 All right, welcome back to the Q&A. This is take two since last time I screwed up and everything was just wrong with the mic. I didn't turn it on, here's the mic. And I can see the levels, there's a fan here because it's warm, you can see this going on. It should all be working this time. And if you're wanting to tell us this channel, I'm JD, I have a YouTube channel that talks about animation. I do all kinds of lectures and review reviews and product reviews, all kinds of things. And amongst those are also Q&A's. And so feel free to browse around on my usual pitch, subscribe if you want to or not. Follow the whole thing if you want to or not, totally up to you. The Q&A's are as such where I post on the phone, I'm doing a Q&A, do you have any questions? And then I get all the questions and in free form, this is like a half an hour to an hour where I just answer the questions in a very subjective way, obviously. And this is another part where I continue as there were lots of questions. So as always I'm gonna read out those questions out loud, obviously, so that if you only listen to this clip, you don't have to watch any of this, you can still hear the question and you can hear my answers. So Malu is asking, hello, I'm new to your channel. So sorry if you have already answered these questions. No problem. Did you lose part of your passion once you started working as an animator? Is it easy to find a job in this industry and what is the best way to learn about the industry? All the good questions. And you would think that everything will be faster now that I'm going through this again. I'm also old and I forgot questions and my answers. It's gonna be probably still a longer clip. Anyway, did you lose part of your passion once you started working as an animator? No, I would say the passion wasn't a reignite, it wasn't lost, but it was like another level of passion just because you get to work with other passionate people and you get to see the behind the scenes, you get better tools, better rigs, at least at that time, schools, the school rigs compared to production rigs totally different. And you get to see your shots rendered in a professional way, it's in movies and you watch the movies with friends in theaters, you name it, credits. I mean, there's so much that goes around being a student and then working as a professional where it was just so much better. So no, I didn't lose the passion, it was better. I mean, it was just, it was even better. Let's put it this way. Then is it easy to find a job in this industry? Well, no. And yes, it depends. I mean, it's gonna be hard. And my first round of demo reels, like no one answered, I got nothing. And then the second round it got better. And it's mainly because my reel just wasn't good enough. The work wasn't good enough. So is it easy? It's never easy. And especially when I asked my students, my new semester started and I asked all the students, where do you guys wanna work? Where what's your dream company? And it's usually the top companies that come up in that list. And if that is your goal, then it is going to be hard because only the best of the best, to some degree, work there and the body always, you know, there's so many factors to go out of that. You don't have to be the best of the best. Sometimes you're the best, but maybe you're too good. Maybe your salary's too high and a company can't afford you. And you mean, there are immigration issues, there's timing issue, budget issues, recurring issues. There's so many things that are out of your control. So is it hard? Yes, because those things are out of control or out of your control. It's hard because there are a lot of people that wanna do it. But if you go for maybe a smaller company, you might have better chances. It's also hard if you are from a different country or even city, you might have to relocate. That's the problem. So I think there are many factors that can make it even harder than it already is. And at the same time, maybe you're really good and you live in the right city and everything is just aligned for you when you are in school, you get the internship and it's great, you graduate, you start there, the dream company and then that's it. So many things happen where it's great for some people and really hard for most, for other people, but I'm not gonna say it's easy. Nothing is ever easy like that in this industry. So yeah, that's kind of my answer. And what is the best way to learn about the industry? Well, it's a tricky thing because a lot of people don't talk about it because of fear repercussions or they don't know or they're comfortable, they don't want to rock the boat. I mean, I would check online. Now I say this and like, sick to comments, don't read the comments. It's always kind of like, really, do you really want to read this? But I would look at our artists talking about it, either Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn. Like I know probably not LinkedIn because it's more of a professional network that are gonna vent there. You might want to go on Glassdoor.com to see the reviews, but then you might think these are disgruntled ex-employees that want to vent, no matter if it's as accurate as it could be. And you can go on sites like Cartoon Brew that will post things that maybe other publications don't post. There's a wage collusion scandal happened years ago, something just recently about what I was in the news about the work practices. Peter game companies are oftentimes in use for, it's trash day, by the way. Oh, it's a weirdly, there's trash in this industry and there's trash outside. Yeah, there's just some stuff that happens where you have to kind of look for it, look at certain sites that will post those articles, because again, not everybody does because of multiple reasons, repercussions or they don't want to put too much negative light on things because they want to sell a positive product or view the industry. So what is the best way to learn? Just look at what artists are saying, always go through a filter of, well, how neutral is this point of view? What is their perspective? Do they gain something out of whatever they're saying? So it's a bit tricky. There I say, I'm not super shy about things. I mean, I'm definitely also looking out that I don't get fired. But every now and then, I mean, I'm not gonna not post about the wage collusion thing or just bad practices at work because you have to know. And I think if maybe you follow me on Twitter and I kind of post things here and there or retweet things that are potentially not the nicest outlook or view of something. But again, as I tell my students that all the time, you gotta be aware of the pitfalls in the negative side of this industry. So maybe I can be of help. I don't know, but I would just look out for whoever artist is outspoken. Especially I think freelance people will be a bit more outspoken about the current trends. But again, just me talking out of my BUTT, so I'm not sure. Anyway, I hope that helps. Sleeping Giants, that is the username. Do you find yourself always animating left to right in the viewport, walk cycles, complex moves? I tried animating a drummer. The left hand movement is horrible because I'm right handed. Do you have a weaker direction or favor a dominant side? That is funny. And it was already funny last week when I first read this first, but I do. I do have, I do go left to right. And I was just looking at a walk sack, no walk sack, a bouncing ball assignment that someone did for my workshop which I'm gonna post today actually. And it was bouncing right to left and I flipped it, so it goes left to right. I'm definitely used to left to right. Not that I have control of that at work. Like the shot is the shot, whatever direction it is. But I'm definitely, if I start something at home, I'm definitely, I think inclined to go left to right. But then I'm