Animated People: Erik Timmerman

There are certain moments where, when you call them up from your memory, they arrive with such a measure of clarity it's as if you were right back there in that moment. The first meeting we had with Erik on our first day of grad school at R.I.T. was one such moment. I vividly remember him as he stood there at the front of the classroom while all seven of us sat at attention, taking in every word.

During his lecture about what the program entailed, Erik cleared his throat and stated matter-of-factly:

"Graduate school is not about how little you can do, it's about how much you can do."

Of all the wisdom Erik imparted upon me over the next three years, this is the statement that I still think about the most--the statement that meant the most to me if I'm being completely honest. During that first quarter at R.I.T., I had difficulty getting traction as I was thrust into such a new environment. I fell down far more than I ran. But by second quarter, I was learning how to apply his advice towards our classes, and specifically the Photo Core II class is where it really clicked. As Erik was teaching us about the principles of animation, and we were required to animate examples in order to illustrate our understanding, I started pushing the assignments further. Starting with simple animations that just showed the principle, I soon branched out into creating gag films and adding more complex stories and editing. By the end of my third year, I had translated Erik's advice into a five minute hybrid hand-drawn/CGI film that pushed my skills beyond their limits.

Life being what it is, it is not always easy to maintain that level of dedication and focus on projects and on life. But when I find myself lagging behind, Erik's words are still there encouraging me to do more and be more.

* * *

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Erik's lessons didn't stop when the class period was over. He would check in with us off and on during the week, even when we weren't taking one of his classes that quarter. 

I remember times when I'd be walking past his office and he'd call me in to chat. In addition to seeing how we were managing our classes and workload and thesis films, Erik would also take these small opportunities to teach his students outside of the classroom. I was in his office one day, just to check in. Erik quickly opened a web browser, called up a video and showed me the trailer for the upcoming feature film James and the Giant Peach. He then asked me what I noticed. I immediately picked up on what he was trying to show me: within every shot, the character's action would lead your eyes, your attention, to the starting point of the action in the next scene. Erik smiled, I assume confident that the lessons from my classes were sinking in. He pointed out a couple other things about movie trailers. And then the lesson ended and I was off to my next class.

Erik's lesson was made all the more timely when during the following year, Marla taught a stop-motion animation class. Halfway during the quarter, she brought in stop-mo animator Tom Brierton from Chicago to talk about his career and the industry. Tom showed up with a number of ball-and-socket "skeletons" from when he worked on James and the Giant Peach and a video of clips from the scenes he animated.

This month, I was invited to return to Central Michigan University and continue teaching a class in the animation department. As I continue to interact with students, these little lessons and examples from Erik, Marla, Jack, Skip and Stephanie keep coming to mind. Sometimes, I cringe when I look at a challenging student of mine and feel sheepish over my college years--wondering if that's how my behavior looked to them. Then I remember how they all handled these energetic, overeager students who were trying to make these little films about these stories that were deeply personal and deeply emotional--to us anyways. But with each class I teach, I've learned to welcome these memories. Thinking back about my professors, the grace and the patience they displayed, those memories are constant reminders of the kind of teacher that I want to be for my students.

* * *

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

Back in 1994, on the first day of classes that Fall quarter, Erik and Marla gathered us first-year grad students together in a room and went over what the program entailed and what the next three years would look like (back then it was a three-year M.F.A. program and R.I.T. was on the quarter system).

During his lecture, Erik made a statement that has stuck with me over the past thirty years:

"You can make a million dollar film with a $10 piece of software and you can make a $10 film with a million dollar piece of software."

Erik's lesson was short and sweet: it's not the equipment you use, it's the skill of the filmmaker that makes all the difference. Now that I'm teaching, I often see students getting hung up on what's the latest and greatest piece of animation software. And on the one hand, I think it's important to know what the studios are using, but that shouldn't stop one from making their film. It's easy to get caught up in the arms race of having to possess the latest computer, the newest camera, or the most recent software update--much to the detriment of improving ones skills as an animator and a storyteller.

