Monday, November 23, 2009

CTN in a nutshell

With only an hour and a half before class I will try to tell you all I can. However so much went on that I'm not sure I can even get it all down or remember it all!!

Friday, the lines for getting in was very disorganized and I ended up changing three times just to get in the right line. They also gave us wrists bands instead of badges, which really bugged me. I was constantly messing with it. The guests got badges though which helped to find a few people for "importance". I was also a little bit disappointed in the "Speed Talent". From the way the website made it sound it was going to be "100 industries" at tables. The website said registration on site. What it turned out to be was you looked for people with a yellow "speed Talent" button and walked up and asked them to look at your work. I didn't like this, booths became so crowded and getting up there was hard. Also by the second day I noticed almost no one was wearing their button. So when the doors finally opened I went into the vendors room to see the guests and who was selling what. So many great artists and books! There was one amazing this that happened on Friday. As I was heading back to my room I noticed someone doing a live demo. It was Tony Bancroft from Mulan. We watched him for about 2-3 hours I think and then my class got a picture taken with him.

Saturday was book buying day. I bought 3 books and Don Bluth's animation DVD. It was really hard deciding what I wanted. The Draw to Life books had been taken already so I got. There were also a lot of panels I went to. I wasn't very impressed with the panels here. Most were 20-45 min and once the speakers were done introducing themselves had barely any time to go over the topics of the panels. There was a late night panel for "Secret of Kells" which was a great movie! The animation was so smooth even though it looked like Samurai Jack.

Sunday I didn't have much time as they were going to kick us out of the hotel room soon. I woke up with a sick feeling in my tummy but by 10am finally started to walk down to the convention place. I went back into the vendors room and bought a sketch book. There were a few other art books I wanted but couldn't decided or while the work was amazing didn't want to pay that type of money. A lot of my class mates were there which I ran into at random parts of the con and kind of attached myself to once in awhile. I wish I could have spent more time with them but I still feel like a third wheel. They were all very nice though and let me get in line with them. So we all got to see a bunch of big name animators. Eric Goldberg is like a cartoon character himself, he's funny.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Special Guest! PART 2

This time not at our school. Our teacher piled us all into a bus last night, just his class and we set off for Berkly where Brad Bird was talking. It was an awesome night and a little bit silly. The theater had a stage set up that looked like we were filming for the Ophran show. when they first introduced the event they didnt even mention Brad Bird and honestly I was scared we were in the right place. But sure enough out her came. Really funny guy! The whole time I found myself laughing as he talked about movies he directed like Iron Gaint, Incredibles, Ratatouille! I wish I wrote down some of the lines he mentioned like how an new idea is like a baby deer. It's wobbly, wet, and gross, but with proper care it can grow.
after it was down I managed to snag a photo of him. I really wanted to take one with him but we were in a rush.