Shaun Freeman

the joys of research

2010-02-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

Not that I was hunting for a guy backflipping into jeans on youtube... just a straightforward backflip would have been enough.... :P

A wonderfully useless machine!!

2010-01-05T03:06:00.001-08:00

FInally... THE PASSENGER!!!

2009-12-02T01:44:00.001-08:00

I saw Chris working on this way back in about 2002-2003. when I saw it done then it looked finished but he still had the music and a bunch of other stuff to do.
Its worth remembering that this is all done by ONE PERSON!!!
The production values are incredible, the story is wonderful and the animation is awesome.

It took many years for him to complete and i am in awe of his ability to persevere with a project!

It was worth the wait.

Go check out his website also!
http://www.chrisj.com.au/

lightening storm

2009-10-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

We had quite a lightening storm last night. I was in the car for most of it... but got home in time to take a few photos from our back verandah.

Its not that far removed from the truth

2009-09-08T01:53:00.000-07:00

Now this has to be played full screen with the sound UP!!!!!

2009-08-03T01:15:00.000-07:00

I like wind.... but there can be times when it can be overdone

2009-04-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Part of the roof of our house blew off yesterday. I was outside watching as it peeled off and flew away (its in our next door neighbors property as I type).

It made me a little sad. (Perhaps I'm understating the case).

Luckily we have insurance... but still.... I was sad.

Finally, Freeman posts some animation

2009-03-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

I've finally got my act together to cut some of the animation I've done over the last year or so together and post to my website.
You find it in the animation section

Slope soaring

2009-03-04T02:19:00.000-08:00

I'm a huge fan of slope soaring remote controlled gliders.
The beauty of these planes is they are completely wind powered. Essentially like having a high tech kite (I have many kites also... :P ). Since we moved out to South Gippsland I've been able to indulge in this hobby, as one of the prerequisites for slope soaring is steep inclines and strong winds... all of which are in plentiful supply here.
I recently built a canterbury sailplane PC-9 model glider which the plane that the RAAF roulettes use.

I've have been having a blast flying it on windy days. The great thing about slope soaring is they are reliant on the wind and so you can fly them for hours without have to worry about running out of power.

Here's a link to a clip of some blokes in NZ flying the same model. As soon as I can convince my wife to come out and video my plane I'll post a clip, but in the meantime here are these guys having a ball.

...... its going to be windy tomorrow...... WOOHOO!

A terrible day

2009-02-08T20:21:00.001-08:00

Information about the disaster can be found here

Donations for the affected communities can be made to the red cross

Thankfully our community was not one affected by the fires but it has been a terrible weekend.

Animation Mentor

2008-12-11T05:26:00.000-08:00

For the past 3 months I have been involved in Animation Mentor as a campus mentor. Next quarter I begin work as a fulltime mentor. I'm super excited about it. It's an incredible animation school that produces streams of quality animation talent and having the opportunity to work there is something I've really been enjoying.

I only wish I had something like this when I was learning to animate!

springtime

2008-12-08T21:23:00.000-08:00

So the end of the year is rolling around.
It's been another very busy and productive one here. I've had the opportunity to work with a whole bunch of incredibly talented people on a whole bunch on great projects including Kung Fu Panda: the secrets of the furious 5, Open Season 2, and a yet to be released Imax feature of which I can't talk yet. While all this was happening , my son turned 5, my daughter is creeping up on three, and my wife and I have made the transition to the country having bought a beautiful old farmhouse on 2 acres out in south Gippsland. In my spare time I've been cranking away at the garden, and the results are starting to bare fruit (pardon the pun).

We also bought two Goats (a five year old Toggenburg called patch and a 1 year old called curly). Patch was pregnant when we bought her so we now have three goats (the smallest was christened 'Tiny' by my son.
As a result, I've been making cheese (mozzarella, Ricotta, Cheddar and Feta so far), yogurt with the resulting milk.

I've had two beehives at my parents too which we've shifted over to our house, and we're hoping for a big honey kick in a couple of months.

So all up the year has been very busy, but very rewarding. When I get a chance I'll try and put a couple more photos up of our goats and bees.

Open Season 2 trailer

2008-10-08T05:39:00.000-07:00

The open season 2 trailer has been released. I worked on the project for about 7 months beginning late last year.

Barry the bee

2008-07-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

I just discovered this on youtube. Its an interview of Barry the Bee from Bee movie that I worked on.
I did the clip where he says " Well, I'm a nice guy I guess... regular guy...."

An update

2008-06-27T03:42:00.000-07:00

I have had a very busy year so far! Early in the year I went New York to work on a production on broadway called 'Sunday in the Park with George'. After that I headed over to Dallas and spent some time working with all the legends at ReelFX on the film Open Season 2 (due for release later this year). When I got home we managed to sell our house and bought a beautiful old farmhouse out in the country much closer to my parents (yay!! Baby sitters for the first time in 4 years!!!)
We moved out to the country to try and get out of the rat race a little and to ensure our kids had a childhood as they grew up. So far so good. They love it here, and we now have a couple of goats which Aaron (my son) absolutely dotes on.

I found a clip on youtube which contains some of the animation I have completed this year on the Kung Fu Panda marketing.

I animated the first clip ("My name is Po..... I'm a panda......" etc etc ) and the last clip of po ("Panda style..... is something I kinda made up...." etc etc) in this sequence.

Anyway, til next time.

long time between posts

2008-02-20T11:53:00.000-08:00

I've been over in the US recently, so as soon as I get my act together I'll post some photos and new animation and stuff.
I've been over in NY working on a broadway production 'Sunday in the Park with George', and then across to Dallas to work at ReelFX for a bit, then a quick explore of LA and now back home.

