Black and fab. 22. Libra. ENFJ.
Bay Area. UC Berkeley Grad: Media Studies.
Writer, artist, illustrator, producer, critic.
Benevolent Media Proprietor in training.
I #E*TonesOrBust.
It's also my business standard.
KORRA CREW PROFILE: OWEN SULLIVAN
Owen Sullivan joined the crew a while ago as a storyboard revisionist. He worked really hard, quickly adapted to our storyboarding style, and learned our production system so well that we promoted him to assistant director. You can see some of his great storyboard drawings from Book 2 above, and you can see him in a fantastic Mako costume here and here. I asked him a few questions to give you guys some insight into one of the many talented people we are lucky to have working on Korra, and how he got here.
BK: What is your art education background, formal and/or informal? Are currently taking any classes outside of work?
OS: I originally intended to be a civil engineer, which I went to school for. I never went to any formal art school, but took a lot of classes around Los Angeles, mainly at the Animation Guild and at the Concept Design Academy. I am currently taking a class at CDA and one with the very talented April Connors, who teaches out of Glendale.
BK: How long have you been working in the animation industry? Did it take you a while to get your foot in the door?
OS: I’ve been working in the industry for about 3 years. After deciding engineering was not for me and moving to Los Angeles, it took about a year and a half of very concentrated work for me to find a job.
BK: Describe your position on Korra and what work it entails.
OS: As an Assistant director on Korra, I help implement the changes that the Director and Producers want. Additionally I help Director Mel prep the final storyboard to be sent over to Korea. If there’s time I like to take a
section of the script to board as well.
BK: What other productions have you worked on?
OS: Before coming to Nickelodeon, I worked at Warner Bros Animation, on Young Justice and a number of their direct-to-video movies. I’ve also done some freelance boards on Ben 10 and Ultimate Spiderman.
BK: What is the most common thing people on the outside of the animation industry don’t know about your job?
OS: Probably that we do not actually animate the episodes here in the States. My friends outside of the industry usually just call me an animator.
BK: Do you have any interests or hobbies outside of animation? Do they feed back into your work in any way?
OS: I love to draw, I sketch constantly, all the time. I hope this helps my work… I watch a lot of films and play a lot of video games. I enjoy hiking, snowboarding, surfing, running, etc. It’s good to balance sitting at a desk with some outdoor activity. Also we’ve been playing a lot of ping pong here at Nick.
BK: Any advice you’d like to offer for aspiring artists?
OS: Get around other artists, draw as much as you can. Take some classes. A good teacher or talented friends can help you learn a lot faster than you will on your own. Try not to get discouraged and keep at it!
A storyboarder I’m not, but for my presentation tomorrow I have to go through the entire plot of Jinx and Tonic, and having visual cues (however crude) helps me to remember
A few of the shots I used reference from the previous screenshots I took from Harlem Nights (and a few from Idlewild).
In my layout class this semester, our instructor is teaching us about using photo reference and arranging/tracing/altering them in order to create a collage into a layered background. (I know, I know—gasp, tracing!) Anyway, I decided to try the same idea with all the photo reference I’ve been collecting for interior shots of the Nightshade club.
I started out with a general sketch of how I wanted the club’s basic structure to look, then laid down the different photo references I had, resizing or flipping them, tracing over, and positioning them. I also copied some for multiple items like the tables, couches, and chandeliers.
Anyway, this is all to just help me get a basic blueprint of the club before I finalize an official design. It’s actually really fun piecing together environments like this for practice.
Camera movement terminology is not nearly as fun as the film theory stuff, but pretty important if you want to communicate your ideas properly.
I like the way I compare “normal people” vs. “CG people” .. ha ha ha. No offense, but some of those computery terms are pretty strange, you gotta admit.
Normal person: ”I’m thinking of moving to New York City.”
CG person: ”I’m thinking of translating to New York City.”
See? It’s weird.
hahaha, this is literally the cheat sheet I could have used one year ago in media studies.
I did some compositional how-to’s in my early weeks at Warner Bros. studios. I thought it’d be great to post a series of these on the Tumblr’s for beginning board artists.
This is the first part - the rule of thirds.
all that garglemesh in the second one was supposed to be a super fast wipe transition, i…
it was easier to just write out “transition in”
how do you art
“Get all up in the camera”
xD
this is how you study for external exams, folks
storyboard a fake trailer for a fake tv show
by shamelessly tracing reference photos because you have no idea how perspective works
somebody stop me
no please that wasn’t a joke
WELL SHIT.
Love it! <3
Storyboarding
Filmmakers of FINDING NEMO and LORD OF THE RINGS discuss storyboarding.
Last week I taught a class at CalArts and the students just ate it up. I had so much fun that I wanted to do it again online!
You can sign up for FREE at »> [link] «< See you there! (via shermcohen)
It’s ultimately to get you to buy books/programs, BUT HEY.
I LIKE FREE THINGS.