thinking about some of the shots that I did and there's a lot of right to left. I don't know. I think my initial instinct is left to right. I don't know if it's because I'm reading left to right and the Western culture of things left to right. I don't know if that plays into it. But that's probably, like my immediate answer would be yes. I would go left to right. Legion is the next one here. Gotta expand this. I know you work very quick and efficient. I guess. Do selection sets, nerf handles. Work on newer versions of 2019 or 2020 Maya. The problem is most older versions of Maya do not retain a set because of the namespace changes every time a new version of the file is saved. This issue is killing my time. Did you find this an issue over the years? I did not mainly because I don't use selection sets. This may be weird. And maybe, I don't know. You're watching this going, what? I don't know. I don't use selection sets. We have some really good tools at work and so far I haven't had the necessity of using that to get into a faster workflow. So to be honest, this question I can't answer anything because I'm not using it. Sorry. Augusto Goi Kwechea. I know it's because even though I struggled last week already naming or pronouncing these, it's the struggle is real. Augusto. I'm leaving Augusto. Hi. Hi. From the beginning, I always had the dilemma of how your rig determined your animation. I know the essence of animation is always done by yourself and nothing more but sometimes when you have characters that doesn't are bipeds or they but have wings like birds. I'm just reading what I'm seeing here. I think that if you don't have a rig like the kind of that half in the big studios, your animation won't get with the same quality. What you think about? Thank you very much. Love the movie analysis. Why thank you very much, Augusto. Acty analysis and tips for animation Thursday, highly recommended. Yeah. I mean, yes and no. Same answer as always last week. The thing is, I think a really good animator is gonna be able to take a crappy rig and do something awesome with it. So whenever I encounter a rig or do something where it's not great, my thought is, yeah, but I know someone and a couple of people that work really good, they would take this and it would be awesome and I'll be jealous of the shot and I go, I wish I did this. So I think there is always a way to make it work. Yes, you might have to be a bit more technically inclined to navigate through some rig deficiencies, I guess. And at the same time, yes. At the same time, you might wanna do certain things and the rig is just not set up to do that. So you're gonna have some problems where the facial stuff might not be as pronounced as you want it to be or some elements and the body structure of the rig is gonna prevent you from doing something or just the way it's rigged will at least slow you down workflow-wise. Yes for sure. So to me, it's a yes and no. I think yes, it can limit you in certain ways. And at the same time, other people will probably find a really good way to make it work either way and it's still gonna be awesome. So yes, I would say yes and no. Isaac Ramirez, Ramirez, Highlander, nobody. For VFX animation, should the focus be creature animation and realistic movements? Well, depends. It's one of the most hated answers, depends. You might have some VFX companies that really focus more on, like you say, creature animation, realistic movements where it's a bit more body mechanics and action-y and stuff like that. But then you have other companies, even though within the more realistic nature of where I work as well, you still have performance where you have creatures that have lip-sync and they talk and they perform and they act. So I will probably still go with any type of performance, even though it's more on the realistic side, you know, I think of all the Harry Potter creatures that can talk and stuff like that. I would still have something like that. That then again, I'm not speaking on behalf of recruiters that don't take my word for any type of gospel, but I'm just saying, hypothetically, it's a hypothetical position where I would look at reels maybe and decide or look for something. Yeah, creature animation would be cool, any type of stuff, weights, camera animation and edits and anything that kind of represents or reflects the same type of shot work that the company would do. This is my uneducated, non-HR, non-recruiter point of view. But still, I would still look at anything that's kind of performance-driven if you have a rig that supports that style. Like a realistic rig. Believe it or not. Berserk rage. Berserk rage, all right. Hi, love your videos. Why, thank you. I just wanna ask you why motion blur exists? Why do we need it? What if we don't use it in our 3D animation? What if we use it? Thanks, your videos helps a lot. Well, thank you for watching. I'm glad it's helpful. And why does motion blur exist? Well, because the way we see things through our eyes, I mean, I'm having a shudder here. It doesn't really work, but if I do this, like my hand is blurred, it's just you're gonna have the blurriness of a fast move because your eyes are not, they can't fall. If you do this, I will see less blur. And if I do this, I see more blur. Now you do this in a movie, you can change all the camera settings. So it's more like save and prior, rainy at the beginning, where you have more kind of a non-motion blur. And it's just that kind of effect. I mean, you can use it for different styles. Why does it exist? Because it exists in real life, the way we see things. Why do we need it? Because for certain movies, you wanna replicate real life and that's what you wanna go for. And what if we don't use it? Well, then you don't use it. I don't know. I see lots of shots where there's no blur. It's kind of cool. I like it. I'm definitely used to it. I'm more used to the 24 frames a second staccato thing when you pan and the blur. I don't know. I'm not subjectively, I'm not a fan of the high frame rate look. To me, it's more like it. I don't know. Digital camera soap opera style is not my thing. So, I mean, there are different ways of dialing in blur or not. Dude, what if we use it and what if we don't use it? Just look at what is needed to present your work the way you want it to be. And maybe it's better without blur. And maybe it's okay with a little bit of blur. Maybe you need a lot of blur. I don't know. I think this is very dependent on what you want it to be and what you want it to look like. I don't think there's a rule. It's definitely, if you wanna replicate real life, then it's gonna be in there. And if you're gonna stray into more stylized work, maybe you don't need it. This is such a non-helpful answer. Catherine Castrillo, Castrillo. Catherine Castrillo. Again, I'm guessing here. I assume the answer to my question may vary among countries, okay? But I'd like to know what to expect in a 3D animator employment agreement. Things, oh yeah, remember this one. Things like working overtime and the rates, being able to include your shots in your reel, even if production gets called off, that stuff that as an entry level junior, you may not know, but that is really useful if you don't want to get yourself tricked. Right. Same answers last week, which no one heard, because I didn't record the sound on it. I can't really talk about the employment agreement just because I don't know if I'm allowed to, because all kinds of NDAs, and probably within the employment agreement is to not talk about the employment agreement. I think within, every time I say something about salary stuff, I think someone comments that within the California law, you are allowed to talk about salaries, there's no legal repercussion. But I think in terms of other details, I'm gonna not answer that question. Now that being said, as you interview, I think those are things