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Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Old School Ties, so to Speak

I just heard from one of my top SCAD students, Jamaal Bradley, who's now a character animator at SONY. Jamaal worked on the "House" part of the upcoming MONSTER HOUSE.

He's also working on BRE'R RABBIT STEALS THE BUTTER, the first time I believe that a Black animator has ever animated the Uncle Remus tales. It looked good in storyreel and should also look good in CGI. RIT class of 2006 grad Greg Smith is working with Jamaal on the rigs for the characters, and Jamaal's also showing Greg around Sony. This is what's called networking, and it's something that I encourage my students to do even if it isn't for their own particular school tie. In this instance the only thing Jamaal and Greg have in common is their studying animation with me.
Works for them, apparently.
Back in England when I was at Amblin' my unit had a special name. I don't know whether to revive it now-it does sound a little perjorative.
The unit was known as the "Nancy Boys". I don't know if my former students would want to labor under that particular appellation but it did lead to some amusing cartoon drawings at the time. And of course there were "Nancy Girls", too.

1 comment:

Bill Robinson said...

Hi Nancy - Love the new blog name. I just ordered Tony White's book and it should be in my hands soon...Also, check out this amazing concept art from Monster House:

http://www.froghatstudios.com/mh/mh.html

If the film is half that interesting I will be entertained...but also the "performance capture" kind of makes me die a little inside. (As I recall 'performance' involves some sort of 'acting' rather than just robotic understated shifting of limbs.)