Mike Walling
E-mail: WallingAnimation@gmail.com
CAREER OBJECTIVE:
To join a creative team and participate in the creation of dynamic animated
productions.
EXPERIENCE...
AnimationMentor.com 12/2005 to Present.
Animation mentor for the on line animation school AnimationMentor.com.
Main responsibilities.
Each semester I am responsible for leading sixteen students over the 12 week course through the curriculum set by the AM staff. My main responsibilities include critiques on the student's shots on a weekly basis to insure that they are on track. I also host a one hour live QnA session once a week to discuss lecture topics, answer questions and to bring my own experiences to the group so they can get a sense of what it is like to work in the industry. It also provides me an opportunity to go over shots with them so we can analyze acting techniques as well as the physical execution of the animation itself.
Blue Sky Studios. 3/2007 to Present. Main responsibilities.
Sony Imageworks. 4/2005 to Present. Main responsibilities. Blue Sky Studios. 1/2005 to 3/2005. Blue Sky Studios. 2/2003 to 1/2005 DNA Productions. 4/2001 to 2/2003 Character animator (Jimmy Neutron the Television Series) DNA productions. 7/2000 to 4/2001 Character animator (Jimmy Neutron) Pacific Data Images. 4/2000 to 7/2000 Character Animator (Fully Functional) Helped
lead td's with decisions on character set-ups and animating scenes under
tight review dead lines. Worked with supervising animator to gain further
knowledge of the production process. Also worked with production team
on characters arcs and provided motion tests to explore range of motion
and examples of behaviors. Pacific Data Images. 1/2000 to 3/2000 Character Animator (Plugged) Joined the team late in the production to help finish shots under a tight schedule. Set up a number of shots, provided layout and then posed the character. Once the blocking was approved I moved on to detailing the shots out. Pacific Data Images. 11/1997 to 7/2000 Render Wrangler Coordinated with multiple departments on an ongoing basis to send incoming requests for renders to the render farm. Rendered and comped images which I sent to desired department servers for viewing. Worked in a tight schedule with department coordinators and animators to insure all renders got back to animators by dailies which took place at different times of the day for each department. Worked with production engineering on an ongoing basis to improve the architecture of the render farm and the process in which we worked. Tested scripts and commands to help determine the best method in which to help make our process a smooth part of the production pipeline. Designed and created an html-page to walk employees with little or no rendering knowledge through the rendering process step by step from start to finish. Published the page in PDI's internal web.
Character animator on Horton Hears a Who and Ice Age 3.
I joined the Horton crew just in time to start the production. I finished 49 shots on Horton and am currently working on Ice Age 3.
Senior Character animator on Sony's first and second full length animated feature Open Season and Surf's Up.
I was the first animator hired for Surf's Up and responsible mainly for providing input based on my experiences to help build the rigs and facial system which would be required for the show given the limitations in the characters. As rigs were built I was responsible for providing full motion tests and calisthenics tests to push the deformations and range of movements. I was also involved with the development of the wave system by providing input on what I thought would be needed for surfing shots and animating shots to test the system and it's tools.
While working on Surf's Up I had a period of involvement on Sony's first feature movie, Open Season. The show was moving towards crunch and I split my time between both shows for approximately three months. During this time I animated fifteen shots. My main responsibility was to get footage out for them so I focused on shots that I could get done quickly so I could still get my work done for both shows.
As of right now Surf's Up is in full production and I am animating performance shots as well as a team member on the surf team responsible for animating all of the surfing shots in the movie.
Character animator on Ice Age 2, Character Point person. During my short stint on IA2 I became a character point person and was in charge of a specific character. My responsibilities included full rig testing, building a library of facial expressions and full body poses for use during production. I was the go to guy with any issues involved with the character model. I was also involved with experimental animation on this character to help mold movements and characteristics used to bring the character a personality.
Character animator on Robots. Joined Blue Sky at the experimental phase of Robots and helped with rig testing and experimental animation. Also worked with design team and management on new facial features for main characters. Animated over 95 shots in the movie.
Worked as an animator on the first two seasons. Used the series as a learning tool for animating faster and more efficiently. Was responsible for producing roughly 900 frames of animation a week.
Character animator on the Jimmy Neutron feature.
Here is a downloadable version..