Erik also placed a heavy premium on story. Back then, he told a number of us "it all begins with a story." I fondly remember the times when he would start lectures with phrases like "so there's this guy...". Years after his passing, Bill Landers (the Chief Engineer for R.I.T.'s College of Art and Design) had a plaque installed  in the Gannett Building to memorialize Erik and his contributions to both the Graduate Computer Animation program and the Scriptwriting program at R.I.T.

At a number of the school reunions in the past, I've had the opportunity to touch base with Bill and reminisce with him about our time with Erik. We both share a knowing smile when Erik's emphasis on the importance of story inevitably comes up in the conversation.

As I have watched a plethora of animated films over the years, and have made a couple myself, I'm often struck by the thought that no matter what genre the animation uses or what form the film takes, there's always a story there to be told.

* * *

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

The Blue Cactus Bar & Grill

One of those Ottawa International Animation Festival experiences that remains near to my heart is when I bumped into Erik at the festival back in 1996. He was going to have lunch at the Blue Cactus Bar & Grill with graduates Ted Pratt, Bill Trainor, and a young lady whose name I don't recall.

I do remember that while taking the graduate computer animation program classes, she moonlighted as one of the models for the figure drawing class to make a little extra cash. She rode a motorcycle and she kept calling Erik "E.T.". Both she and Bill were working at Xerox at the time. At the festival's closing day party, she and I sat outside the building and talked for a little over an hour -- well, she talked mostly. Nice enough girl, but hard to get a word in edgewise. Lot of life experiences packed into a few short years, that one.

Bill was wound a little tight but a decent enough guy. Didn't talk much, seemed lost in his own thoughts most of the time. He was the Grad Lab Supervisor before me and had helped me recover and distribute a Director Lingo script that allowed students to automatically export Director image frames from the computer to an optical disk recorder. Oddly enough, I still have the script file in my archives. 

Strangeness in the Night by Ted Pratt

Ted Pratt was a good guy (still is, afaik, we haven't talked in a couple of years). When Erik introduced us, I immediately recognized his name from the R.I.T. demo reel that the department sent me during my senior year at Taylor. It was a VHS tape that had Ted's student graduate film Strangeness in the Night, among others. At the festival's closing picnic, Ted was very encouraging, reassuring me that "yes, there were jobs out there for graduates and I'd have no trouble making enough money to pay off my student loans."

Shadowpuppets by Chuck Gamble

I still have that VHS tape and ended up digitizing the films for my R.I.T. archive project years ago--including films like:

• Chuck Gamble's Shadowpuppets, which was the first ever computer animated student film shown at the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater; 
• Christopher Walsh's Uaguzi. He went on to animate the flying dagger in 1994's the Shadow after graduating from R.I.T. and still works in the VFX industry;
• Hikmet Safuoglu's trippy film within normal limits, which was animated to the equally trippy song 'I Robot' by the Alan Parsons Project;
• Elouise Oyzon's beautiful first year film conjugations. She went on to teach at R.I.T.'s School of Interactive Games and Media. I still see her occasionally at the class reunions;
• And the delightful Ignorance is Bliss? which M. Shan Yeung animated to look exactly like a Chinese ink painting.

Ignorance is Bliss? by M. Shan Yueng

I once asked Elouise if she had a copy of her graduate thesis that I could show at a class I was teaching. She said that it was all on an old computer. She wasn't even sure if she could recover the film anymore. And while I was sad for her, I was doubly glad that I had preserved that VHS tape. I have to wonder, how many people will get to see these beautiful student films from the early years of computer animation (1990 to 1993)? I once tried to get copies of these films uploaded to RIT's student film archive "SOFAtube". Unfortunately my efforts were unsuccessful, a victim of university politics.

conjugations by Elouise Oyzon

Each one of these films was produced by students in the graduate computer animation program that Erik founded at R.I.T. Each of these films has Erik's fingerprints on them. How many students entering R.I.T.'s graduate animation program will see that plaque on the wall with Erik's name on it and wonder who he was or what influence he had on the films we produced during his tenure?

