 All right, checking the camera here. I'm gonna do this webcam style. This is gonna be a Q and A, which I'm assuming most people will just listen to hence the webcam recording and not the other camera, also because I can record forever and I don't have my limits here on the camera. As always with those Q and A's, I'm gonna read the question in full, just in case you're listening, you don't read the questions, which I'm gonna put it on the screen. And I am going to answer, preform whatever I think, you can always take whatever you want from those answers and disregard whatever you want. But I'm gonna start at the bottom here. Shalom is asking, hi, JD, what's the best way to use a walk cycle and have the character take a curve and stop? How would you go about it? That's a good question. If you have the tools and sometimes some of them you have to pay for, there is a walk path tool. So you can basically put your walk cycle on a path, the path can have a curve and then the feet won't slide. It's gonna be an automated thing where you can curve, you can even lean into it. It depends on the tool. I actually do wanna look at those tools and obviously do a couple of reviews of these because I'm gonna use the tools myself. Now, if you don't have a path tool, then it would be, you can either constrain your feet on the turn where you have your cycle and then as they turn, you don't want the feet to slide, obviously. So you're gonna have your roots turn on an animation layer and then you can just constrain the feet for those couple moments or frame by frame, have them stick to the floor. But that is the extent of my answer, but I've seen something just recently that did just that and I don't remember if it was animation layers. I can look for it and you can see in the description if I find it's gonna be in there and if not, it's not gonna be in there. And then the stop would just be you have to, I would at the end bake out everything when you're done and you're happy with it because then you can add some variations in the cycle so it doesn't look like a cycle and then I would just hand animate the stop, would just be transition from a cycle to a, straightforward, post-depose whatever you want, straight ahead, not straightforward, but whatever transition you have from that cycle to an actual animation. That's what I would do. It's a good question though, but I feel like that warrants a deeper dive that might go into an F and A or review in terms of cycles and stuff like that. Parth Sonagra, Sonagra, I think so. It's asking, I'm 19 years old and studying finance and studying finance, okay. I wanna become an animator but don't have enough money for animation study. So I'm thinking to get a job and then to study for animation. Should I do that? Or study animation only, not during graduation in what's the maximum age to become an animator. So I'm gonna start backwards. There's no maximum age to become an animator. That being said, it's not like you're seeing 70 year old animators, a company, or starting out. There's also a certain amount of energy involved. I think that question has been asked in previous Q and As in terms of how old can you be as an animator? I wouldn't say it's a young people's game. It definitely helps to be young. You have the energy to stay at a job for a longer period of time or switch cities or countries, work long hours. I think there's a certain energy demanded of you physically and mentally to do that. I don't like to put a maximum age on there because I think if you're doing great work and you can follow along and you're productive at a company, that shouldn't really be a limit. But you're diving into the ageism type of thing and do people want to hire older people? Because older people, I'm generalizing, they might have a family or just other responsibilities. So they might have to leave at a certain time of the day and they can't just stay long or really nearly. And maybe younger people, they can just stay and hopefully not work for free. But there just may be a bit more flexible in terms of the schedule. So maybe that's also why younger people are favored. That will be my broader answer there. Now, the other question kind of depends, I mean, it's very specific to you. You want to be an animator, you don't have enough money for animation study. So it's definitely wise where you're saying here, get a job, save up and then use that to study animation. Or you're saying here, study animation only and not graduating, maybe doing stuff online, cheaper workshops or finding, there's a bunch of tutorials obviously on YouTube as you're watching this on YouTube. So it really depends what you want to do. I mean, I am biased because I teach an animation mentor and I like that community and the mentors are great, the exes are cool and I think there's something that you're going to get out of an online school, whatever you're going to choose because it has a curriculum, it has a schedule and it's guided and you get feedback versus learning from home by yourself. There's always going to be a limit when you're alone in terms of feedback and when you're going to get out of things. It's always a bit easier when someone is guiding you. So, and then that just depends, are you that disciplined to do stuff alone at home or wherever you're going to do it, right? But can you just study, have the critical eye, maybe check online, ask some people for feedback and then continue, are you that disciplined or are you someone that needs a schedule and deadlines and broader mentors and teachers? So I'm not, I can't really answer your question. I think they're both valid depending on what you prefer and what you're better at, you know what I mean? Because you can always just, like you said, work, save up money and then do a hard switch to not have that money. Now I'm going to use that and whatever I have to pay the bills and go through formal studies. So I'm going to leave it at that. Nivek Martin is asking here, as a traditional 2D anime, what should I put in my real portfolio? I believe I asked that I can't answer that because I'm not a 2D animator. You know, the usual would be the best shot first and then depending on the project, something that's appropriate for that project. It's character-based, effects-based, you know, like something with camera, without camera. So yeah, that's my extent. So I'm not versed into the current traditional 2D animator demo reel. The usual is, you know, the character has to just be alive and think and it has to be a performance unless, again, you're going for something more effects or robotic or action-y. Again, it just kind of depends what you want to do and where you want to apply and what they are looking for. The broad answer is just be, look at the company you want to work for, look at their portfolio, what have they done and then that will tell you that's what they do. I should do something that fits that so that when they look at you real, they go, oh, you're doing what we're doing, we can hire you. That's a broad answer. PUSIFER, PUSIFER, PUSIFER, CG? It's one of those things where I got to read the names and apologize for butchering all of these. How are the chances and situations for a company to relocate offer to an animator? Okay, I'm assuming you're asking, are they going to pay for the relocation of an animator? That can happen. I'm not gonna say all the time, depends on the company, depends on the budget, depends how much they want you. And I'm not familiar with the current landscape of companies, what they're doing. There's a finances and budget and stuff like that. Especially nowadays since a lot is remote and hopefully stays, at least the option stays to be remote. I hope that that also works. I'm looking at the camera here, I'm not used to usually looking here anyway. So I would say really depends on the company, depends on the budget and depends on how good you are in terms of they really, really want you so they're going to pay for that. It might just be a flight, it might be a flight or whatever transportation and in three months of housing potentially, it really depends on the company. What I would do is ask. I would ask around, Google around, maybe there's some documentation online about that. And if you are in a conversation with the company, you just have to ask. I mean, the interview is always two-sided, right? They're gonna ask you a bunch of questions and then you're gonna have a bunch of questions. So what is your, the typical interview questions, on top of that will be my dog coming in right there. Yeah, you would ask the company questions including relocation. Okay, I'm gonna pause this, I'm gonna close