Well, I've come to the end of my contract, here at the Walt Disney Animation Studio. I was hired to work on their next film, "Bolt", and... Well, now my part on Bolt has come to an end. The movie comes out in November, and it has really been shaping up to look like a solidly good flick. It's been very interesting to watch the progression of the movie, and of the studio, during my time here.

For those not in the loop on all things animation, Disney bought out Pixar a bit ago, and somehow, the bastids over at Pixar got to come over here and be chief creative officers, and basically tell Mickey how to do animation. John Lasseter has basically done everything he can to make this place into Pixar #2, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. He's had his hands on a lot of the movie, and it's been interesting to see his approach to making films. If you want to, you can check out the trailer for the film here:
www.apple.com/trailers/disney/bolt/

And, the bolt blog:
bolt--trailer.blogspot.com/

Working at Disney animation has been a wild ride, for sure. Looking back at my blogs, I can't believe that I haven't had anything to write about in the 10 months since I've been here... Yet at the time, it's not very surprising. 60 hour weeks have been standard, sometimes working as many as 14-15 hours in a day, so I haven't had a lot of free time. I'll definitely be taking some well needed time off to get my place in order, and other things. Starting here was a bit surreal. I wouldn't necessarily say I was one of those people that had working here as my "dream job", growing up - as there certainly are a lot of people who feel that way - but it was pretty close. I would trip out, because I never would've believed, growing up, that I'd be working at the place that made Bambi, Snow, White, etc. It certainly has it's own little vibe and culture to it, and NO! We're not as bad as those crazy park people! Lol.

The people have all been very nice, from the animators and others that I work with on a daily basis, right on down to the security and gate people. They're all very sweet natured, friendly and outgoing. It bothered me a bit at first, as I'm a walk with your head down and don't talk to anybody kind of guy a lot of the time, so everyone being so happy smiley and waving in your face was a bit much for me to start off with, but as I got to know everyone, it became a much appreciated break from the outside world. My life has definitely changed in the time I've been here, and I'm not quite sure exactly how it has changed just yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough.

The summer has come to an end, and I'm back to teaching my regular animation class. The class was actually cancelled right before school started, which came as a surprise to me. This being due to budget cuts, plus the fact that I only had 10 students enrolled in the class for this semester. However, as soon as the students found out, they all started to get a group together, and were getting ready to protest to the dean of the art department, when they realized they should probably check with me to see if I would even want it to be brought back. I was a bit down and depressed at the time, so it certainly was amazing to me to see a bunch of kids get together and try so hard and fight to keep the class. it was very touching, to say the least. I had my first class of the new semester last weekend, and things already look to be going swimmingly... Whatever that means! At the end of the class I extended a very heart-felt "thank you" to them all, and surprisingly, they did the same back.

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what I'll be up to next. I've been talking to some studios and such, and I figure I can afford to take 4-6 weeks off, if need be. I have a phone interview next Tuesday with Blue Sky studios, out in White Plains, NY. They are the ones who did Ice Age 1 and 2, as well as the latest Dr. Seuss film, Horton Hears a Who. I'm not sure I'd be up for moving out there, but it would be an exciting possibility. I also recently talked to Robert Zemeckis' company, Imagemovers, up north in Frisco. (I love calling it that.) They seemed interested as well. I even went to a conference and talked to some folks out in London, England, who asked if I might be interested in moving out there. And finally, I've been talking to some smaller companies out on the Westside of town, which is what I would probably prefer, for the short term immediate need for work.

I think it would be very fun and interesting to go to a larger company like ILM (George Lucas's company) up in Marin county, in Northern California, or possibly someplace out of country like England or New Zealand. I'd just have to get a gig for about 6-8 months or so, while I work on getting my passport and visa stuff straightened out. Anyways, this has just been a fairly long, stream of conscious type of blog from my last day at work, hopefully I haven't bored anybody too horribly.

Live long and prosper.