Back to Ottawa: 

As the five of us sat there at the Blue Cactus, it wasn't about work or school or imparting any great lessons about life or anything like that. At that moment, Erik wasn't just my professor or my mentor, he was my friend. He talked to all of us as you would talk to friends. A couple days later, we'd all go back to Rochester and fall back into those roles of professor and student, but for that moment, we were just a couple of people sitting at a pub talking about animated films like we'd known each other our whole lives.

When Erik was undergoing chemotherapy, he didn't want any of his students to see him or the toll that the treatment took on him. But fortunately, Ted Pratt didn't listen. Since he lived a short ways away from where Erik was convalescing in Berkley, Ted drove out there to see him. While I knew Erik was sick, I had no idea to what extent. He didn't talk about it much. I tried to keep in touch with him and sent him a 'get well soon' basket of fruit and veggies, which he appreciated. He had moved out to California by then. His college girlfriend was taking care of him during his chemotherapy and Erik wanted to be closer to his children Erica and Kristofer. While still in Rochester, I helped him translate a computer program he had written in BASIC to something that would run on a PowerPC. He wanted to update a film he had made years earlier. It was all about spirograph drawings animated to a jazz soundtrack. He and I never finished it. Producing an experimental animated film while he was on chemo was a tall order, but I still feel like I failed him. We could produce the images he wanted, no problem, but we just couldn't get the PowerPC to talk to the optical disk recorder. Erik left for Berkeley shortly thereafter.

That was some of the last contact I had with him. We exchanged a couple e-mails after that but I got busy with life over those two years and Erik was undergoing a regimen of treatments and healing. Then, a couple months after messaging me that his cancer was in remission and he was feeling optimistic about the future, I got the e-mail from Marla about Erik's death.

To say that her message hit me like a ton of bricks is an understatement. My friend was gone and I was left with only six years of memories. Now don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for those six years. But the point of my rambling is this: the things that we thought were important at the time more often than not end up being inconsequential when compared to every lost moment that we could have spent with our family and friends.

Social media has brought many evils, but it's also done us a great service by allowing people to transcend time and distance in order to reconnect. Physical letters are fine and all, but they cannot compare to the conversational nature of an e-mail or instant messaging. So I encourage you to savor those moments in the now where you can talk to people you care about. And take a moment to contact those who have drifted away, even if it's just to say 'hi, how have you been?' Some day, you may find yourself longing for those precious moments where you can hear your friend's voice one last time.

* * *

Animated Thoughts: Erik Timmerman

As I've probably stated before, Erik didn't shy away from teaching me life lessons apart from what we learned in classes. And he was pretty honest about his mistakes, especially the occasional unintentional gaffe. One lesson that he spoke of, I really took to heart.

Erik was friends with one of the Computer Science professors who taught computer graphics. Although I don't remember her name at this point, she was the person whom I had met online back in the day and had introduced me to Erik. I had made an inquiry on a CGI BBS about furthering my studies in computer animation and she was the one who responded. After I replied to her e-mail, she said that Erik's program would be a better fit for what I wanted to do since her program was more geared to the hard-core programming end of computer graphic imagery--basically people who would end up becoming Technical Directors in the programming department of animation studios or doing scientific visualization, things of that nature.

Well, Erik mentioned that during a jovial conversation they once had, he made an off-the-cuff joke about having a crush on her. This was after it was made clear from the conversation that their senses of humor were pretty similar. As she was married, and he didn't have a thing for her anyways, it was obviously a joke. However, he felt that she kind of ghosted him after that. Erik stated how he wished he hadn't said that to her. And it wasn't a 'being unprofessional' thing, after all it was just a humorous remark told during a friendly conversation between two colleagues who were kidding around at the time. But he still felt pain over missing out on a good friendship because of how his remark may have given her the wrong impression.

Simply put: it was a moment of light-hearted humor that unfortunately cost him a friendship with a respected colleague.