you should definitely ask, like you say here, working overtime, what the rate is, can you include shots in your reel, even if production gets called off? I've said most of the times you can't. I think it's just the client thing of, if it's not out there and it's vetted by PR and it's a public thing of, this is the movie in theaters and DVD, Blu-ray streaming, anything that's outside of that, that is like a deleted scene that's not included in the special features. I think you can show, but ask, I don't know, maybe the company, whatever client, whatever is around that project, maybe they have special permissions. I don't know, it's tough to say. But yes, I would just make sure of all the questions that you have, you ask when you are in a situation where you can ask like an interview process, so HR and anything, ask those questions. Do you pay overtime, what's the rates or quota? Do you pay movies, is there moving incentives? Do you pay if they're helping you with the move? Is there like a signing bonus, blah, blah, all those things you can ask there. But again, I'm not sure if I can talk about my employment agreements and I don't wanna get in trouble, so I'm not gonna answer that. Swaye nagizade, I think so, sorry. Could you please help us how to plan properly and precisely, I can't even pronounce the precisely, precisely, how to use video reference exactly, how we can add things to it or remove parts of it. I mean, should the video reference be the exact reference we want or is it, or it's not necessary and we can change it. I use the combination of video reference and thumbnails. Thumbnail and key poses are easy, but extreme poses like contacts, direction changes are hard to draw, cause you need to be precise to show the extremes. You know what I mean, it's hard to explain. In summary, it's hard for me to change video reference and don't know how to do it exactly. Any help would be appreciated, thank you very much. Good questions. Now, I did some clips on my channel, I'm pointing here, no, that's my channel. About reference, but I do want to do another one where it's more demo-ish in terms of, this is what I shot, this is what I filmed, this is what I'm getting out of it, this is what I'm keeping, this is what I'm deleting, this is how I put that into my scene and then as I move forward, you know, the end result versus what was the original reference. Now, I want to do this and I want to do many things in terms of demoing and things, but those hands-on things are always very time-consuming, this is why it hasn't been super prominent if at all on my channel, also because this semester I have five classes, I'm so busy and then there's daytime work, right, my main job and family, it's just, it's very time-consuming, so they're always kind of picturing things on my channel that are technically less time-consuming, hence the delay of my facial animation series and camera lectures, just because I want to go in there with demos and examples, it's just more time-consuming. So could you please help us? Yes, I do want to do this and it's coming. No promises as to when, tricky, especially right now because I'm super busy. That being said, how do you use video reference exactly? How can we add things or remove parts of it? I think there are many aspects to that. You should look at, are you going to act things out that really replicate the shot that you need? Meaning, are you acting things out with silhouette in mind and in a broad way, like where you're really taking what you acted out, you're acting in a very cartoony way, thinking about silhouette and the cartoonism and the stylization of it? Or are you just acting things out to kind of get the feel for it and kind of get some ideas and brainstorming some things and you might take some elements but not exact poses, because then you're going to stylize the pose as you animate. So that's already something. How is your reference being shot? Is it really replicating the shot in terms of the right camera angle, the right props? Is your character sitting at a table? Do you have a table there? Is your character talking to someone taller? Do you act it out like this? So that is I think the first step of many. You have to look at how do I shoot reference based on what do I need, right? Does it need to be replication of, or do you want to replicate the reference exactly? Or is it just kind of an inspiration thing? And in terms of adding and removing, also don't forget you don't have to shoot reference once. Obviously shoot a couple of takes, you get different ideas and you find the take. And then as you animate, you can always go back to shooting new reference, better ideas, a close-up of details, or you just have to be a one-time process or one-time elements, right? And you're using the combination of video reference and thumbnails. Like I don't do that because I can't draw, but I know many people who they shoot reference and like, oh, that's a cool frame. Let me thumbnail this moment, this pose, but then push the pose in the thumbnail because they're good at drawing, they can stylize things. And then they take that and put that into their animation. That's one way. You can also shoot reference, take the footage into Maya, rotoscope it so it's fast when it's all there in the scene. And then depending on your style, you will keep more or less of your rotoscoped or motion-matched reference. I think there are many ways to go about this. I hope this helps, I hope this makes sense. So Maya, if not email me, leave a comment just in case if you need any clarification on that. All right, next up we have Diron FX, Diron FX, Diron FX. How long is the deadline for a big studio like Pixar or whatever? Maybe last time too. Or whatever, whatever. Well, I do answer the immediate thing here, Pixar, I don't know, I don't work at Pixar, I don't know. Or whatever, I'm gonna put myself into that whatever camp. And the answer is depends, the most handed answer. It depends because you have one character, you have two characters, that changes it, right? You got a certain length of a shot that will change. I think how long is the deadline? The deadline is always gonna be aggressive. How about that? It's always gonna be shorter than you would like it to be. That would be my general answer. It's always like to have more time to work on things and to finesse things. But you can't spend all the time, it gets expensive to keep working on things and blah, blah, blah. And also, you know, one point in animation has to be done so you can render it and you can do the compositing and all that stuff. So I think generally, it's probably gonna be more on the shorter side than you would like it to be. Aggressive in terms of getting it done and making it cost effective. And I'm leaving it at that. I mean, some shots are a day or two if it's something really short, it can happen. And sometimes shots are weeks and sometimes it ends up being months. So it's a very wide spectrum and I'll leave it at that. Malirizum, Malirizum, I think so. Hold on, it's the bigger one here. One, I see people on YouTube posing their character in a matter of seconds and they have no issues with gimbal lock. But for me, even though I take my time, hour spent on one pose, trying to animate one axis at a time, it still hits some gimbal lock. Gula filter or Euler filter doesn't seem to help much. The only thing I could do was manually reposing every frame. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it matters also on how the rigs are built. I don't really run into gimbal issues that much at work, there I say. I do use the Euler filter and that helps, very crazy spikes. So yeah, I'm not really running into those kind of problems but sometimes you do have to go in there frame by frame either way just because of the danger of the shot. So I'm not trying massive help here. Two, you got a second question here. How you should know that you're not cut for animation and you should just give up right? I remember this one, it's a totally different question. So how is it from a technical point of view and do you fail? How should you know that you're not cut for animation? You know, that's a, it's a tough one. And the way I think I remember answering the question last time was it really depends how long you can stick with it and try to persevere and keep going because you might have the financial needs or the elements in place to pay all your bills and you might have another job where you can pay your bills and go through life and it's fine. While on the side, you keep working your real to get into the industry. Make that could be one way, right? I know someone who is now working at Disney and he took a ton of my workshops, a ton of other classes and I think it took him five or six years. If you're watching this I might be completely misremembering all kinds of the length of it but I remember him trying hard and at the beginning the work wasn't that great, it got better and then suddenly it clicked and it was so good where that was the last workshop that he took and my answer was like, this is just gonna be a matter of time. This looks great. I don't know what happened but this looks so much better. So I think for a lot of people it just clicks but I don't know when, I don't know how to make it click and I see this in my classes where I see work, maybe there should be a demo at the beginning of the semester and it needs a lot of work and then half the semester and it needs a lot of work and then suddenly the next submission, what happened? This is so good. And then I ask and usually the answer is, I don't know, it just kind of clicked and then we try to get to the bottom of this and we usually kind of figure it out. It just something clicks and then the work suddenly gets better. So the long answer here is that how should you know? I don't know, I can't tell you that. Like I don't know your situation. You might be in a different country and it's hard to immigrate into another country to work for that company. So the whole visa issues, work visa, that's a thing. I mean, how long can you sustain that? Maybe you're also mean, you are in the industry, you got a job and you realize the stress of the deadlines, client feedback, work, environment, the culture, whatever you're exposed to depending on what side of gaming, be it fixed or feature, TV or VR, whatever. Maybe you realize after a while that it doesn't work for you. Again, I can't really answer this because it's my patience with this industry or a shot or work is gonna be totally different. And the way I work through it and what is okay for me and what needs to happen until it's not okay for me. Like our threshold is totally different. So I have, let's like last time, I don't really have an answer for this. How should you know? I think just listen to your gut, listen to your hearts and corny, but just listen to how you feel and talk to people. Like is this normal? And someone gonna know, this shouldn't be like this. Examine your workplace, examine your situation. And again, you can only make that decision for yourself in terms of how long am I going to try to make this work either to get into an industry or stay in the industry. And that's something I think I'm just not able to answer. I think both of you questions I can't answer. This is a horrible Q&A. Daira, VJ, Yai, sorry. Read the question, sorry about those names. How to animate realistic and cartoony body mechanics, question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark. Well, I mean, they told totally different things. Broadly speaking, I would say, I mean, realistic stuff. Look at reference, I mean, you wanna replicate, act it out for yourself, film yourself. And you have the luxury of sticking to your reference more. I like to help, reference gonna help you more. At the same time, you have less leeway in terms of doing something wrong in terms of timing and weight. Because if it's render realistically and the timing is just ever so slightly off, it's gonna look bad, because it looks real, but it doesn't move real. So there's a bit of a pro and con where you have, like I said, the freedom of replicating the reference and copying it. Maybe it's quote unquote, less work, it's not. But then the tricky thing is when you see the render, just you have less freedom. Like this has to really work. Versus cartoon, I mean, your future work and you have a bit more leeway than your arcs and stylization and it's less, you have to have less dirt in your animation to make it photo real. Like usually stylized, less is more, it's better. So I wouldn't say it's easier. It's potentially easier from a technical point of view. Some people are gonna rule their eyes. No, it's not. Just hear me out. I feel like animation for realistic stuff is harder just because again, you have less freedom in terms of making it work. Because you know how things are in real life and especially with face stuff, it's just ever so slightly off down County Valley. The animation dies. Like it's so hard to make that work. But at the same time, in realistic animation, it's not really that performance driven. Just talked about that in previous question. There are some movies that have performance in it. A lot of times it's just bra-ra-ra-fighting and roar, right? How many times have you seen this? It's not super, super challenging, there's a performance. It's just me saying this. You might totally disagree. It's my subjective view where I feel like in photo real animation, it's not as demanding in terms of the performance. Then going back to the cartoony side, I feel like you have a, again, it's not easy to animate cartoony work. Not saying that. Just saying to me, compared to realistic animation, it's easier because of the more fluid, but the arcs and just the stylization and working it away with in terms of minimal animation where you have to hold some blah, blah, blah, blah. Where it is massively more challenging is the performance and the acting. Because every time you do something in an animated movie, it's a character acting. And it has to be believable. It has to be the truth in terms of the moment. And it has to be an acting choice that has never been seen before. And that to me is massively more difficult than realistic animation. So to me, each of them have their easier and harder quote-unquote elements. So if, and then to answer the long answer, to answer your question, this style is going to dictate your body mechanics and how you go about that is you probably will need some reference or at least act it out so you know how it feels. So how to animate it is that is you have to look at or what if for realistic animation, these are your parameters. It has to look that way. So your process is going to be a certain way. And for cartoony animation, there's going to be a certain process to make that work in terms of stylizing and pushing the line of action and just the pose and making it clear. Because in live action, we can get away with a bit more muddled silhouette because it's more real, right? That's the easy way. Whereas in future animation, it's less easy to have to make it clear while not being too simple. Anyway, it's a longer Q&A about stuff like that, about the pros and cons and stuff. But how would that make sense? Probably not. This is a stupid Q&A. All right, Abdul Fahim, which I feel like you've commented a couple of times on my channel. I don't know, it seems to be a regular. If you are, thank you. Hi JD, hope you're doing well. I'm doing very well. I've been researching on creatures lately, why creature animations are animated in perspective for camera rather than animating in the camera. Even in VFX, you have fixed plate, which works like camera, right? This one, I need the clarification. And he said in TV