TAAFI 2016

Interestingly enough, over the 6 years I've been immersed in the animation world, I've never experienced an animation event. I've been at Sheridan for 4 years now and am officially done school (which is crazy! I'll speak more to that later), and in all that time I've never felt the need to experience TAAFI or any other animation event.

I was given the opportunity to go to TAAFI this past weekend with my friend, Becca (check out her awesome work here!), and it made me realize what a foolish decision it was to pass on it for so long. I only went for one day, but in that day I was able to connect with so many industry professionals in a friendly environment.

When I arrived I was a tad overwhelmed. I'm not at my most confident when it comes to selling myself, as many artists can relate to. We're a breed that prefers to be behind the scenes, more often than not. After settling down, I managed to work up the nerve to chat with some of the people manning the different studio booths, and was met with nothing but positivity.

I was also able to attend two lectures that day. One by Allison Rutland of Pixar (and also a Sheridan Alumni), and one by a panel of short film makers, consisting of Marv Newland, Michael Rianda, Michel Gagne, Rob Silvestri, and Eric Goldberg. As a character animation fanatic, I was obviously most thrilled to hear Eric talk. For those who aren't aware, I was fortunate enough to be mentored by Eric during my time at Disney, and this was the first time I had seen him since my internship. We discussed his role on Moana, as well as his most recent work, this Simpsons Couch gag. It was fantastic getting to reconnect with someone so influential to my career as an artist.

(See if you can spot Becca and I!)


I was actually fortunate enough to see Allison's talk twice, as she also gave a lecture at Sheridan a few days prior. I was pleased to see there were some small differences in each talk, so I was able to get every morsel of information she so kindly provided. Her talk was much more practical than the Birth of a Short Film talk, I found, as it was more about workflow. Allison is an incredible CG animator responsible for the bulk of Riley's emotional scenes in Inside Out, and she was recognized for that by ASIFA when she won an Annie Award this year for her contributions. She has a nuanced understanding of subtlety in animation. I learned a lot about texture, muscle tension, and performance during her talk.


I think the coolest part of TAAFI was in its reminder that the industry is so incredibly small. I saw so many familiar faces, people I've known for years, people I've met once or twice, and a host of Sheridan classmates. It was a really fun time!

Stay tuned for an obligatory "I've graduated!!" post coming soon!

Updates

So once again, it's been a while. This summer has been a very interesting one for me, as I was given the incredible opportunity to work on my first feature film, while still being able to return to my fourth year at school this September.

I was fortunate enough to be animating on Hotel Transylvania 2 at SPI, where I interned during the summer of my first year at school. It seemed fitting that my first internship gave way to my first real job. Obviously I'm not able to share any of the work I contributed quite yet, but be sure to see it in theaters this September! I'll be sure to post my (small) contributions to the film as soon as I'm able.


As far as my third year film, my group and I are involved in several smaller festivals and are waiting on the OK to put the film online. Stay tuned!

My Summer At Disney

Hello, faithful readers! I've been guilty of neglecting my blog this summer, and that was largely due to the impossible circumstances I found myself in over the past two months. I was selected to be an intern at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

I have recently returned to lovely Ontario (totally not being sarcastic at all) after my summer in California, and it seemed about time to write a blog post about my experiences.

The feeling of being told that I'll be spending my summer at Disney was indescribable. I was laying in my bed at the time, certain that if I didn't get a call that day it wouldn't be coming at all. Thankfully, the call came. It was a release of every sort of emotion, the words coming through the phone became a jumble and I couldn't think straight. All I knew was that somehow, my dream had come true.

Once I arrived at the studio, a second flood of emotion washed over me. I was standing in front of the animation building. Not the hat building, but the old animation building on the studio lot. The one that produced the hand drawn classics I grew up on. Walking inside was mesmerising. I didn't care that there weren't any of the old animation desks or a 2D feature being made inside or any of that. I was standing in the old animation building, and that was all that mattered. Also, there is a giant damned building with the seven dwarfs sculpted on it. How cool is that?

Next was the hat building, or the Roy E Disney Animation building. This had a different kind of magic to it, as it was where Disney was currently producing the films I dreamed to be a part of, housing it's army of talent. Filled with the names of people who I would slavishly search the credits for, whose names I would scour the internet for. And all of these names were now accessible to me as an intern. I could walk down to the animation wing and bother any of the incredible animators at work on Big Hero 6 (coming to theatres near you, November 7th!). Or walk upstairs and marvel at the art on the third floor, and those making it. I made sure to meet every one of my art inspirations during my time at the studio, and not once was I met with anything but kindness. People love interns I guess.

Looking back at the whole summer, I find myself smiling uncontrollably. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and it felt that much sweeter knowing how hard I worked to achieve it.

Hopefully I'll be back soon.

Back to Sheridan

This silly drawing is for a group-draw among my students in my year. We decided to draw ourselves as Monsters University characters and then compile all the drawings. So that ugly thing is me as a monster! I'll post the compiled drawing to show off some of my uber talented class mates as soon as the image arises.

On a semi related note - I'm going to be going into my second year of animation at Sheridan, and I'm very excited overall! As far as I'm aware, second year provides far more opportunities to explore artistry, rather than fundamentals - especially with animation.

 I've also had a renewed interest in visual development since being at Sony this summer, so I'd really like to learn more about painting and character design.

 Either way, it looks to be a good year.

ALSO: I just got a tumblr cause it's what the cool kids are doing, and I have no idea what I'm doing.
http://omarsanimation.tumblr.com/

Just a wee little update

So it's been nearly two months since my last post, and I thought I may as well write... something.

As a start to my meanderings, here are some quick and shitty sketches I did while at work that I had time to scan in.

So I suppose I should discuss my experience thus far, given that this blog IS dedicated to my silly thoughts, silly drawings and silly animations. In this case, my silly thoughts.

FIRSTLY, something I've always wanted to say: The thoughts and opinions written on this blog are my own and do not necessarily represent that of my employer or it's affiliates. 

Okay, thoughts and opinions.

My first day at work was June 17th. Lotta paperwork as you might expect. Soon after though, we were given the floor to animate.

The feeling was indescribable. Maybe I'm just a romantic when it comes to art, but all I know is that I was pretty overwhelmed. This was what I had been actively working towards for half a decade - which may not seem like a lot, but hell that's a quarter of my life! All of a sudden I'm surrounded by artists animating Flint and freakin' Spiderman to be seen by millions. Now this may sound silly to the individual with a boring enough life to read this, but it meant quite a bit to me. It still does.

That whole, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" has been completely confirmed in my mind. Now this all may come off as pointless gushing, and it is. But beyond that, I think it's important to recognize that as artists we may go through ups and downs; creative hurdles and quite often horrible job security. But in the end, you get to create art for a living. I've had a taste of it now and I don't think that hunger will ever be fully quenched.

Anyhow, I'm unable to discuss in detail the nature of the internship at the moment, however I can confidently say that Sony is one hell of a creative giant. I'm incredibly excited to see what they create, and in the future, hopefully be a part of it.