I had a similar situation with an associate about a year later while I was still working at the R.I.T. Research Corporation. We were all joking around over lunch and she said something that set the table alight with laughter, something that showed how in tune our senses of humor were. I chuckled and said "if you weren't married I'd be chasing after you something fierce." She laughed, I laughed, and the conversations at the table moved on. However, remembering Erik's story, I went to her later that day just to set the record straight--that I wasn't hitting on her, I just appreciated how in-sync our senses of humor happened to be. She laughed it off and said it was okay, she knew exactly what I meant. And I believe her as we remained friends/professional acquaintances throughout the rest of my time at the RITRC.

*  *  *

Photograph from Andrew Davidhazy's Retired Professors and past colleagues from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT webpage.

Animated Thoughts: Dreams and visions

It's been an odd month.

I had two very vivid dreams about Erik in the span of a week and they pretty much set the tone for the month. They were those dreams we all have once in a blue moon: very, very rare, but feel so real, so visceral that they are completely set apart from the usual dreams we have.

The first was pretty short. Erik and I were in a spacious room and he was talking about his divorce (which is odd given that other than mentioning that he was divorced, he never spoke about it around me). At the end of the conversation, he leaned in and said "Chicken wings". I have absolutely no idea what that meant in the context of the dream, or of our overall friendship. But I did have chicken wings for dinner that Friday night, just in case. They were excellent.

The second is a little harder to describe. Similar location but I don't remember what we were discussing. I think that Erik was going to make some big life change, and it wasn't like he was looking for approval or anything, just sort of "this is what I'm doing next" or "if I don't do it now, I never will" kinds of things. At the end of the dream, I remember giving him a hug and trying to warn him that he was going to die of cancer in a couple years. And that's where the dream ended.

I don't know what these dreams mean. Maybe they don't mean anything, just random neurons firing while we sleep. But I guess if you put my feet to the fire though, to me, I think they mean that I miss my friend and I may be a little resentful about the potential years of friendship that were stolen from us.

* * *

Animated Thoughts: Erik Timmerman

Erik kept an eye on the players in the Rochester area. 

Being as we were smack dab in the land of Kodak, Bausch and Lomb, Hewlett-Packard, and dozens of companies that served the imaging industry, it was natural that many of his students worked in the area--both before and after graduation. 

One day, Erik mentioned a local multimedia company in Rochester that we should stay away from. He stated that some of the principles in charge of the company had a serious drug problem that led them to engage in questionable behavior like using company income to support their drug habit. His message received, we all looked for employment elsewhere.

A year or so later, one of my coworkers at the RIT Research Corporation took a job with that company. Who she hired on with was unbeknownst to me. At the time, all I knew was that she had left for a "better" business opportunity. Well, within about six months, she was rehired at the RITRC. 

When I asked her what happened, she told horror stories of the company having money problems, unrealistic deadlines and expectations, a pattern of unethical behavior, and an overall toxic work environment that caused her to become so stressed that her hair started falling out. It turns out that the company was the one that Erik had warned us to avoid at all costs. While she and I were on good terms, we weren't exactly "that" close, so finding out all this after the fact wasn't out of the ordinary. However, I still wish I had known at the time where she was moving to, that way I could've passed on Erik's warning and saved her a lot of heartache.

*  *  *

Animated Thoughts: Erik Timmerman

Erik had a number of theories (and witticisms). One of my favorites was shared during our first year.

As we were watching a Disney cartoon in one of our Photo Core classes, during a lesson on the principles of animation, Erik stated that within every Disney cartoon was an 'ass joke'. This remark was made during an analysis of Donald Duck as he swept the floor with a broom. Sure enough, within seconds, Donald turned around and started dusting with his tailfeathers.

To this day, I can't watch a Donald Duck cartoon without the phrase "Disney ass joke" popping into my head. And I've often wondered how difficult it would be to get a University grant and hire a couple students to index and watch all the Disney short films in order to see if Erik was right.

*  *  *

Photograph from Andrew Davidhazy's Retired Professors and past colleagues from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT webpage.