the door and I'll be back. All right, doggy is settled. Of course, on the most comfortable, you know, blanky type of thing. All right, let's continue with there's an answer there. Okay, so Jack Tonton, I'm assuming. Hi, JD, happy new year. Happy new year to you too. How long did it take you to be confident with your craft? I got a coffin and I have a glass of water, it's not whiskey. It takes a long time and I'm still not confident. How about that? I am generally confident in terms of technique, there I say, when I see something technical, even if it's super complicated, there's always gonna be something in terms of finding reference online, you doing your reference yourself, feedback in dailies, whatever, there's always gonna be a way to get something done technically. I think my confidence is always in terms of ideas and creativity and just performance because that's something very specific, it has to be original and something you've never seen before and all that good stuff. I think that's always going to be a challenge and I don't know if I'm always going to be not confident in that. It's always a struggle. For me, it's always kind of like I have great ideas subjectively, right? And then I start a shot and I feel like no, those are not great ideas. And it's always kind of that beginning, it's gonna be awesome. And then you're working like, I don't know. And then it continues with feedback and at the end ends up being at least okay and sometimes cool. So yeah, won't really help you, right? You're probably gonna, well, it took two years. Two years and then I was confident it was just fine. You're gonna be just fine too. You know, it really depends also on how you are and your goals and your wins and your achievements and how that will fuel your confidence. So yeah, technically I'm fairly okay. I know that something like something crazy, you know, creature-y acting, camera combined, something, I'm gonna go, okay, this is gonna be complicated. But I think I've done it long enough to where I can go, okay, this is complicated, it's gonna be pain, but I can deconstruct it into let's do this first, let's do that, let's do the camera, let's do this and then get to a point where like that's pretty cool and then go back into it with the more okay, well, how can I make it cooler in terms of the creativity and the ideas? That's kind of where I'm at, I feel like. That point where doing what you have in mind is no longer a problem and it's all about ideas and small things. Yeah, you know, personally I still struggle with that. Like I just said, I have stuff in my head because I don't thumbnail, I just think about it and I visualize it and go, oh, that's gonna be cool and in my mind it's cool and then when you start, it's always, I still struggle with that going, well, I thought it's gonna be awesome, I know the movement, I even did some reference, like I have all that material and I look at my animation like this doesn't compare or you can even use like an existing shop that someone did, TV, movies, whatever and you're copying it just for practice purposes and you go, no, that doesn't look the same at all. It looks like crap, why? I know what to do, but I can't make it work. That's, I'm still struggling with that, there I say. I'm a junior animator and in school I was fantasizing that state at the end of my program. At the end of it, I was expecting it to be after a few times in my first job, okay? Now that time has passed and I still don't see when that state of confidence will come, it might take a while. Every time I start a new shot, I don't know how I would go through it so far so good, but it's frustrating at some points. It is, I totally agree. Hold on, there's a read more, okay. And then M. Etzin replied, I really like this question. I was just thinking the same today, working on a shot. I know what I have in mind, but it's hard to get it on the computer, totally agree. From my lack of technical skills, yes, me too. I was thinking how great it will be when I can create without being bogged down by my lack of understanding. Again, I think all of you, both of you wrote this and people watching this and listening, you will get to a point where technically you're gonna be okay. I mean, I still have to check my arcs and pops and things and weight and balance. It's just, that's just the constant thing. But definitely better than I was 18 years ago. But like I said, the creativity aspect is where my confidence goes way down where I gotta try a bunch of stuff and I see my dog is leaving. My dog is bored of this Q and A and he's gonna start whining and wait until he starts whining and then go back and open the door. Anyway, so I think for both of you, it's gonna take a while and the while could be weeks, months, years. It really depends on what you do. What I would recommend is that you do, if you don't do enough at work, that's different. I know it's more work after work, but that's how it goes. You practice during the week or on weekends, smaller stuff and you make a list of, I'm not good at this, this, this and this and then you go and practice that and keep it short, two or three seconds, right? Nothing long where you get overwhelmed. Keep it short, do those exercises because the more you've done, the more confident you're gonna be that you can do it again and the more you've done it, the better you're gonna be at it and faster and once you've covered a wide range of technical things and mechanics and stuff, when you get a new shot, you can go, okay, I've never done this, but this is a combination of this, this and this which I've done before. I think I can do this. I think that's for me how I have grown my confidence there on set. All right, Kaley Jacobs has a question here. I don't know if you have something like this already, but I know you have workshops of 16 submissions for $500, but if you're in a lower budget, that's a lot of money to come up with. Would you consider maybe a smaller shop that's more budget friendly? For instance, eight submissions for $250 or if someone just wants feedback for something once maybe $32 per shop. Basically the quick answer to that is, would I consider smaller workshops for half the price or on a per review basis? I thought about it. Maybe, what I sometimes do is, if they don't have the 4.99 upfront, they can do eight weeks and then eight weeks later. So they pay basically in two installments. I don't shorten, I don't often shorten workshops to just eight weeks. And I definitely don't do on a per shop basis, because it's the hassle, the fees. I don't know, like so far I've kept it as one chunk, but I'm always revaluating and you never know. That could be something to consider in the future for sure. Harry Papa, Harry Papa is asking, hello JD, I want to start by saying that I really appreciate all the work you've put into this channel and into helping young animators. You're very welcome, thanks for watching myself. I am an international animation student at AAU, just like me, I used to be just dropped my pen, going down the same road as you did back when you came to the US. So my question for you is, can you share some of your experiences as an international going to the industry dealing with visas and getting your job at ILM? I have answered that in a couple Q&As before. Feel free to watch some of these or I have a couple interviews where I talk about that. So I'm gonna keep it short also because it's been so long. So basically, I got to the States in fall 99 for the Academy, so as you said, Academy. And they provide obviously the student visa. And then after three and a half years, I graduated in May 2003 and that gave me one year of OPT, but back then there was no deadline. I didn't have to find something within 90 days, it was just you got a year. And then within that year, I worked on stuff. I set my reels out, didn't do anything and I hear my dog whining. And then I went back to school for one more semester, got a new reel together, sent it out and I got hired at ILM in January 2004 and they then took care of the visa. That was basically it. And back then it was an H1B that was valid for four years. And after that, that would have been hopefully, so you know, filters and me would have done another four year visa. I think, again, I'm completely out of the loop. I don't know, I think last I heard this was years ago that you don't have two H1Bs, you only have one and it's five years instead of four. I really don't know the current landscape. So fortunately you're gonna have to research that. And that's basically that. I mean, after four years, I found my lovely wife, we met at the academy and I got married and then