UAE Animators

A blog run by and for animation students and enthusiasts.

[uaeartistconfessions]

Master Class with Dino Athanassiou

In the Cartoon Network Animation Academy this week, we started our Master class which was taught by a very special person over the span of 5 days, it was very eventful. We were very excited to have Dino Athanassiou, who traveled from the UK to help us improve and teach us animation.

Dino is an Animation Director who is skilled and is best known for world-class design, storyboarding and theatrical animation for the US majors. Some of the work that he has produced is Sequence Direction, Animation and Clean-Up for DreamWorks’s Sindbad: Legend of the Seven Seas; and Sequence Direction, Design, Storyboard, Leica Reel, Animation, Clean-Up and FX for Warner Bros’ Space Jam. Other works that he did that involves Direction, design and Storyboard work, are two block busters The Sorcerers Apprentice and The Price of Persia-The Sands Of Time. Dino has also supervised the CG Animation of Lionsgate’s live action adventure film The Hunger Games. 

[uaeartistconfessions]

Tamkeen and Twofour54 tadreeb in Bahrain

Tamkeen (Bahrain) and Twofour54 tadreeb have launched a training programme for teaching Bahrain’s next generation of entrepreneurs and graduates. The programme focuses on training the students of Bahraini Nationals in the private sector to gain skills that are necessary and needed to begin a career in the media industry.  The courses that have been offered are in training of Public Relations & Communication or Graphic Design and there are plans for future and more advanced courses. The programme seeks to train 100 Bahraini job seekers in the fields of public relations and graphic design in the span of 6 weeks to 6 months.

Maryam Al Atouly was with them for their 7th week of the course that focuses on sketching and how it helps them as graphic designers. The students 17 in ages around 23 to late 20s.

  During the whole week they got to learn:

- Structures and basics of drawing/ perspective - with exercises on simplifying objects and bodies into building boxes and also perspective exercise.

- Shading and drawing measurement - with Exercising the shading and measurement techniques and rules by objects life drawing.

- Contour and Gesture drawing - Exercising in both.

- Story boarding - assignment in story boarding a part from their favorite movie and presenting it in front of the class mates.

- Digital illustration - creating a drawing on illustrator using the mesh tool.

“The course was really nice, students were so dedicated to learn and produce what they were asked to work on in a good quality and they participated actively in all exercises and assignments.

I personally really loved and enjoyed the experience with them.”  Maryam Al Atouly. 

[uaeartistconfessions]

Sharjah International Childrens Film Festival (SICFF)

This week tadreeb, twofour54 has been delivering a few free workshops at SICFF. It was kicked off by an Acting on Character  workshop on Monday 20th October, where Ellen Erikson was teaching animation students how to come up with acting ideas for their animation.

Next workshops up were Hashem Alshaer's Sketching on iPad and Stop Motion on iPad, where he taught budding artists how they can make use of free iPad software to nurture their artistic skills.

On Tuesday Fakhra Al Mansouri ran an Introduction to Games Design workshop, and  gave students a sneak peak into the process of developing video games.

The last workshop that tadreeb organised was a Gesture Drawing workshop run by Ahmedany, where the young students got to practice their drawing skill.

The workshops were well received, and it was great to meet all the young artists that showed up!

[uaeartistconfessions]

interesting page to follow :)

[uaeartistconfessions]

Introduction to Game Design!

Fakhra Al Mansoori will be running an exciting two session Introduction to game Design short course at twofour54 tadreeb! Fakhra is a game designer and the founder of Hybrid Humans, an indie video games studio in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Get more info and register!

[uaeartistconfessions]

"When I was in elementary school, the older kids started a rumor that quickly made recess a terrifying experience. I've been wanting to make this film just so I had a place to put some of the details of that rumor."

- Jacob Streilein

Animated this in flash, backgrounds in photoshop. After Effects for compositing, and Protools for sound.

This blew my mind, Wicked story + Intense Narration x Excellent Story = Masterpiece

Your King,

[uaeartistconfessions]

3D Modelling, Texturing & Shading - Short Course!

I know some of you have been waiting for this course to come up, and now it's here! If you want to learn how to create 3D models, and texture and shade them, then this is a great introductory course for you!

Register here!

[uaeartistconfessions]

tadreeb's CNAA collaborates with STS ADVETI

tadreeb's Cartoon Networks Animation Academy (CNAA) is collaborating with STS ADVETI to give the STS students a taste of working with an external client! We in CNAA came up with an assignment brief, and throughout this collaboration we will act as the external client.

This week we met the STS students for the first time, as Oliver Acker and Ellen Erikson from CNAA briefed them on their upcoming Animation Project. There are 42 students, and they were divided into groups of about 4 students. They all got to choose from a list of projects, amongst others;

The day that it snowed in Abu Dhabi

The fish who wanted to live in the dessert

The girl who could fly

The day the aliens invaded Abu Dhabi

The lonely  flower in the desert

The day a whale fell from the sky

The students are very excited, and some of them have chosen to do a stop motion animation, some a 2d animation, some want to explore animating on post it notes - we are excited to see what they all come up with!

