How do three fun-loving young Midwestern animators, from Bowling Green, Ohio, become superstars of the SIGGRAPH 2007 Conference's first international iron-animator competition, in San Diego, California? Ironically the first flicker of inspiration was sparked when Bowling Green State University roommates, Jim Levasseur and Tom Jech, along with fellow student W. Jacob Gardner, attended the 2006 SIGGRAPH Conference in Boston, Massachusetts—where an inseparable friendship between the three emerged.

On Monday morning, August 6, 2007, the talented-three, under the name of Team MoCap, took their places at a table of computers to fight for the honor of becoming the ultimate Viking Animator, in the FJORG! competition. They were sequestered in a room alongside 42 other animators (15 teams of 3 members each). After a grueling 32-hours of continuous animation, Team MoCap emerged as the first place animators of the SIGGRAPH 2007 Conference's FJORG! animation competition.

Here, for the first time, Team MoCap gives an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to become the first FJORG! Viking animator masters!

Dee-Marie: Congratulation on your first place, FJORG! competition, win. It was such an arduous competition…what made you decide to form Team MoCap and enter the FJORG! event?

Jim Levasseur: The competition sounded intriguing. We were all working on individual short films at the time (and running into a lot of problems), so we decided to shift gears and focus on making a piece that would get us accepted to the event.

Tom Jech: For us it was sort of a no-brainer to work together—we had organized and taught an animation workshop together at school. When we got the SIGGRAPH e-mail about FJORG!, we thought it would be a fun way to get a free pass to SIGGRAPH.

W. Jacob Gardner: They’re both right [laughter from everyone].

DM: Have you ever participated in an iron-animator event before entering the FJORG! competition?

Jim: I haven't, but Tom and Jacob participated in a similar four-day event back in May, at the Kalamazoo Animation Festival, on a five-member team.

DM: Are any of you currently working in the CG industry, or, are you all still in college?

Jacob: Tom and Jim will be seniors at BGSU this year. I graduated a few months ago and am currently looking for a job.

 

Tom Jech—W. Jacob Gardner—Jim Levasseur
Team MoCap

 

DM: I am sure being awarded the first place winners of the FJORG! competition will have employers knocking down your doors. That, and the fact that you are all extremely talented animators. I first took notice of Team MoCap when I saw your professional and highly amusing demo reel for the competition. What was the back-story to your FJORG! animation demo?

Jacob: We figured our only chance of being accepted to FJORG! was to stand out from the rest of the submissions, so instead of editing together a two-minute reel of random animation clips, we decided to make a short film, satirizing demo reel conventions.

Tom: It basically makes fun of the standard animation demo reels. It features us caricaturing our own mannerisms and appearance.

 

Team MoCap's FJORG! Demo Reel © Team MoCap

 

DM: What specific animation skills did each of you bring to your team?

Jim: All three of us have a pretty decent sense of posing and timing. I trust Jacob and Tom to make good choices, acting-wise, and they do the same for me. I think the most important thing is that we're much stronger together than on our own.

Tom: It's hard to say, we don't work in a very specialized method. We all bring our own attitudes and criticisms to the team—which I consider the most valuable part of our collaborations.

Jacob: I don’t know that we each have defined separate skills, but we talked constantly, giving suggestions and critiques. We all respect each other’s opinions and are never too proud to take their advice.

 

FJORG! screen captures of Team MoCap's progress during the competition
Images courtesy of Eric Post

 

DM: What was your plan-of-action to last the duration of the competition? Did you predetermine sleeping and eating breaks into your agenda, or did you plan to work straight through the contest?

Jim: We knew from past experience that we probably wouldn't be able to last the full 32-hours without a significant drop in performance, so we planned to sleep at least a little bit during the night.

Jacob: [looking to the others for reassurance] I think we each got around two-hours of sleep, which helped considerably.

Tom: I had the delusion that I would stay up the whole time…I didn't manage it. We didn't really have anything planned ahead of time. During the competition, we all kept communicating and informing each other of how we were feeling, and where exactly we were on the animation. After that, our own personal judgments of how fast we needed to work, or how much rest we needed (or could afford), kicked in.

DM: How difficult was it to work on an unfamiliar computer system, and possibly an OS system you were not accustomed to working with? Especially regarding Mac vs. PC.

Jacob: The computers were uber-fast and very stable.

Jim: All three of us are comfortable on either Mac or PC, so there wasn't much of an adjustment period.

Tom: They also had a team of tech guys from Disney who set up everything, and were on-call the whole time, which was great.

DM: Were all team members accustomed to the software that was provided?

Jacob: All three of us are familiar with Maya, so that was our weapon of choice for the competition. For teams with different workflows, the organizers made sure every computer was loaded with Max, Softimage, Blender, and Flash (along with the entire Adobe suite).

DM: Before the competition began, Chief Viking Priestess (and FJORG! Chair), Patricia Beckmann-Wells, promised an array of distractions. How did your team handle them?

Jim: I think we handled the distractions pretty well [sly smiles from everyone]. At one point there was a mime (who talked way too much), a contortionist, martial artists, a magician, and, of course, belly dancers. The belly dancers were probably the hardest to ignore, because they came on the stage with only two-hours until deadline—by then, we were more than a little giddy.

