Hi, I'm Erik Morgansen, teaching iAnimate's Creature Animation Workshop 2.
I've been working as an animator for 25 years (the most recent 12 of those years at ILM in San Francisco) and during that time I've had the opportunity to animate a lot of different kinds of creatures in all sorts of films. Sometimes it's been a straightforward endeavor, and I've simply faithfully executed some kind of mechanical movement for a creature that I've observed in reference footage.
Often times, though, there's been some kind of twist to the procedure and a director will say, "make it more intense", or "make it funnier", or "make it feel less like a monster and more like a human, but not too much like a human, it's gotta still feel like a monster...".
So how do I do that?
That's where Creature Workshop 2 comes in. We'll spend some time putting several different animal types in context so that we can better understand how they relate to one another and how they relate to us as human beings. This will give us clearer sense of what drives animal behavior, how to accurately describe their internal nature visually to the audience, and where you can take some artistic license with that description.
This subject matter is really important if you want to create convincing animal performances. Aside from that, it's really fascinating and fun. There will be some clips of this past term's class shortly. Please have a look if you are interested.
I hope to see you guys in class!