Animated Thoughts: Erik Timmerman

During the years that I attended R.I.T., they were operating on the quarter system--a schedule that I much preferred to the semester system that Taylor University used.

With only ten weeks per quarter, there was really no time to slack off. If you didn't use your time wisely, it was easy to get overwhelmed and fall behind to a point where you couldn't catch up.

Case in point: during my first year's Winter quarter, we had a class where we grad students were taught the process of producing an animation. By the end of Winter quarter, we were expected to have our treatment, script, and storyboards completed and be ready to start animating on day one of Spring quarter.

So there we were, sitting in a circle and pitching ideas for our Spring films. I pitched an interactive comic book--something where I'd scan an existing comic into a multimedia program and then animate certain panels when the user clicked on them. Erik said, rather bluntly, that I didn't have the drawing skills for something like that. It stung. A lot. But he was right. When I started grad school, I could barely draw stick figures. Granted within one Fall quarter of figure drawing class, I had made tremendous progress, so much so that my professor said that she'd never seen anyone come so far in so short a time. Maybe I was operating at that intersection of desire and hard work or maybe desperation breeds miracles. Who knows. Again, if I'm being honest about the whole situation, Erik was right and I wasn't ready to tackle such a project. And that was part of his job, giving us enough rope to stretch and grow as animators but making sure we didn't hang ourselves on a project that we couldn't complete in ten weeks.

So there I was, sitting in a room, getting called out in front of my classmates about the level of my artistic skills.

I then had a choice: feelings or logic. I could react to what my feelings were interpreting as an assault on my personhood (and receive the consequences of said action), like I had done so many times before in my life, or I could shoulder the embarrassment and grow as a person. I made that rare choice to listen to the logical side of my brain and take another step forward towards maturity. I said, 'okay' and then stated that the only other idea I had was about a Chameleon who got stuck in an art gallery. Well, it turns out that Erik loved the art gallery idea and over the following ten weeks, he helped me develop the idea from treatment to finished script. And while "visually" it never matched up with what was in my head, due to both my drawing skills being what they were and the fact that I had to draw the whole thing in the computer using a mouse (these were the days before tablets caught on), The Chameleon would be finished on time, screened, and would go on to win 2nd place in that year's SMTPE/RAVA awards.

Unlike most of my fellow grad students, my background was in English writing and computer programming, not art. So I had to work harder to catch up to their skill and experience level within the visual medium and Erik was always there to help me in that regard by encouraging me through a judicious use of both the 'carrot and the stick', helping me select projects that were within my skillset and skill level AND would be just out of my reach slightly enough so that I had to grow as an artist.

*  *  *

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

I was in my early twenties during my time at R.I.T. and my personality had the usual mix of maturity and immaturity that most young men possess during that age. As I've mentioned before, from time to time back then, and in his own inimitable way, Erik would help guide me into manhood -- this particular time by pointing out some of my ingrained behaviors that were counter-productive to navigating polite society.

Case in point: being someone who was a keen observer of human behavior, Erik once mentioned that I looked like I had been in prison -- this based on the fact that I gave off no body language and would do things like looking both ways before entering a room.

I responded that when you spend your childhood getting bullied at school and abused at home, you develop some self-preservation habits -- such as checking the room before you enter so you don't get jumped by a schoolyard bully or reducing your body language and facial expressions to the absolute minimum so as not to attract attention to yourself and piss off an already angry parent.

But it wasn't until Erik pointed out these behaviors that I really put some serious thought into how people might be perceiving me. It could have been that I had reached a level of emotional maturity that I could accept hearing that observation from someone without taking offense or getting defensive. Or perhaps it was how Erik said it... or maybe it was just because he was a third-party observer who had no malice towards me and was, in his own unique way, engaging in a simple act of kindness.

Regardless, I had been engaging in those defensive behaviors for so many years that they had become second nature to me.

Moving silently was one of those behaviors.

