Sam R. Kennedy and Professors Brent Adams and Richard Hull, Visual Arts
Fishy Swoi is a story about a gold fish that is trying out for the part in Jaws. It began as an idea that three students had in one of my animation classes. We created a two and a half minute script and began to animate it in the computer labs of the Brimhall. Although we had were in classes that required much work outside of class and that we were primarily illustrators and not animators, I and my two friends courageously put in extra hours. That was winter semester of 1997. Below is my best analysis of what has happened since then.
During the summer I began working full time and in the evenings drew and painted to continue to increase my artistic talent. My two associates went home for the summer and also got jobs. When we finally returned for our senior year, we eagerly claimed Fishy for our BFA projects, and we tried to commit a number of evenings to work on it. I pitched the story to the new class of animators and allowed them to listen to the finished sound track. Unfortunately, for Fishy it was not chosen to be the class’s project, but we did manage to get another animator interested in helping.
They say that hind site is perfect, but I don’t know. My experience up to now has been very educational, but if I could rewind time to where I am now in my monologue, I would have dropped Fishy and joined onto another project. However, it has been educational.
As the fall semester proceeded my three co-animators and I were spread pretty thin and very few hours were put into the computer lab. It was my opinion that given our present rate we would finish in the next millennia. I encouraged, pleaded, coaxed and perhaps even cajoled my friends to come into the lab to work. Finally, in December, a well meaning business man offered us $10,000 to complete the first scene by February! This was the break we needed. Some of us had been working two of three jobs in addition to being in school full time, and this meant we could make money while completing Fishy. Up to this point we had only built the models, story boarded the first scene, and created a swim cycle for Fishy. At Christmas all four of us recommitted to work in the lab 20 hrs/wk. However, January found us still pinched for time and nobody had seen any money. Then our would be benefactor pulled out, and Fishy Swoi’s soul went too.
I struggled on alone for two more weeks, but the software, Alias, required one to be down there in the lab every day to become proficient, and I didn’t have that amount of time. So in the last week of January I pulled out of the project and no one else wanted to continue. It was at this time I began to learn another animation package called LightWave. To his credit the would be benefactor of Swoi paid my way to a LightWave conference in Las Vegas. During this conference I saw how Fishy could be completed by myself and at home. When I returned I began to work on rebuilding the models.
My time was still limited in February and, because I had been laid off, I took a small LightWave job or two only to be shafted after the work was completed. At the end of February I attended another week long conference in San Francisco to complete my training on LightWave. Shortly after returning, the models were finished and I was experimenting with animation. Towards the end of March I was able to complete a shot a day. However, this was not enough. My time, money, help and patience have all run out. To this day I have only twelve shots including the title sequence or 30 seconds of the 200 second animation. Furthermore, I’ve learned that character motion is not LightWave’s strength and it cannot compete with Alias or Maya in motion. I also wish that I had finished the story boards myself and created an animatic before beginning to animate. Although I’ve directed and produced student films, I’ve never done animation and did not know how important each step of the process was. I still have to edit the sound with the animation that I do have and with any luck I can use it on my reel.
I thought in the beginning that I was like the director character, suave, confident, and self important. Now I relate more to the gold fish whose dream was bigger than his ability. As it’s been said before I’m a sadder but wiser man today.