i just started animation mentor

i’m very excited to start the spring term at animation mentor! it’s a year and a half program that focuses on solely on character animation. all of the mentors are currently working professionals. and it’s all online which makes it very convenient, and also allows for many international students.

the program is taught using maya but the important thing is that they teach the principles and theory of animation, not just how to use the software. i know some very basic maya, but i’ve never done animation with it. luckily i have some animator friends who i’m sure i’ll be asking for help and feedback.

i’ll be posting my ongoing work to show my progress.

my next spec : himym

i wrote a spec of The Office in feb, and now i’m working on one for How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM). i finished the outline and sent it to some friends to review first, and after getting positive feedback, i’m ready to start writing pages.

writing groups

john august has a great post on his site about writing groups. he makes a very interesting suggestion which is to put an expiration date on the group at the start, and i think that’s a brilliant idea.

i’ve been in several writing groups in the past and they’ve all fizzled out, but they’ve all had some value because they gave me feedback on what i’d written. it’s really hard to write if you know nobody is going to read it. i also agree with trying to find other group members who work within the same genre if possible.

B story

i’ve been watching old episodes of How I Met Your Mother for research, and decided on the logline for the spec i want to write. my A story, the main story, concerns Robin and Lily, so i need to come up with a good B story that involves the other characters, Ted, Marshall, and Barney. i had several ideas but one of them fits thematically with the A story, so that’s the one i’m going to go with.

idea for a pilot

my plan is to have 2 comedy spec scripts and 1 pilot. i wrote 1 spec of The Office which i sent off to the nickelodeon fellowship. my other spec will be for How I Met Your Mother so i’ve been watching past episodes for research.