Zez Vaz

LUCK IS AN ATITTUDE - Martini Kisser Casting

2011-10-09T20:32:00.003+01:00

This is my entry on the "Luck is an Atittude" Martini Kisser Casting

ZOMBIES! - Now that I have your attention...

2010-11-29T01:44:00.012Z

Hi, invisible visitors.

I haven't posted much lately, so I thought I should keep the blog up to date.

Since my last post I left Birmingham, UK, and moved back to my hometown of Porto, Portugal.

So, currently I am lecturing Animation/Cinema at EPCEP, a High School in Porto.
Check out this badass video by student Telmo Jorge on his first attempt at animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbO9JBNlflA

It's been very interesting and I smell some future promises!

I am also developing an iPhone and Android App with fellow mates Álvaro Monteiro, Fábio Aguiar, Joana Gonçalves, Sara Carvalho and Tiago Magalhães . The app is about zombies and has an amazing plot! I'm in charge of the illustrations, branding, character design and animation. I am thrilled to be a part of this project and you'll definitely hear about this one as soon as it's out on the market.

Last but not least, I do got a few other tricks up my sleeve and works in progress, but more on that later!

Make sure you follow my little teases at http://dribbble.com/zezvaz and my twitter page http://twitter.com/zezvaz

Cheers to all!

Macacos Fardados - Agência Funerária Vidente

2010-09-12T04:47:00.004+01:00

Macacos Fardados is a portuguese sketch comedy group.

____________________________________________

Sketch sobre uma Agência Funerária que adivinha o dia da morte dos seus clientes.

Macacos Fardados are:

Filipa Caldas,

Ricardo Caldas,

João Vaz,

Zez Vaz

Written & Directed by: Zez Vaz

Produced by: Zez Vaz

Thanks to:

Marco Oliveira,

Luís Alves

Domino Effect 3D Animation

2010-05-27T06:17:00.013+01:00

For the last project of the first year of the Animation course we were supposed to create a domino effect/chain reaction short animation on Autodesk Maya.

The focus of the assessment was solely on modeling and animating, so I sacrificed lighting and texturing in order to spend more time around the first two.

The environment that came to my head instantly was a skate shop and how cool it'd be to make a whole chain reaction with inanimated objects with the sole purpose of making a skateboard flip.

So I created a room with an indoors half pipe and typical shop furniture and objects to accomplish it.

This is the room sketch and storyboard:

My reference for the furniture/desk/general shop appearance came mainly from the following images.

Animation wise, my timing and antecipation influences came from the AKA Cartoon Studios series Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy, simply because it's so ingrained in my head for following it closely that probably a shoe box lowering its speed in the middle of the air just looks natural or realistic to me by now.

Exemple of Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezMGemYujn0

And the final video:

Music: "Doin' Time" by Sublime

Thanks to Marcin Dudkowski, Kelvin Wong and David Mourato for the help on understanding Maya and critiques.

Macacos Fardados - Cool To Hate Remake 2001

2010-05-02T05:40:00.003+01:00

First ever Macacos Fardados sketch recorded in 2001 and edited in 2010.
Remake of the 'Cool To Hate' music video by The Offspring.
____________________________________________

First ever Macacos Fardados sketch recorded in 2001 and edited in 2010.
Remake of the 'Cool To Hate' music video by The Offspring.

Macacos Fardados are:
Filipa Caldas,
Ricardo Caldas,
João Vaz,
Zez Vaz

Written & Directed by: Zez Vaz

Produced by: Zez Vaz

Music "Cool To Hate" by The Offspring

"Frankenstein" Stopmotion short film

2010-03-21T03:55:00.023Z

We were given a script of a Frankenstein's scene to work on our group's stopmotion work. This portion of the story, which we adapted from the original, consists on Victoria, the creator of the monster getting chased by him. She runs away and escapes, but the monster, in an attempt to show affection, struggles Vicroria's cat because he can't control his strength.