Tom: If anything, the distractions helped us work. They broke the tension, and kept us more lively and happy then we otherwise might have been.

Jacob: I was quite interested in a lot of the distractions. I liked listening to the speakers, and I watched the whole martial arts performance. But of course, I continued working a little on the side as well.

DM: Did you get any advanced information as to the animation theme, and how difficult was it to develop and execute an animation concept in just 32-hours?

Jim: The themes [an impossible escape, or, a fate worse than death] were revealed Monday, at the start of the competition at nine in the morning. Coming up with a concept was probably the most difficult part of FJORG!. We figured that not many of the teams would have a super-polished animation after just 32-hours, but we knew if the story was there then the judges/audience might respond. We came up with a number of ideas that were decent, but we kept pushing until we had an idea that cracked us up every time we told it.

Tom: I think they accidentally showed all the teams a glimpse of the power-point an hour early, but I was examining my new Viking helmet at the time, so I missed it. Other then that, we had no warning or even a slight hint. I got a bit nervous when by 5 p.m. on Monday, we had just started animating. Especially since the little suggestion board for us had only an hour and a half, or so, slated for concept. But, we felt that we shouldn't bother starting the animation before we were all happy with the idea. After that, things ran as smoothly as they could have. We even ended up having time to indulge in some expensive render options, like 3D motion blur.

Jacob: The Kalamazoo challenge, that Tom and I participated in, had a Global Warming theme (also presented right at the start of the competition, with no advanced hints). So, we were joking it was going to be Global Warming again. But no—we had no idea what the theme would be.

DM: Per the FJORG! rules…team members were limited to what they could bring into the competition. What did you pack in your allotted two airline-compatible carry-on size bags?

Jim: I brought one backpack, with just the essentials: a jacket, mp3 player, sketchbook, toothbrush, and toothpaste. Oh, and deodorant.

Tom: About fifty demo reel DVDs, a pair of pants, a sketchbook, a toothbrush, some socks and underwear, and a few shirts. Oh, and a stained, ripped and barely legible googlemap print-out of San Diego.

Jacob: I brought just my backpack; containing a change of clothes, sketchbook, toothbrush, camera, some demo reels, and my mp3 player. I wish I had brought a jacket or a hoodie, because when I woke up from my nap I was freezing.

DM: How difficult was it to focus on your project with 42 animators working frantically alongside you in relatively cramped quarters?

Jim: The other teams were probably the least distracting part of FJORG!, because they were always working as hard as they could on their films. Every so often, we'd go outside into the hallway and check out everyone's progress on the widescreen monitors. It was cool to watch other people work—and a bit intimidating—because all these nice animations were developing, while we were just standing around!

Tom: It was surprisingly comforting actually. I really enjoyed talking to the other teams. We even managed to squeeze in time for some Viking battles with inflatable weapons. It was a lot of fun.

Jacob: I didn’t have any trouble focusing on our project, but I did make sure to spend some time talking to other teams and making friends. I also thought the inflatable weapon fights were great fun.

DM: What were the most difficult challenges to your team?

Jim: The most difficult part was storyboarding. Once we felt our concept was developed enough, we had to figure out how to tell it: which shots were necessary, which scenes needed to be cut for length reasons, etc.

 

 

Jacob: We must have re-drawn our boards 4 to 5 times before we felt comfortable with the film. During all this, a lot of other teams had already started to animate. Which, at the time, made us question whether we were spending too much time planning.

 

 

Tom: As a team I think we all had moments where we felt like, individually, we weren't doing as well as the other two, or that we wouldn't finish…or something. But, when one of us was down, the other two were more supportive. I think the hardest part for me, was the first hour or so that I started animating. I believe my initial revelation (in its grammatical prowess) sounded something like, "Damn, animation takes long!"

 

 

DM: I really enjoyed your finished animation. I especially loved the "Dave" voiceover, and how the storyline built from subtle humor to a gut-busting laugh in the last frame. Can you give our readers a brief description of your finished animation, and what part of the film each team member worked on?

Jim: Two friends find themselves inexplicably tied to railroad tracks. Their friendship is severely tested as a train approaches. Tom handled the opening shots, as well as the "Dave" line. Jacob and I animated much of the middle, and then Jacob nailed the ending.

 

Screen captures of Team MoCap's award winning film, Switch © Team MoCap

 

Tom: I also modeled the set and drew our stick figure at the end credits.

Jacob: I also edited the sound and final video.

 

 

DM: The inevitable final question…what advice can you give animators contemplating entering an iron-animator competition?

Group Answer: [in the midst of laughter] Don't do it! Nah, just kidding!

Jacob: My advice would be to forget about the competition part, if possible. We came into FJORG! not expecting to place—we were excited to be a part of it, and we wanted to create a film that would make us laugh.

Tom: So much of the judging is out of your control, because every person has his/her own tastes, but what you CAN control is how much fun you have during those 32-hours.

Jim: We made friends with some really cool people that are equally as passionate about animation, and those friendships are going to last a lot longer than a day and a half—especially if you bring deodorant.

• Team MoCap's award winning animation, Switch
• Team MoCap's FJORG! demo reel
• View all 15 FJORG! animations
• SIGGRAPH 2007 Conference
• Dee-Marie explores FJORG!

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