Gobelins Summer School: Graduation

 

The Graduation

 The Graduation

The Graduation

The Teachers

The Classmates

 

The Diploma

It was awesome!

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Lydia's Portfolio

Gobelins Summer School: Alexandre Heboyan

The before last teacher at Gobelins Summer School 2012 was Alexandre Heboyan. He taught us most about the different kind of filmindustries (America vs. Europe), camera and  acting and movement during lipsync / acting in different bodyparts.

Alexandre is working on a movie of his own. He's going to be de director of Mune which is going to start production next year. He explained a little about Mune, told us the synopsis (it is totally awesome! About myths about the sun and the moon, you should really keep eye on this project) and showed some tests and concept art they had 'till now.

During his lessons he had some really cool interaction with everyone, played out some examples and told us about energy levels in the body. I read some more about it, but I still need to get into this part more.

The parts I found most interesting is when he told us about the importance in the movement when using lipsync. I was suprised to know that the lips aren't that much important at all. First the eyes (mask), silhouette, shoulders and neck (and maybe even hips before that if you see the hips) and then come the lips. And always to put the movement first; what I mean by this is that when you hear an "O", put the shape of the "O" two frames before you hear the sound. Only then it's right for the eye.

When you see a full body, hips are the most important. I was well aware of that. What I wasn't aware of was that he told us he read an article about some kind of test. In the test they only showed footage of the hips / hipmovement of certain people. The conclusion was that relatives and close friends can recognize people they know only from the movement of the hips. That's just amazing! So always work on the hips and try to give your character a great sense of weight.

Alexandre gave us an acting / lipsync assignment afterwards and helped us out in the workshops that followed. Learned a lot during that time. 

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Lydia's Portfolio

Two weeks of Gobelins!

The past two weeks I followed Gobelins Summer School. It was the best experience ever! Awesome masterclasses, epic teachers, and great classmates!

Most days we had masterclasses from 10 in the morning 'till 1, lunch and after that workshop with the teachers untill 5. You were allowed to start at 8 in the morning and stay untill 8 in the evening to practice some more, so that's what I did. Get as much time in Gobelins as possible! I would certainly recommand this Summer School to everyone who is interested in animation.

We got masterclasses from Fred Nagorny, who is the only permanent teacher at Gobelins. He is just brilliant. He has a really mathimatical way of approaching animation, but even though I don't really like math, it was so interesting! Not to mention how useful it was. It's a whole different way of approaching stuff, at least it is for me, but it works just great.
We had three days of masterclasses with him, which was the most time we had with one teacher, but I couldn't get enough of listening to him.

After him we would have gotten masterclasses from Kyle Balda, but because of his thight production schedule, he unfortunately was only able to do the opening. We got Mike L. Murphy instead. His lessons were really intersting. Mike explained a lot about characters, comedy, acting and marketing yourself. I got some great tips. We had Mike's masterclasses for two days.

Then we got Alexandre Heboyan for two days. He explained some more about acting and emotions, and a lot of things about the filmindustry itself, using camera's, film in general. Most of the film-stuff he told was recognizable from the lessons I got at the Filmacademy where I do my current study. He gave really good feedback during the workshops.

The last masterclass was give by Yoshi Tamura. Oh, I was so looking forward to it! But the biggest part of the lesson we got to see his work and he told a lot about his expierence, which were both really great to hear about too.

During the workshops the teachers of the masterclasses helped and there were about four other teachers who didn't give masterclasses, but helped out at the workshops. One of them was Vincent Garcia. He helped me a lot during the workshops and I learned so much of him.

It were two really intense weeks. Everything about it was just wow!
I will miss it a lot, but I'm really happy I got to experience this.

Walkcycle for Fred's assignment:

 

Unfinished blocking for Mike's acting / lipsync assignment (I will finish this later on): 

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Lydia's Portfolio