My Blog

A farewell to Mouschewitz...

jesse — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 23:15:53 GMT

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: http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/bolt/ And, the bolt blog: http://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.

A move to the Mouse House...

jesse — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:20:50 GMT

So I got let go from Sony Imageworks a month ago, which is why I haven't been online much lately. They just didn't have much going on there at all, no projects in house, and none that would be getting into production until June or July of next year. It went about as nice as it could have though, I knew about a month ahead of time, and they gave me a complete list of pretty much all of the contact info for just about every HR person in the business, so that was nice. They also told me that they'd be ramping up again come June/July, and to check back with them then. I had initially been looking at a few companies really close to me, over in Santa Monica and Venice, which were all close to home. I also went ahead and dropped off a portfolio with Walt Disney Feature Animation, but I wasn't very serious about it, as I grumbled to myself, "It's such a commute, and it's even EAST of the 405, pshawwww!" However, as soon as I walked in the building to drop it all off, I saw all of the classic and GORGEOUS drawings from Snow White and the 7 Dwarves, Cinderella and other films, I couldn't help but get incredibly giddy about it all, and by the time I was walking out, I was saying to myself, "What a cool place to work, and it's such a happy environment!" Heh, just visiting the place had me pretty much changing my mind. Sure enough, less than 3 hours after dropping off my material, I got an email and a call about setting up an interview as soon as the next day. I had spent the entire previous week getting my demo reel updated and all of that stuff. It actually came out really nicely, and it's work I'm quite proud of. I liked it a lot. :) I spent a good amount of time editting my Chronicles of Narnia and Spider-man 3 footage together and setting it to some mellow music, which I like the most. Anyways, I went in for my interview two days later, and I don't think that they could have asked for someone with a better background for the task at hand. I had the exact experience they would've wanted, and we talked a bit about what I did and how it was done on some of my previous movies, then they showed me all of the concept art, character designs and all of that neat stuff. They've had a lot of cooperation with Pixar since their partnership, and John Lassetter comes down once a week on Tuesdays to attend dailies even. So I'm stoked about the project and what I'll get to do on it. I should get some good demo reel material out of it too, which is nice since my last job on Beowulf, and on Monster House also, were more technical fixes and small crap like that, which aren't really reel material. Also, the job would last until July of 2008, with a possibility of being kept on for longer, depending on how they like me and how many projects and such that they have going on. The July 2008 end date lines up with the time that Sony would be hiring again anyways though, so that also would work out good, I was thinking. It was funny too, when I showed up for my interview, it turned out that an old classmate of mine from college that I graduated with, was the person to come down and meet me and take me up to my interview. Hahaha, I was really shocked, and had one of those moments where I had all of this generic "Hi, how ya doin, nice to meet you" small talk that I had planned out and whatever, but then it turns out to be an old friend of mine, and so all that planning is kinda shot, lol. I just commented on what a small world it was and we went on our way. When I looked up at him when he first came in to meet me, the first thing I noticed were his shoes. The same black and white zoot suit/ska kind of ones that he had had back in college. I wanted to say, "Jesus Christ, you're working for Disney now, get some new shoes, hahaha!" They had an uber cool game room, with a pool table, ping pong, pin ball, video games and more that I was dorkin out on too! I wanted so badly to just say screw the interview, let's play pool instead! So any how, the interview went great. I got a call the next morning from the HR person I had been talking to. She said the guys loved me, and when she asked one of them for feedback, he just wrote her, "He's great, hire him!" Hahaha, she's all, that's nice and all, Mark, but I need a bit more info than that. So anyways, they liked me, and she made me an offer that happens to be a $9.25 raise/hr over what I was making at Imageworks, so it took all the reservation I had not to shout out, "Fuck yeah I'll take it!" Lol. So anyways, Monday is my first day and I'm getting pretty excited about it all. Oh, and it even turns out that the commute won't be as bad as I thought. Ah! And I get free park passes, woo hooo!

More burning man news...

jesse — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:55:31 GMT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=3&entry_id=19890 ...Very sad. :(

Pissed off...

jesse — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 23:45:16 GMT

Yeah, this bulletin really serves no purpose, other than to share an awesome cat photo. You're welcome! :)

Awesome animations...

jesse — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 00:08:27 GMT

I don't really have anything special to say here, I just found some little short films by an awesome animator (Yannick Puig), that I thought were really cool... "I Lived on the Moon": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5pm-UopPR4 "Krapooyo": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvK_VzYDlzU Yay animation!