My particular job was to make the animatic from Ashlea's storyboard and to make the character design and model to Victoria. The direction we wanted to take in terms of style was a 'Tim Burton' sort of look - stylized and creepy. Ashlea made the model's dress. Each of the group's members got to animate some shots.

Research for Victoria's character design:

Sedusa (from The Powerpuff Girls)

Corpse Bride

Coraline

This was Victoria's model progression:

Animatic:

Some 'making of' photos of us animating and the beautiful set and characters they came up with:

This is the final version of the short film edited by Louie Jordan:

Created by:

Steven Clarke

Roxy Gomes

Sarah Louise Holmes

Ashlea Jefferies

Louie Jordan

Zez Vaz

Animation Showreel Feb. 2010

2010-03-15T20:35:00.008Z

A very useful lecture at FLIP Festival '09 on Animators' Portfolio Reviews got me to the following notes about what showreels should be like:

- Don't put silent animations. Add music!
- Don't put too much of the same.
- Have a fair amount of 2D.
- Maintain an independent style as well as commercial material.
- Add walkcycles/runcycles.
- Turn down music's volume whenever there's lip-sync.
- Lack of 3D is not a problem if that's not the direction you want to take.
- Have a sense of timing and rythm - an entertaining showreel.
- Close-up shots to show what the character is feeling is very important.
- "Humor is good!"
- Include software that was used.
- Add sketchbooks to the portfolio.
- Label everything - DVD, film, etc.

That being said, I tried to make a showreel with my own material which led me to the following collection:

Software used:
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere Pro
Anime Studio Pro

Music:
"Paranoiattack" by The Faint

Model construction

2010-02-08T12:02:00.006Z

To create a clay model, I started with sketches of a character I’ve been working on.

Added different face expressions:

Later, I studied the body parts and their sizes, and made it using wires and tape.

Finally, to cover the character up, and with help from classmate Marcin, it was time to sew fabric to make a shirt and trousers.

The final piece looked like this:

"Transitions" Pixilation

2010-02-08T11:53:00.003Z

Our group had one week to come up with an idea and complete a stop motion short film. It was decided to go with pixilation and having ourselves as the actors. The main idea was to make transitions from one person to the other taking off pieces of clothing and such. We’ve done some testes which looked like this:

After the tests, the concept had evolved and had now a storyline. Louie, Sarah and Ashlea came up with the idea of each person representing a phase of the cycle of life - from child to death.

Later on, the video edition was done by me using Adobe Premiere and Photoshop. The song is “Mirror Error” by The Faint, which worked perfectly fine with the timing of the animation. I noticed that adding more frames of the same picture when it is a key frame, gives a certain iconic feeling to those specific images.

Final video:

the misfits, the nerds and the romantics

2010-01-07T20:47:00.010Z

"the misfits, the nerds and the romantics" is my illustration portfolio.

It served as final project on the Design and Multimedia Communication course at Escola Superior Artística do Porto.

the misfits

Title: “The pains of being pure at heart”

Concept: Facing life’s lemons.

Title: “Beware of bunnies in carrot’s clothing”

Concept: Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Title: “Robots”

Concept: Think outside the box.

Title: “Power for the people, by the people”

Concept: No hierarchy.

the nerds

Title: “Greetings from Oporto”

Concept: Oporto can have its own Godzilla if I want it to.

Title: “Everybody wants to rule the World”

Concept: Fame.

Title: “Powerball Overdose”

Concept: The workaholic. The Capricorn.

Title: “Teenagers they make me sick”

Concept: Adolescents are babies trapped in adult’s bodies.

the romantics

Title: “The journey is the best part”

Concept: Happiness is not a destination: it's a journey.

Title: “Fancy city curves”

Concept: Fantasize about Birmingham.

Title: “We are the only ones to hold ourselves back”

Concept: Never underestimate yourself.

Title: “Lover”

Concept: Complete yourself. Love yourself.

Bunny Talk animation

2009-12-08T11:24:00.006Z

My influences were Pendelon Ward's Adventure Time and Thurop Van Orman's The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack series.

The short had to be based on the audio clip, and it kind of immediately came to my mind this bunny character design I had created earlier. The bunny was cute and that would contrast with the voice, which would make it funny. That allied to a fellow bunny and a machine to explode all carrots completed the story line.

I started with the animatic plus an acting performance to help structure and simplify the animation work.

Animatic + performance

And after two good weeks the animation is done.

Final Animation

Evolution of Man - traditional animation

2009-11-01T20:21:00.006Z

This animation consists in Darwin’s origin of the species. The story line is the evolution from a monkey to the modern man and the last one falls in a banana skin.

The reason for this idea is because I write live action Portuguese comedy sketches. The group is called ‘Macacos Fardados’, (Suited-up Monkeys) in English, and thought it would be nice to have a Title Sequence.

The characters were inspired in Don Hertzfeldt’s cartoons and the animation itself in Sponge Bob and Goofy cartoons. Firstly I struggled to get rid of detail in the character design and later in making a good walk cycle for each character helping the mood of each one of them.

I acted for each of the walk cycles.

The ‘monkey’ is supposed to be bored with its appearance, so he doesn’t have many ups and downs, the arms bounce to the sides and the feet point to the sides as well.

The ‘primitive man’ had to be a little curved to the front but should be wondering about the sudden transformation, so he has his arms moving to the sides in an anxious mood. He has more ups and downs than the previous character.

The ‘naked man’ is perfectly in the vertical and he’s surprised with his improved appearance so he kind of shows off to the camera having his arms in the same position instead of moving in the opposite direction of his legs.

The ‘modern man’ is confident so he’s completely showing off to the camera with a huge smile. His line of action shows that he’s curved to the back (left).

Here’s the final walk cycle and morphing video:

Skate jump animation

2009-11-01T20:20:00.011Z

This exercised consisted in the notion of anticipation.
We were required to make a character jump. I immediately thought of skateboarding because it features an exaggerated anticipation in reality to give impulse to the board.
I watched a lot of skateboarding movies and draw particular key frames and struggled to be precise with the feet movement to flip the board.

Here’s one of the references – skateboarder Geoff Rowley:

After this I came up with a character inspired majorly in Craig McCracken's Powerpuff Girls cartoons among other research on illustrations. I had recently seen the Pixar’s movie Monsters Inc. and that made me come up with a monster. Another interesting thing about having a ‘cartoony’ character was that it didn’t move exactly like the real skaters I’ve been drawing – everything had to be exaggerated, so that was an added difficulty to the job. Also tried to add a comedic feeling with the loss of the underpants of the character, which afterwards didn’t think was such a good idea cause it seemed like too much information in so few frames.
After the test, I got the idea of the frames that needed to be added to slow down some parts and this was the final video.

Final Video

Bouncing ball

2009-11-01T20:19:00.004Z

The bouncing ball, even though a simple drawing, it’s a pretty complete exercise. It explores arc, squash and stretch, and, last but not least, it has its foundation in weight. To give the proper illusion of believable weight was, I think, the hardest part of the job. That being said, I used a normal football and a bowling ball to really figure out the timing in these very different weights.

First I tested the timing of the key frames on Adobe Premiere to know how many in-betweens I’d need.

Key frames test video:

Final version:

Face stretch

2009-11-01T19:26:00.002Z

This task consisted in animating very different facial expressions and emotions. The ones I chose were ‘happiness’, ‘hanger’ and ‘sadness’.

Test Animation:

Final Animation:

Bomb Flipbook

2009-11-01T19:25:00.003Z

For the first task in the animation course at Birmingham City University we had to create a hundred frames flipbook. This flipbook was made between a group of students in order to create a larger story. The story we came up with consisted in a bomb being thrown from character to character.
My character was inspired in animator Don Hertzfeldt’s cartoons featuring a stickman. The animation itself was inspired in old Goofy cartoons (Disney’s).It features anticipation, squash and stretch to give an exaggerated ‘cartoony’ feeling.

