Busy last few weeks.

Once againg my blog posts have fallen to the way side. The last few weeks have been busy ones, for anybody following my blog you knew I was working on "Me and My Shadow" at the start of the year, a project that has since been put back into development. As a result it meant that I was moving to a different show, that show is "How to Train Your Dragon 2". I'm excited to be on the show, it was my first choice after finishing up on "The Croods" so to finally land on the show after all the turmoil that has gone on at Dreamworks over the last couple of months is awesome.
I had to go through training on our new anim software which I have to say is a huge upgrade from our current software, way more animator friendly, fast as lightning and just all around a better user experience.
With working on a dragon movie I was required to go through dragon flight school, sounds cool and it was. Although it made me realize how little I knew about how things that fly do so. I don't want to get into all the details of flight school because quite frankly there's to much to cover, let's just say if I suddenly sprouted wings I would probably be able to get myself off the ground....probably.
A new semester of Animation Mentor (animationmentor.com) is under way, with a new curriculum and new modules to work with. The new curriculum seems much better and tougher and the new rigs are great! Iveonly spent a bit of time exploring the new girl rig and hope to spend more time putting together some new demos for the class.
My daughter turned 2 a week or so ago, I don't really believe this can be true, two years haven't gone by that quick have they? Well give that it's already April already it would intact apper that time is flying.
On the fitness front I'm through month 2, week 8 of P90X and am continuing to love the program. I've put on 2lbs, cause muscle weighs more than fat people, and would love to get up to 170 over the next 5 weeks. The changes I've seen have been great and will post before and afters once I've completed the program.
Man that's a lot stuff, I'm sure there's been more but these are the things that stand out most in my mind. Until next time.

The good, The Bad and The Ugly

A monthly wrap up of the good, the bad and the ugly in the world of animation

THE GOOD
Congratulations to Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman and the entire "Brave" crew for winning Best Animated Film at this years Academy Awards. Disney owned three of the five films nominated this year. The mouse house also came up big with "Paperman" winning the award for Best Animated short. Congratulations to John Kahrs and crew for making such a great short.


THE BAD

Dreamworks Animation is going through a restructure and as a result will be cutting about 15% or 350 of the studios 2,200 employees. This comes as a result of the poor box office performance of "Rise of the Guardians" and the recent announcement that "Me and My Shadow" was going back into development. “It’s been very hard. We had 17 hits in a row, and this is the first one that didn’t work for us,” Katzenberg said of Rise of the Guardians. “So it makes you go back and rethink everything, not just the fact that it didn’t work -- certainly we spent a lot of time reflecting on that -- but more importantly saying, ‘Let’s look at everything and say, "What could we be doing better, smarter, more effectively to really position the company in the best possible way gong forward?" ' And that’s what we’ve done, and that’s what restructuring is all about.”

THE UGLY
VFX giant "Rhythm & Hues Filed for bankruptcy protection and laid off 200+ employees in early February. R&H executives point to competition with countries such as Canada, the UK and India who benefit from tax credits and cheap labor to produce VFX at a lower cost. The visual effects business in California has taken a beating in the last few years due to this cheaper global competition. "Rhythm & Hues" won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at this years Academy Awards and VFX supervisor BIll Westenhofer acceptance speech was abruptly cut off as he was explaining to the audience the current situation. Just down the street from the awards VFX artists held a protest as a show of solidarity.

HopFitness

What is HopFitness? Over the last year I've been doing a lot of different exercise and learned more about how to better nourish my body. For anyone who knows, me diet and exercise were never high on my list of priorities. Pizza, chips, chocolate and soda was a perfectly good diet for a twenty something...sadly I'm no longer that twenty something who could eat endless piles of junk without consequence. Now, nobody lives forever, but taking care of our mind, body and soul can help keep us going for at least a little awhile longer. So HopFitness is an outlet for me to share some of the things that I've learned and continue to learn about health, nutrition and fitness. I'm no expert, far from it, that's why HopFitness isn't just for me, it's for everyone. I'll post healthy recipes, inspirational words, fitness tips and I encourage others to do the same. The Idea is that well all learn from one another and try to make ourselves a little bit better every day. Feel free to let other people know about the page. Well what are you waiting for? Stop on by, click like and say hi!