While at R.I.T., I worked at the now defunct R.I.T. Research Corporation. And unfortunately, one time I scared one of my supervisors so badly that he yelled out when he saw me standing there in his doorway. Course, Rich always had a great sense of humor about such things, so after composing himself, and I apologized for startling him, he quipped that I should wear a bell around my neck when we were working late in the office so everyone could hear me coming. He laughed, I laughed, and then I asked him my work-related question.

But afterwards, Erik's words would come back to me and I made it a point to take his observation to heart. No, I didn't start wearing a bell or anything silly like that, but I did make an effort to smile a little more, lurk a little less, and lighten up a little so those hard lessons from my past wouldn't control my future.

Twenty-some years later, I'm still somewhat guarded. I still look pretty intense when I'm walking around, lost in my own thoughts and not paying attention to how I look while I'm thinking. But instead of pausing at doorways and looking both ways before entering, I pause and look around in order to see if someone needs the door held open for them. And when they do, I'm always somewhat bemused when I observe how surprised people react to that simple act of kindness.

Photograph from Andrew Davidhazy's Retired Professors and past colleagues from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT webpage.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman, pt 3 - "Brick City"

As mentioned in my previous post, last October, I attended R.I.T.'s Brick City Homecoming.

It's a seven hour drive from Lansing to Rochester, so I tend to leave town early. Nexus pass notwithstanding, you never know what kind of traffic you're going to encounter on the bridges to and from Canada. After a last minute emergency at work, I left Michigan almost on time. Was pulling onto the highway when I realized I had no quarters for the tolls when driving through New York. A quick detour to a bank in Flint and I was on my way to Rochester. Got waved though the border and drove straight through Canada. There was a minor wait at the Ontario/New York border crossing, but the Nexus pass did its thing and they waved me through with no difficulty. All-in-all, the weather was beautiful and I made excellent time to R.I.T.

Arriving at my former home, the first step was to check in at the R.I.T. Inn & Conference Center, then head straight to campus. It was Thursday and other than Becky Simmons and my former classmate Leah, I hadn't told anyone that I'd be in town. So while it promised to be a quiet evening, I still wanted to check in at the Student Union.

I parked the car and started drifting through memories while walking through the Gannett Building. As is my custom, I stopped over at Erik's old office in quiet remembrance of my friend and then over to Marla Schweppe's old office. Stephanie Maxwell's office had been moved over near where Erik used to be. And Skip Battaglia has retired, so I have to content myself to catching up with him at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and her via e-mail whenever we have a spare moment or two.



One of the best activities at the OIAF:
the impromptu R.I.T. reunions!

As much as I wanted to linger, I had to pick up my welcome packet before the Union closed. So I ran over, picked up my tickets, swag bag, and shirt. Then bought an extra shirt, just because.

I then reacquainted myself with the Archives office at the Wallace Library. Didn't expect to be there for very long tomorrow, but this was a long time in coming. Was happy to finally move this project forward. Walking around at night, I was struck by how R.I.T. is so different. It has expanded so much in the past nineteen years, added so many amenities and buildings. It was going to look so different tomorrow in the light of day.

With the pressing things out of the way, I stopped by the R.I.T. store to pick up some memorabilia, then off to some old-ish haunts before they closed: Hammergirl Anime and Millennium Games to be specific. Wish they'd been around back in my day. Course, back then we had to get our anime and gaming fixes through Media Play and Crazy Egors. Both are now long gone, but back then they had their charm even though they were very different scenes. Crazy Egors used to be packed tightly with pile upon pile of vintage gaming boxes and books. Before an injury forced him into retirement, I used to see the owner and his son at Gen Con during the early-2000's. Was always nice to chat with them and catch up on the gaming scene in Rochester. While Media Play had a larger selection of animated films and anime (though admittedly on VHS), Hammergirl is still the best place to stock up on Pocky and HiChew for the weekend while browsing their DVD selection.

Then it was back to the hotel for some rest. Gonna be a good weekend.