Macacos Fardados - Encontro do Inferno

2009-08-02T19:00:00.001+01:00

Macacos Fardados is a Portuguese Sketch Comedy Group.

Macacos Fardados is:
Filipa Caldas,
Ricardo Caldas,
João Vaz,
Zez Vaz

Written & Directed by: Zez Vaz

Produced by: Zez Vaz

'Avancazilla' - Avanca Film Festival

2009-07-03T20:31:00.000+01:00

‘Avancazilla’ was the intro to the international Avanca Film Festival.
The film was made by me and friend Hugo Magalhães under an internship at Avanca Cineclub.
Credits for the animation go to both of us. The characters were designed by me while the backgrounds by Hugo Magalhães. Photoshop was used for the designs and the animation was made in Anime Studio and a small portion on Flash. Photoshop was used for the designs.
The music is from William “Random” Rickman.

Here’s the complete version of the short film:

Thanks to António Osório, António Fonseca, Guilherme Pereira and António Costa Valente.

O que é que se passa aqui?

2009-03-25T00:08:00.002Z

A minha resposta ao xunko por ter dito "O que é que se faz em Nova Iorque?"

ESAP TV ad

2009-03-05T20:55:00.000Z

This TV ad was created for a silent University channel in order to promote ESAP and all its courses. In that sense, I photographed a time lapse of the city of Oporto. Photoshop and Premiere were the software used.

Here’s the ad:

Ribeira, Opo

2009-02-19T03:41:00.003Z

I am very satisfied with this piece of work right here. This photograph was made in two hours, between 7 am and 9 am. Wisely combined in Photoshop, it looks like it's day time but still at night.

Prints are available in my deviantart page:

http://zezvaz.deviantart.com/art/ribeira-opo-113387887

10 Infopoemas

2009-02-13T01:34:00.008Z

Infopoesia elaborada nas aulas de Arte e Comunicação Multimédia com o ilustre professor Ernesto Melo e Castro.

Album cover illustration

2009-02-01T00:43:00.006Z

College work.

The Rolling Stones album cover illustration.

Children's book illustrations

2009-01-15T19:55:00.007Z

Story involving a soldier who appears out of nowhere on a kid’s spoon searching for his war. Eventually the kid gets tired of this solder and sends him to a war reported on the TV news.

Macacos Fardados - Com esta é que matei a fome.

2009-01-14T22:31:00.001Z

Macacos Fardados are:
Filipa Caldas,
Ricardo Caldas,
João Vaz,
Zez Vaz

Written & Directed by: Zez Vaz

Produced by: Zez Vaz

Macacos Fardados - Anúncio para um detergente

2009-01-14T16:29:00.001Z

Macacos Fardados are:
Filipa Caldas,
Ricardo Caldas,
João Vaz,
Zez Vaz

Written & Directed by: Zez Vaz

Produced by: Zez Vaz

Macacos Fardados - Eu matei o homem.

2009-01-11T17:11:00.006Z

This is the first of a series of comedy sketches performed by Filipa Caldas, Ricardo Caldas, João Vaz and me. It's all in portuguese.

Macacos Fardados are:
Filipa Caldas,
Ricardo Caldas,
João Vaz,
Zez Vaz

Written & Directed by:
Zez Vaz

Produced by:
Zez Vaz

A Million Causes Live @ Braga 2007

2008-11-17T18:04:00.005Z

I just uploaded three clips from a gig we had in 2007 in Braga, Portugal.

A Million Causes is my power pop / ska band with Francisco Mendanha.

Check them out, we even have a The Police cover.

Talking With The Enemy

Message In A Bottle

Special Offer

One Idea! - flash animation short

2008-06-13T20:13:00.000+01:00

My first flash animation short film!

Music:
Bomb The Music Industry! - King of Minneapolis, Pts. III & IV

Thanks to Mom and Pingu for shooting me while skank dancing and making a fool out of myself.