https://www.facebook.com/myhopfitness

Me and My Shadow

I feel compelled to write a bit about the film that I'm currently working on, "Me and My Shadow". I think there may be a lot of misinformation floating around about the film after the recent announcement that it was pulled from it's March 2014 release date and put back into development.
What I can actually share about the film is fairly limited due to the confidentiality clause in my contract, but the one thing I can say without a doubt is that this is going to be a really special and really great movie.
Working on any animated film can be difficult even at the best of times, what carries us through is the knowledge that the film that your helping to produce is going to be a winner...."Me and My Shadow" is a winner.
I was able to see the most recent cut of the films first act and I was blown away, not only at the quality of both the 2D and 3D animation and the way that both of theses mediums have been seamlessly blended together, but the story telling and characters hooked me right from the start. The main characters are both charming and funny and work amazingly well together. As an audience member I related to both characters immediately and was left wanting more as the screen went black and the curtains closed.
Sadly I won't be animating on the film for much longer, an extended production schedule means less staff for the short term, so for now I'm being moved to a different film. My time on "Me and My Shadow" has been a good one and who knows as production ramps back up I may get back to help finish this one up. Fingers crossed.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

A monthly wrap up of the Good, the bad and the ugly in the world of animation.

THE GOOD

The Oscar nominations for best animated feature were announced in early January and they confirm one thing...stop motion animation is alive and well and oscar loves it! While I'd be surprised to see any of the three stop motions films win the the oscar (Wreck-it-Ralph seems like the frontrunner to me) it's great to see the films and filmmakers being recognized for all their hard work.

THE BAD

Dreamworks Animation has been having a bit of a rough go in the last couple of months. Rise of the Guardians failed to preform as expected at the box-office. And now Oscar has failed to recognize both of Dreamworks releases for 2012, Madagascar 3: Europe's most Wanted or the afore mentioned Rise of the Guardians...Ouch!

THE UGLY

Rise of the Guardians didn't do very well at the box office, pulling in a mere $23.7 million in is opening weekend and just a tad more than $100 million domestic to date. It was speculated in early January that the company would likely have to take a $96 million write-down. The company hasn't taken a hit this large since 2006's Flushed away. The outlook for the future is still good, but another box office miss could spell trouble for the animation giant.

Insanity Workout Review

I Survived the 60 Day Insanity Challenge, you can too...

It was about 6:30 am on November 26th 2012, I had just finished my breakfast and was preparing to start my new workout program, "Insanity". I put in the DVD, pushed play and five minuets later wondered what I had gotten myself into...

Insanity is a 60 day home-based workout program designed by fitness expert Shaun T and sold by Beachbody, the company behind other popular workout programs such as P90X, Slim in 6 and ChaLEAN Extreme. It includes 10 workout DVD's, a nutrition guide and a wall calendar to track your progress. Most of the people reading this have likely seen the infomercial and have some idea of what the program is about.

Insanity touts itself as "the most difficult workout ever put on DVD" and it may very well be. I went into the program, having played hockey and thinking I was somewhat, fit kind of cocky...mistake, HUGE mistake. Insanity is an intense cardiovascular-based program that works your entire body using only your body weight as resistance. You workout six day a week and the workouts range from 30 to 60 minutes. The only things you'll need to do the Insanity program is a TV, DVD player, a good pair of training shoes and the will to push play everyday, sounds easy enough, right?

60 Days

Insanity workouts are based on the concept of “Max Interval Training.” Traditional interval training requires you to exercise at a regular pace with short periods of intensity inbetween. Max Interval Training reverses that concept by having you working as hard as you can for 3 minutes, with only 30-seconds of rest. The program is split up into 3 parts, month one, a recovery week and month two. The first month has five rotating workouts: Plyometric Cardio Circuit, Cardio Power and Resistance, Cardio Recovery, Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs.

