Dated: 28 October 2024
I recently got back home in Denver from my visit to Pasadena for the 2024 Lightbox Expo. The expo started on October 25th, 2024 and it lasted three days until October 27th, 2024. I have been planning this trip with Logan and Avery for around 2 to 3 months, so we shared flights and hotel rooms for the convention.
Avery, Logan and I had a flight that landed early on Thursday morning around 7:45am. This gave us the rest of the day to settle into the Los Angeles weather and environment. We walked around and took pictures of the Pasadena Convention Center and settled into our hotel. After this, we went to the community picnic where we met other artists attending Lightbox and we networked. I got a free keychain of Gigi who is the green Lightbox mascot. It was super hot and the picnic didn't have much shade so it felt like we were burning the whole time and I realised that I forgot to bring sunscreen on this trip. After the community picnic, Avery, Logan, Jay and I went to a Dim-sum place to get food and it actually ended up being super good.
After Dim-sum, we took an uber across town to the Women In Animation Halloween inspired event. Everyone got sick from the Uber that we took as he was a really crazy driver with lots of erratic jerking. We all needed a moment to recover as Logan got motion sick badly. The rest of the night went great and we met tons of people including Sailor and AJ as shown in the photo above. The Uber back home was a lot better. The picture below was taken on Thursday as there were way too many people at the expo once it started on Friday and on.
Day one of the actual Expo started with a cup of fruit for the day and waiting in a super long line outside of the Exhibit Hall in the hot California sun. It was like 9:30am and the sun was already so hot I almost felt like I was burning. Once they let everyone into the building, Avery and I immediately went to the DreamWorks Animation Studio booth as they were offering one on one conversations with recruiters and DreamWorks Animation Studios employees. I met and talked with Sebastian Torrelio who is a Production Supervisor and he gave me a lot of good information about what DreamWorks does and how I can break into the industry.
My first panel I went to was "Diving into the Creative Process Behind Moana 2" at 2:45pm. This panel was super cool and it was held by Ryan Green (Head of Story), Ian Gooding (Production Designer) and Amy Smeed (Head of Animation). I learned that the character animators focus on the personality, thoughts and emotions of each character depending on the shot and the environment surrounding them. They focused on the scene known as the "cage fight" which is involving mudskippers that are animated in a unique and dumb looking way. In this shot, Maui is stuck in a blowfish skeleton which restricts his movement so animators have to find creative solutions to moving the character.
After the Moana 2 panel, I had my demo reel review with Riot Senior Animator Alex Ferreira Simões. When I entered the room for our demo reviews, there was a waiting area for the people not being reviewed and I went and sat with a few of the people waiting. We were all waiting for Alex's reviews and then someone came in after me as well. We were all networking and talking and the person who came in after me was actually Alex Ferreira Simões which is really funny, because he just blended in with the rest of us.
Here is the link to my demo review that Alex reviewed: https://vimeo.com/1021978688
During my actual demo reel review, Alex noticed that my timing is good, but I need to add more believable character movements such as extending the arms when lifting a heavy object. I also needed to work on the center of gravity and the foot roll when walking. This was for my weight assignment. For my acting project, Alex recommended that I push my face expressions more and that my character's face still feels like it is in the default position. Really adding more to the facial expressions will help. Overlapping body, neck and head motion is important too. Alex game me a list of exercises to work on to practice my animation skills.
After my demo reel with Alex Ferreira Simões, I went to the "Marvel Studios Visual Development panel". This panel had Ryan Meinerding, Ian Joyner, John Staub, Andy Park and Ji Hye Lee. This panel focused on the art of Deadpool and Wolverine and how they found the right "anchor being" which is the design of Wolverine that is consistent so the audience can understand the story.
While I was having my demo reel review with Alex, Avery and Logan went to Logan's cousin's house to catch up. We were going to meet at the 8:00pm screening of "The 2024-25 Awards Season Very Best Animated Shorts", but they lost track of time and didn't get back until around 11:00pm. It was only me for the screening and I loved all of the films that they showed us.
The first film that they showed us was "Nube" by Diego Alonso Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada and Christian Arredondo Narváez. This film is about a cloud who cares about a young and pre-mature younger cloud and how the clouds deal with loss.
The second film that was screened is called "Beautiful Men" directed by Nicolas Keppens. This film is about three balding men and the struggles of self identity while looking to get hair transplants at a hotel in Istanbul.
The third film that was screened was called "Maybe Elephants" by Torill Kove. This film is about the interpersonal family struggles involved in moving to different countries through the lens of an unreliable autobiographical lense.
The fourth film screened is "Wander to Wonder" directed by Nina Gantz. This film is a story about small people who are left to survive after their larger human dies. It shows three different perspectives of grief and how people deal will difficult situations like death.
The last film screened at the "The 2024-25 Awards Season Very Best Animated Shorts" is "Yuck!" directed by Loïc Espuche. This film is about children and how they view kissing and how immature the world is.
