Lyft Animated Short "June"

Happy New Year!

Cartoon Brew posted this delightful animated short back in December. I just had the chance to watch it and wanted to repost it here - it's directed by 'Paperman' director John Kahrs and a really beautiful example of branded content that achieves its purpose in promoting the product while still bursting at the seams with artistic merit.

Check out the full post, including an interview with the creators, on Cartoon Brew, and watch the making-of below.

I'm in full-steam-ahead mode with my portfolio and website, more updates to come soon!

© Gina Florio Sous 2017

"Not Now"

This is an image I've had in my head for a while... finally got a chance to paint it up recently... although in retrospect I kind of wish I had left it as more of a simple drawing and didn't fully paint it.

I want to use it in my portfolio to show my character drawing and storytelling abilities, but I'm a little wary because of the verging-on-gross content. At least it's memorable...

© Gina Florio 2014

'How to Put Heart Into a Storyboard Sequence'

Friends, thank you all very much for your continued patience with my lack of regular posts. A lot of this year has been about finding a balance - balancing time between work, friends, Dave, general home and life management, and of course, art. I've always remembered Bobby Chiu in his audiobook, The Perfect Bait, saying "There will never be enough time. You have to MAKE time." And that's what I've tried to do this year. Sometimes it was successful, and other times, less so.

Of course, I've also heard that adult life goes more or less like this -  "House, job, kids, workout routine, hobby/passion. Pick three." Gulp. I've already picked three, but I'm planning on adding the other two down the line. Makes quite the case for turning your passion into your job.

I've been struggling to find time and motivation for drawing lately, but then I came across this short writeup today, "How To Put Heart Into a Storyboard Sequence," and it is just one of those great reads that reaffirms your passion for art and animation. The example used by author Francis Glebas is for the Disney movie Pocahontas, far from being my favorite Disney movie - but the example is just as powerful all the same. He takes you through a complete sequence step-by-step and explains his process for interpreting the emotion in the scene visually, which is the mission of a storyboard.

I encourage you to read the full essay. Words of wisdom: "You have to put your heart into your work, whether it comedy, drama, horror, action or romance. That’s our goal. We want to avoid boredom. We want excitement in our lives. We watch movies to feel alive and yes, that feels good. I’m still struggling to be better than my last picture…"

Later this week: one last Daily Sketch update before I leave for Europe for three weeks!

© Gina Florio 2013

Heroes of Cosplay premiere / Pascal Campion - "My Two Cents on Portfolio Reviews"

Hi everyone,

First and foremost, my apologies for the lack of posts recently - as with all fun pursuits, real life keeps getting in the way. Work continues to grind nonstop, and landscape painting class and planning for a GIGANTIC Europe trip that le boyfriend & I have coming up is taking up the rest of my time. (And daily sketches, of course!) I haven't even been able to keep up with reading all my favorite art blogs as of late... actually, to be precise, my Feedly tells me that I am now exactly 515 posts behind. Le sigh.

While I continue the struggle to stay afloat on my own life, I'd like to inform you all of two things.

1. I've talked about my day job as a reality TV editor a number of times, and this past year, something glorious happened - I worked on a show I actually enjoyed and cared about. That show was called Heroes of Cosplay, and after many months of hard work and long hours, it is premiering tomorrow, August 13th, on SyFy at 10:30 pm / 9:30 central (right after Face-Off). I am not a cosplayer (at least not regularly, although I DID wear a costume to this year's SDCC), but I have nothing but respect for the cast of the show, whose creative talents and endeavors far eclipse anything I have even attempted with my own art. I had the pleasure of meeting many of them at SDCC (meeting the cast is not something an editor usually gets to do) and was blown away by their costumes even more in person than I was while editing footage of them in it. I can't really speak for the quality of the show itself, because it definitely did fall prey to many of the reality TV tropes at the behest of the producers (fake drama, hyped up stakes etc.), but I hope that it will at least be a great exploration of the cosplay world, which is fascinating, inspiring, and endlessly creative. Creatives of any type can benefit from watching other creatives work at their craft!

2. I found this blog post on portfolio reviews by the great Pascal Campion (of daily sketch fame) to be a great read: My Two Cents on Portfolio Reviews. I have yet to put together a professional portfolio (a goal of mine for 2014), but you can bet when I do, I'll be paying close attention to this advice. It makes sense, because to me, the goal of any kind of art is basically to tell a story. A portfolio should be your proof that you have the ability to tell a story, nothing more... and nothing less.

