Hi Don...and members

[rcatizone]

Hi Don...and members

I just recently learned of Don's new site. WOW! What a great idea and implementation, especially the Garage Project.

Congratulations, Don...and everyone helping Don to implement this!

I'm one of the "old guys" tho' I haven't quite caught Don in age. I have been in the field for about 44 yrs. now. My work has largely been traditional, but I also have done stop-motion and some cg as well. Mostly I teach these day, but still take occasional freelance jobs as well, and am working on a personal animated project with my son.

Wonderful to see all the resources being created, and the energy and love of traditional animation evident here.

I wrote Don when he did Secret of NIMH. What a wonderful resurrection of care and quality! Without that film, animation might have stagnated and disappeared. It certainly caused Disney to re-evaluate and started them towards new heights as well.

So, I'll soon be joining Don's Club, and maybe when some projects slow down a little I can find time to try the next Garage Project.

Best,
Rick Catizone

[OwenWelsh]

Hi Don...and members

I just recently learned of Don's new site. WOW! What a great idea and implementation, especially the Garage Project.

Congratulations, Don...and everyone helping Don to implement this!

I'm one of the "old guys" tho' I haven't quite caught Don in age. I have been in the field for about 44 yrs. now. My work has largely been traditional, but I also have done stop-motion and some cg as well. Mostly I teach these day, but still take occasional freelance jobs as well, and am working on a personal animated project with my son.

Wonderful to see all the resources being created, and the energy and love of traditional animation evident here.

I wrote Don when he did Secret of NIMH. What a wonderful resurrection of care and quality! Without that film, animation might have stagnated and disappeared. It certainly caused Disney to re-evaluate and started them towards new heights as well.

So, I'll soon be joining Don's Club, and maybe when some projects slow down a little I can find time to try the next Garage Project.

Best,
Rick Catizone

Welcome Rick. It's great to have you join us. Please share your work with us if you can. I hope there will be a "next Garage Project." as well!

[rcatizone]

Hi Owen,

Well, I really have to get some current work up, but I have a quick and dirty website here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~catizone1/id2.html

I did direct and supervise (as well as animate most of) the 12 or so minutes of animation in Creepshow 2, did some stop-mo on Evil Dead 2, and some other films, but mostly commercials over the years.

I have been doing so much teaching, and getting a Bachelors and Masters degree over the last few years that I have had little time for much else. But have a few animation things going on in the background, so I hope to be getting embroiled in production again.

Best,
Rick

[OwenWelsh]

Rick thank you for sharing your website with us! That's so awesome that you know how to build armatures, mold, sculpt and draw. I've always wanted to make an armature of one of my characters but I didn't receive enough training for it in school.

Tell me, is the animation you are working with your son on going to be stop-motion or traditional animation?

[rcatizone]

Owen,

Actually, it will be a cg production. My son helped with the story, and he'll be doing all the music.

Without a budget, altho' we hope to sell it, Rick gets to be handling all the production. Characters have been modeled and rigged, but as I am jumping in earnestly now that I have time, I have been going thru the rigs to see if I want to add new ideas that can save me time. And I am doing some modifications on the models as well. I also have some of the terrain...plants, trees and such modeled.

CG affords me many "savings" in this type of endeavor that would be hard for me to realize if I did it traditional or stop-mo. The ability to create individual personality walks cycles for each character, and then vary and override them as I desire is a huge time saver compared to animating every walk from scratch. I just couldn't picture me doing a half hour traditionally without help. Then too, 3 of the main characters are "hard geometry" object characters, and accurately turning them in space would be a great deal of work, even being liberal with squash and stretch and faster motions to get from pose to pose.

As to armatures, you can teach yourself if you are willing to start simple and be willing to accept some mistakes along the road. I learned about the design aspect by looking at armature photos of King Kong, and then Jim Danforth's armatures, and had some help with some specific ideas from a friend, Ernie Farino (now emmy award wining spfx supervisor), and later some hints from Jim as well. It really is a fascinating artform. I just got to the point that I wanted to really do stop-motion, couldn't afford to have a machinist make them for me, so I applied what I knew and it worked out well.

If that's intimidating, make a good wire armature. Speedy Alka Seltzer was wire, and very small...and Laine Liska and David Allen did some really nice work with him.

Go for it!

Best,
Rick

[dartzy]

Owen,

Actually, it will be a cg production. My son helped with the story, and he'll be doing all the music.

Without a budget, altho' we hope to sell it, Rick gets to be handling all the production. Characters have been modeled and rigged, but as I am jumping in earnestly now that I have time, I have been going thru the rigs to see if I want to add new ideas that can save me time. And I am doing some modifications on the models as well. I also have some of the terrain...plants, trees and such modeled.

CG affords me many "savings" in this type of endeavor that would be hard for me to realize if I did it traditional or stop-mo. The ability to create individual personality walks cycles for each character, and then vary and override them as I desire is a huge time saver compared to animating every walk from scratch. I just couldn't picture me doing a half hour traditionally without help. Then too, 3 of the main characters are "hard geometry" object characters, and accurately turning them in space would be a great deal of work, even being liberal with squash and stretch and faster motions to get from pose to pose.

As to armatures, you can teach yourself if you are willing to start simple and be willing to accept some mistakes along the road. I learned about the design aspect by looking at armature photos of King Kong, and then Jim Danforth's armatures, and had some help with some specific ideas from a friend, Ernie Farino (now emmy award wining spfx supervisor), and later some hints from Jim as well. It really is a fascinating artform. I just got to the point that I wanted to really do stop-motion, couldn't afford to have a machinist make them for me, so I applied what I knew and it worked out well.

If that's intimidating, make a good wire armature. Speedy Alka Seltzer was wire, and very small...and Laine Liska and David Allen did some really nice work with him.

Go for it!

Best,
Rick

HI Rick,
Welcome. I see you like Ray Harryhausen too! :)

[rcatizone]

Dartzy,

Ray was my inspiration to get into the business, along with the Disney animators. I just saw something unique in bringing characters to life. Disney did it one way, and Ray did it another.

The difference, as I'm sure you know, is that Ray did almost all of his animation production work alone. Amazing what one man was able to produce.

Ray has been very kind in corresponding with me over the years. And when speaking to another friend of his, he referred to me as "a fine gentleman". I am so honored that the master of stop-motion felt that way.

I got to help out with Ray Harryhausen, Master of the Majicks. Do you have that book? It's wonderful! And a deserving tribute to Ray. I was so glad that Ernie Farino gave me the opportunity to help with that project.

If you read my website, you know that I based a certain amount of my curriculum and thesis on Ray. How I have missed his films. No new Ray Harryhausen films for 29 years; when as I was growing up, I could count on one about every three years. I developed patience in waiting for the newest magic he would release.

Best,
Rick

[rcatizone]

Dartzy,

Just looked at your site. Nice work!

Love the cat, and the Tom and Jerry stuff....actually everything is very well done.

Best,
Rick

[lavallelee]

welcome to the forum :)

[rcatizone]

Thanks. Great site!