After the screening of "The 2024-25 Awards Season Very Best Animated Shorts", Jay came and joined me at the Civic Auditorium. We stayed for the first US screening of the film "The Glassworker" by Usman Riaz. This film took around 10 years to create and it was created entirely in Pakistan so this was the very first international screening of "The Glassworker". The film is a story about Vincent who is raised by a pacifist in a town surrounded by war. Vincent falls in love with the general's daughter and it becomes a complex story with love and politics. The screening ended around 11:30pm so I immediately went back to the hotel room as I was so tired from the day.
On Saturday, the second day of the Lightbox Expo, I went to line up for the "Meet the Disney Recruiters: Early Career" panel but the line stretched around the building and it ended up being around 7 - 8 blocks long through Pasadena. It was crazy how many people wanted to go to this talk, so I ended up going to a different one.
The panel that I ended up at is called "Storyboarding for Animation: Insights from the Pros" and it had Michael Daley, Bryan Turner, Bill Presing, Emily Xu and Moss Lawton. This was really focused on the journey and process of storyboarding and how professionals do it. They also talked about the differences of visual development between feature films and also television and how the pacing and workflows are different.
I wanted to go to "The Wild Robot: Art & Technical Strategies Behind the Scenes" panel that DreamWorks was hosting, but I showed up a little bit too late. Avery, Logan and I went to get lunch because it was already 2:00pm and I was a bit hungry. Unfortunately we didn't get tickets the this panel.
Instead, Avery and Logan went back to the hotel to chill out. I went to the "Movie Magic: Editing for Animated Films" panel. I actually learned a ton about editing and the differences between live action and animated films. The structures can be different too because you can be a lot more creative with animated films rather than live action. I got to see unreleased footage in the form of storyboards and rough animatics from the "Iron Giant", "Transformers One", "Ultraman Rising", The Wild Robot" and "Spellbound". Something I learned that is interesting is that most of the editorial job is using temp sound and rough 2d animatics.
All the DAC students were invited to a Pixar Recruiting Special Event: "Win or Lose" screening. This was a chance to personally talk to the Pixar recruiters such as Peggy, Beth and Tricia. The first hour or so was just dedicated to networking and talking with the recruiters who were floating around the venue.
This event was located at the Livery Studio & Pixar had the windows taped over and everything. This event was invite only and it was extremely small. I believe there were only 30 or 40 people invited so the conversations were deep and impactful. "Win or Lose" is set to come out on December 6th so it is not fully out yet. I also met some students from San José State University who do 2d animation and illustration. The picture below is the best one we could get with the least amount of blur. Every other photo had a crazy amount of motion blur to it.
I had the biggest and most meaningful conversation with Peter and Lucas who are both SCAD graduates who landed animator jobs in the industry. I met them at the SCAD party in SIGGRAPH but I never got their information, so I made sure to get their contact this time around.
Once the screening actually started, we watched a preview of episode 3 and episode 4 of Pixar's "Win or Lose" series. The story was super good and I love the way that Pixar is connecting the episodes but from different perspectives. The visual differences between each character is so nice and I love the way they use metaphors to add to the character's personality. After the screening, directors and producers Carries Hobson, Michael Yates, and David Lally had a Q&A session about the creative motivation and how they created "Win or Lose".
On Sunday, October 27th Avery, Logan, Jay, and I went to get breakfast at the Cordova Cafe. I got their breakfast sandwich and it was pretty good, although the one at Snooze is still better. We got tickets to "The Making of Pixar's First Original Series "Win or Lose" panel. We got a "Win or Lose" softball from the afterparty the night before and another one during this screening too so I ended up with two in total. During the panel, we watched episode 1 of Pixar's "Win or Lose" so I have already seen 3/8 episodes before the series is out yet.
After Pixar's "Win or Lose" panel, Avery and I ran across the convention center to get a ticket to the "Arcane: League of Legends - The Alchemy of Animation" panel but unfortunately we were late and too many people lined up before we could get a ticket. We went in the Exhibit Hall and walked around for a little bit.
We came back to stand in the walk-in line. Fortunately, they let us into the Arcane panel but we had to stand. I didn't have a problem with standing, but it was a little bit difficult to take notes while standing. Some of the most important things I got from the panel is that the story is built off of feelings first. Music is added seconds to create deeper emotions and then the storyboards and the rest of the story is developed. I also learned that Fortiche references, references, references. They use so much reference on a per shot basic and it is specific for the lighting, animation style, look of the shot, etc. They also focus on the flow of the shots together rather than the individual design of each shot to be perfect. I also learned a ton about the character design of Vi and how her warpaint and general look deteriorates throughout the cage fight. I also liked listening to the design of her new jacket in stead of the signature red one. Lighting and color unites everything and music has a huge part on the feeling and emotions from the scene.
After the "Arcane: League of Legends - The Alchemy of Animation" panel, there was a signing and I was able to meet Arnaud-Loris Baudry (Production Designer), Jason Chan (Story Development), Ethan Hubbert (Production Manager), and .... I don't exactly remember their name and I can't read the signature either :(
Our last meal in Pasadena was at the Congregation Ale & Bar. Honestly is was pretty bad. Most of us didn't finish our meals and there were lots of critiques towards the food and the service. My stomach also got a bit upset, but I was just happy to be going home as the weekend was so long.
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