© Gina Florio 2013

Hayao Miyazaki on Good vs. Evil

My wonderful boyfriend David and I agree on most things. We initially bonded over our love of TV shows, videogames and all things nerd. However, we can't seem to come to an agreement on one of my favorite movies, Spirited Away.

Hayao Miyazaki is the cofounder of Studio Ghibli, Japan's premiere animation studio and producer of Oscar-winning Spirited Away, as well as other well-known films such as Princess Mononoke, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and Howl's Moving Castle. I have always loved his films, but Dave just couldn't get into it. It's true that they are definitely strange movies by standard American film terms.

Miyazaki explains one of the core differences between his films and American films in this wonderfully illustrated little comic. The fact that his characters are usually neither good nor evil is probably my favorite thing about his movies.

That's all from me for the next little while - I'm about to launch into the crazy month of June with a new show to work on, a new art class (!), and TWO trips and TWO sets of visitors. Here's hoping I come out clean on the other side (with more daily sketches to show for it)!

© Gina Florio 2013

TED Talk: Young-ha Kim

In this video, celebrated Korean author Young-ha Kim talks about how we all start out as artists, but eventually, most of us stop.

"It's not the hundreds of reasons why one can't be an artist, but rather, the one reason one must be that makes artists."

The main points of his speech reminded me of that essay, Draw Like a Six Year Old by Phil McAndrews, that I posted about a while back. It's one of my favorite things that I've ever read about art and drawing.  Sometimes it's easy to forget that drawing is supposed to be fun and it becomes more like work. But it is supposed to be fun. Your six year old self did NOT question his or her desire to draw something they thought was awesome. I remember once I drew an entire comic about the letters of my name becoming conscious, animated beings and exploring my house. Yes, the letters G, I, N, A and F, L, O, R, I, O were each separate, freethinking individuals hopping around. At one point the letters of the first name got separated from the letters of the last name and they were trying to find each other again. Six year old me thought this was the greatest idea I'd ever had. Of COURSE I should commit it to paper! And so I did. I bet my mom still has it.

Borrowing this from Phil McAndrews since it's great. One day I'll be able to illustrate my blog posts with my own work.

Something else he said also struck me - the part about how the artists inside us don't vanish, they get bottled up and come out as anger and jealousy. I feel like this is something I've been noticing more and more lately, ever since I read that Cracked article, 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person. It says, "Do the math: How much of your time is spent consuming things other people made (TV, music, video games, websites) versus making your own? Only one of those adds to your value as a human being. [...] It's incredibly comforting to know that as long as you don't create anything in your life, then nobody can attack the thing you created. It's so much easier to just sit back and criticize other people's creations. This movie is stupid. That couple's kids are brats. That other couple's relationship is a mess. This Internet writer is an asshole. I'd better leave a mean comment demanding that the website fire him. [...] Whatever you try to build or create -- be it a poem, or a new skill, or a new relationship -- you will find yourself immediately surrounded by non-creators who trash it. Maybe not to your face, but they'll do it. Your drunk friends do not want you to get sober. Your fat friends do not want you to start a fitness regimen. Your jobless friends do not want to see you embark on a career. Just remember, they're only expressing their own fear, since trashing other people's work is another excuse to do nothing."

I've started to witness this in real life - you're either a person who creates, or you're a person who sits around judging things other people have made. That's not to say it's THAT black and white, or that artists don't judge. But I've found that the established artists I've met at classes and workshops are always very careful with their words. They give constructive criticism but are careful to not discourage new artists (like myself). And I've found myself thinking this way too. Bad singer on American Idol? At least they're up there, putting themselves out there, actually TRYING. That's more than you can say for most people in the world. Certainly more than you can say for the person on the couch trying to make themselves feel better by trashing them.

The very last anecdote he shares about Martha Graham is just perfect. And it echoes this Noah Bradley post that I wrote about some time ago. All those nagging questions and doubts you have when you're starting out on this are the work of the "artistic devil." It's not that hard. Get out of your own way. Just do it.

© Gina Florio 2013

One Year of Art

Before you read: This is a very long, personal post... I wrote it because I've been concentrating on art and drawing for about a year now, and I'd like to have a record where I am at this place in my life. Feel free to skip it if you're just here for the art and links to other things.

