First thoughts on school

I'll start pulling lots more pics from our digital cameras tomorrow night. Including our trips to San Simeon, the Dallas Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, a Tofu festival, a Salsa festival, etc.

I'm now three weeks into school at USC (local venacular is just S..C), and I am really impressed, very excited, and working around the clock. The school of Cinema-Television takes their #1 ranking serioously, you start working on projects right away. Practice, practice, practice timing, and experiment withj lots of new techniques. They throw everything at you as fast as possible so you get a general overview of as many processes as possible. I worked with zoetropes, flipbooks, camera-less film anaimation on both clear and black film leader, been introduced the new generation of line test equipment and working a couple fo times on the downshooter, the old-style Oxberry film camera setup used in the cel animation days. Everything is analog for the first year, the emphasis is on learning all the old ways and getting a feel for timing, so no matter what you use to animate with (from cutout papaer to high-end 3D programs), you know how to move the piece just right for each frame.

You can't escape the heritage of USC Cinema, it is an industry town and the industry gives a lot back to SC. Today, Eli and I attended an endowment ceremony to in honor of the late John C. Hench, a former Disney pioneer -- not only in animation, but in theme-park design.
Hench adopted the Department of Animation and Digital Art (DADA) as a pet project and heavily finanaced much of its growth. Roy E. Disney, himself introduced the film "Destino," which Hench co-designed with Salvidore Dali (Roy wore a tie, which - I was assured - meant this was a big deal to him). The ceremony did a lot to remind me that the success of the school has create opportunities for me that seem endless. I think of Edgar Endress, my professor back at GMU, who had to learn filmmaking in Chile by watching movies, because they couldn't afford film and cameras; here, with a slip of paper, I can get a 16mm camera, a 35 mm camera, a 3D camera, probably even an IMAX camera and use it along with an industry-level green-screen or motion capture device. I'm pumped, at have all the cool Hollywood toys at my disposal for the next three years.

I look forward to having great professors to push me and drive me to create festival winning pieces.

Oh, and every Wednesday is seminar at DADA, where an industry heavy comes and presents to us students...Dinsye creatives, Cartoon Network programmers, the creator of Spongebob, etc.