So today, in one day, I learned to sky dive! I got 8 jumps in and passed all the requirements for each jump so now I can jump on my own without supervision of an instructor. The next goal is to total 25 jumps and get my A license. After 200 jumps I could start flying a wingsuit.

Having over 400 hours in a hang glider does help in accelerating the learning process of another air sport, like skydiving. It is as much as a mental advantage as it is physical. I have reached a certain level of comfortability for being at altitude from flying hang gliders that allows my mind to focus on the tasks at hand instead of overcoming the obstacle or fears that I might of had, if I did not have the hang gliding experience.

Flying and landing the parachute was quite easy relative to hang gliders. For pilots out there, imagine flying a boaty Falcon with a drogue chute out. I would love to write more about all this but I’m tired and need to get some sleep, another full day of jumps tomorrow. I’ll let the video speak for itself, it was a fun day.

Nothing is more frustrating to me when someone takes 15 minutes to explain something that could be done in 1 minute.

Recently, I was making some animated GIFs and looked up tutorials online that were very slow, the most-viewed one on YouTube takes over 6 minutes to explain!

So I decided to make one of my own and do it 3x faster than that one! Above is my tutorial on how to make an animated GIF in less than one and a half minutes.

I took the photos with my Canon 7D which can shoot 8 frames a second which is perfect for GIFs, but I use it to catch action shots normally. The other time I’ve used an animated GIF was for a wedding party jumping.

I recently won a contest over at Tongal in a new format they’ve created.

This contest was only open to pitches from the top 100 members of Tongal (based off of previous winnings). I was 42nd at the time I submitted my pitch but now I should jump up a couple spots. They haven’t announced it on Tongal yet even though ScoreBigDaily had a big PR release today.

I have previously placed in the finals of two contests, you can see them on my Tongal portfolio, but I have yet to win one until this contest.

I wrote a script and drew a storyboard for my idea and received an email within two days that said my pitch had won! So only based off my boards and idea, I was already chosen to win. That’s much different than your typical contest where only after you’ve created your final product do you have a chance at winning.

I had one week to execute my pitch, on top of crunch time at work or I would be banned from this new format forever (Sandlot voice) and not receive the payment for winning. Luckily, I was able to pull it off in the short amount of time.

I used Maya and After Effects to create it and edited in Final Cut.

At the time of writing this it looks like the app is currently the 7th most downloaded app in the free app sports category in the Apple App store.

I recently made the trip from Vancouver to San Francisco and I stopped at two flying sites to hang glide, Dog Mountain and Mattole. Both were incredible. Check out the video above to see what these sites look like.

I finally bought a GoPro and am very happy with how convenient it is and all the hang gliding shots in the video were shot with it. Below the photos were taken with my trusty 7D.

Dog Mountain

Oregon coast

Lost Coast

Mattole

Redwoods

Mount Rainier from the road

Well, I finally did it – I bought a GoPro! Because of my hang gliding videos many people assume I’ve always had one, but not until this week!

So far I’m enjoying it. It’s definitely convenient and compact. I bought the extra LCD screen for the back too and I’m glad I did! It allows me to frame my shots, no guessing!

First day into the road trip I met up with some great pilots who fly Dog Mountain, WA and had a nice little flight. Thanks to Aaron for helping me coordinate the visit. I hope to pass back through and fly with everyone again! It wasn’t a bad place to camp out either.

It was about 11 years ago I was traveling down the same road to go climb Mount Rainier, but this week I was in the area to hang glide instead of mountaineering. Recognizing the same road snuck up on me like deja vu with memories from 11 years ago resurfacing.

I actually tried out twice to be a guide for RMI and made the final cut both times, but it was some tough competition and I didn’t get the job. I think there were around 40 of us trying to get 2 jobs shoveling frozen crap at camp Muir. It was a fun experience nonetheless and enjoyable to remember. It was quite an intimidating job interview to sit at a round table, being 17 years old, and answer questions from some of the most accomplished mountain guides in the world.

Dog Mountain Launch

Dog Mountain from the air. Launch is clearing on the peak in the top right and the LZ is in front of the cars in the bottom right.

Facing away from Dog Mountain.

The moon rose right behind launch

Once into Oregon the plan was to run on the infamous Hayward Field track that Steve Prefontaine ran on and has been the venue for many incredible track meets, not to mention the 2012 Olympic Trials will be there! But I was denied! So I went to Pre’s Trail not too far away and had a great little run.

This trail was created after Pre traveled to Europe to compete every summer and saw all the amazing, soft trails in the European cities and he wanted to have that in Eugene.

Now it’s off to the Redwoods and a hang gliding site on the northern California coast!

Hayward Field

Pre's Rock

The voting period is always at the beginning of every month and on a scale of 1-11. It’s usually a fairly tight competition: if I had only .5 more points I would have jumped from 15th to 4th. I really enjoyed this month’s audio and look forward to entering again when I have the time since I learn so much with each animation.

The audio clip is from the tv show “Parks and Recreation” and the actress is Amy Poehler.

Isaiah Saxon (left), Sean Hellfritsch and Daren Rabinovitch began collaborating on films in San Francisco in 2003. Their digital animation company, Encyclopedia Pictura, combines live action, stop-motion and CGI components into a unique visual style.

