Cat's Meow - Jorge Garcia

A 2009 Ringling graduating student animation by Jorge Garcia. You can see more from the graduates, like: Wild Dogs by Cat Hicks and Heavenly Appeals by David Lisbe (nice character animation), linked from this clip.

There has been some discussion in the ether about the appeal of the Ringling College animations being, in part, due to a focus on narrative as compared to a showreel of animation exercises.

What are your comments on that idea?

Gold: Reminds me of what an animator once told me "ITS OK TO BE AN ANIMATOR AND NOT BE A STORYTELLER OR DESIGNER! THE CRAFT OF ANIMATING IS WORTHY OF YOUR UNDEVIDED ATTENTION IF THAT IS THE BIT YOU ENJOY! Gasp! There I said it. . . RUN!"

7 comments:

Dognam said...

Someone is letting the cat outta the bag here!

Nice clip by the Ringling cat, dude.

Frank said...

My current favourite style is the showreel X narrative short film hybrid containing lots of demonstrated animation principles.

But I wonder if it would get an animator a job when up against a Ringling narrative?

Ian said...

What an animator has to understand is the role that a scene plays within a story, or other contexts like games, which is really just an interactive story.

And then there is what I like to call micro stories, a characters emotional journey within a scene, it can happen over as few as 10 frames, but as far as I'm concerned it is still a story.

We are beating around the bush here. Let’s cut to the chase. Stories are great, knowing about stories is very very important, and I've read that some of the leading studios in the US won't even consider you for a job unless there is a narrative on your reel.

BUT in my experiences as a teacher, the vast majority of students (all but one out of more than a hundred from memory) have used stories to push agendas, like avoiding difficult components, indulging prejudices towards particular kinds of animation (it’s all the bloody same, GOOD MOVEMENT IS GOOD MOVEMENT.), procrastinating instead of producing animation.

If a student can manage to tell a story while being productive, challenging themselves to animate better every day then good luck to them. But it’s so rare.

Jorge Garcia said...

Wow, thanks for posting the link! :) It is an honor to be in this blog!

Catherine Hicks said...

Thanks for posting a link to my film, Wild Dogs!

Frank said...

Hey Jorge and Cat,

Thanks for dropping past and posting a comment.

You are most welcome.

I use your films to inspire the animation students I teach to your level of skills.

Great films thanks for getting them out on the net so we all get to see them.

Best wishes for your careers.

Drop past again soon.

Terry said...

Firstly... wow! What a great bunch of films!

As much as I love the art of the short narrative, I agree with Ian that students often fall into the trap of taking shortcuts and avoiding challenging shots in order to finish their story by the deadline. If students making showreels ensure that they embed "micro-narratives" (as Ian puts it) into their shots, then the showreel can be just as creatively satisfying.

I've been surpised at SBIT this year that virtually all of the 2nd year students want to make narratives, not showreels. I think that will change as the year wears on, though.