Portlandia!

I just updated my stop-motion animation reel! I did a lot of animation on the rats sketches in season 3 of Portlandia, and I finally got the footage to add to my reel. I did a lot more than what I included, but I only want to show the best! Most of my shots involved character acting, and I saw a lot of improvement over about a two month time span of animating every day. It felt really good to see such significant progress in my skill set!

To view my reel, follow this link to the video on my Vimeo page: Steele Reel 2013

And just because, here's my website: www.artofsteele.com

POW Fest 2012

The short stop-motion film I worked on in college, "The Box Game" was accepted into the 2012 Portland Oregon Women's Film Festival! In order to submit a film to this festival, it had to be directed or co-directed by a woman (myself). I am proud to say that we had 6 women in lead positions on our stop-motion film crew! The festival happens at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon from March 8-11. I'm not sure what day my film plays yet, but it will be screened during the animation portion of the festival.

I am pretty excited about this one. I felt a rush of excitement when I read the e-mail during my lunch break at work today :)

Here's a still from the short. Trivia: That's a painting of me on the wall in the background.

My First Paying Job

Here is what I have been working on at Bent Image Lab since June. It's my first job since I graduated from college in March of this year. My position was Puppet Rigger/Wrangler and eventually Assistant Animator. Yes, I got to do a bit of animation!

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/biz/hallmark-channel-announced-original-animated-special-jingle-all-the-way.html

This was a lot of fun because I got to work with some people I already knew as well as meet people that worked on Coraline AND The Nightmare Before Christmas!! I love stop-motion.

"The Box Game" Premiere!

Back in April, there was a gallery set up in the Art Institute of Portland that displayed all the puppets, props, and sets that we used in the film, as well as photos of the film in various stages of progress. Here are a few photos of the gallery and film premiere of "The Box Game":

















Hopefully soon, I will be able to post the film on my professional website: www.artofsteele.com. The editing team just has to get together again and export a version of the film for the web.

NW Animation Festival

So, I got to work on a stop-motion short for a whole year at the Art Institute of Portland before I graduated a couple months ago. Roles I served on the project include student director, writer, animator, puppet and set fabricator, rigger, and compositor. With the help of about 30 fellow students of mine from the Art Institute of Portland, we created "The Box Game".

I've been submitting the short film to festivals for the past month, including the Northwest Animation Festival happening right here in Portland, Oregon! They accepted our film along with 77 other films from around the country and world. "The Box Game" will be showing on the third day of the festival, this Sunday. Pretty exciting!

Also, we had DVDs made specially for the cast and crew of the film. Complete with commentaries! I designed the DVD case cover and disc art using images from the film. Take a look!

Stop-Motion Final: "Smokin'"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3flbZ1GjGMQ&feature=channel_page

Don't Mess With Reggie

This is my homemade stop-motion puppet that I created for my first stop-motion class at AIPD. His name is Reggie the Toad. The idea is that he is in the mafia, which is why he looks like such a badass. These are a few of the many photos I took during the construction stage and then some from the photo shoot I had to do with him.

I really want to make more puppets and go further with similar ideas I have.

Cool Stop-Motion Stuff So Far

These are a few of my animations from the Stop-Motion class I'm taking this quarter with the one and only, Teresa Drilling.