Pete Paquette

When I was a young kid I used to listen to these Star Wars “read-along” books.  They were picture books bundled with a 45 LP.   The narrators were melodramatic and they tried thier hardest to sound like the characters from the movie.  As a kid, I totally bought it.  As an adult, it’s laughable.  I remember finding the LP in one of my art books not too long ago and wondered how it would hold up against time.  I did a search the other day on YouTube, not expecting much.  To my suprise, not only is the audio up there, but a montage of the book as well.  I haven’t heard these in probably 26 + years.

A lot of you have asked what I’ve been working on since I’ve finished up work on Ice Age 3.  Fox has finally announced our next film, “Rio”, earlier today.  Hopefully this article can help answer some of your questions.

I’ve always been a fan of Foreigner.  In fact I used to play drums to their album “Records” back in the day.  When I found out that they were touring again, I bought tickets to their next closest show which was in Stamford, CT.  It was a smaller venue that kinda reminded me of the Muppet Theater.  The show rocked!!

After a lengthy crunch, our work is finally done.  Here is the frame counter I sent out periodically  to the department to show the team’s overall progress on the film.  The counter follows Animation Production Supervisor, Anthony Nisi, as he is overcoming obstacles (acorns) while trying to reach the antagonist Scrat.  If you don’t get the reference, you’ve probably been asleep for the past 30 years.  Click on the image to see it in action.

If you feel as though the ending seems very familiar but you just can’t place it, here’s a clue to help you sleep at night.  Congrats again to all the animators on the film!!

I skecthed out some characters based on some close buddies of mine when I was in the service.  We served in the same platoon and referred to ourselves as “The Four Horsemen”.  I think everyone but myself (far right) reenlisted.  I still keep in touch with Arron (2nd from right) from time to time.  I lost touch with the Wisconsin natives “V” and Johnson.  Last I knew “V” (far left) was serving on the active reserves and Johnson (2nd from left) ended up in Iraq.  I don’t know where these guys are now, but I hope they’re okay.

“Crunchtime”.  The sound of it would make one think that its a fun break during the day where you eat your favorite candybar.  If only that was true.  The reality of it is that we, the animators, are under such pressure to produce the absolute best work we can in as little time possible.

During severe crunch, the concept of “24 hour blocking” goes into full affect, where you have 24 hours to come up with the choreography of a shot and show your choices to the director for approval to continue with the idea.  Sometimes it goes good (“good idea”) and sometimes it goes really bad (“start over and just copy the storyboards”).  The end of every pitch (good or bad) leaves you questioning your worth as an animator and an artist.  After years of doing this type of thing and because of the time it takes to execute an idea to completion (making every frame look amazing @ 24 fps), it’s very easy to fall into formulas and become afraid to take risks for the sake of hitting your deadlines.  This rollercoaster can really do a job on your own personal creativity.

Where am I going with this?? I think it’s important to revisit that kid who was aspiring to become a professional artist as often as you can and ask them for help.  For me, it was 18 years ago when I was in my room doing little flipbooks from exercises I learned in this book:

while listening to these albums:

studying anatomy by drawing from these comics:

and watching these movies:

When I feel like I’m down and out or losing touch with my creative self, I dig up this stuff and watch/listen/look through it and I feel refreshed afterward.  Another creative gold mine I return to often is thumbing through my old sketchbooks.  It helps to give me perspective of how far I’ve come as an artist and there may be a little doodle or two that gives me an idea.  So never toss anything that may be of creative value someday!!  You never know where your next masterpiece will come from!!

I thought I’d post this quick color sketch I did of my buddy Somchi and his fiance Kristi.  Critiques are welcome.  Thanks.

One of the coolest things about working in an animation studio is that you’ll never know what each day will bring. Sometimes we’ll get to watch the latest cut of our movie, sometimes we’ll get a celebrity visitor and sometimes the press will come around to shoot for a dvd or something.

In this particular instance, the high ranking state officials came for a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially open our new studio. So with these officials came a lot of publicity. After the ceremony, everyone was given a tour of the studio.

The media couldn’t get enough of the treehouse. We were all interviewed for a good part of the afternoon. Long story short, I found a clip of my mug at the end of this news report by the NECN network:

Some other links covering the story:

http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/2009/01/22/Gov-Rell-praises-Blue-Sky/1232669168.html

http://www.courant.com/business/hc-bluesky0123.artjan23,0,7866707.story

http://www.connpost.com/businessnews/ci_11532053

http://forum.bcdb.com/forum/Blue_Sky_Studios_completes_Connecticut_relocation_P102087/

http://businessofcinema.com/news.php?newsid=11669

Thanks to Pimpcane’s brilliant idea to purchase an HD antenna for the Treehouse TV, we were able to watch the inauguration live today. Most members of the animation department were on hand to watch: