Jeff Lew Interview

[trailergod]

for the full interview
http://www.3dfestival.com/story.php?story_id=821&page=2

3DFestival.com have posted their interview with Jeff Lew who has worked on projects like: X-Men, and was the lead animator on the upoming The Matrix: Reloaded. Here's a snip.

Tito A. Belgrave: Hi Jeff, you have been quite a busy man in the past year, tell us some of the things you have been doing and some of the things you have planned for the year.

Jeff Lew: Hi, Tito. Yes, I’ve been pretty busy. I’ve been working on Matrix: Reloaded for the past 2 ½ years. I just recently got off the project and now I am devoting my entire time to finishing my training video. I started the training video about 1 year ago on my free time. This year will be quite interesting for me. I already have it mapped out. Immediately after I complete my training video, I will jump into production of Killer Bean 3. I started a short scene back in 2001, but you know me, I never finished it. So this year will mainly be about KB3. In parallel with KB3, I will be starting pre production of my next short. Unlike Killer Bean, for this next short I will not do alone. This allows me to get pre production rolling while I am busy with KB3. I’m keeping the project under wraps right now, but it will be much more sophisticated than Killer Bean in all aspects. And yes, there will actually be a story this time! Think of it as in the same vain as my Concussion short, which I never finished.


Tito A. Belgrave: Being involved as an animator in such films as X-Men, Kung Pow and the recent position as lead animator on the upoming "The Matrix Reloaded", how have these experiences helped you in assembling your own training material?

Jeff Lew: Well, people in the CG industry tend to jump around to a few different companies a few times. The last place I worked had artists and technical people from many different companies and many different schools. In most companies, the employees specialize, meaning that they only do one thing. An animator just animates, a rigging person just sets up the character, a modeler just models. This has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that the artists can focus on what they are hired to do and excel at it. The disadvantage is that you need a big support team. If an animator gets into technical trouble, they often have to wait for the rigging department to address the issue. BTW, in my experience, most character setup people are not animators themselves, so they may not setup your character in a way that is easy for you to animate. In this DVD set, I will go through many tips on how to setup your character to be animated easily.

[Kn'thrak]

Killer Bean rocks. I want KB3 now!!!!!!!!!!
Love his other work, but KB is the best!

[wirm]

yep, I've got a couple of killer bean vids on my computer. I've also got some flash animation of stick figures fighting that are pretty good. Not sure if he did it though.