Radical Love

Hello dear blogspot community!

I'm finally posting from the west coast (best coast)!!! I've missed LA so much, it's so nice to finally be home and to see so many familiar faces and not have to deal with the humidity of the south.
School has officially started, which means I really need to get my butt going on my senior film. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten as much done over the summer as I wanted to, but at least I definitely haven't dived into senior year empty handed. Also, TODAY IS GAME DAY! BEAT THE RAINBOWS.

k shameless promotion of USC because Trojans

I'm going to diverge from the regular updates about my thesis for today because I want to talk about love. (But this is still relevant to my film I promise.)
Last night, I started to discover that maybe my senior year is going to be more than just me making a short film, going to all the season games, rooming with my best friend, and yolo-ing my way through senior year of college. But then I went to the One Love event last night and heard Heidi Baker speak. Apparently, as usual, God seems to have something bigger in mind.

Heidi being awesome and making people cry

In my experience, God seems to enjoy planning things out in my life that are set during very specific dates in my life. Once, for example; I got very sick during winter break, but God had the grace to let me celebrate Christmas with my family first in perfect health. I literally got a fever at the stroke of midnight on December 26th, and was bedridden for the next 1.5 - 2 weeks. But at least I wasn't sick on Christmas! 2012, one of the best and most enriching years of my life, was planned so that I started the new year in Hong Kong, interned for the first time at Dreamworks, lived in Europe for 4 months, and closed the year singing and dancing with 16,000 others at Urbana in St. Louis. And my 21st, the official "adult" age, was on the first day of school after coming back from Europe. Go figure.

This week is the first week of school. (Click here for my photo blog for usc senior year) On the first day of classes, I met a homeless woman by my apartment who asked me for a meal - it was hot and she was covered in blankets and hadn't had any food. It was easy for me to get her a meal from Wendys, so I did. But I also walk past her everyday to and from classes- I don't have the money or the time to really take care of her, even though I want to. And it sounds awful, but sometimes homeless people scare me because I don't know who they are, and I don't want to be near them. What does it mean to love? What does it mean to see people through God's eyes?

Last night Heidi gave a talk on loving others and really seeing the people around you. "Big things don't excite me" she said. "It's not about going bigger, it's about going slower." It's about taking the time to lay down your pride and busy schedules to embrace someone who needs it. It's about trusting God enough to know that even though I don't have much money, there is someone out there who has far less than I can fathom - financially, socially. It's about seeing the people who the world turns a blind eye to, understanding that no matter what, I will always be provided for through Christ. And I'm still scared to do that because I know it will cost me. It will force me to step outside of my comfort zone.

One of Heidi's experiences involved her driving with her sister to this dry, desert "hellhole" of a town, where people were curled up under trees and had so many worms in their hands and feet that the couldn't even crawl to the water well. These people were dying and diseased, but Heidi stopped for them and brought them to the well to help heal them. What does it matter if you save one person when there are millions others who continue to suffer? I didn't know the answer, but she did. When you understand God's love and heart through others, that compassion transforms you from the inside out and spreads to others around you. Each person Heidi helped got a glimpse of what it meant to be loved by God, and in turn started to love others in the same way. In the end, the town that Heidi went to was able to receive more and more aid, to the point that they started to learn how to take care of each other and tend the soil so that worms would no longer be a problem. It was a community transformed by radical, fearless love.

Being powerful

Worship with 700 students from all across LA!

As many of you know, my thesis film is about a little girl, Noemi who learns through her magical tree-friend, Milo, how to be brave and change her community through love. *spoiler alert* In the final scene, she realizes that in order to transform lives and really love someone, you have to really see them and love them for who they are. Simple drawings won't change hearts, and she encounters this when she meets the homeless man- a character who intimidates and scares her the most. In the end, the entire community is changed through the townspeople caring for one another. See what I'm getting at here? Or more correctly, where God is getting at. God is essentially telling me my own story. I see what you did there, God.

God is many things; he is an artist, a poet, an engineer, a teacher, and a beautiful storyteller. But above all I've found God to be a father and wise friend who continues to take me on wild adventures, one after another.

A lot of my final year will be comprised of me scrambling to make the best short-film I can make. But God has His own agenda and I know there are still lots of things I have yet to learn before I graduate. Maybe this is taboo for me to say as an aspiring animator, but making an amazing film isn't my #1 priority. Above all I want to learn how to love radically. I want to learn how to live out the message behind my (or God's) little story.

Love
me :)

Gearing Up!

About a week ago, I thought I was in story lock mode! Bahahaha. Except I forgot that there really is no such thing as story lock, so when I thought I was only going to make a couple tweaks to the story, I ended up taking out chunks and chunks of it to make it better and shorter for the sake of my sanity. I like it way better now, but it still needs some work. If you want to help me figure out my story message me!

It's hard to believe that summer has gone by so quickly. It's been a really interesting summer; I've traveled so much and have definitely been challenged/stretched spiritually, artistically, and personally. I thought I was over the "reverse culture shock" from North Carolina, but three months of missing Los Angeles has taught me otherwise. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to going back to the west coast, especially since it'll be my last year as a student, but I will miss old friends and family here.

School starts in two weeks, so I'm in a little bit of a panic mode, since I'm a little behind my schedule for thesis. Being friends with other animators and artists tells me that this is normal, but I can't help feeling a little nervous. There's never enough time! :(

But, I have been able to make some good progress in the past few weeks; my super awesome modeler; Tales, has modeled Noemi and it I am actually geeking out so hard over how cool she looks. She's becoming everything I imagined her to be. -Rereading that statement totally makes me sound like I'm having a baby. One of my friends Kelsy joked that my thesis was like me being pregnant, because it'll be due in 9 months-HAHA. I guess it kind of is like my baby. I'm obsessed with my thesis.

Here are shots of Noemi that Tales modeled for me; the first one is his first pass, and the second is an untextured mesh of the close-to-final version.

concept art

pass #1

is this awesome or what?

Isn't this exciting? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm going to school to make stories. And not only that, but I get to do it with awesome friends from across the country, around the world, and with people I met at Siggraph, Dreamworks, USC, etc.

In some ways every step gets bigger, and scarier. The more I plan out what I want for thesis, the more I realize how there is so much stuff that I don't know how to do-even basics that are embarrassing to admit. Like, how do I cut out unnecessary parts of my story without cutting out too much? What is the right composition? How do I combine 2D/3D animation without exploding my computer, or my sanity? Sometimes it feels like I'm walking into this huge project with a blindfold on and a handful of tools in my belt. I hope this isn't abnormal.

Nevertheless, my friend Jordan and I were discussing how we actually have the coolest major ever. Animation/storytelling is something like being God- you create a character, put so much thought into their lives, who they are, who they will be, their struggles, passions, etc., and bit by bit you breathe life into them, and they end up taking on a soul of their own. I realize that I have been so blessed to end up where I am now, to have experienced as much as I have, and to be surrounded by so many incredible friends and mentors-including all of you guys who have been keeping up with my blog!

And last but not least, here's a rough snapshot of the animatic that I've started to figure out timing, assets, etc. etc. all the fancy animation terminology that I still forget quite frequently. Also sometimes blogger really annoys me because I can't post vimeo videos. grrr.

Happy Monday everyone!