Shaun Freeman

Open Season 2 trailer

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:39:00 +0000

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

Barry the bee

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:12:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:42:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:53:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:36:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:30:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:31:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 12:56:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 12:44:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 03:41:00 +0000

This is very clever!!
:)

A nice surprise

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:08:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Wed, 23 May 2007 00:20:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Mon, 14 May 2007 12:34:00 +0000

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

Life Drawing

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Mon, 07 May 2007 20:55:00 +0000

I've decided to get back into life drawing

Happy Feet

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Fri, 04 May 2007 11:41:00 +0000

I've just updated my animation page with some shots I animated on Happy Feet, and a few shots from the 'Everyones Hero' film from last year.

You can find them here

TMNT

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 10:34:00 +0000

I will soon put some of the shots I completed on Happy Feet and Everyones Hero online shortly, but in the meantime I found a link to the chap who did the designs for April O'neal. In his blog he comments on one of the shots that I completed.
http://jeffmatsuda.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-also-designed-april-oneal-and-max.html

While I'm on the topic below is a list of the shots I completed on TMNT

April:

I did the shot of her pushing through the foliage and walking out into a clearing after seeing a gun lying on the ground
April after she has been caught after falling down a cliff and being caught by Leonardo. She says 'Leo!!!'. The actual shot I completed was substantially longer, but unfortunately on that section made it into the final cut
The wide shot of April and Leo talking around the campfire. (I only animated April in this sequence)
Dialogue: 'Actually I was already here on business, but then the local legend started sounding familiar, so I decided to snoop around....[Leo: 'What kind of business?'].. 'Ancient artifacts. Some tycoon with to much time on his hands had his heart set on a 3000 year old collection of statues...'
April is doing sword drills in her lounge room, and here's something on the TV, so turns round to watch and rests the sword on her shoulder

Casey:

Casey when he first see's Leonardo. 'Leo!!!!!!!'

New website

noreply@blogger.com (shaun) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 13:53:00 +0000

Finally! I've decided to get my act together and update my website. The main drive behind this is so that I can keep it relatively up to date without to much fuss, so I have opted for the ubiquitous blogger type website. As it is at the moment, it is fairly empty, but over the next week or so I'll fill out the various links and stuff, and will also update my animation page. I've been itching to do that but haven't been able to for various reason, however I can start to update now and will shortly add a bunch of stuff I have done over the last year or so, including shots from Happy Feet, and Everyones Hero. Unfortunately I can't add any TMNT or other stuff I've done recently yet, but I'll post a list of the shots I completed soon. Anyway, I'm glad I've finally gotten my act together to get this new website up.

Once its all thoroughly fleshed out, I hope you enjoy it.
:)

Shaun