Friday was an incredible day, from start to finish I almost always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Went straight to campus and started off at Mary Bernard's office. Dropped off a copy of the Detroit Institute of Arts' animation book 'Watch Me Move' for Stephanie Maxwell. Stephanie was out for the day, unfortunately, but Mary said she'd put it in her mailbox. Before leaving, I chatted her up on what animation work we're doing in Michigan and she gave me the latest SOFA student film DVDs.

Then it was off to see Bill Landers.

For my two years as the Graduate Lab manager, I had the opportunity to work with Bill from time-to-time and each time it was a real education. I attribute the longevity of our equipment at my office to those out-of-the-classroom lessons I received from watching Bill working tirelessly on old video cameras, 3/4-inch analog tape editing stations, and finicky Bernoulli drives as well as routing yards and yards of cables and patch cords.

As many of the thesis films from my day have been lost, before driving to Rochester, I digitized every film from back then that I had on tape and loaded them onto a flash drive so he could add them to the SOFATube server at his leisure. Also snuck in a better copy of my thesis film on the flash drive--the VHS transfer they have of my film is terrible because the tape I gave the library wasn't good enough to stand up to the ravages of time. Still kicking myself over that one. Remember kids: never skimp on your archival media; quality costs money but it pays off in the long run.

Well Bill explained about how SOFATube came about and their plans for filling in the films from the '90's. Then I got the full tour of the new facilities. He walked me through the labs: 2d, 3d, Graduate, stop-motion, audio, and live action. In addition to the SOFA archives, set and model fabrication shop, and the theaters/screening rooms. The department is night and day from what we had back in the late-nineties. Was incredible to see what the program has become--and it's reflected in the films that the students are making today.

Bill said the program is based on the premise: "it all starts with the story." Erik would be pleased. I told Bill how after I graduated, Erik said I should teach the scriptwriting courses in his place. When I said that I told Erik that I didn't think I was good enough at the time, Bill said that if Erik recommended me for the job, then I was good enough. Bar none, one of the best compliments I've ever received.

After saying my goodbyes to Bill, I walked by Marla's office and there she was, sitting in her chair, reading before a class. We spent a few moments talking and catching up then it was off on a tour of her 3D Digital Design program. When we returned to her office, she asked for my CV and said there were possibilities of me teaching forensic animation long distance at R.I.T. Then she gave me a very touching gift: a pair of Erik's reading glasses she'd been holding onto. Said that of all the students that have passed through program, he'd be happy to know that I had them. I'm thankful for those six years that I knew Erik, but it wasn't nearly enough time.

I'm still not sure if I should replace the lenses with my prescription so I can use them when I teach, but for now, they occupy a prominent place on my bookshelf right next to my two photos of Erik and the group photo of me, Marla, Stephanie, and Skip from back in 2010 when we all went out to dinner together.

At this point, I had said all my 'hellos' and Marla needed to go teach her class, so I walked across the quad to the Wallace Library. Becky was out running her campus tour on R.I.T.'s campus landmarks but, as always, she was as good as her word and had left Erik's tape on her desk along with instructions to her assistants that I'd be arriving to digitize his film.



It's a kludge, but it works. :)

My recording process is a kludge. 4-head Stereo VCR patched into an old Sony DCR-TRV 120 via two sets of patch cords. The CCDs in the old DCR-TRV are burned out but the A/V inputs and the recording/playback mechanisms work just fine. Though I've tested many over the years, I've never found a really reliable and affordable way to digitize analog video and feed it directly into my computer. That's why I stick with the above setup I put together over a decade ago. The DCR-TRV camera records to 8mm tapes of various quality and can output to computer via a FireWire cable. Fortunately, my old XP laptop still has a FireWire interface port in the side. So, once the analog video has been digitized onto the Digital 8mm tape, it's a simple matter to feed it into Adobe Premiere as an uncompressed AVI. From there, you can clean it up, if necessary, and export it to any format needed.

As evidenced by the images, the recording went far, far better than expected. The tape held up exceedingly well over the past thirty-three years.

There are still some artifacts on the audio, a minute hiss and crackle that's only really noticeable when the dynamics of the music shifts downward.