I'm all grown up now!

jesse — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:59:03 GMT

Yayyyy. So I get moved from my dinky little office desk thing in one of the satelite buildings, into, dunt dunt duhhh! The big main building! It's great, it makes me feel all grown up and important now. True, I don't have a corner office or anything yet, but it'll certainly be a lot more private than the damned desk I'm at now, which is at the entrance to one building, so EVERYYYYBODY who comes in here has to pass by my damned desk as soon as they enter. Ooo, I'm getting giddy just thinking about it. I move next Wednesday! Also, I had the shittiest like 4 or 5 days lately. :( I'll spare you all the details, but it's sucked. So badly so that I even had to take a sick day yesterday and allow myself time to finally relax and catch up on sleep a bit, before going out and spending half of the day getting crap with my car taken care of. I also had to re-instate my insurance policy, eeek, which has ended up costing me a HUGE buttload of money. :( That, and I kinda decided not to appear at court for a couple of tickets, heh. Plus I got another ticket on Monday, for having a tail light out. So I replaced that, got a new tire (which blew on me on Sunday), and got my license updated with my new address. Boooo for spending insane amounts of money on all of this, yayyy for finally getting it taken care of. And here's to hoping the next week is better than the last. :) Now, if only I could find an awesome pic to go with this bloggling.

New Spiderman 3 art stuff...

jesse — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:09:06 GMT

Ooooo. I don't like it so much, it's too bright for my tastes, but still cool non-the less. Aww, and lots of my friends are leaving the show today, and I leave next week. I'm kinda bummed, but it'll be nice to not have to work such crazy hours all of the time. I'll be going on to the Beowulf show that we're doing next, so I'm kinda excited about that. It sucks though, with a lot of people ending their time on the show now, a lot of them are moving on and going other places, which bums me out. But a lot of them are staying here and I'll get to continue working with them in the future, so that's something to look forward to. Anyways, just a random assed drive by blogging today.

I have a photo shoot! (And Jesse update.)

jesse — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:04:02 GMT

Woo hoo, so I got a call to do a fencing photo shoot with some really awesome photographer who shoots for Sports Illustrated and the USOC - US Olympic Committee. It's next Friday and I'm fully stoked! They had some scout person come to one of the clubs I frequent last week, and the guy who called me back said he definently thought I was the furthest along in terms of skills and such... Not that he really knows all that much about it, but hey! I'll take a compliment when I can get one. Also, I haven't posted in a while, but I had a most excellent Chirstmas and New Years! I took my girlfriend, Alisa, out to meet my mom for the first time, and the rest of my family. It went well, was fun and it was a most excellent Christmas Eve. Heh, anybody who knows me knows that I would implode if I had to wait until Christmas day for festivities, so I've slyly conned my family into doing the celebrating the night before, muahahaha. Had a random assed Mexican New Year's Eve, where there was a great tequilla bar setup, and some bomb assed Mexican food! There was some really good soup, and even a ful roast pig and shit! Plus good champagne at midnight and it was very good, all in all. I also wrapped up teaching my first semester of a college class, which I have to say went really well. 20 of my 24 students took time off of their day to come down and visit me at work even! It was awesome. They came down and we went out for lunch, then I took them back to the studio and had a tour arranged for them where they got to see all of Imageworks, and then got to take them back to my desk to show them what it is I do all day long. Heh, it was funny, at the end I was asking for questions and they were like "Yeah, do we have to leave???" Heh. Hell yeah you do, unless you're gonna sit here and do my work for me, now get ta movin kids! :) Then it was really great. On the last day, for the final, the students all organized an unauthorized potluck! Heh, they're not supposed to have any food or drink in the lab, but it's big enough so I told them that as long as they keep it all on the tables on the far side of the wall that it would be ok, so we feated! Then they all got together and we took a group photo just before I let them go. Ack, I hate grading them though! I just wanna give them all A's and B's, but of course I can't. And then there are the people that were such cool students and stuff, and I wanna beat them up for not showing up to class more often and/or turning more of their assignments in, damned kids!!! Heh, I sound old, huh? Anyways, the new semester starts up... Tomorrow! Ack, but I'm looking forward to it. I'm uber busy now too, since we're pretty much into the homestretch for the visual effects on Spider-man 3, so that's ensured that I've had plenty to do at all times. Sometimes it even makes me question my own sanity! But it's good and fun and I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing, when it all comes down to it. Soooo, I guess that's my update for now... Jesse Carlson, signing off...

Yay for responsibility!

jesse — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 22:35:16 GMT

Woo hoo, I just got made the point person for the entire final battle sequence of Spidey 3. Which basically means I'll be keeping track of all the building, street and prop placements for the whole, like 15 minute long end sequence of the movie, woo hoo! I've never been in much of a position of supervising anything yet in my career, so it's a first for me and I'm excited. *breaks out the party favors and noise makers* Cross your fingers and pray I don't screw up! Edit: Ah crap, this means I'm gonna have to start getting to work on time *gasp*, or even worse... EARLY! Ugh.

