POP! This week ends with a bang as Sydney’s joe__kim claims the title of Weekly Winner! With 2,963 community votes, his animation Balloon floated to the top – congrats!

Balloon is a cute animation that shows just how hard and awkward flirting can be, especially for this shy couple at the bus-stop. It’s a good thing someone was there to let the air out of the tense situation.

“What is the point of this shot, and what will I learn about the character?”  As he relays his own story of creation for his wonderful animation Balloon, Sydney’s own Joseph Kim poses solid questions to help any animator hone and tighten their story lines and shots.  Touching on everything from pitching and process to personalities and HD production, Joseph Kim offers sound animation advice while telling his own story of animation experience growth.  Click through to read for yourself!

Want to rise up as a weekly winner in the Get with the Times! HD Contest? Check out the details here, and remember to cast your vote every hour!

Joseph Kim began animating four years ago after a one-year Maya course at a local college in Sydney. After working for post production companies around Sydney, Joseph decided his real passion was character animation and went on to pursue an online course at Animation Mentor: “It was a challenge working full time and studying at AM, but the experience was totally amazing. I completed my short film Balloon at AM and since then it has enjoyed an international viewing and appeal.”

After catching the bus to work with the same group of people every morning, Joseph couldn’t help but notice the their mannerisms: “In particular, there was this one guy who looked really quirky, lost in his tax book and constantly irritable – always the first to get on and reserving the seat next to him with his briefcase.” Joseph explains, “In contrast to him, every morning this small girl would get on stomping her feet down the aisle thoroughly enjoying the racket she would create.” While never consciously modeling his characters after these (people), he associated his characters with what he observed in the morning.

During the three months of story development, animatics and layout, and an additional three months of intense animating, Joseph learned that feedback for every stage of his project was critical: “For this I owe a large amount to my animation mentor, Jason Schleifer of DreamWorks Animation, and all my classmates. During the very first story pitch, it is clear right away if people don’t understand the idea straight off.” He adds that first reactions from those who have no previous knowledge of the idea is an invaluable indication if you should pursue the idea. “People can offer so many ideas and feedback to your story that you think is ‘working’ and so being open to all possibilities at the early story stage makes all the difference in how it’s going to turn out. I found it was really helpful and made my story a lot better than I initially had it.”

Because he finds pencil and paper to be the most intuitive tool, Joseph planned the storyline in thumbnails to make the process faster and easier before translating the 2D animatic into the computer to explore camera angles and cuts. “I decided early on I would not have much camera movement, so mainly concentrated on getting a nice layout and composition,” he said. “My mentor and classmates helped immensely on figuring out the shot mix and perspectives to make it more interesting and appealing.”

Finding the right personality for each character and keeping them consistent was a great challenge. From Animation Mentor he leaned that writing down a bio and summary of the characters personality traits helped me keep constant track on keeping the acting consistent. He made a notebook with a thumbnail of each shot on each page and noted below each image: “What is the point of this shot? And what will I learn about the character?” Before starting each shot or acting out any video reference, he would answer the question on the page and write a list what he wanted to convey in that shot and what should be avoided; “As I got into blocking and splining, I would review my playblasts and pull out that page and see if I was still answering what I had originally written.”

Balloon has screened at the Australian Effects and Animation Festival in Sydney, Cortoons International Short Animation Festival of Rome 2008 in Italy; was awarded winner for Best character animation at ACM SIGGRAPH Australasia – Graphite in Kuala Lumpur; and was awarded second place for the Audience Award at Anima Mundi – Rio De Janeiro.

After graduation he went to work at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) in San Francisco where he animated on “Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At Worlds End,” and even worked with some of his Animation Mentor classmates. He then returned to Sydney to work at Fuel International as a previz artist and lead animator on the Australian film “Rogue.”

Joseph also touches on animating in High Definition: “HD brings out an amazing level of detail that is just not there in Standard Definition. I think producing animation at this resolution heightens the experience and really helps to pull the audience into the story, which is what it’s all about! I will definitely be making things in HD from now on as it really will be the standard soon. Special thanks to MyToons and the animation community that voted for Balloon.”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 3:41 pm and is filed under Art & Animation Contest Winners, Art & Animation Contests. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.