Dreamworks Animation - ON THE LOT

As per usual in the world of CCM (ok, in the world of production in general)... the day did NOT end at 5pm!!

In fact... in many ways the best was yet to come!!!

About 20 of the team (restricted due to the amount of people that could fit on the journey we were about to take) headed over to Glendale.... the home of Dreamworks Animation.



In the middle of this busy L.A. suburb is a quiet and carefully crafted campus (crafted to bring out the highest degree of art, creativity, and ideas) that, along with Dreamwork's facility in Redwood City, CA, is home to many of today's biggest animated hits.



CCM's time included encounters with a Layout Supervisor (this person supervises a team of animators who are working on various scenes), and an Animator. We received great insight into work-flow, artistic development, and the Dreamworks pipeline.

CCM was specifically walked thru the entire process from concept to completion of a Dreamworks project. From a technical standpoint: we learned details about the flow of creating each scene (character development, modeling, rigging, layout, texture, finishing, etc...)

This promotional video below for HP computers gives a pretty detailed view of what we observed at Dreamworks (Sorry... we couldn't take pictures or shoot video of our time there. That said: this video does a good job of encapsulating what we were walked thru.)



NOTE: In addition to this amazing behind the scenes look at the features that Dreamworks is producing (Monsters vs. Aliens, Shrek the Fourth, Puss & Boots, How to Train Your Dragon & Kung Fu Panda 2) we were told that all future animated features from Dreamworks will be in 3D.



Put that together with what we learned at Dolby earlier in the week... and it seems like we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of 3D coming from Hollywood. (CCM in 3D?? Hmmm...)


After all this amazing insight we went into the studio's private screening theater to view IGOR.






Going in I thought this was a pre-release screening of IGOR... in fact it was not. It was being shown to make it easy for the animators at Dreamworks to see another company's work. IGOR was actually released in mid-September and flopped. After watching it I have to say the overwhelming consensus of the CCMers was that the movie was weird. Good technology. Weird picture.

One interesting note: much of the animation in IGOR was done at a studio in VIETNAM!!!
Watch out: Cheaper animators overseas on the horizon!!

Anyway... the night rounded out with insight into making portfolios, reels, and resumes specifically for the animation world.

Whew!!!

This was jammed packed day.