I first heard of Encyclopedia Pictura from a friend who sent me a link to a story that NPR did on them this past year. My friend thought I’d be interested in them because I received my undergraduate degree in forestry and I recently finished film school as well, so my interests share common ground with theirs.

Esquire magazine called them “the directors of the future” and they have been doing some very interesting work over the last couple of years and are beginning work on their first feature film which you can read a very brief description of it here on their website.

I’ll be working with them for at least one month on some ambitious animation and am very excited about it. I will also be moving to San Francisco, where I’ve always wanted to spend more time after I filmed for a friend’s wine label there over a year ago.

EP is probably best known for their award-winning and unique music video for Bjork, Wanderlust. It has a beautiful visual style and is quite epic in scope as the song is almost 8 minutes long:

I plan to take my time driving down there from Vancouver and hope to fly my hang glider at a couple sites along the way. One of which, Mattole, in Northern Cali was just flown by one of my ex-neighbors from when I lived at the hang gliding flight park in Georgia. It’s been a while since I’ve flown so I hope the weather cooperates and if I’m feeling up to it, I may get the camera out too. Sunday I should be flying with this guy . . . um, yea . . . and here’s another but filmed at the site we’ll be flying.

Looking back on these couple of paragraphs . . . I just realized I referenced several friends all about different things and just wanted to get sentimental for a second and say I have some awesome friends! Especially since I’m going to be living with another one I’ve yet to mention in this post while I’m in SF. Nothing but love for you all!

I took this the last time I was flying which was this fall and just haven't gotten around to sharing any photos from this flight. It had some incredible views! Near Pemberton, B.C.

On a related note about animation: Moonbot studios, a studio in Shreveport, Louisiana, beat out Pixar for the Oscar of best animated short film! I saw Pixar director, Enrico Casarosa, speak about their short ‘La Luna’ at SIGGRAPH this year and it is incredible, but Moonbot’s short is very captivating as well. If you’d like to learn more about the animation in this Academy award-winning short, one of their supervising animators is sharing some behind-the-scenes work on his blog you should check out.

After graduating VFS, I had a little extra time on my hands so I decided to learn a new skill.

I saw the movie the Green Hornet a little while back and thought it was cool how he could spin the bottle caps off of a drink. While I can’t do it with a beer bottle, I did find a bottle that worked, it’s a drink called Body Armor.

Once I learned how to do it, I decided to have a little fun with it, which you can see in the video. This video placed 6th in the Body Armor contest!

One intense year of study has come to a close as I have graduated Vancouver Film School and completed my animated short film ‘Growing Up!’

I hope the message of the short film is clear and that it resonates with some people.

I could not have completed this project without the help of my classmates, instructors, and support from friends and family. Thank you!

I’m responsible for all the visual elements of the film. I’m an animation student so that was my main focus in this short, but I also created the story, modeled, textured, rigged, lit, and composited everything myself as well.

I used Maya, Zbrush, Nuke, After Effects, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro.

When I started this project the end seemed so far away. When I wasn’t satisfied with the initial images I was creating, I remember thinking that I knew what the potential for this project could be and that pushed me to work harder and make dramatic changes by completely remodeling the character and environment. I believe that within my capacity, I took this work as far as I could in the time that I had.

Within the last six months of the program, except for two days of break, I worked every day for the entire six months, that’s 7 days a week and typically a minimum of 12 hour work days, every day, and I don’t regret it. Despite many challenges along the way, both technical and creative, I enjoyed the entire process.

Yesterday was our official graduation and it’s definitely bitter-sweet. It was overwhelming to see my classmate’s work in rapid succession on the ‘big screen.’ I am very fortunate to have been able to work with so many great people this year and have the opportunity to pursue what I love. Thanks for watching!

See more ‘making-of’ things about ‘Growing Up’ in an earlier post here.

Graduation in a movie theatre, it doesn't get better than that.

[Update: I placed 18th out of 202 entries]
Fresh out of VFS and I was anxious to keep working! It’s like an addiction! I was talking to my classmates that we should start a support group for recent graduates, ha! You get so accustomed to going to school every day and working, it’s tough to get out of that routine.

So, I stayed in that routine and decided to finish my first entry into the coveted 11 second club animation competition.

Shooting reference, one of my favorite parts of the process.

The competition is held once a month, hosted by Animation Mentor, they give you 11 seconds of audio, and it’s up to you to create a compelling animation. Then people vote for it over at the 11 second Club website, and they crown a winner with the award of a professional critique.

Those critiques are so awesome. I spent a weekend and watched all of them! You can learn a lot just from hearing someone else’s critique.

I spent 4 days on my animation: shoot reference one day, block in the golden poses and model the set, then spent two full days finishing the animation.

For this animation I was anxious to use Animschool‘s new free rig, Malcolm. And I have to say I really enjoy the controls provided. There are a few little quarks here and there, but for a free rig, it’s the best one out there by far!

So I hope you enjoy my entry for this month and stay tuned for more animation from me as I hope to be posting more on YouTube in the near future.

Oh, and my Dorito’s entry was featured in the top 25 over at Video Contest News, but I’m not holding my breath on making the final 5 of the real judges cut – there’s some stiff competition this year.