Michael Berenstein
Animator
677 35th Ave
San Francisco CA
94121
Tel: 415/750-1355
Email:berbentos@yahoo.com

Character 3-D Animator: features, shorts and commercial production, Animation instructor.

Objective
To teach animation, animation principles, techniques, bringing ideas from my experience as Russian and American Animator, years of professional involvement in the field. I like to use class discussions, bring unexpected ideas and common sense.

Career history

Animation Instructor 2009-current
Academy of Art University
San Francisco Ca   

   
Teaching classes and One-on-One full time students, advanced level, using lecture, practical demos and individual critiques.Main objective is to prepare students for professional application in the field of 3D computer animation.

Animation teacher Summer 2004 - curent (on and off)
De Anza CollegeCupertino Ca

Taught various classes. Managed a class of 32 pupils, all with different backgrounds, different level of preparedness. Was able to switch on a fly between advanced students with complex storyboards and true beginners without prior animation experience. Main objective has always been to keep ideas simple, enabling students to complete them at least on the level of animatic in reasonable time.  

                                                                    
Character Animator 2006-2008
Pacific Data Images/DreamworksEmeryville Ca

Worked on Animated Feature "Madagascar II". Animated most of the characters.
 

Character Animator 2004-2005
Tippet Studio
Berkley Ca

Animated Timpleton-the-Rat for Charlotte's Web, Worked on Commercials for Milka Chocolate. Combined real like like Rat animation with acting, adjusting animation to Clients' direction. Worked with a team of fellow animators to create seamless transitions between the shots.

Character Animator 1994-2003
Pixar Animation Studios
Emeryville Ca

Animated characters for Pixar’s projects following Directors’ input
As part of Pixar team, participated in creation of all classic features and various shorts of the Studio: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Bug’s Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Geri’s Game, For the Birds, etc.
Added an element of irony and subtle humor to the shots: wimpy, un-hero like behavior of Woody, Mussolini-esque Molt in Bug’s Life etc.
Each shot is an achievement in itself, please refer to the reel.
As directing animator on CD-Rom project for Intel, created storyboard and supervised production of demo reel for the client, trained new animators and got them “Production ready”. Two of them are employed by Pixar, others went on to other studios (all are working in the field).
Puppet Animator 1993-1994
Danger Productions
Brisbane Ca
Animated puppet characters for TV series “Bump in the Night”.
Added to the overall quality of animation in a crew of mostly fresh out of school animators.
Animated some of the best selling shots: Bumpy and Squishy singing, dancing bugs at the bar.
Helped to design rig to suspend puppets in the air, designed rigs for various purposes.
Puppet Animator, freelance 1993
Studio Colossal
San Francisco, Ca
Animated “walking dollar bills” for Miller Genuine Draft commercial. Helped to design workable rig for “bendable” dollar bills.

Animator 1991-1993
Will Vinton Studio Claymation
Portland, Ore

Designed and animated clay characters for the 1-minute long shorts for Disney Channel’s “Alice in Wonderland, using unique Clay-on-glass technique.
Actively participated in design of the layered glass rig. Improved the rig by adding two more glass layers.
Worked independently, with very little supervision from the Director.
To complete “Prince’s Shoes” in a very short time, quickly searched for and hired an animator from Russia to finish the spot , which ended up being one of the best short of the series.

Camera Assistant, Animator, Director 1984-1989
Belarus film
Minsk, Belarus

Camera Assistant, Set Designer, Prop Builder, Animator, Director.
Went from Camera Assistant to animator and directed own spot for Mini-Max Festival in Warsaw, Poland.

Education

Degree in Architecture from Byelorussian Polytechnic Institute in Minsk, Faculty of Architecture. Equivalent of Master’s Degree. MFA equivalency from De Anza Community College.
9 Months Moscow Course for Animators.

Professional Development

PDI proprietary software EMO, Pixar’s proprietary software “Menv”, Maya (animation and modelling), Zbrush.

Working knowledge of 2-d Vector based animation package “Moho”, traditional techniques, including clay animation, stop-motion, cut-outs, clay on glass, sand on glass.
Special achievements
Double winner of Pixar’s International Paper Plane Contest. The only performer of a unique mystical “Perpetual Glider” act. True Miracle.

References available upon request.

Conductor

Another idea is Conductor, conducting the wrong music. Same as the wrong written speech, only with character.
Here's my video footage. Click here.
A little too long, a little less expressive than I need. OK, let's find extremes and create a "cheat sheet" with them.

Because this is complicated shot, with lots of small movements, it's hard to see what's going on simply by looking at the snapshots. So we need to put it together, using any of the editing software: Windows Movie Maker, Premiere, After Effects, Ulead Studio, iMovie. I'll use Windows Movie Maker.
After playing with lengths of the snapshots, removing some of them to make movements clearer and shot shorter, here is the result: click here
But frankly, I'm not satisfied with the video. Lots of details are lost and the movement is not that clear. So I think I will need the help of the Breakdowns. So I'll do another pass with selecting snapshots, this time selecting Extremes and Breakdowns. Again, after playing with the lengths of the snapshots, removing parts of the shot to make movements simpler and the shot shorter (we need 150-ish frames, about 6-7 seconds),
I ended up with this "blocking": click here
As you see, I added the ending, which I cut off from my first blocking.
Now I can start real blocking of the shot in Maya, using CG character. I begin to feel better about the shot, having set main movements, body language, Extremes and Breakdowns. Now I will need to exaggerate some movements, simplify them and make sure the face is much more expressive, than in the Video Ref.

Eating the wrong stuff

Let's consider more complicated case of classical shot: "Eating the wrong stuff".
The point of a shot is to create change of emotion. Let's act  it out first: a character is sitting at the table and eating something. Then realizing it's the wrong food. I came up with the opposite idea: the character doesn't really want to eat, tries some, and realizes it's very tasty. The shot ends in energetic chomping.
Here's my acting, click here.
Using method, described in "working with Video Reference" I selected the Extremes:

And to check if the Extremes are selected correctly, I put them into Windows Movie Maker. After playing with timing, here is what I came up with: click here

To check if the movements are working, I need to insert Breakdowns. So I'm back at my Live Video to search for the Breakdowns (and, if necessary, In-betweens). Having selected the snapshots that, I think, may serve as Breakdowns, I insert them between Extremes in my Windows Movie Maker and, after playing with the timing, record a new movie. Click here.

Note that in the end I re-used last two eating snapshots. My recording was skipping frames and I don't have some of the Breakdowns, but I think I will be able to create them on my own, while animating.

All we need to do now is to open Maya and start creating those Extremes, trying to make them as close to the snapshots as possible. I'd use most important facial expressions, but leave chewing for later. If necessary, I'll make chewing snapshot reference. I'll try to come up with animating this shot, but I may not have time for it. Stay tuned.