestimate the time commitment factor because they crammed for their midterms and finals and got A's and B's in their undergraduate degree. In art school, you cannot complete projects last minute. This is something instructors recognize right away and there's no hiding it. If you only spend 5 hours on an assignment, it will not compare favorably next to your fellow student's work, which took 10 hours. Art and design takes commitment: Don't get frustrated if you are not at a level you want to be after the first semester. Remember that you are just at the beginning stage of the program! Getting great at your craft takes practice and patience. One of our directors compares it to training for the Olympics. If you do not practice often, you cannot win, regardless of how talented you are. Those who persevere will succeed. "I am doubtful of any talent, so whatever I choose to be, will be accomplished only by long study and work..." (Jackson Pollock) Don't consider a "C" a passing grade: The art and design world is completely different from anything else. When you go apply for a job as an accountant, you will not be asked to show your transcript. When you apply for a job as a designer, your portfolio is a direct reflection of your transcript. Remember your classmates are your peers and your competition. If you are producing "C" level work, then you are likely competing for the same job as "B" and "A" level students. Don't go into each class with the goal to just pass the class. Your goal should be to produce portfolio pieces. Don't overload on classes: You have a finite number of hours in your week. If you overload on classes, just by pure mathematics, you will have fewer hours to complete each assignment. Don't set yourself up to produce mediocre work that cannot be in your portfolio. Your goal for graduate school should be to build a strong portfolio, not to race through a program. Come in with an open mind: Remember why you decided to attend graduate school in the first place. You are looking for help in pushing your art and design in a new direction. If you want to produce the same level of work in graduate school that you are producing now, you don't need us. Your instructors are here to push you out of your comfort zone so you can grow. To share my own experience, my Anatomy instructor drove me to tears of frustration because he was breaking me out of some of my bad drawing habits. While painful at the time, in retrospect, I needed someone to tell me what I was doing wrong. Network: The best jobs are those that you hear about from your fellow students and your instructors. If you want to be tapped on the shoulder for an internship, demonstrate that you work well with others and that you're reliable. Network from day one! It takes courage to be an artist! It would have been easy to tell friends and family that you are going to law school or to medical school, but it was probably a struggle to tell loved ones that you are going to art school. So on that note, I commend you for your bravery in defining yourself as an artist and/or designer. You are coming into a community of passionate educators and fellow artists and designers. I wish you the best of luck in your journey! Warmest regards, Cindy Graduate Admissions Academy of Art University ....It's finally starting to hit me. ^_^