I worked a little more than two years in the Mexican movie "un gallo con muchos huevos" It was the best experience of my life, I worked with great artist, who become my friends and family. Even walk side by side with my heroes! (I was a fanboy in the inside)
They are the kindest, and greatest teaches ever. I feel part of the team. We give all that we got, expecting to make the best movie ever made in my country. We learn a lot during the production!
The overall feeling I had was "Man, they are pushing themselves too hard, I cannot let my team down" I must give my best. I was proud of be part of it.
It was a truly historical moment in the animation in Mexico.
About my work
I was hired as junior to help in the animatic/previsualisation processes since the beginning of the project. I learn a lot of the making of: From cameras, layout and cinematography language It was a nice start.
Rigging
As you can see I was pretty enthusiast about the project, the rigging team give me a chance to work with them. I made the rigs of the props, the vehicles, the environments. It was challenging but when the troubles come I had the best teachers. We had to rig a transformer-like character, It was my chance to make something cool, they trust me with the job And I push myself to make the best rig I can make.
Production
Maybe its because I am a happy guy that loves challenges, maybe its because sometimes I am a little obsessive with "how to make the things right" Our T.D. the FX Supervisor and the Assistant of Production start to trust me. They are passionate hard-workers, and we really enjoy the challenge of getting the best with what we got. They offer me the assembling supervision, a modest part of the pipeline that grows a lot during the movie.
Suddenly the experience I got from old jobs like running a warehouse and managing the logistics a chain of wine stores become relevant! I can "foresee" the problems in the production and prevent it during the pipeline. We should adapt some of the layout steeps to prevent the apocalypse. I was lucky, our T.D. have amazing skills he can make tools that help making our job more easy.
Then my team was just in between the Texture, Layout, Animation, FX and Illumination departments, while still need to meet the guide of Art direction and set dressing the scenes. soon we are not just assembling the scenes, we are so thing on the deadlines that we become an extension of the T.D. we face the problems, he makes a new tool to fix it and we learn how to use it. Man we really learn a lot about how to solve problems!
I also have some contributions that I am proud, I will share more when the movie comes out.
So its time to say good bye.
My advice to the new artist are:
Study as hard as you can and practice every day. Even if you should work in a different kind of work. This way when the opportunity comes, you are ready to take it.
Make the best you can do, be proud of it, but don't overestimate your work. The best artist I know are ALWAYS working and studding, aiming to get better. You may seem his/her work perfect, but they try to make his/her next work best.