that's my status as with a green card in this country. So that's really the short of it. But there are other ways of getting sponsored a company can sponsor you, but it's again, I'm old and it's been a long time. So what I would do is research, ask the company if you're in contact with them or go online, whatever country you are. I mean, it sounds like you're a academy, so it's in the States. I would check the latest guidelines in terms of what the requirements are. Let me get the dog out. Ooh, let the dogs out. All right, I can check when it's 18 minutes. That's not too bad, not too bad. All right, Sudir, Piusudir, sorry about those names. How should one look at rejections or a second time applying for a company? What should be in a second demo reel as first has given an expression of my work? Okay, well first, how should you look at rejection? You know, rejections, they come in all kinds of shapes and sizes in terms of your work is not good enough. They just, you have no place right now. Your reel was awesome, but they are done hiring. They filled all the spots. Your reel is awesome, you've worked before and you're too expensive and they can't hire you. You have a great reel, but your foreigner and the visa process not working out too expensive, maybe immigration stuff could be an issue. There's just so many reasons out of your control in terms of rejections. And in terms of a new reel, if you're sending it to a new company, I would just do a whole brand new reel, maybe except one, one shot. Cause you don't wanna have, you know, whatever, seven shots and only one is new. That's what you're gonna send in. So maybe keep your very best one of your first reel, put that in the middle of the shot and then do a brand new reel for the rest. I would do a whole brand new reel completely, but you know, sometimes your shot is really, really good. Maybe the rest wasn't good and that brought the whole impression down. So maybe keep you very, the one you have at the beginning, the very first, best one, put that in the middle somewhere, or maybe at the end of the new reel. That would be my answer. Tony Cashman, The Insightful. That's a great name. Hello again, JD. I'm one of the commentators on some of your acting for analysis videos. Thanks for watching. Have participated in a couple of hundred-frame contests here and there and watched some other videos of yours. Well, thank you and it's very thorough. For the most part, I'm honestly just curious what happened to the frames contests since the last few months of 2021. I've just passed. I do remember you switching animation jobs and other changes in your career very recently, but I still don't know if the contest got discontinued or just went on a break. I heard October will be an early contest date in 21 for a change, but even December already took place. That's correct. It's really my only question other than what your thoughts on motion. Okay, this is different. Let me go step by step. So first, I stopped teaching on-site classes at the Academy. I'm doing online only. And even then I'm scaling back. I'm actually, this is the first semester where I'm not teaching an animation mentor because my new job, new responsibilities, new time and schedule, I'm scaling way back. And one of the things was the Academy. The Academy for the on-site, which are still online, they're not, like the online, online classes are more flexible in terms of when I log in and check things. The on-site, which are online, are a three hour block from six to nine PM. And I can't do that anymore because of my schedule with my current work. So how does that, what's the word? Connect, I guess, to the contest. It used to be that we all come up, like all the students had to come up with three topics in their class. And this would be all like one ginormous class, Zoom and they would write down what their topics were. We would vote on them. And then vote until we just down to one. It was such a fun process. It was something so specific to the on-site class. That's how it started years ago. And now that it's gone, I don't know. Like, I don't know. I'm wondering, I think it might just be on a break. I might bring it back. Sometimes it's a bit of a hassle with prizes. So I don't want to bug the companies and ask for those things. It's always kind of like a favor thing. I feel kind of bad about that. So I thought let's do a new one where the prize is a workshop. You just get a free workshop, 16 submissions. So the price is 499, basically is your prize. But then again, time and issues. And the last time I did something where I put in the name of someone who submitted something and they asked to not put the name in there. And I was on autopilot putting things in and I forgot that a person asked to not have their name in there. And I did by accident and I got a really nasty email from that person. And it really pissed me off. And I know it was my fault and I apologize, but that, it went into like, you're doing this on purpose because you want my name to be out there because you want me blacklisted in companies and you're doing things and it got into like crazy conspiracy of I don't know what's going on in that person's head. They must have dealt with some bad experiences and then projecting that on me. It was literally just, I mean, I was an idiot. I was in autopilot copy paste mode and did not read the email. It says please don't use my name. I think that they put in a nickname or something. It's just, there's a lot that happened the last time that kind of soured me on the whole process. But it is fun. And I know some people have gotten jobs through winning those. So I don't know. I think right now would say they're on the break. And again, I want to look at my current schedule. Was everything including the work, the channel, maybe if you're a frequent watcher, you're seeing how some things are not as frequent anymore like product reviews and rig reviews and there's some other stuff that it takes a lot of time or FNAs, all that takes time. And I just have to always weigh that in compared to obviously family work and teaching. These are the three blocks that take up most of the time that where I want to always focus on that. And everything after that is just a eh, if I want to, if I have time, which includes the channel. The channel is not something I need to do. It's not my job. You know what I mean? To me, that's what I love about my channel is I am in charge of the schedules. I can just do whatever I want on there. And I just have to look at where I need to scale a few things back. It's a long answer I just want to give you the honest answer of what's going on. The other one here is, what are your thoughts on stop motion animation? And if you have any advice, how can I apply acting analysis tips and tricks to my work before you do two different things? Hold on. What are your thoughts on stop motion? Well, I love it. I love watching it. I think it's insane what they do. It just blows my head off in terms of the skill set and they can just go, like they have to go through it once that maybe like, if they use the onion skinning for a frame before, I think it's absolutely better than what they do. It just, I have so much respect and I tried it once and I'm doing a little stop motion with my little one. We started a, we bought the, I bought, he didn't buy it. He's nine. I bought the Kevin Perry class, had to go through stop motion. I'm sitting with my little one. We're going through that class. Like we just started. We haven't gone too far into it. But yeah, he loves it and I want to do it. And it's, yeah, it's insane to me. So I love it. And I always feel like when a stop motion movie comes out, they're awesome, technique is great, and it never does as well as CG movies in terms of box office, which doesn't drive enough of, you know, revenue, which would, you know, provide funding for more movies. It's just, I always feel like unappreciated, maybe not by animators. I think we all know how hard it is and how awesome it is. But I think by the general public, there's something where just stop motion isn't taking off as much. I don't know. So that's kind of a bummer. Then is another one. How can I apply acting analysis tips and tricks to my work before possibly purchasing animation critiques from the Spangela workshop you still run? Well, I mean, it would just be, I mean, it depends. I mean, depends how you learn. Like my hope and my thoughts are in terms of the acting analysis clips, which to me are an asset is in every Q and A. And every, as someone asked me, besides the FNAs, which are lectures, the acting analysis tips are the cornerstone of my channel. And