Once you're done with month one you'll do a recovery week, a daily routine using the Core, Cardio and Balance DVD.

Then it's on to month two. Four new rotating workouts are introduced: Max Interval Circuit, Max Interval Plyo, Max Cardio Conditioning, and Max Recovery. In addition to the four new workouts you'll also be using Cardio Abs from the first month as well as Core, Cardio and balance from your recovery week.

There is also and included fit test that you perform every two weeks to track your progress over the course of the program.

Month One

Every Insanity workout begins with a 10 minute warm-up. The warm-up itself is fairly intense, so much so that you may have trouble keeping up and have to take a rest, don't worry about this, even the people in the video have a hard time keeping the pace.

The workout ups the intensity even further, you'll do six set of specific movements such as push-up drills, squat moves, plyometrics, lung moves and other sport inspired drills. None of the moves in the Insanity workout are overly hard to perform, but the pace and number or reps that you're required to do is what makes each workout difficult. Again don't worry if you can't keep up with the pace, I couldn't, the people on the DVD couldn't, even the programs creator Shaun T takes breaks.

The first week of the program was tough, but surprisingly, my body adapted fairly quickly. I found that I was able to push further and harder during each workout as the month progressed. I also saw progress in my fit test results.

Recovery Week

The Core, Cardio and Balance DVD was a welcome break from the high pace and intensity of the month one routines. This workout is about 45 minutes and uses more stretching and low impact movements to help your body recover and prepare for the second month of the program. You'll still get a good workout and burn a decent amount of calories while doing Core, Cardio and Balance, but compared to what you just put you body through over the previous month this work out will be a breeze.

Month Two

Month Two up the length and intensity of each workout. Once again you'll begin each workout with a 10 minute warm-up, this one is slightly different than the month one warm-up and feels a bit more challenging.

The four new workouts are very physically demanding and it's here that you really see where the name "Insanity" came from. It's very difficult to keep up with the pace of these workouts. Again the movements you do are not necessarily all that difficult, but the pace and duration that you have to go at really puts your body to the test. The length of the workouts increase from about 30 minutes to about 60. 

I won't lie, I really was ready to give up after the first couple of days into month two. My adaptation period for the second month also seemed to take longer than the first. I didn't feel comfortable with the new workouts in both intensity and duration until after my second week, but I pushed through and finished the program with great results.

My Results

Through the 60 day I saw great results. I lost 20 lbs, went from over 20% body fat down to 12% am a lot leaner and more toned. Cardiovascular wise I'm also in great shape and find that everyday activities like climbing stairs, running, playing with my kids no longer leave me feeling tired and out of breath. I didn't follow the "Elite Nutrition" plan that comes with the program to a tee, but I did eat a more healthy, "clean" diet and used an app to monitor my calorie intake and keep myself accountable.

My bi-weekly fit test results also showed some great improvement, and I was truly amazed where I ended given where I started.

Insanity Pros & Cons

Insanity will give you a great workout and even though the workouts and intensity is tough to maintain, pausing the DVD and taking short breaks will help pace the work out to your desired speed.

This is a great program for weight/fat lose, as well as a great way to increase your cardiovascular fitness.

Workouts can be done at home or on the road as no weights or additional equipment is needed.

Shaun T is a great instructor and motivator who does the workouts right along with you, so you never feel like your in it alone.

The variety and schedule of the workouts changes up from week to week which will help keep you engaged for the full 60 days.

The program does however take a great deal of self discipline to, as Shaun T says "push play every day"and like a lot of home based workouts, the everyday distractions of being at home can get in the way.

All said and done there really is a lot more upside to the program than down.

Ready for the Insanity Challenge?

If you're looking to get in the best shape of your life and feel like you can commit to 60 day of pure Insanity, follow the link below and get started on the road to a better you.

MIA!

I have severely neglected my poor, poor blog, but am going to start to make more regular posts to keep the masses appeased :0)