I can't pinpoint an exact date that I started on what I will just be totally cheesy and call "my artistic journey." But I know that it started around this time last year, in mid-March.

Of course, I could also say that it started when I was born. When I was little, I drew all the time, during school, after school, on every piece of paper I could find. I could entertain myself for a good few hours if someone set me up with crayons and paper. For career day in third grade where we had to dress up as our role models, I went as Marie Curie. [HUGE EDIT: Wow, don't know how I did that... I meant to say MARY CASSATT. Wow. Anyway.] There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be an artist when I grew up.

It's a little hard to say exactly what happened. I started writing and illustrating my own "books" in third or fourth grade, and I discovered I really loved writing stories. In late middle school and high school I was still drawing, but I started to focus more on writing. I also started reading a lot of graphic novels at this time - I particularly remember Blankets, Bone, Maus and Persepolis. I started to see how words and images could really work together to tell a story.

In tenth grade, within a few months of each other, I saw the films Garden State and Lost In Translation. Those movies opened my eyes to the kinds of stories you could tell with a film. I began to see movies as the ultimate medium. They can combine every single form of artistic expression - images, words, music, and the fourth dimension of time - pacing - to tell a story. I decided that year to go to school to study screenwriting.

I attended Emerson College in Boston, and in one of my very first classes there, I had to produce a short video. I don't even remember what it was about - but I remember going to the computer lab to edit it on whatever version of Final Cut Pro was around in 2006. And I remember looking at the time on the computer screen and being shocked to realize that 6 hours had passed. On that day, I discovered I loved to edit. I loved determining the particular sequence of images and the pacing of the story. I changed my major to post-production in sophomore year and never looked back. I stopped focusing on writing. I also pretty much stopped drawing altogether.

I worked really hard in college. I wasn't a partier. I did lots of internships and extracurriculars on top of my classes, basically living and breathing editing, and loving it. But after I graduated in 2010, I got a job, I found an apartment, and I sort of... started to coast, a bit. I was enjoying my newfound free time on evenings and weekends, spending my (also newfound) spare money. I remember thinking that I had worked really hard and now it had paid off, and I deserved to just enjoy this time, going shopping, hanging out with friends, playing videogames, watching TV. I was relaxed and happy. But of course, after a couple of years, I started to get restless. I wasn't sure what was wrong with me. I thought, I have it so great! Why am I so unhappy? I realized that there was no longer anything driving me. While I was in school, I always had a goal I was working towards - good grades, getting into college, choosing a major, finding a job. Then, suddenly, I found myself with a job, an apartment, a great boyfriend... I had it all. I had everything I'd been striving for my whole life. Almost like Inigo Montoya at the end of The Princess Bride, I was at a point of... what now?

I tried a lot of things to fill the gap. I started running. I watched Youtube videos about how to do your hair in certain ways (and almost always failed at accomplishing them). I basically replaced my entire wardrobe. I even dabbled with drawing here and there, but always hated what I drew (without, of course, having the rational thought that maybe I needed to LEARN first before I got better). In early 2012, I was at my lowest point. I was feeling extremely unfulfilled by work. I remember a few weeks where I spent the majority of my free time just trying to find the best free phone games to entertain myself with during downtime.

But then one day, in March of 2012, I was on Reddit (as per usual) and came across a link to this post on someone's blog. I still don't know who Josh Beswick is, and I still don't know what it even was about that particular post, but when I read it, it was like a switch flipped in my brain - I immediately knew: I need to learn how to do this. I need to have the ability to make images like that.

I went a little bit overboard at first. I started buying more art books than I would ever have the time to read. I started reading more art blogs than anyone has any business reading. (I read the entire, fairly extensive, backlogs of Gurney Journey, Deja View, and the Character Design Blog.) And I started researching off-hours art classes, more than I could ever afford to take. I started drawing more, and still hated what I was drawing, and lamented it all the time. I'm pretty sure Dave thought I had gone slightly insane.

After six frustrating months of trying to learn on my own, I started taking VisComm 1 at the Concept Design Academy in October 2012. And the rest is pretty much history - I've been keeping the blog since then.

