Ferd Reel 2008

Here's a compilation of my most current animation work. I generally avoid including motion editing samples in my reel because I prefer to showcase my keyframing skills. However, I may edit it in if I were to apply at a studio that do motion capture work to demonstrate my experience with it.

Although I have worked with motion capture, I've never considered it to be animation - motion capture is a tool where you're given data to manipulate that was provided by another performer or actor, whereas in animation the animator IS the performer and actor.

Me personally, I find doing keyframe character animation provides the most rewarding experience and more often than not, much better results.

Verizon: A Thoughtful

This the full version of the Gorilla animation I worked on at Charlex for a Verizon commercial spot. The character was set-up by an incredible rigger, Steve Mann. The animation is about 3 seconds long, but only small segments of it were used in the actual spot.

Def Jam X-Video

This is the first cinematic I worked on (at EA Chicago) involving motion capture editing - A promo video for Def Jam: ICON. The first draft of was started by another animator and when he was pulled away, I took over all animation resposibilities, often with little or no direction... because there was no animation director until halfway in production.

I had to heavily keyframe this mocap data because the actors' performances were awful and "floaty" - ironic, since mocap is supposed to capture the "realism" of motion. Somewhere in the middle of this production, it was decided that these characters will talk and have facial expressions... so a rudimentary facial rig with 25 bones was created. We did what we could given the extreme limitations.