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My Rise of the Guardians Reel

Jacob — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:09:34 +0000

I cut together a bunch of my favorite shots that I animated on Rise of the Guardians. I cannot even express how much fun I had working on the film.

Character Animation Reel – Rise of the Guardians from Jacob Gardner on Vimeo.

Watch it full screen in HD!
Black and white shots are for continuity only and were not animated by me. Everything in the film is 100% keyframe animation. No motion capture. (I’ve been asked about it so I would answer it right off the bat)

5 years at DW

Jacob — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 22:14:00 +0000

I recently hit the 5 year mark. Obviously, it feels like it flew by. Yet somehow at the same time it feels like I’ve been there forever.
I can’t even begin to quantify how much I’ve learned during the last 5 years – but it’s A LOT.
And still going.

I also realized that I have worked on the last 4 DW releases (which is rare because of the overlapping schedules).
The Croods (upcoming)
Rise of the Guardians (upcoming)
Madagascar 3
Puss in Boots

In reality, my time on Mad3 was very short and I only did a small handful of shots. I will have slightly more time on Croods, but still I joined the project when they were somewhere near 85% completion in animation. So it really doesn’t count as being heavily involved in 4 releases in a row, though I can claim it as a technicality since my name will be in the end of each of them. :)

It’s a lame statistic, I know.

Rise of the Guardians trailer and fandom

Jacob — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:28:34 +0000

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. After my last post I worked briefly on Madagascar 3. I only got a do a small handful of work before I was switched off the show. A lull in animation work until story rewrites came through meant I was switched over to Rise of the Guardians – a project I wanted to be on since I saw the first few animation tests and heard the story pitch almost a year beforehand.

It worked out really well. It was supposed to be only a temporary placement for about one month, but I was meshing well enough with the project that they were able to keep me on it for the duration. 8 months later, we’re nearing completion in animation and I couldn’t be more proud of the film.

Here’s the newest trailer:

The movie seems to be catching fire on tumblr. There’s been quite an uprising of fandom so far for all the characters. It’s really amazing to see characters I’ve helped create become so adored. The fans are even writing their own fan fiction already, drawing the characters, dressing like them, and making animated gif’s of every shot in the trailer. It’s quite awesome.

the link below will give you everything on tumblr tagged with ‘rise of the guardians, and it’s constantly updating with lots and lots of content:

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/rise-of-the-guardians

I can’t wait for these fans to get to see the movie. They’re going to LOVE IT.

Jim Levasseur’s Animation Workflow

Jacob — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:25:13 +0000

Good friend and talented animator, Jim Levasseur, provides some insight on his animation process while he animated his spaceman shot. Check it out.

Puss in Boots in the home stretch

Jacob — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:23:32 +0000

I’ve been working on a new film called Puss in Boots and we’re in the home stretch of production. I like this poster so I thought I’d post it

That is all.