production, people mostly use camera view for posing, they avoid perspective as much as possible to save time. Looks like you generally use perspective to pose. Yeah, it's an interesting question. And I think this comes down to, I guess, to workflow. Like, I wouldn't be able to animate just the camera. I wanna go around and tumble around to see is my character cheated, is the weight off, is the balance right? Also because of, during the daytime job, things have to be real because, you know, they're gonna add muscle sim and cloth sim and all kinds of simulations and posing, all that stuff. If I cheated and break the model, there's gonna be always problems somewhere downstream. So in my workflow, I definitely pose to camera because I want it to work well towards what we're looking at, but I always kinda look around a perspective mode to make sure it's working okay. So I don't have to freedom to cheat too much. But I mean, if you're faster not going into the perspective camera at all and checking things, good for you. And if it doesn't cause any problems, the pipeline where people after you, in terms of, you know, people get to render and add things and stuff, then why not, you know? I mean, if you cheat something and there's a shadow that reveals the cheat, it's a problem. But if none of that happens and you're okay with that, I would say it's just then a matter of workflow and as long as you don't complicate things for other people, then go ahead. I mean, I use the perspective camera to check on things, I don't know, it's just me. Aaron Miraz, Aaron Miraz, I think so, maybe, names. First, thanks for the Q&A, you're very welcome. Do you think the soundtrack is key to elevate the animation? I have seen people that doesn't value the music and I have others that aren't related to animation in specific, okay? What is your favorite Star Wars movie and in which of them you had the most fun working on it and last, which is your all-time favorite film? Questions go all over the place, I love it. Let's start with, do you think the soundtrack is key to elevate the animation? Yes. Yes, I mean, I like sound design, I like music. Like, I like that stuff and I don't watch a movie silently. So I want it to be on, it's like games, like even mobile games, I have the music on the sound, it's part of the game. I'm not gonna play games, the music and their sound. I don't know, it's not my thing. And in terms of music to elevate, like as you work, I also listen to things a ton when I either music or movie, when I'm on an anime, just because it puts me certain mood for action things or something a bit more dramatic or whatever it is. And actually, right now, you can see it's blurry but where's my finger, right here? Oh, this is Dune, the old one, the Lynch. I mean, the new one is not out yet, I can't watch it, but I always have something playing, usually something I'm familiar with. I don't wanna play something I haven't watched yet because then I'm distracted, I'll watch that. So it's something that's familiar. But there's always something there. So does it elevate? Yeah, I mean, I think so, yes, subjectively. I love music and sometimes music is so cool that it's like its own character in the movie and if you've seen or anybody's seen the Midnight Run, it's an older movie with Charles Groen as a Charles Groen and Robert De Niro's in it. Many other awesome people and it's just, it's such a great movie and the music's by Danny Elfman. It's such a specific score that just its own character, it's so good. So yeah, I definitely value music a lot. And I have another that aren't related to animation specific, hold on, and people don't value, yeah, some people don't care, some people play games without the sound on and you know, it's whatever floats your boat, why not? What is your favorite Star Wars movie? And I said, I answered the same thing last week and I landed on Empire Strikes Back. I still really like that movie. That being said, I think you will disagree with each movie obviously, each fan has a quote unquote fan. Sometimes you go too aggressive for things. They will have certain views on things, right? Like actually just the Twitter thing that I replied to that I probably shouldn't have. I just got a notification about that where someone was complaining about the Naboo Star Fighters in the last movie and there should have been more prominent, blah, blah, and it was late, it was the last thing I looked up for going to bed and said yeah, I agree and sadly people, a lot of likes on that tweet. I don't wanna come across as negative. The thing is, like each movie has something that I like a lot, like even though I have favorites where I prefer the classic trilogy over the prequels and even over the newer ones to some degree. The classic trilogy is what I grew up with and I prefer them versus the special edition of the classic versions. But again, it's because of nostalgia and I grew up with and that's just, I have so many memories of watching those movies. So that's why I still end up empire even though a new hope is really good and the space battle in Return of the Jedi is still unbeatable. It's still to me my favorite space battle in all movie history, it's so great. But as a whole, I think empire is just really, really cool. That being said, I more or less liked the prequels. I mean, I worked on the third one. There's a certain memory of that but over time they have grown. Some things have gotten worse, some things have gotten better. I feel like Phantom Menace is the most star worthy of the prequels and there's some really cool elements. I mean, I was like Darth Maul in the potraceous sequence. It's just, but some stuff has just gotten better and it's just also more daring in terms of new locations and things that, there's some things you can't, you know, completely disregard in the prequels. There's some really good stuff in it. And of the new ones, like I'm really big fan of Kylo Ren and Rey, that storyline and the whole beginning on Force Awakens until they leave Jakku. Like that is just, that whole beginning is really cool, that whole fly. There's some really cool stuff in the new ones as well. So, I don't know, my favorite is still Empire. Even though there's some really good elements in the new ones and even though I would have preferred some more prequel elements shown in the newer movies to kind of tie the whole thing together, it still works. But I always have to say, I really, really like Rogue One. I'm just a massive, it's really high up there. I'm just over time, it gets better and better. It's just, I love the characters, the story's cool. The renders and bias, it's, I work at the company but I think Island did a really great job in terms of the look in the renders, it just looks so good. Also Solo, same thing, I think it looks really good. Also the cinematography on Rogue One and Solo, I think great, I love the actors. I think Solo is really good and then Bum, there's not a sequel but I really like that movie. So, I don't know, it's all very subjective in terms of Empire and most fun working on them. It's a tough one, it's because I'm still kind of gravitating towards episode three because it was my first movie. There's so much, from Switzerland moving to America, graduating, go through rejected reels but then you have your job and it works out and I'm still a fan of Star Wars and to have your first movie be Star Wars, that is just a massive memory, it's just so cool and even though I prefer other Star Wars movies, I think there's so much that comes with working on that project in terms of being at ILM the old ILM, the San Rafael version and the people there meeting, seeing people that you only know from making it off, like Dennis Muir and Ben Burr, George Lucas, they're suddenly there, there's so much that went into working on that movie that is hard to beat. That being said, massive fond memories of