 "Photo: Dan Bollwerk")
If you want to feel defeated, try pulling out a syllabus from one of your hardest classes. Take the time to examine the weeks of work before you, the deadlines of the most grade-altering projects and the select number of absences you're allowed before your grade starts helplessly dropping by thirds of a letter. It doesn't take long to see that the semester's foreboding weeks of upcoming work offer little fun and absolutely no free time. It's all we can do to take a deep breath, seek some academic inspiration and get the loads of homework done!
So we all know how to take a deep breath and we're pretty sure we know how to get our homework done, but what about that academic inspiration part?
Enter UCD sophomore and adequately inspired student, Phoebe Coleman. As a 3D animation major, Coleman contends that the antidote for the mid-semester humdrums involves a bit of introspection topped with a touch of inspiration. "The more you are inspired by the things around you, the more motivated you are about the things before you. Knowing the applications of what I'm studying really helps to make my projects easier to finish."
A transfer student from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, MI, Coleman started out as a double biology and chemistry major. But it didn't take many long, winter, Great Lakes State months before she realized the limitations of the biochemistry field: "I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a genetics lab with minimized social engagement with the outside world."
Upon completing her first year at Kalamazoo, she transferred to UCD and took full advantage of the successful and well-equipped Digital Animation Center (check out the DAC's website www.cu3d.org).
The jump from genetics lab to digital animation lab allowed Coleman to gain a connection to others that has left her former days of inoculating Petri dishes a process of the past - "Animation goes through the same sort of process movie productions go through. There is a lot of collaborative work that rests on the clarity of being able to communicate one's ideas."
With a minor in biology and focus in 3D medical technology, Coleman looks to do more than make mere movie animation for Pixar. Once her college days are done, she hopes to use her animation skills for a practical yet humanitarian purpose: "I'm interested in going into the biomedical technology field through animation so I can animate internal systems to assist patients and doctors prior to surgeries and other medical procedures. Through animations, both parties will be able to visualize procedures and understand what's about to happen, offering a peace of mind in otherwise distressing situations. There are many fields in animation, but medical technology, although a fairly new field, appeals to me greatly because not only can I combine my love for fine arts and the sciences, but I help out others at the same time."
Considering her ambitious goals and her eagerness to insert herself into the biomedical technology field, Coleman doesn't appear to be the kind of student who needs supplemental motivation (she's been known to work in the animation lab past midnight). Though she's hyperdedicated to her school work, it's fair to say Coleman gets just as stressed as the rest of us.
Her work is involved, tedious and technical. She has just begun an animation project that is likely to take her the entire semester. Throughout the upcoming months, she will recreate and animate a scenic prospect, or as her class calls it, "an environment." Coleman has chosen a European landmark along with its distinctive surroundings as a setting to replicate through 3D animation.
Describing the process, Coleman explains, "We start out with pre-production concepts, trying to figure out what [setting] we want to [re-create]. We look into the history of the location, the textures and the story behind the place."
Coleman's design project will capture the image of the Alhambra, a royal palace in Granada, Spain. She's already drafted pre-visual sketches and concepts that demonstrate how she plans to see the Alhambra as it will be created in the 3D space. "In animation, and in any re-creation, the reference and re-creation will never be exactly the same. As animators, that's what we try to do - we try to re-create what we see."
After creating the initial sketches, Coleman will apply the drawings to a computer program called Maya 8.0 which allows her to form the initial plans into three dimensions. She then models the scene by adding depth and color for texture as well as adding the scene's final lighting touches.
But as our talented animation student can tell you, all work and no play makes Phoebe a dull girl. And while she is committed to her UCD design roots, she knows the inspirational benefits and academic applications of attending local art shows, galleries and exhibits. So when Coleman heard that the DAM Design Council was presenting its third annual Design After Dark gala at the Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, she rallied up a group of friends to experience this fancy night of art and design celebration.
The gala benefits the architecture, design and graphics department at the DAM by showcasing select film sets re-created by nine local design firms. Coleman spends the evening admiring the exhibitions: full-size film props and movie sets made to echo the images of these classic films. In a vignette that replicates The Shining, there's a bewitching reproduction of a woven carpet from the Stanley Hotel. There's a row of axes hacked into the set's walls and even a pair of twin actresses dressed up as the scary little girls from that frightening elevator scene. At least in this setting, Jack Nicholson can join Phoebe Coleman in dull company!
Another vignette steals an image from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where designers and architects have reconstructed a section of the space ship. The well made, futuristic black and white space tube gives Coleman not only the motivation to get her homework done, but it also stands as a trippy backdrop for pictures with her and her friends.
Not into horror or science fiction? The Design After Dark gala also presents a rebuilt set from Lost in Translation, displaying some of the movie's furniture and costume designs.
Although the design gala doesn't display animation works, Coleman notes how attending an event like this helps lighten the load of her own demanding design projects: "The evening was inspirational to me because it's important to see how designers in other fields use the process of design. Since I work to transfer a model into the computer, it's helpful for me to understand how designers go beyond that computer step and transfer their models into the real world."
Since the gala has a strong Denver connection and a purpose of benefiting the DAM, Coleman also used the opportunity to network and to see where the direction of notable Denver design firms is taking artists, clients and the public.
With at least two more years of school work ahead of her, Phoebe knows she'll have to keep motivated, inspired and committed to the animation goals she has before her. In the mean time, she'll keep on sketching, modeling and rendering the designs of her future.
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