On the road to Layout Land

Recently, I graduated from Sheridan- and here's a little anecdote for those who don't know me that well. I started a visually beautiful (if I do say so myself) film, called Red Wolfe. Some of the preliminary work was complimented by a Disney recruiter, saying it was very cinematic and that I should study Paul Felix. Red Wolfe was layout heavy, what I originally intended on pursuing this last year and it had over 40 layouts. However, the major issue with the film was the story, and it couldn't be done in two minutes. Everytime I did it in two minutes, it lost the drama.

Come January 3rd, 2010, I decided, I can't keep kicking this dead horse - hoping it'll do something, i need to change my approach if I plan on having something that looks remotely like a film in April and May for Industry Day. It was about the same time I watched the episode "Sectionals" from the TV series Glee. Lea Michele's rendition of "Don't Rain On My Parade" became the new centre piece of something that would represent me on Industry Day - and at first glance it was a adequately animated, animation heavy film.

On Industry Day, I was approached by PDI Dreamworks (twice actually, but the first time someone stole her right out of the conversation). To this day, I still don't know what the PDI stands for, but she stood and gave me a very serious look. I kept selling to her that I was an animator, and she kept raising her eyebrows at me. I got kind of insulted, being a foolhardy recent graduate but I decided to ask: What do you see in my film?

She took a moment, and said: "When I saw your film, I didn't see animation. Your animation is ok, at best. But I think you should seriously consider becoming a layout artist. Get a portfolio together and mail us."

After she left, with all of the nerves I had built up that day, I almost took it as a joke. But then after a few more life events, I realized, I'm okay at animating, at best, but my strengths really lie in layout. The strengths I've built up from animating are going to help me, but I thought, I should really pursue this- not because of what PDI lady said, but because it's something I have the skill set for.

With all that said, I recently asked Scott Caple to mentor me (outside the filmmaking realm), and hopefully get into Layout, and maybe I will mail PDI Dreamworks eventually. I've been given my first project and I'm going to be posting here as I go along. Wish me luck!