they are the least watched clips. They even have less views than my monthly summary clips, which cracks me up. But the thing is with acting, like once you're past the technical aspect of animation, it comes all down to your ideas and performances and creativity. And the act analysis tips series is there to show you examples of what people have done. Like usually super talented actors. And you take that idea and obviously tweak it. You don't want to copy it. But it's like I would say a springboard for ideas. How would you use props? How would you use the camera? How would you use mechanics? How would you use to acting, looking at people? This is so much stuff you can get. Like I love analyzing movies and TV shows. It gives me a ton of ideas that I can give to my students. And this is not coming from an ego point of view, but I'm slightly shocked that they don't have more views because to me they're really important. Like if you are past the technical aspect, you're in the idea realm as an animator, then this series is for you. This is for you just a well of knowledge, not for me, but from professional animators who do this for a living who are really good. And to me, every animator should be, I feel like they should be watching this because a lot of times for students, the ideas are where they struggle. The ideas are just kind of, and it doesn't make the shot that interesting. And then I always point them towards that series and go look at all those movies and TV shows. There's so many ideas you can pick and choose from and mix and match. So that's my long rant about, I'm curious why their views are so low. Maybe the presentation is horrible. Could also be. But I feel like besides the lectures, they are so important because they are the idea creation for a shot. But maybe my viewership is more on the, you might also say, which is someone once told me, is that these clips are a bit more advanced. And maybe my viewership is more on the tutorial, like how do you do a bouncing ball? How do you do body mechanics and polish? Kind of like more technical and maybe less acting. That could also be it. And that's like my long answer, not answering your question because how can you apply it? All I can say is watch it. And you can always email me and ask questions like how, like your idea, how could you apply maybe something you watch specifically to your idea? To me, it's just, to be honest, I don't have a good answer. Like how can you apply it before taking the workshop? It's watch it, write down the ideas and principles behind the shot. I did one with about the movie Emma, where for instance, someone is drinking something and someone is trying to mimic them because they want to be as sophisticated as they are. And the idea out of that for me was, it's cool to have two people doing the same action, but one person is mimicking the other and they want to be as good as the other one. So you can see, you can, the idea for me is that you do one action confidently and the other character is doing the same thing but horribly. That would be really fun contrast. So that's what, that would be my answer. You look at what I talked about, you look at what's the idea behind it and then apply that to your shots. Out of that answers the question. How so? And finally, have you heard of the animation guild run by Howard Wimhurst, Wimhurst? I believe I do follow him on YouTube. And do you have any ideas for possibly collaborating with them in the future? Okay, maybe not. I thought he's a 2D guy. I don't know how I would collaborate. They mostly are 2D nature animation kind of like, how the 3D nature in my environment has been with your own community, but it's also all forms of animation included. I don't know, I don't know. If it's the one that I think of is so more advanced. I don't know, like this is, that's a whole different area, 2D animation stuff that he's doing. I don't know, I highly doubt he's watching my channel. But Howard, if you're watching, let's collaborate. I don't know, I don't know what we could do. It could be interesting. Maybe we could do, actually we could do something. Okay, just had an idea. I'm going to write this down because my brain is horrible. So this is gonna be extremely boring to watch. Basically what I'm gonna do is, how about I fold this into a quick tip? Write everything down. So collaborate with Howard Wimhurst, and I'm gonna write down my idea, which I'm not gonna say out loud. And then that's it. The reason why I'm typing this and you're watching this is because actually I do this all the time. This is like a separate thing of, whenever I have an idea, I either observe something, someone did something cool. I saw a cool shot in the movie terms of composition or cool camera move idea or anything. I write it down and I put this, I think I talked about, I think I know I talked about this before, but I have my idea blog which is private where I just post all that stuff. I can write an email that automatically posted on that blog, do you have a timestamp? Or I post it manually and I have my animation reference, composition reference or animation idea or character idea, little tags. And it's an ongoing thing. And I write this all the time. Just like my acting analysis clips, I have a separate thing of just general ideas. Scoopia, an awesome drawing I saw with the character, like, oh, that's a cool idea of framing or multiple characters being together. And I highly recommend you do that. Like you have an area where you can collect your ideas which goes back to you should always observe. Which goes back also to the acting analysis clips. You do watch this and you think about those ideas and then you combine that with something you just observe. So it's more original, right? You take an idea but make it your own. So I don't, I always observe. I always write stuff down. It's always fun to see certain things, especially with a family, outside, kid, dog, anything. There's always something where you go, oh, that was a cool idea. How could I put this into my animation? I've shown it before. I actually have it on my phone as well. So I've done another one. I have, because when I left ILM, I was gonna start a new demo reel. And I had a couple of demo reel ideas. And here are, you can see what is this breathe. Okay, this is a shot that I started that I never finished. Whoa! The camera, the camera lost my face and went, what is going on? All right, how about this? Can you just focus? It's too bright. Can't see it. It's too bright. Anyway, it's gonna go crazy. Can I adjust? It can't, anyway. But you saw all this. And I can go down and scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll to here. And these are all separate shots that I wanna do for demo reel. So I should probably put these on my blog as well. But it's basically, the blog one is just separate ideas and very wishy-washy mixed and stuff. And then I have this that are very specific. Oh, that's a shot I wanna do for demo reel specifically. Which is outside of a shot that I just recently did that was kinda redoing a meme, the oh no, I broke my table, which is doing fairly well. This is, that's a series that I had in mind and it tells me that I should probably continue. 411,000 views and you can see the graph. I'm gonna hold my camera down. How about this? You can see this here. That graph is going up and up and up and just had a spike again. I don't know why. But it's just something that is an idea that I had for just for myself. Such a ramble answer to your question. Now it's basically, I wanna do the ambitious plan was to do a shot a month, which is probably a shot every two months. I wanted to do it in January, but I got COVID over and over New Year's Eve. So I did 28th or 9th or so, I got sick, really sick for a day. And then two days later I was fine, but then just had a cough and that kind of, but it still threw me off and throughout the schedule I had to stay isolated. They just, it changed everything. That's why when you look at my channel during that time there wasn't much posted because I was isolated in my room. But anyway, I thought it would be kind of cool to do a shot a month, two months, that are really short. Like the, oh no, I broke my table is really short. But there's not much to do in terms of animation but I had a bunch of props and stuff. I don't wanna do a shot. That is every month something new, maybe a different render, a different idea or something as a constant practice thing. I don't even know why I mentioned this. Oh, this goes back into the acting analysis if there's a constant on my mind where I wanna use those ideas and apply that stuff to my own shots instead of just talking about them. Anyway, such a long answer. But I'm gonna see you about Howard. I don't know. I feel like I'm beneath him and why would he collaborate with me? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not against collaboration would be awesome. Anybody watching, let's collaborate. Let's do something fun. It's always fun to do something with people. And I think that's it, yes. Thanks in advance, JD. Hope you and everyone else, students, clients, animators have a great 2022 year, I agree. Tony Cashman, The Insightful. That was the longest answer I think I've ever given, maybe. Then we have H3RCM. I don't know what that means. What do you do when your student is struggling to learn even if you are giving your best to teach him? Yes, that was my last semester at the Academy. I'm gonna out them, sorry. Because the Academy is different than Animation Mentor. Animation Mentor has very focused students. They know what they wanna do and that's they just wanna do animation. It's, and I usually have class six, which is the demo reel class, where we do some acting stuff and kinda re-jiggle some shots in there, on the reel. So more advanced students. The Academy is like all over the place, where it can be, they just got there, they're about to graduate, they're changing majors, and this goes from people who are struggling with bouncing balls to people who are great at acting clips. Really, this is also why I like it, because it has that range. It's interesting to work with that. And then sometimes you have students who are just really, really struggling. To a point where sometimes you just there's nothing you can do anymore. It's basically, when I see a shot, there's specific class, and the shot is really not working. What I do then is I go backwards in terms of the complexity level. So if there's like, last semester, there were a few people that had really, they were struggling with acting shots. To a point where it wasn't even acting, it was just the mechanics were really, really lacking. So then I scale back. So then I tell them, listen, let's just not focus on lip-sync and all that stuff. Let's just do just a mechanics pantomime shot. And it's really caught it to just a couple seconds. I plead with them. Again, they're paying for the class, ultimately it's up to them. I can just only guide them. But I really emphasize that they should keep the shot short. And then if it still doesn't work, it's like, all right, let's go back to a sit-down. That's usually my default mechanic shot. Sit-down, really exaggerated. You're sitting down, the impact on the body, overlap with the head. To show weight, impact and drag overlap in the spine and the head. It's not realistic whatsoever. But it's a more mechanics thing. And if that doesn't work, which I had two or three, which still didn't work, I literally went back to a bouncing ball. And then two out of three, the bouncing balls were okay. I mean, not the best thing ever, but okay, the weight is there and the timing is there. And then I went back to just like, arm movements, head moves, sit-down again. It's kind of really building, or small building blocks. And then one person is still struggling with the bouncing ball. And then it was clear that that person maybe shouldn't have passed the previous classes or that is really struggling with the basics of timing and spacing. So when my long answer, I would go backwards and reduce the complexity of a shot until you can figure out what the problem is. And in that person's case, it was basic timing. It was the timing of the bounce wasn't there. The arcs were messy. There was not enough weight on the roll and stop. There's just the basics weren't there. And that's not, it's not wrong. Like, if someone rushes through assignments or if a teacher gives them good grades and just passes them, they will never know. And if you are a student watching this and you're struggling with this and you were told by someone, hey, let's scale back and do something. That's not like, don't take this personally or as they hit on your ego or something. It's just you have to start with the basics and then they have to be really, really good. And then you move on. And that has to be really, really good. And then you move on. Because once you're in performance, you can't worry about the mechanics and weight and all that stuff because you have to focus on performance, which is so difficult already. So if you're struggling with mechanics while you're doing performance, just that's a recipe to just many, many headaches. So if you're struggling, just know when teachers ask you to scale down or do something simpler, it's really so that also they can see where you're at. And maybe you feel like, I can do bouncing ball. Maybe you can. But if you can, then what, it took you about 10 minutes. It's not gonna take you long through the bouncing ball if you can do it. So just, you know, don't think of it in terms of an ego head. Just like, all right, let me just do a 10 minute bouncing ball here. It's awesome. And then the teacher knows, okay, well that works. How about the next complex assignment to see where your problems are? That makes sense. I hope that answers it. As always, that's my hope. Trog Joe. I don't know, I know the pronounces, but it's written Trog Joe. Was listening to a podcast with Disney feature animators. They were casually dropping that six months of OT, six days a week work is the norm. Is that industry standard at, or is that industry standard all feature animation shops? I'm adding the ads. Cause screw that, I'll stay in indie games where I've been 16 years and rarely crunch more than two weeks. Well, it would be quite the change to do 16 years of indie games and then to Disney feature. But why not? Sounds kind of cool. So I see here three replies. I replied to that before because the podcast was the animation happy hour, which I did the recommendation for. I highly recommend it. It's a great podcast. From what I hear, I don't work at Disney. I mean, I used to work at ILM, which was owned by Disney. So I worked at Disney feature. But from what I hear is that there is a long process of getting the story right. And then at the end is a big chunk of animation that has to be done, which from what I hear like DreamWorks has the crunch as well, but they have a more relaxed schedule where it's not all compressed. It's a bit more stretched out. So there's less OT. This is really all hearsay. So basically my answer is, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. Like, you know, it's so much work that they do. There might be something where a story gets completely reworked towards the end and then they're late with animation. It can happen. I don't know if it's really six days a week for six months for every movie. I highly doubt that. I highly doubt that. That would be tough though. So if you're curious about that, I would find people who actually work there and ask them, generally ask people at companies if you can or maybe Google around, maybe someone in interviews said something like who knows. Maybe some people don't want to admit how long things take. I remember working on Force Awakens. Force Awakens had 11 months of Saturdays. 11 months? I think so. But also there it's like we get so taken care of or I'm not at ILM anymore but you know, you have your lunches, your breakfast, your dinners. And it was never, for that movie was never brutal because it was mandatory. You just come in if you can. So, and I loved it and it was okay. I talked to my wife. In fact, the whole schedule worked out and I ended up doing a bunch of Saturdays. And I don't remember that it was, I just thought the production coordinator came and said, hey, did you know that we're doing this for 11 months now? That's probably a massive exaggeration but I remember it being a long time with us not even realizing it because we had so much fun. Working on Force Awakens was so much fun. So it really all depends on how do you deal with OT? You know what it is your OT? Is it nine hours? Is it 12 hours? Is it like ILM has every two? If we have OT, or when I used to have OT, if you come in two Saturdays, the third Saturday you have to take off. It's mandatory unless the show is in crazy trouble and you just have to do multiple Saturdays. But usually is you take the third Saturday off at least to get back to work-life balance. Even if you work, you couldn't work longer than 12 hours a day because again, they don't want you to overwork and go home tired. If you're tired, you can order an Uber and they pay for the Uber out of their still doing that but that was something that was for a while. Like they're