Animation Mentor Student Testimonial

lol, here's the new Animation Mentor Student Testimonial video.
I'm on it toward the end (2:30) for about 2 seconds (the part about how would you describe AM in one word). I was a bit excited and used more than one word. I love Animation Mentor. Best school experience I've ever had! :)
It's so cool to see my friends on there!

The Magical Music of Walt Disney

Last Friday I saw an excellent Symphony pop concert for my birthday titled "The Magical Music of Walt Disney." It was truly amazing! I can't even imagine how wonderful it must be hearing a full orchestra perform the pieces for the first time in a recording session.
They performed everything from an opening Disney Medley to “Tarzan,” “The Little Mermaid,” “Mary Poppins,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Rescuers Down Under,” “Aladdin,” “Mulan” and “The Lion King.” For an encore they played "Pirates of the Caribbean."
Along with the music they had rare Disney stills as well as fully animated scenes projected on a screen. Anyways, this concert really inspired me and reaffirmed why I went into animation to begin with. I'm so excited to be telling lasting stories for a living! Animating is the best job in the world! :)

These are just some videos I found off youtube.. not the same symphony or even the same songs.. but still good :)

This is the same song they played for the encore, but different group.

Acting and Believability in your Characters

The other night Tom Hanks was on Charlie Rose. It was a fascinating interview, however, I found one part of it particularly valuable.
(it's something I want to be sure and remember to make my animation stronger)
He talked about why some of his most successful performances were successful (almost every role Tom Hanks plays is believable and convincing).

Anyways, his trick is to find out how his character is alone in the world and think about that as much as he can.
"In the past, Hanks has described himself as, deep down, a loner. ‘Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness."
Loneliness is something everybody can relate to. We all realize we are alone in the world and desperately try to form relationships to appear otherwise.
This is something everyone in the audience can relate to, because everyone knows what it feels like to be alone.
Tom Hanks thinks about this and incorporates it into his character's body language throughout the film.
Anyways.. I just thought it was interesting and a good thing to think about when animating characters and making them come to life.

Here's the full episode if you're interested.
(it's mostly on the upcoming Angels&Demons)

Fiddling Around...

Alright, so I hope to be posting my latest animation shortly.
I'm working on the current 11 Second Club entry. This will be my first time entering the competition after year or so of watching from the sidelines. I reckon there will be a lot of entries this month as the audio clip is particularly sincere and exciting to animate too!

In the meantime....
I've been playing the fiddle/violin for an awfully long time. Anyways, I normally try to find weird ways to hold it and attempt to trick fiddle. It just spikes my interest and challenges me to try to get it to sound good.. sometimes I'm successful..sometimes not so much.
Last summer, however, I was inspired by the Beverley Hills Hillbillies at Disneyland to try and play the fiddle in a completely different way!
Lately I've been practicing holding the bow between my knees and playing like that.
It's still pretty rough.. but I'll get there :)

The first song is "In the Mood" and the second is a little bit of "Orange Blossom Special" (haha I have a long ways to go with that one for sure)

Anyways... I'll keep working on it.. but I thought I would share :)

My Website is UP! :)

Hey everyone,
Just thought I'd let you know that I created my first website today! yay!
I will still be blogging.. I just wanted a site to keep my demo reel, resume, and everything together on. :)
Anyways, you can find it at...
http://teresanord.synthasite.com/home.php

By the way I'm horrible with HTML and everything website related... huge thanks to the person who told me about yola.com! Free web hosting and step by step instructions!



Oh, and by the way... Animation Mentor has a new video up featuring my mom and pop! They interviewed them after my graduation and I was super excited to finally hear what they said while I wasn't around! I love them and feel so lucky to have such supportive parents! Thank you mucho!

The video is located here if you're interested!
http://www.animationmentor.com/promotions/2009/ParentTestimonial/