Force Awakens just because there was a big gap and then there's a new one, new director, new designs. It was definitely, it was so cool to work on it. At the same time, you may or may not agree with this agree with the end product but I always have a really good time working on Star Wars movies. I have to say, I just finished recently, worked on Star Wars Squadrons, just briefly, I just got on the show for a couple of weeks and went off, but even that, I just like animating Star Wars vehicles and camera work and stuff like that, I'm just a big fan of it, bumping around things and moving my legs. But yeah, so yeah, I think Episode 3 is still there, even though Force Awakens is really high up. Also, you're saying movies here but we gotta mention The Mandalorian. I mean, holy moly, I'm such a fan of The Mandalorian. I think it's so good, so good. I mean, it's, it eclipses many movies. It's still not better than Empire. Mainly because Empire is awesome and also nostalgia but man, I'm such a fan of The Mandalorian and also can't really talk about it but what I've seen from Season 2, it's so good. See, even my dog barks, he's totally agreeing. Mandalorian, so good. Also, which is your all-time favorite film? Can't really answer that, depends on the mood. And I ask my students that, like, what's your favorite movie? And it's such a stupid question, not that you're stupid, saying it's just a hard question to answer because there's so many different, you know, like Shawshank Redemption, I'm a massive fan of that movie. He agrees. But it's not like a movie that I would watch every day. Like there's some movies like Minnet Express, it's a tough movie to watch, it's really good though but it's not gonna watch, I'm not gonna watch a movie every day. I really like Demolition Man. I listen to that movie a ton. When I work out, it plays in the background. But favorite movie, if I really pick one, it's Strano, there's Deserted Islands, Empire is really high up there. I think Raiders of the Lost Ark is really good. I have to say, this probably, but then Back to the Future is also really good. And then, you know, then it's like, okay, Ghostbusters is also really good. But then you look at newer ones, like the Incredibles, really good. The first Incredibles, so good. Toy Story 2, Monster Sync, I love Monster Sync. And then the recent one, Spider-Verse, so good. Again, it's just, I have a tough time picking an all-time favorite movie, I don't know. I don't know, Raiders? Diana Jones' one is still really good, though. Anyway, this is a long answer. No one cares why I knew this. Andrion Becker, Andrion, Andrion Becker. Have you ever received feedback on your work that made you feel like a horrible animator? Do you remember that one? What was the feedback? I can't tell you the feedback, because this is gonna be more work-related and I'm not gonna talk about work and client stuff. And I can't, I'm gonna get fired for this. But to answer your question in a roundabout way, no. I haven't received feedback that made me feel like a horrible animator. Mainly because, you have to look at it this way. I got hired at ILM. So clearly someone at ILM thinks I'm okay. So maybe over time, I'm a worse animator. I get lazy and things are not as good. But the thing is, again, I go through the initial thing of I got hired there. So my animation must be at a certain level for them to be okay with me working there. I mean, I can't be a horrible animator and work there. I'm not saying I'm a great animator. I'm just saying I'm good enough to work there. Let's put it this way. People close their eyes like, yeah, let's hire this JD guy. So that's a distinction there. You're also saying receive feedback that made you feel like a horrible animator. There's a distinction there. You definitely, sometimes you get comments that potentially question your skills. But to me, it's not, this is super subjective. I don't get that from people who give me comments, mainly because sometimes you might get comments that might sound harsh, but you don't know the place that that person is in. Be it a client, again, I can't talk about work, but you know, client or a lead or a suit, whatever. They might have had some terrible news that morning and then everything that they're saying that that day is just through that lens. And you just don't know where, you don't know people's struggles, right? You just don't know where people are in in their life. So whenever I get comments, I look, okay, let me just filter this whole thing. What do they really mean? And what do I need to take out of this to make the shot better? I think where feeling like a horrible animator comes in is more self-imposed, where I feel like this is taking me way too long or I show something and the reaction, not the feedback, but the initial reaction is not a, wow, this is awesome. We're like, okay, well, how about you work this, this and this? It's more like, I failed to make it a wow moment or something that blows them away or I'm taking way too long to get there. So to me, it's more like imposter syndrome, self-imposed doubts and things that question my skills as an animator. I don't think, I don't take it from other people. But again, you never know, especially, again, can't talk about clients, but you have to understand when you work for someone and someone is a director, whoever is in charge giving you notes, I'm not, I don't know what that it's like. Like you have, speaking of Star Wars, like you might not like a movie, but it's a massive responsibility to make that movie work and the pressure of the fans, the pressure of the studio, the pressure of the history of those movies, what came before. There are so many elements that add to the pressure and the responsibility of making a movie work. And then if it's, you know, the production, the post-production, maybe a merchandise, actors' wishes, the editing process, like all those things I have, I've never directed a movie. I don't know how this feels and how taxing this is in making this work. So whatever feedback I'm getting from a person that has all of that in their world at that point, I'm not gonna fault them for being super excited, not excited, angry, whatever the ways they present the feedback, you know what I mean? Obviously you would like the feedback to be nice and cushy and like, ooh, thank you, you're great, but that's just not the real world. So if any of you are watching this and you're getting your, you just start at the company and you're dealing with directors or whoever, like whoever's in charge, could be a marketing director, it could be a client editor, whoever gives you notes, just remember that you don't know that person, you don't know what state they're in, what's going on in their life and just take that feedback and filter what you need to get out of that feedback to make the shot better. I think you also save yourself a lot of headaches and frustrations and emotional, whatever reactions to whatever you're hearing. So to me, my Swiss nature goes into play where I'm very neutral about the feedback that I get. If a person doesn't like my work, it's not a critique of me as a human, it's like they don't like the work, it's just not working for them at that moment. Maybe someone else likes what I just did, but it just doesn't work for the person who needs it. So then you just adjust to make it work. I'm not that super precious about the feedback that I'm getting, I don't know. I don't know, hope that helps. Again, I don't know if this helps. Saviour, Saviour H. It's a long question you're expanding. How do you get the time for personal projects or personal small animations? Is that even possible or one you're hired in a studio? You don't have the time for that. It's okay to feel sad because you can't do this. Question, is it okay to feel sad because you can't do your own projects because there's no time or energy? Oh