really, really concerned about OT and they really try not to. And it's, I don't know, like the last couple of years really didn't have that much OT. Dare I say it, for me at least on the shows that I was on, the crunch and the OT was really well managed. And it's, you know, when it happens like, hey, we need help, can you help out? And then sometimes you say, no, I can't. I've got stuff to do, I can't. And then you go, okay. And then they find someone else or they don't. And then they re-jiggle things. And production was always on top of things. I don't know, I have only the highest praise in terms of production in San Francisco. I don't know about, you know, other hubs, but were other, you know, at London or whatever. But for me, it was never, it was one show that was brutal, which shall not be named. It's years and years and years ago. But even then it wasn't mandatory. I remember them asking, can you help out? It's going to be pretty brutal, but we need help. And then again, talk to my wife's schedule, kids and everything. And then it was my choice. And I said, okay, let's do this. And then it was a very specific choice to work really long hours for a really long time, mainly because it was really good money. It was OT's time and a half. And I made a bunch of money that year, thanks to that show. So it was really, it was really a personal choice. I don't know, but if you're at a company where they force you and it's mandatory and they give you crap for it, then yes, screw that. And that's not how you want to go through your day job all the time. I say this, maybe you don't have the choice or the possibility to change right now, but just know that that's not normal. If you're constantly in OT and forced to do that, and maybe it's even like where they don't pay you, stuff like that, just not right. Anyway, but that's me again, like from Ivory Tower talking, you know, without problems, whatever. Anyway, I'll leave it at that. And if you have fun doing indie games for 16 years, I don't know, that sounds great to me. Don't, don't change that. Mido Adele is asking, I can listen to JD, JD old, I can't even pronounce my own name, JD. I was almost French here. I can listen to JD all day. He's just a likable, great content too. It's not even a question. Well, thank you, Mido. Mido, Mido, I don't know. But thank you, that's a very nice comment there. Thank you so much. Dragon Skunk Studio is asking, you have a long list on IMDb and was wondering, what published cinematic work of yours are you particularly proud of the most? Cinematic work, it's a good question. I mean, I really like what I did on Space Jam 2, but those were character tests and no one will ever see those because they are the tests and they're not out there. Yeah, that's my, I really, it was so much fun working on those tests. It was for the character Pete. And I would say that's probably my answer there. I do like the stuff that I did on Force Awakens. I like Star Wars in general. That was a lot of fun. I like doing stuff like that there. Star Wars was great too. Star Trek in general, I love. So I'm always kind of, once I'm happy with my work, but I just like working on that a lot. I don't know. To me, as always, I look back and I just see things that I wanna fix. So I don't know if I'm really proud. Although I like the stuff that I did for the hunts, the hunts, that was the Star Wars cinematic for the game. That was specific for the cinematics for the game. I like, there was some cool facial stuff that I did that I liked a lot, there I say. So probably that. And then I would probably all go all the way back to episode three. There I say, there's a shot of Obi-Wan jumping out of the ship, even though the camera's crazy and the jump at the very beginning is too fast. But I like the tumble and that. I still like that shot. Took one of my first shots 18 years ago and I still like it. And there's another one with Anakin hitting Obi-Wan's ship and all the Buzz droids fall off. I still like those there. I say, I don't know. I saw Superfall memory of my very first show. Anyway, hope that answered the question. What are we at here? 47 minutes. We'll continue for an hour maybe. Smokey the bear. I love those names are great. This is a three part question. Okay, hold on. Here's a read more tab. This is a three part question. Okay. More or less related to the technical side of animation going to try and keep them short. One, I'm still learning about rig controls. I was looking for resources on FK, IK spine, torso controls and their best case use. Like when should you use one control over the other? This can also apply to arms, feet, head and neck controls, but I'm more focused on the spine torso. That's a good question just because I am personally not a fan of spine and torso controls where you have like six controls on them. And this is mainly because I'm used to ILM rigs where we have one control that move this in IK and FK mode. And then we had an inner control that would move it really separate where it would not affect shoulders and arms. And again, you can translate. You can get some nice pose in your spine without being overwhelmed with the amount of controls. Sometimes when I work stuff on my own charts at home and you got like five controls and like I try to reduce controls to maybe two here to get that collapsing of the chest. Because again, the rib cage can only collapse so much. You can go back a bit more, but there's only so much you can do. And then you got the stomach area where it can really collapse, but this is fairly more static than the stomach area. So I try to limit to two controls if they're too many or constrain. I put a locator, then constrain a bunch of controls to one. I just want to keep it a bit more just simpler in terms of the torso control. But I'm also doing everything IK. I can't even imagine. That's something else I want to do which I talked about before about my monthly shots. I want to do a shot all in FK because I've done FK in forever. I can't even imagine doing FK arms. Maybe rigs are better nowadays, but there's so much that happens that screws up your FK arm arcs in terms of, even with space switching, I don't know, I'm not looking forward to it, but I do want to go through that. But anyway, that would be my tip. I would simplify, and this goes like you said for other rigs, this goes for anything. When you start a shot, I would use the least amount of controls. Then you have a much easier time to edit things. Once you're done and you're in polish, then you can start adding all those extra channels and things that will add that extra flourish. So it doesn't get too complicated with your curves and your graph editor and your keys. That would be my tip there. Related to, related to the previous question, but I'm also a bit confused about world, local space. When to use one or the other, for example, having some controls like say the knee or foot have a space switch for the hips, car, root, foot. It's like you have an arm and the space switch is to world, you move your body, your arm's gonna stay put like an IK control. But you can have an IK control where the space is, let's say the cock, the center of gravity, your root. Then you can move, depending on how the rig is set up, but you can move the chest. And then the arm is still stuck in space because it's separate. But when you move the root, your arm goes with you. So it's basically you wanna decide if the head, arms, whatever you have is following a certain thing. And you want it to be everything, everything following like FKY's like this. Do you want the head to be staying put so you don't have to counter animate all the time? That's what the spaces are. And you can keep them on and off. It's, I think it's super helpful. I'm not, I don't do a huge amount of space switching because I didn't have to at work, it was kinda okay. But again, it's something just like animating in steps that I haven't done too much, too much with, but English escapes me. So that's one thing I wanna do for sure. But that with my hands, it really depends on what you wanna do. Like knees, maybe you have something where, not that I wouldn't use a space switch for that, but some rigs have a pin control so that when you have your knee on the table, you would pin that. So when you move around that knee is not sliding around. So it's kinda the same idea with space switching where you wanna decide what your body part is following. That makes sense. Three, are there things or subjects outside animation but in the production pipeline that you would recommend that animators should learn? Such as learning about rigging or scripting. It doesn't