I had an absolute blast meeting a bunch of people who I have known for a long while but never actually met!
ANyway, as soon as things calm down over here I'll upload some stuff for people to look at.

Parallels between good animation and good dance

2007-11-09T01:36:00.000-08:00

Let me make this clear. I can't dance. My wife has regularly commented on my inability to look even remotely cool when I dance (I don't try very often... it gives her to much to giggle at). I was watching TV last night and the final for 'So you think you can Dance' was on. In it one of the dancers did the most amazing solo for the program, and while I was watching it, it occurred to me that there a so many parallels between watching a wonderful dance/dancer and watching amazing animation.

From my undeducated dancing eye, the thing that I most enjoyed about the dancing were the same things I most enjoyed about great animation.
- Incredible strong storytelling poses
- Wonderful interesting absorbing transitions
- Variations in movement and timing
- Curves (man.... the way the guy in the final was able to move his body through the air with everything following these fluid arcs)
- Settles

It seems to me that a good way of explaining to people what the difference is between good animation and bad animation would be to get them to look at good and bad dancers and compare them.

I had a hunt on youtube and found the guys final solo. Unfortunately you have to wade through the standard corny discussion leading up to it, but if you're an animator, watch this guys solo. The pose he hits at the end of his pirouettes is wonderful to watch.

Great stuff.

:) I love animating!

His solo is about half way through the whole clip (2 minutes 11 seconds in), so skip forward to it if you can.

The Viennese waltz!

What I'm up to

2007-11-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

Its been a crazy month or so. I've finished up working on Animalia and have spent the last couple months working on some Shrek 2 marketing, Bee movie marketing and am shortly to start working on a full length feature (of which I'm not sure I can speak yet... ). Its all very exciting. At the same time my son has turned 4, my daughter is walking and talking, and life is thumping along.

As soon as I get a chance I'll post some of the shots I did late last year for the TMNT movie, and a few other bits and pieces that I've done which I'm allowed to post.

More drawings

2007-09-26T07:31:00.000-07:00

I went to life drawing this week and really felt I made some progress. In the past I haven't been so happy with my drawing style. They're satisfactory drawings, but not really the type of artwork that I like looking at. Tonight I tried a different shading technique and was very happy with the result. I feel like I'm starting to improve and it makes me happy. One day soon.... I'm going to tackle the face.... I'm a bit of a gutless wonder when it comes to drawing the face... if you stuff up the face, it always ruins the drawing. Still, I have to try it at some point!

20 minute pose 1:

20 minute pose 2:

The moon

2007-08-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

So... there I was, at my desk animating away, and my mum gave me a call to tell me to pop outside and have a look at the moon. So we all went outside and found the the moon was a deep red colour as a result of a total lunar eclipse. It was captivating to watch. Imagine being on the moon while this happened and seeing the image of the earth as it crossed the path of the sun...

The photo above is not by me btw. The next one is in 2011. A couple of years ago we also saw the transit of venus (which is the same event that captain cook came south to record), which was also pretty astounding to watch.

Some animation

2007-08-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I've posted so I thought I might add some animation that I completed a while ago. I have posted a shot I did for the shrek 3 advertising campaign in which I animated Puss in Boots being interviewed in spanish. The ad was for Spanish TV. Go to the animation section for a look.

For the mechanically minded child

2007-06-20T20:41:00.000-07:00

This is very clever!!
:)

A nice surprise

2007-06-14T03:08:00.001-07:00

As a general rule I don't like reality TV. Its for the most part TV with very few redeeming features. As a school teacher of 10 years I have watched its effect on children first hand, and the way it encourages the view that the individual is king, and that the people involved generally feel that they are the centre of the universe is a worrying trend.

HOWEVER......

There are moments when such TV really does produce some special moments. A friend of mine sent me this link. Its great to watch.

A cleaner future

2007-05-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

Mum and Dad for a long while now have been redesigning the way they live. They made a decision a while ago to try and live as self sustainably as possible. With that in mind they began growing much of their own food, producing their own electricity (via solar cells, and a soon to be installed wind turbine), and a whole host of other things which have allowed them to live comfortably without being reliant on the broader community for such things as power, water etc etc. They've done this without to many hassles. Most recently they ordered a new 100% electric vehicle. One of the first to be made in Australia with the new Lithium Polymer batteries which increase the mileage of electric cars substantially. Its due this week.

We're all very excited to have a go.

The Passenger

2007-05-14T05:34:00.000-07:00

I was doing a bit of work for Momentum Animation Studios in melbourne a number of years ago, and a bloke (Chris Jones) came in to show Dylan and Rachel (the owners of momentum) a short film he was working on called The Passenger. He loaded it up, and completely blew me away. He had been working on a 6 minute short film for the previous 4 years...and by working, I mean REALLY WORKING on his film. Crazy hours, 7 days a week, for years. When I saw it then, he was just starting the score. Well... I was inspired. He had done everything to the most incredible standard... and he was still a long way from being finished. 3 years later I saw him present it at an animation screening at ACMI (Australian Centre of the Moving Image) in Melbourne... This time fully finished.

Given that it was completed entirely by one person.... it is the most incredible piece of work in animation I have ever seen. At the moment there are only snippets on his website... but it does give you a taste of the level of quality involved. If you ever get the chance to see it... SEE IT!!!

Anyway, I keep plodding along, and continue to be inspired by this guys acheivements.

You can find his website here