yes, remember this one, it's a great question. And I believe that was the last question that I answered last time, so I'm gonna end it there as well. Yes, that was the last one. There are a couple things I wanna talk about this here. So how do you get the time for personal projects or personal small animations? I don't, if you look at my website, and the last one was the, I'm walking here, the pigeon test, this was a test. And I only animated this because it was for school because I was teaching a class to help a friend of mine for a short project. And that class was a rigging, another rigging, was a testing a rig class in a way where the rigs are ready, the two test animations to kind of stress test the rigs. And I remember the direction for the students was, hey, can you just do a flight takeoff and landing so we can kind of test the wings and stuff like that? And I remember the students not being super enthusiastic about this because they didn't think it was something interesting to do. And funny enough, I'm usually trying to be supportive with the students and what they do. And I remember this one, a few classes, if not the only one where I was a bit harsher in a feedback where, and I still regret this. And anyway, anybody who was in that class watches this, I apologize, because it was a thing of basically the gist of it, I'm generalizing, but it was kind of the feeling that I think gave off was, well, you sign up for this class if you don't like it leave type of thing, where like this is, you know, this is testing the rigs, this is what you got to do. And their argument was like, well, I'm paying for this class, I want to get something out of this that will help me get a job from a real blah, blah, blah. So I understand their point of view absolutely. And I feel like I didn't respond in a good way in that class. And I tried to be more empathetic about what they need. And to go back to your question, the reason why did the pigeon clip is to show them, well, it may sound boring, takeoff landing, very bottom mechanics driven or just testing a rig, but you can do something fun with it, quote unquote. I mean, it's very subjective. I had fun animating it. And then I hope people watch that clip like it, but that is the last time I did things. And I believe that's like five years ago, four, five, six years ago. And since then I haven't really sat down at home to do my own clip, mainly because I have, I had to teach, I think I'm teaching more right now, I've been teaching more than before, but I just have more stuff going, more and more things around me in terms of teaching. The channel takes up definitely more time. I have a side project I can't talk about just yet that also takes time. And also I just want to take time with my family. This is, if I animate at home, it's going to be at the expense of something else. Because the thing right now is that, like the reason why I'm teaching, the reason why I'm doing all that stuff too is that when I was just students, I did that cold call email thing of, I Googled emails like at ilm.com, at Pixar.com. And I found a couple emails and I emailed all of those people. And the way I remember, it's probably not true, but the way I remember is that everybody responded. And that had a really lasting impression to me because they're busy, they're working at Pixar, they're working at ILM. And they took the time to look at my stupid bad work. And I remember one, and I mentioned it in the Q&A before, I'm not going to retell that story, but I sent multiple clips to someone as a way for that person to choose. Because my thought was, they're probably seeing the same clips. Let me just send them three of them. I don't remember, three or four, three probably, so that they can choose. And I think in my writing it was very clumsy and the animator thought that I want to feedback for all of them. So the reply was a bit frustrated on his end. Like I said one and you give me three like what the hell type of thing. It's not what he wrote, but that was kind of the feeling. And I felt really bad. But the long story is that other, the short end of that long story is that he still critiqued all three shots. And it was, I think a page per shot. And that just blew my mind. It's like, first of all, it wasn't quite respecting what he was saying. I didn't do it on purpose. I wanted to obviously give him only one shot. Anyway, long story. But what lasted, the last impression was that someone took the time to help me and they didn't have to. And it was really good help. And I probably got a job because of that person because of all the people either who separately gave me feedback or that person through the email or the teachers at school. None of these people have to do any of this. But it just, I want to be able to pay forward. And I'm not saying this to be all self-serve, like look at me, I'm Graves. I'm helping people. It's not that. It's just, I know that I am in a position where I am able to hopefully provide something that's helpful for people who might not have access. Not that I need the screen on here, but I have that thing that can do this here. So that the stuff on my channel is free on purpose because you are potentially in a country where you don't have the means to travel to the States or wherever to get to a learning material that is presented there. I mean, like there's some classes where they're only on site. Now with the pandemic, you have more online stuff which is helpful, but some schools obviously are on site. Maybe you can't get there. And it's also, I mean, I'm doing almost everything in English. I'm Swiss, my mom is French. I could do my channel in Swiss, German or German or French, technically. But I'm still doing it all in English because a lot of animation terms, I only know in English, but I'm just used to things in English. I'm saying this because it's also, I could do better in a way of presenting things in multiple languages or adding subtitles. I added subtitles for one shot and it was such a pain, it took so long. But I could technically add subtitles, at least in German and French. The honest answer is I'm not doing this because it takes so much time. But I should technically to make the material more accessible because the thing is everything I'm doing is in English. A lot of material online is in English. Well, many people don't speak English and they don't have the means. They can't go to the school. The school doesn't teach English. The financial means to learn that stuff in the way it's presented or have access to that because it's all in English. So that's already a barrier. My long answer, but my answer to all this is that, is I'm trying to do this. I'm trying to teach as much as I can because of, like my dad paid for school. The academy is super expensive. He paid for everything, right? That's already a step forward, a further step than many other people can't afford that school. So I feel like I have benefited from obviously help financially, from the people who email me their work or their feedback. And I want to pay forward. I want to be able to help as well for people who don't have access to the things that I had access to or the means that I was given. And this is why I'm doing this. And the thing is I could animate, to go back to your question, I could animate at home, but that means I need to take time away from something. So either it's time for my family, which I'm not going to do. Time from work, obviously I can't. I get laid off as I'm not showing up for work or teaching, right? Like I have a ton of video games and I don't really play them. I play them with my little one because it's, you know, I can play with him. And it's funny stuff, like Ring Fit, we play a lot of Mario Kart, Kirby, like a lot of Nintendo stuff that he can play. We play Spider-Man and it's a lot of fun playing with him. But I did buy Last of Us too and I