It's been a bit of a whirlwind year. I'm happy to say that I think I've improved at least a little. More importantly, I've learned that improvement takes a lot of time and conscious effort, so I don't get as fed up with failure anymore - I try to learn from it and move on. And I'm pleased to say that I no longer feel bored or restless. Ever. There's too much to learn and not enough time in the world to learn it in. But lately I've been struggling with an entirely new big question - now that I have this passion and drive again, what am I going to do with it?

I still love editing. I'm still very passionate about the act of storytelling, which is what editing IS (especially in reality TV, where the story is usually created in post!!). However - almost no one who takes classes at Concept Design Academy or 3kicks is taking them just for fun. They're taking them because they want to be concept artists and character designers. Many of them already are working in the entertainment design industry but are just trying to improve their skills. And so people in my classes will ask me what my goal is, and I will say... I'm not sure. I always give sort of a waffle-y answer about how I enjoy art but I also enjoy my current job. And the general response is usually surprise. They'll look at me strangely and say something like "you seem more serious than that."

And it's true. I am more serious than that. In January I took the time to listen to Bobby Chiu's "The Perfect Bait," and the free portion of Noah Bradley's "The Art of Freelancing." And both of those things, coupled with the amount of time I've now spent doing this, made me realize - I want to do this. I want to make my living as an artist. And I need to say that I want it. I never want to say it aloud because I am so fucking terrified of failure. But I need to start saying it. I think storyboarding or concept designing would be a great career path. And more importantly, I think I'd be good at it, if I got my artistic skills up to snuff.

There's a lot of stuff I'm scared of. Mainly I'm scared of being too old, and everything that comes with that. But despite that... I know what I want to do. And I have to start being honest with myself about what I want, because otherwise I'll never get it. I want to work as an artist in the entertainment industry. And I'm going to try my hardest to do it.

The Scared is scared

So many relatives drew my attention to this online short film today that I eventually just had to watch it. In the film, in very meta fashion, soon-to-be graduating film student Bianca Giaever asks her six year old cousin what to make a movie about, and then goes on to animate/shoot what he says. The result is not only delightfully adorable, but a great example of simple, cohesive design through and through on the part of the production.

the Scared is scared from Bianca Giaever on Vimeo.

Childrens' ability to just make up stories on the spot is unrivaled by any adult. I wish we all retained such natural carefree-ness with our creations into adulthood.

Post script: I aim to use the word "swizzling" more. That is not an English word, but it should be.

© Gina Florio 2013

Gabe Newell and JJ Abrams talk films vs. games

The keynote presentation at D.I.C.E. Summit 2013 was given by Star Trek (and now Star Wars) director JJ Abrams (arguably the greatest  filmmaker of his generation) and Valve's Gabe Newell (the greatest game developer of all time. Non-arguably. That one's not up for debate). In this video, two of the world's top storytellers have an entertaining back and forth about storytelling techniques in their respective mediums.

Let's set aside the awesome reveal at the end for just a second and talk about videogames vs. film (one of my favorite subjects as I'm sure everyone knows by now).

In a great documentary from 2012 called Indie Game: The Movie, I heard videogames described as... "The prime combination of all the forms of artistic expression, made interactive." (I can't remember or find the exact quote, but something like that.) And the interactivity is exactly what makes videogames so enthralling. However, it has always bothered me a bit when videogames don't use cutscenes and let the player have control throughout the entire game. This allows for ridiculous scenarios like JJ's first Half Life 2 example, where the player just messes around with a small device while one of the main characters is attempting to relay important plot points. But I know many gamers who groan every time a cutscene interferes with their play time, or who mash the A button throughout every text-based conversation. I suppose that's the risk any time you try to let someone control their own story - most of them are inevitably going to make an imperfect narrative and miss a bunch of stuff. And at the other end of the scale, you can take the control away completely (as in films) and present them with a perfectly crafted story - but then they may not be as invested as they are when THEY control the character. There isn't an obvious middle ground, to me.

I think both videogames and films are great ways to tell stories. And after watching this video, it seems to me that, no matter what format, the best scenes do two jobs at once, such as setup & character exploration - moving the plot forward while simultaneously informing the viewer about something important to the narrative.

And finally, I love that these two men are planning to collaborate on something, whether it be a game, a film, or somehow, both. Whatever it is, I can't wait to see it.

(By the way, D.I.C.E. stands for Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain, and it's an annual video game conference. I had to look that up.)

© Gina Florio 2013