Some days I love animation...

jesse — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 16:44:33 GMT

Because how else are you gonna do these kinds of things? And get paid, no less!... http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/gen2006-2.htm And another one from the same studio (it appears), that's really uber-great as well: http://www.gobelins.fr/galerie/animation/gen2006-1.htm I love this one, I could watch it over and over, cracks me up every time, monkeys getting beat up! *grin* Kills me every time! Doh, there's another one I wanted to post too, but it's not working right now. :( Jesse

Class..

jesse — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 16:50:50 GMT

RAR! So I totally had such a good night last night! :) So I teach this CG character animation and rigging class on Saturdays, yah yah? Well, I was talking to this guy at the fencing place two weeks ago, he's the father of one of the girls I used to fence with, but she moved out to NY to go to school. Anyways, turns out he teachs an advanced animation class over at Otis College of Art and Design, a pretty well known school in the art school world. So he found out what I do and teaching and work and all that and invite me to come by his classroom to check out the projects his students are working on. It turns out they have a wide variety of stuff that they do. There were a lot of motion graphics people, like more video editting and compositing effects, as well as some CG animators and even modelling and rigging people. Sooo, I dropped by last night, when they were showing off their projects. Haha, awwww, I felt like a celebrity or something, it was great! I got to sit there and give them feed back on their projects and stuff, and they had me talk a little bit about the work I've done and yadda yadda, but it was totally fun and even really inspirational! They were all so eager and I swear, like half of the time when they were giving their presentations and such they were looking at me like 3/4's of the time or something, made me feel a bit wierd with people being up there looking at me the whole time and crap as they give their presentations, but totally cool at the same time! Oh yeah! And it was really rad too... A few of the students were working together on a project and I remarked on how much the characters resembles those that I was working with on Monster House, and they told me that the character's and the way they look were really inspired by Monster House. I was all, "AWWW!" That was really cool, finding out when something you work on, even in the smallest way, has an influence on people. Heh, students are rad. Anyways, I just had a good night last night and thought I'd share... Yay! :) Oh, and P.S. I smell good today too!

I'm tired!...

jesse — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 23:35:27 GMT

All I wanna do is go home and sleeeeeeeeepppppppppppppppppppp! Had way too much fun last night staying up and partying with my upstairs neighbors who I just met, now I'm draggin assss all day at work, booooo. Anybody else having a rough time making it through the day? Make it be the weekend already, grrr!

Life...

jesse — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 02:12:40 GMT

Is getting hectic, ahhhhh! I've gone from having a laid back job and a good amount of free time, to total f'in panic ville! Up till now at work, I've had practically no overtime, straight 40 work weeks. While the pay wasn't what I had been used to when I was finishing up on Narnia (due to the overtime), it was sooo nice to have my nights and weekends free. Well, the money crunch was starting to kick in, so I took this job teaching at my old school. It was a pretty nice offer, especially for my first time teaching. I started up with one of the most advanced classes in the whole animation program. I'm teaching graduating seniors how to rig and animate these character's they've been working on for a while now. It's really rewarding as they're totally into it, and they all seem to dig me. They're all really talented and creative, and they all actually want to be there. So it's not like I have to start out TA'ing or teaching intro to art 101 or anything, so that's nice. I am also picking up my old professor's class, so that makes it good, picking up his position and pay for a program that has been around for a few years now. Anyways, wouldn't you know it, about two weeks into the semester, I go from general facility wide stuff here at work, to being put onto Spiderman 3, which I was totally psyched about. Anyways, they assigned me one of the trailer shots that's coming out in about a month and a half or two, and now I'm working 10 hour days, 5 days a week, with talk of Saturday work. But, since I'm teaching already on Saturdays, I can't teach then, whew. So now, if I get here at 9:30am, I'm stuck here until 7:30pm, and that's if I don't take a lunch break, ugh. On top of that, I have to write up my lesson plan at least one night a week, which takes all night pretty much. Going through the examples, writing it all down and producing pretty pictures to go along with it for the students to follow along with. Plus, helping out students all along the way when they email me, grading stuff, etc. On top of that, I had been working out and fencing a lot, usually 3-5 nights a week. Of course now that's down to about 2 or so, and there's a big tournament coming up this weekend I had wanted to get to do a lot of training for, but of course, that's out the door. Now my sister is coming into town, and staying with me Wednesday night till Saturday morning. I'm going to be gone 90 percent of the time, but I have to go shopping for foods, take her out, etc, etc. It just feels like there aren't enough hours in the day any more! OMG, and like my class starts at 9am on every Saturday, for 16 Saturdays in a row (except for the one we get off, for Thanksgiving), and, I have to be at the tourney this weekend on Sunday, by 8am. Ugh. It's nothing I can't take or handle, but I know I'll be practically dead in about two months time. Anyways, I've never posted a blog and just wanted to rant my head off to a bunch of imaginary people. That is all, bye!