haven't played it yet. I did pre-order the squadrons and I did get it at Hoda's. It's back there. It's like the massive joystick there. And I do want to play this in VR and I'm probably going to take time. I took time to play Half-Life Alyx, which was awesome. I'm like 80% done, 90% done. I haven't finished it yet. But again, I have to take time and stuff will suffer. And I don't want to take time away from teaching because I either I can sit down and play video games that's selfishly for me or I can teach and do things and teach class or do stuff on my channel where I can pay forward and help people. And right now I'm still in the mindset where I want to do this. Maybe at one point I'm going to be tired of all of this and not going to do any of this and stop teaching and then I'll go back and play all my video games, do music and music, watch my movies and stuff and do personal projects. I think that might definitely happen at one point. What I do want to do is I do want to get back into doing personal stuff so that I can record the process of it so that I can put down on the channel. Because a lot of people are asking, hey, can you do a demo about like reference? Or how has your blocking process or how is your blocking to polish process? All that good stuff. And that would be a reason for me to go back but as I said before, it's very time consuming but I do want to do it. So I will go back to doing personal projects but it is going to be in terms of serving the channel and the classes so I can have material for people to learn from if it's helpful at all. But just sitting down and doing something for myself is one thing I really want to do and I haven't started yet. I guess I don't have time but there's stuff that would be really cool to do it so I will try. Is that even possible? Again, I'm not doing anything. Let's put it this way. Such a weird long rambly answer. I try to do everything. I get up really early in the morning. Right now I'm a bit more relaxed around 6 to 7 a.m. depending I have a Q and A this morning at 6 a.m. So I get up early but I used to get up at quarter to five and I will do that again soon-ish because I do like that because I get everything done in the morning. In the evening I'm tired and I want to spend time with my family, my wife and I'm less motivated to do anything in the evening. So I'm trying to cram everything into the morning maybe in the evening. Mainly because during the day it's I work at ILM's, it's ILM work. I don't want to do anything else besides ILM clearly because it's my day job. So I have kind of like a schedule so that it allows me to do things that are personal or teaching in the morning then I do work related stuff and then at lunch I exercise because I've been going on for way too long just eating and not exercising and I work a lot. So I need, I like that balance of exercising a lot and working a lot. I should probably do less of either but of both. So right now it's I work 9 to 12 and exercise 12 to 1 and then get back to work and till whatever, six, seven, whatever the schedule of work. And then in the evening I do something else. So do you have time? I definitely have less time. If I had no day job, obviously it would have a lot more time and I would probably animate a lot more at home for sure. And is it okay to feel sad because you can't do your own projects and you have no time or energy? Yeah, absolutely. I think I don't feel sad. I'm not getting emotional about it because it's a choice. I'm choosing not to do that because I don't want to take away from something else. If I do something, it's always going to be at the expense of something else. And right now my priorities are the family, obviously work and teaching and trying to help people if I can. And I hope any of this is helpful. Again, maybe weird Q&A answers. So I could play video games. I could do more Watch More Movies. I could do my own personal animation, but if I'm going to do any of that stuff, I'm going to try to use that in a way and fold it into something that will be productive and helpful for someone else. So right now when I watch movies, I take notes all the time. That's for my Thursday act analysis and tips for animators. Plugging, it's good. I like it. I should watch it. But I do that. When I watch this, it's also for me to enjoy the movie. But I know I can use this. A, it helps me a lot in my work. It's not just for teaching. It helps me a ton. I see things differently and I feel like I have better ideas and just my workflow has gotten better in terms of ideas and doing things. And hopefully, and it's a somewhat neglected playlist on my channel, I'm going to push this as much as I can. You should watch it. I think it's really helpful in terms of idea and finding and creative springboard and starting to do something. So that way, now I can fold in movie and TV watching for the channel. And if I do something to answer your question, personal stuff, it's definitely tricky. But if I'm going to do something, I want to make it so that it's something I can put on the channel, which then again makes it more labor intensive where I can't just, I'm not going to just sit down and animate. Now for that, that's cool. It's going to be, all right, let me sit down, screen capture the whole thing, make sure I don't waste time noodling around because I want it to be focused. There are people who watch this, will get something out of it and that is watch me half an hour, think about a shot. So it's already a bit more process-y labor because of the end result that I wanted to cut it up and put it into a lecture or something or a course or on the channel. So moving forward, I'm going to try to do that. Such a non-answer to your question. Anyway, I have like two minutes left on this. It's every half hour, my Sony camera stops. But this is an hour again, like last time. And I covered all the questions like last time. So yeah, I'm leaving it at that. So will I ever go back to animating something on my own? I really would like to. Every time I do something where we talk about shots with students and they show me their things and we kind of brainstorm, so many times I end up going, man, I wish I could just stop this class right now, take your shot and animate it at home and do your shot. Because it just gets me pumped to talk about ideas and see people's work. And I'm saying I come home, I'm home now all the time. I do definitely have a massive urge of animating my own things. And I do still take notes and write down ideas on my private reference block thingy where I collect all those ideas. I definitely have a lot that I wanna do, but I'm not doing it because it would get at the expense of something else. If I wouldn't be doing my day job, yes, I would do it just because to hold my skills and keep my demo reel up to date. But I do animate at work, so I still get my daily animation to fix because I love animating. So I also don't see a massive need. I only have one minute left. Of course, if I get laid off, I will definitely go back and animate my own thing to round up my reel and do something else and cartoony things. And there's always, like my current situation doesn't necessitate to do what you asked me to do. You didn't ask me anything. You asked me if I do animate at home. And if my day job lets me, it doesn't really time wise go blurry here. But yes, I got 40 seconds left. Anyway, I'm leaving it at that. This is a massively long Q and A, but I will go through all of the questions. All of them will be answered with multiple clips. If you're actually watching this, listening, thank you so much. This is the end. Subscribe if you want to. I do all kinds of things on the channel. So maybe there's something of help or something you might like. I do upload stuff almost every day, pretty much. So subscribe so you don't get any missed uploads. And that's that. 12 seconds left. Thank you.