We will meet the STS students again the week after Eid, when the students will pitch their ideas and show their storyboards. After this feedback session, they have until 23.November to finish their Animation Project, and they will do a final presentation that same week.

A requirement for the projects is that they have an Arabic touch to them. Exciting times, stay tuned for updates!

[uaeartistconfessions]

Make Animation or Gaming your Carreer!

Register your attendance!

[uaeartistconfessions]

Yalla Shabab

Yalla Shabab is an upcoming project from HCT (High college of Technology), designed to deliver mental well being-related content to HCT students.

The project is still on the go and is being worked on. 

Meeting has been made with the Counsellor, Eric Rothman discussing the future of the project and the updates/ tweaks that has been made on it.

Khaled.

[uaeartistconfessions]

A bit of "Animation Pegs" history!

Guys,

for those that attended my animation history classes should CLEAAARRLY remember the animation pegs to be one of the early patents in animation production.

Here is a beautiful article, photo journey rather, on the animation peg and animation desks respectively. I find it always very inspiring and fascinating to see how animation came all about and how we are using it today. Have a look, click on the photo below to see the full article.

Enjoy - Oli

[uaeartistconfessions]

Stop Motion Animation Workshop

Last week we were lucky to have Anna Rudzka,  running a Stop Motion Animation Workshop over at The Lab! The participants received a brief introduction to Animation, before they were split into groups and got instructions on how to make a stop motion animation film, using plasticine.

The students were divided into four groups, and each group came up with a story and created their own characters, set, props and background.

It was inspiring to see creative people coming together and working on these claymation projects, and fun to see what they could come up with in this short 3 hours workshop! If you are curious to see what they came up with, here are the animations!

1. Angry Colours

2. Potamato

3. Cycle of life

4. NREEEEEE

[uaeartistconfessions]

Hi every one,

See your favourite characters from Disney•Pixar’s BRAVE, and Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Tangled and Beauty and the Beast in Disney On Ice presents Rockin’ Ever After at the Dubai World Trade Centre Arena from September 10th - 13th 2014. 

Produced by Feld Entertainment, organised by SES and supported by Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), Disney On Ice presents Rockin’ Ever After will no doubt become the event that everyone will be talking about this summer. 

http://tickets.virginmegastore.me/?event_id=2358  

[uaeartistconfessions]

Disney veterans fight to save 'dying art' of 2D animation with new steampunk film "Hullabaloo"

Some of Disney's top animators have banded together to "preserve the dying art of 2D animation" with a new steampunk-themed film called Hullabaloo, which will centre on two female protagonists who are brilliant engineers.

James Lopez (The Lion King, Pocahontas, Paperman), Rick Farmiloe (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) and other Disney animators launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund the short, and have at the time of writing raised $106,000 (their goal was $80,000).

Article from here.

To check out or donate to their campaign go here.

[uaeartistconfessions]

3 Quick Pricing Tips for Freelancers

Tips for your pricing on freelance work can be found at the following link:

3 QUICK PRICING TIPS FOR FREELANCERS

Cedric owns an illustration studio and also offers a 2hour webinar on freelancing for USD10,00.

for the webinar visit the follow side below:

Check out also his other videos with valuable tutorials and instructions for artists.

Enjoy! - Oli

[uaeartistconfessions]

Creative Lab portal refined

 Our two lovely social media representatives Sami and Mina has broken down the loads of details and information of the portal updates that has taken place on the Creative Lab portal.

 Now you can be able to check out other user’s portfolio and filter out unneeded information from their portfolio, making it easier for you to seek for what you are having in mind, and much more.

Visit the Creative Lab portal here! 

http://creativelab.twofour54.com/en/

Sami demonstrating to us how the filter works on the online portfolio.

Students of the CNAA watching the illustrative information taking part during the meeting.

Mina explaining to Omar the new system.

Khaled.

[uaeartistconfessions]

CNAA at the Audio Workshop at "E11 Entertainment"

 A fun and exciting workshop that we all have learnt and experienced from with our lovely instructor Hassan from the E-Eleven Entertainment org.

First of all, we started talking about the physics of sound. Knowing the difference between Audio and sound, which they are truly different in definition. 

We have learnt about the different types of Environmental and Dynamic effects that are pretty much essential to making a good movie/ animation. Where the Reverb, Delay and sound phasing gets to play a big role in the environmental effects.

Mr. Hassan has also taught us the different sorts of mics and how can we identify if it can guarantee us a high quality sample of sound.

We also get to experiment with the Audio editing software, where we can play around with the sound’s frequency and knowing what each frequency and sub frequency can do to the sound.

Here are some footage of the workshop:

^Hassan giving us a quick introduction about himself and the office.

^Sajida experimenting with the Audio software, playing around with the different frequencies/levels of sound.

^Tim getting engaged into the software, changing the sound effects of some real life samples.

khaled.