have to be in-depth knowledge, but just learning little bits and pieces that could help in your workflow. Good question, depends on your interests and your long-term goals. Meaning, I am interested in character performance and acting in story and directing. Like I would love to direct something in the future. So for me, my outside interests in terms of just animating the performance and physically, the body mechanics basically, would be a lot more about acting performance, hence the acting analysis series, which also goes then into composition, where to place your characters and then cameras. How does the camera feel and change the mood, the way your character is framed and then into editing and sound designers. Anything that goes into more, how could you do like a sequence, a short or pre-vis or post-vis on your own in terms of telling a story? That would be my, that's my focus at least. For you, rigging can be great if you're more technically inclined and you want to be able to animate something and the rig is not doing what you want it to do and you can fix it on your own because you know rigging, that's great too if you're on a team and the rigging department is slammed that can't give you updates fast enough, you could do a proxy rig to help out your team to get stuff moving to do some tests until rigging can catch up. That would be something that would be great. Scripting would be great too, if you can help out the team or yourself with tools, that'd be great. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff like that. Simulations, if you want to break stuff apart and like explosions or debris or something, that could be great for pre-vis if you're doing something actiony and you can help out in that aspect. It really all depends on your field of interest and what you want to do. For me, it's just performance. I love camera stuff, I love composition and for me, I want to go more into that type of thing. Even that color design and stuff like that to get like a finished look and even like renders, that's why I did that. Oh no, the table is broken because I wanted to try renders. That was an Arnold render, I want to try all the other different renders and stuff like that. So hopefully that answers your question. You've got 54 minutes, do some more. I don't think I'm going to do, I have so many questions. This is going to be part one, I'm definitely going to do a part two. And I don't know if I should do it longer than an hour Q&A comment if you can listen to my Swiss, French, English voice for longer than an hour. All right, fires, firestone, Stoam, is that misspelled, should it be firestorm? I don't know. Any advice on someone who's done a more, a more of realistic animations based of reference but wants to get into more cartoony style as animations? I am a beginner animator, but not sure where to start, thank you. Well, what is kind of like where that's always kind of my wheelhouse where I do a realistic animation full-time as a job and then teaching cartoony, even though now my new job is cartoony performance. So it's a good question. I think what I would do is what I would recommend anybody do that either switches or starts off new, you being a beginner and switching, will be look at the style that you're interested in. Because the cartoony stuff, there are different ways where you can do super snappy to more naturalistic, like there are different levels to cartoony. So for me, already be identified for yourself with your level of interest or your focus. I want to be more like this or like that or like that. You can't say all of it, but again, you're gonna be overwhelmed. Pick one and then you can go into other realms later. Then if you have decided something, then I would do a deep dive into reference where look at the things that you really like within that style and create a bit of a demo reel of the best things you like. For instance, I started the series and it's so time consuming, that's why I haven't continued yet, but I have a whole list of things I think Wolf Walker is gonna be next as well as Spider-Verse. It's a series called So Good, where I don't just, and it's not really analyzing, it's just a compilation of shots I really like from a movie or TV show. And that's what I would recommend. It's also why I'm doing it because it gives me a good list of reference clips if I need something to look at to study on my own because I need to get better at those things. So I would look at a movie or TV show, do a best of reels of the best shots, and then study that, study the timing, the composition, the poses, everything. And then you do, again, two to three second short shots. Practice, not 20 second lip sync thing. Go short with mechanics and the style but you gotta practice the spacing and the style of the animation, the cartoon animation you wanna do. So that would be my answer. Hope it helps. On the score, wild on the score. Is asking, the best and the worst shot that you worked on. In terms of fun, what shot did you enjoy the most? Spend your time on? Did you enjoy the most spending your time on this? And the shot that rather rework on you prefer go time, mind, call. I don't know what that means. I hope the question makes sense. P.S. I love your video, especially the trail analysis. Thank you. So I'm gonna extract the questions from what I think they mean. So the best shot that you worked on. Again, I gotta go back to space jam too. And it's kind of like a cheap, it's a way out of, oh, that was the best I've ever done but no one will ever see it. That's such a cheap way. I don't know if it was the best one. I just know I had so much fun doing it. Other than that, it actually goes back to what I said before. It's a couple of shots, like a lot of, I've done so many Star Wars movies and it's probably that is the pool of shots that I look back on fondly. It's not kind of weird. Rango was fun, but didn't work too much on that movie but that was fun too. Harry Potter was fun. I wouldn't say my shots were great but it was fun to work on because it was within that world in franchise. I don't know, like Transformers has a bunch of shots. I always feel like they're not good enough. Tough shows, but you learn so much was always great. I don't know, it's hard to choose. Right now I would say just those P tests. I wish that one day they would be online. And then you'll watch them, you go like, they're not good at all. But for me, the worst shot that I worked on, it says here in terms of fun in this time you spent on the shot, you would rather we work. I think the worst shot, I don't know, there's so many. I don't know, it's easy to go back to episode three because it was my first show. I did a flying creature cycle. It's my first time ever doing a creature, first time ever doing a flying cycle. I don't think it's, because it's so fantasy in Star Wars you might get away with, I guess that's how they move. But in terms of flight dynamics and wing shapes and everything, not a fan looking back. I don't know, there's a bunch of stuff. I remember there's a shop in Transformers where Optimus Prime, I think it's Transformers four where he rolls back, he's on the street, rolls back and it lands in this hero pose, sliding down. And the next shot is the foot slaving into a car. I remember liking that one. And I just recently looked at it and I don't like it anymore. I thought there's something in the timing that's really off. And it's so weird because, I mean obviously in the movie if people thought it was good enough and I thought it was, one day in the future I'm gonna use that shot on my reel because I really like it. And then when I recently looked at, when I was doing my reel as I was leaving ILM, I was looking at that shot and I went, that shot's not good. I don't know, to me that's my main experience of I look back at my shots and go, that's not good. I don't know. I don't know if I would have done it this time. I don't know. I don't know if that makes sense, but I think it's, I'm always very critical and it's, sometimes you also do a shot when you think it's okay and maybe in the back of your head you go, I want it to be okay because I'm tired of the shot. And then it's okay. And then years later you look back and you go, it's not that good. To me that's probably the majority of my shots where I feel like maybe not that good. And the best would be, I still like those two shots, like I said before from episode three, all the way back. And yeah, the Space Jam ones. I don't know, still like those. Anyway, Thomas Animations. Hold on, there's a read more. How long is this? Okay, that's just it. Hello JD, hello. I am 19 year old self-taught animator, lots