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.

Me Behind the Scenes on "Community"

Here are some photos of me working on various parts of "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", Community's recent stop-motion Christmas special! I got to be an animation intern!

I Got to Work on Something Cool!!!

It's been a while people! But only because I have been super busy making a stop-motion short at school with a bunch of my classmates. I can't post anything about it yet, but I will once it's completed in April. We are starting the post-production stage in January.

On the other hand, I CAN talk about the amazing internship I just had! I got to venture down to Burbank, California to be an animation intern on the NBC show "Community". They made a stop-motion Christmas episode that airs TONIGHT AT 8 PM!!! It was loads of fun working on this project. I got to meet and work with a lot of cool and talented people, including Teresa Drilling. She has been my stop-motion instructor for the past year and a half. Teresa offered the internship to myself and four other classmates. We all also worked on the short together that we are making at the Art Institute of Portland.

Anyways, here is a short article that was written about the Portland animators that worked on the "Community" Christmas special in The Oregonian:

http://www.oregonlive.com/movies/index.ssf/2010/12/portland_animation_talent_behi.html

My name is in there! AWESOME! I got to help organize the puppet hospital, make props, and even help an animator or two with some of their shots. I'll even get an IMDB page out of this. Haha. It was a great experience that I will never forget! Being a stop-motion animator is one of the coolest and most challenging jobs there is. That's why I love it!

Here is the crew credits list too:

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.