Lalo Nixon-Pasten is in tune!

Hi, my name is Lalo Nixon-Pasten and I'm here as a sound production intern at Smiley Guy Studios(I'm in Gr.12). The two shows that I am working on are Teleporting Fat Guy and Uberdude. For Teleporting Fat Guy I was arranging different sounds by using a fork, dropping a bag to make it sound like a glove, smacking myself and doing some voices. For Uberdude I was the voice for a few characters and did dialogue editing. So far I'm having a great time and Paul is cool (he has a gun to my head as I tell you this, haha). What I really want to do is expand my knowledge of audio recording and this co-op placement will help me do so. I'll be updating this whenever I get a chance. 

Erica Cato: Can do attitude!

Always Something New and Different at Smiley Guys

My first few weeks at The Smiley Guy Studios were AMAZING!! I mean even though I got lost going there on the first day, I know my way by heart now ;), and I’m always excited to get there. Why? Because every time I go there I am always learning something new and doing something different. For example this week I learned about thumbnailing, which I never knew existed, and did my very first.

Check it out!

Adam Roberts - the co-op kid!

I didn't know what to expect while applying for my co-op job. I really was sure I was going to get some below average tech job that really wouldn't teach me or inform me of anything in particular that I would find interesting. That is definitely not the case. My time at Smiley Guy Studios has been one to remember. The people are great and my supervisor Kurtis has been doing on awesome job of watching over me and guiding me through the stages of making an awesome yet cheesy animation. Its been a thrill to understand how each phase of the production really works. And the fact that I have been able to work on every single part of the full job has been worth while. I'm glad I'm a part of this great studio for an entire year and I really hope I'll learn a thing or thirty by the end. :D  

-Adam Roberts

fairwell Jackson He. He was one of the best (single tear)

Last one!(intern blog entry he means...):

Last day at Smiley Guys. I've had a good run, now I must descend back to the sea. The turtles are waiting. I've learned a lot about Flash animation, skills I will apply to all aspects of my life. Sometimes you just can't motion tween out yo problems. It's so obvious. Joel taught me that. He's cool. He doesn't hit me when I make mistakes. We had to take a Flash course back at Sheridan, but I think you learn a lot more with real experience working on real projects. Also being here for 7-8 hours a day probably helps. Sometimes I feel like our entire curriculum should just be one internship after another.

I also got to do some storyboarding and character design. Character design's fun. Didn't really like storyboarding, I'm not sure why. Kurtis got over 300,000 views on his Youtube channel this past week. That was exciting for me as I lived vicariously through him. Rich is still tall.

Here is smiley guy, Kurtis Scott's super viral, hilarity video of viral subway thoughts awesomeness!

Be sure to subscribe to Kurttoons! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0MEFy9kOSY&feature=plcp

Jackson He at TAAFI

The Toronto Animation Arts Festival International (TAAFI) happened last weekend. It was off the hizzat. The TIFF Bell Lightbox is an awesome building. I found out about it through Rich so I decided to volunteer for it. A bunch of my teachers from Sheridan were there and also a bunch of people from school. I ran into Mark Mayerson in the washroom but he was at a urinal and urinal conversations are weird so I just went into one of the stalls. So yeah it's a really small community. I was mostly around the VIP Lounge so I got to try all the food and be fabulous. Also I did volunteer stuff. And I got to see the Canadian cult classic Rock & Rule. It was like being wrapped in a blanket of mullets and cocaine. 

This week at Smiley Guy Studios, I was storyboarding. For longest time I wasn't sure if I liked storyboarding or not. Now that I've done it for 5 work days in a row, I can definitely say that I prefer animating. It's 'cause I get that high every time I get to play it back I think. Also there was a bird in the office. It was intense.

Art is to conceal art - Sam Sutherland

Sam Sutherland is an intern at SGS. He's spending his summer with us from Max the Mutt.

Sam is a nice guy with a lot to offer. He is learning fast.

Here's his blog of animation and art - http://sam-sutherland.blogspot.ca/

Jackson He - He can animate

Drawn by Jackson He

Here are weekly journal entries from Jackson He. When Jackson came in and sat down to meet, he was very nice and congenial. He had confidence to speak clearly about his goals and his experience in animation thus far. If I remember he started animating in high school. I liked that. Watching Jackson's reel I was impressed with his animation. He has put a lot of hours into understanding the fundamentals. The more time you put into understanding animation the better you  will be. In Jackson's case this is true.

Oh I found a link to Jackson's animation from 2010 - http://bovoi.blogspot.ca/

(Jackson! post newer work!)

Journal entries from Jackson He -

Week 3:

Symbol animation is hard. Half the work is just keeping track of where everything is, 'cause there's like 50 symbols all placed inside other symbols and it's all cray up in yo head lyk dat. It's a lot more complex than traditional animation, but once you get a hang of all the little technical stuff, then it's a lot faster. Joel's been helping me along with it (he's my supervisor/mentor). Sometimes I feel like I bug him a little too much but sometimes you just gotta live life on the edge like that. Joel and Kurtis helped me setup dual monitors last week, so obviously my productivity doubled. The bathroom's here smell like salted sunflower seeds. It's perfect.

Week 4:

Luke just had a kid. I think I finally got the hang of symbol animation, and now I'm just trying to get faster. Joel, Rich, and Kurtis have been helping me out a lot. Rich is really tall, I can see why they made him animation supervisor. Smiley Guy Studios is working on a web series named Teleporting Fat Guy. It's been commissioned by Smosh, which is cool. I'm hip and youthful which is why I know who Smosh is. Overall it's been pretty laidback here. It's a really casual environment with a flexible work schedule and really cool ceiling lights. I also got to sit in on a script reading/story meeting this week. It was exactly like the group meetings I had to do for my third year film, so it's awesome to know that that project really paid off in terms of a real-world simulation, except we had gratuitous amounts of pizza. I wanted a 7th slice but no one else was getting anymore and I didn't want it to be awkward. Then Joe went for another slice, and I took the chance to get my 7th. Timed that shit perfectly. Thanks Joe.

Sometimes I peek between the desks to see what the other intern is doing. He doesn't know it though. He doesn't know I look at him. 

One good intern deserves another

Smiley Guy Studios has had about 10,000 interns come through it's halls over the past 10 years. Well, maybe we've had 30 interns in the last 10 years... That's still a lot. We wanted to start posting the wonderful things they do during their internship and have them share their journey. We've had interns from high schools and a number of animation schools.

I'll start with our latest high school intern Will Hunter (who made his own blog while he was here). Will was going to the Toronto School, John Polanyi Collegiate Institute -

http://hunteranimation.blogspot.ca/

Will animated a whole bunch of animation. He also did a whole lot of drawing and designing in flash and refined his use of tools like flash and photoshop over his stay with us.
Below is a character he did in Flash and the bg was done in Photoshop. Go to his blog to read his story and see his animation!

Some of Will's process

Will's final art