of 19 year olds here who's been animating for about four years now. That's a long time when you started young. That's awesome. I look at professionals every day and while that gets me excited to improve it, also makes me very insecure when working on my animations. I can get that, but don't feel bad about that. I keep thinking about my future as an animator jobs and I feel overwhelmed by questions that makes me overall insecure. At the moment I just want to study animation at this online school, AnimSchool. That's quotation also between brackets, AnimSchool. And hopefully I'll be able to grow and become more sure of myself. For now, do you have some suggestions for someone young like me who has never had work experiences and feels scared for his future as an animator, but at the same time excited because passionate about his job? My first reply is, it's completely normal to feel that way. And that's not gonna help you. Because I have the same thing. I've done this, like I said, for 18 years now. Since I've been animating at school, 22, since almost from animating the first time, so 20 years that I've been animating. And I see stuff online just a couple of days ago. So I was like, oh my God, this is so good. Can I do this? I don't think I can do this. That's my daily experience going on LinkedIn, seeing people's work, going on Twitter, seeing people's work. I don't know, it's always kind of that mixture of this is awesome, how cool is that? Damn, I have so much to learn. Should I even try? But it's really exciting and motivating. Let's try it. I think that's kind of, that's my up and down path. And I think it feels like you're kind of that same realm. I think it's okay to be overwhelmed just because it's, you are new. Just also be patient with yourself. Just know that you are at that place where you're new, you're doing stuff, you're self-taught, you haven't had experience yet at a company or somewhere, whatever your work experience definition is. So feeling like that is completely normal. And just know that as you're gonna keep on working, you will build on top of your experiences and what's it called confidence. Because you're gonna do something that you've never done before, that's completely normal. Everybody goes through something where I've never done this, let me try it out. And you might do a horrible job at it and that's gonna be a hit in terms of confidence and doing it again. But what I would take from that is just try to find out why it didn't work out and what you can learn from that. Because the best way to learn is to make mistakes. So if something doesn't work out, I don't see it as, oh my God, that's a failure. I should never do this again. I'll go, that was really not good. Why? What did I do wrong? I did this, this and this wrong. Let me take that and now focus on this to make this better so it doesn't happen again. That would be my process. And then you do it again and then it's good. Well, there you go, I can do it. And that goes into your first Lego block of confidence. And then you go through different shots, like I said before, try as many different things as you can so that your experience is vast so that you did humans, but young humans, old, skinny, bigger, kids, creatures, big creatures, small creatures, land creatures, flying creatures, dry everything, small chunks, so you don't get overwhelmed. But the more you do, the more you can take all the separate pieces and combine that into a new shot so that when you get a new shot, you're not overwhelmed because you can go, I will have done this before. The ideas have to be new and creative, but from a technical point of view, I've done this before it's gonna be okay. I hope that helps you, but it's kind of like a rehash of a previous answer, but that's kind of how I approach things and how it has worked for me. Doesn't mean it works for you, but that's how I would try it at least and see how that works for you. So I wouldn't be scared just because you're self-taught, that's already a lot of discipline, that's already better than a lot of other people. You've been doing this for four years so you got the drive to continue and you're asking all the right questions and you are in tune with your feelings and your outlook of things and how your humility and motivation level is. I think you're on the right path and it's gonna be a struggle. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna be a struggle starting out and then it's gonna get better. And maybe that struggle also lasts longer than other people and then it's gonna get better. Who knows, it's also very subjective and personal, but I think it's just gonna be okay. And again, my advice for you would be just, it's okay to feel scared, I still feel scared and the way to overcome that is to try different things so that like for instance, I haven't done cycles in a really, really long time and for the current project I'm on, I wanna do cycles, I need to do cycles. So I'm slightly nervous, I know I can do it, but a cycle doesn't come as easy as like a bottom mechanics, jump, land, action thing or a performance thing, it's just something I haven't done in a long time. So I feel like you're like slightly scared but then deep down I go but I've done it before and I know how to animate, it's gonna be okay. The question is how good is it gonna be? I don't think it's gonna be a failure. But I take that as being, like I try to take something like this where you're quote-quote scared and turn that into excitement. I'm just, I might be nervous but I can go, okay, this is gonna be cool because I have, I saved so many tutorials about mechanics, acting, cycles. Like I have a look at my email that's open here. I have folders with so many different things over the years that I've kept. For my students but also for myself. Now I can dive into all those tutorials and classes and go, this is gonna be really cool because at the end of this whole process I'm gonna come out being a better animator because now I know this better than before. So I try to take those nervous or scared aspects and turn that into this is opportunity to get better. I'm excited, I know it's a bit of an unknown but it's gonna be really cool. I don't know, it works for me, doesn't mean it works for you but that would be my advice. Where are we at? An hour and seven minutes. I'm gonna do one more only because it says, hey JD, first of all, happy new year to you and your fam. Is there a question? Oh, it's a long one. Okay, I'm gonna stop there. And that's Thai young man. That's the user I know. So Thomas Animations, that's the last one. Thai young man, you're gonna be the next one. And if I scroll up, there are a bunch of questions. All of you guys are awesome because you ask a bunch of questions and they're great questions too. I see three parts, they're all the same. And I've, what I'm probably gonna do, I put this on a Friday for like an F&A Friday type of thing. What is it? It's late. So I said to check the time. I can hear anything. It's Sunday, by the way, I didn't check. I don't wanna abandon my family for too long here. I'm gonna stop here, like I said. This is probably gonna be three parts. And I'm assuming I can't see into the future, but I wanna post this on a Friday, as kind of like an F&A replacement. But with three parts, I don't wanna do, I don't wanna skip F&As for three or four weeks. So I'm gonna post this on that Friday and I'm probably gonna post them on like a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, part two and three, maybe there's a four, and then get back to F&As on Fridays. Anyway, that's important to know. But I'm gonna leave it at that. Thank you again to all of you who ask questions. They're really cool questions. I can't wait to answer all of them. Hopefully this was informative and helpful, especially to those that I answered the questions to. Comments, maybe you need clarification on something or you have more questions that can always kinda swap into a part three, four, five, depending, usually my Q&A answers go into many, many parts. And I'll leave it at that. Hopefully everything has been recorded. I mean, this is on my mic here, squeaky mic, an hour and 10, I gotta cut some stuff up as a dog. And I think that's it. So part one, Q&A, again, hopefully it was helpful. Questions, clarifications, comments, regrets, concerns, leave them in the comment section. And that is that. Thank you until the next part or if you're watching my channel in general, until the next uploads, feel free to subscribe, click the pitch, like and subscribe and all that good stuff if you like it. Yeah, that's it. So thank you until the next clip.