I'm honestly not sure if I want to clean it up, so the audio is fresh and crisp, or leave it "as is". I'm wondering if it's an artifact of the film itself from when Erik originally recorded it instead of being a consequence of going from film to video to digital video--kind of like how you hear scratches and pops on vinyl records but the music sounds much richer as opposed to the same song when played from a CD or an mp4.

The film is only about four minutes long and I've been tinkering with the audio off and on for about a year now. Time I think to show it to Skip and Stephanie at this year's Brick City Homecoming and ask them for their advice. Skip remembered seeing Erik's film on a movie screen so I'm sure he's going to have some good advice on how I should proceed.

The rest of the evening was a whirlwind as I met up with Leah and we walked all around campus, reminiscing and marveling about how the campus has changed. Since it was after hours, everything was locked up. However, Michelle, a lovely young lady from the animation program, showed us around the labs and chatted us us up about what the program was like back in the nineties and we reassured her that, 'yes', there was job after college!

Earlier, as I sat on a park bench outside the Gannett Building waiting for Leah to arrive, a thought struck me about the current facilities and the quality of work that the SOFA students are producing. If I had to apply to the program now as opposed to nineteen years ago, it makes me wonder if I would've even been able to make it into R.I.T. Leaves me even more thankful to God for the time I got to spend there.

On Saturday, when walking back from the game design workshop I had signed up for, I waltzed right into another session of Becky Simmons' tour. Really appreciated the chance to give her a progress report in person and thank her for all her help on the Roadworks project.

At that point, I think that I did all that I could while I was in town. At the very least, I hit the most important events: digitizing Erik's tape, visiting Marla, spending time with Leah, dropping off some tokens of appreciation to my former professors.

When leaving for Michigan on Sunday, I had much to think about on my way back home: how much I missed Erik, how I wished that I'd done a better job keeping in touch with my friends Leah and Steve after graduation. How I'd like to go back in time and warn the me that I was not to take those days for granted and savor every moment. On the bright side, when I got back into town, I reached out to Norway where Steve was teaching and rekindled that friendship. And on Facebook, I continued the conversation with Leah that we started over homecoming weekend. Am determined not to have any regrets with those two friendships.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman, pt. 2 - "Roadworks"

R.I.T.'s Frank E. Gannett Hall,
home of the School for Film and Animation

In October 2016, I made the last-minute decision to attend "Brick City", R.I.T.'s annual homecoming. I had been back to R.I.T. several times in the past -- passing through on the way to the Ottawa International Animation Festival, speaking there as a guest lecturer, even doing research at the Wallace Library. But this was the first time I had attended homecoming as an alumni and I used the opportunity to get a side-project back on track.

Some background is necessary.

During one of my classes in Grad School, Erik mentioned Roadworks, the only experimental film he made during his tenure at R.I.T. Don't know if it registered with my fellow students, but I thought the premise was interesting and decided to check it out at the Wallace Library. Roadworks was this short film with an experimental/jazz soundtrack where the viewer was presented with a top-down view of a road and the soundtrack was timed such that nuances of the 'music' were matched with changes in the road markings -- dashed lines, parallel solid lines, etc.

So, I watched it. It was amusing enough, even moreso because of Erik's animated tale of how he had students cranking this roll of transparent plastic (with the road marks painted on it) in step with the music while the camera recorded the production on film. Afterwards, I returned the tape to the archives and filed that memory under another interesting experience during graduate school, among so many others.

As part of my greater collection, I actually maintain a library of films produced by my professors or films that they worked on: single DVDs like Skip Battaglia's Car Crash Opera or Stephanie Maxwell's tzzzz! as well as DVD collections that they've produced professionally--like Stephanie's compilation: Animated Works 1984-2007, which she released through IotaCenter. Eh, I may not be in school anymore, but that doesn't mean that my profs don't still have lots to teach me.

About a decade after Erik's untimely passing, it dawned on me that as time marched on, nobody would remember his film because fewer of us were around to tell people about it. Professors would retire and new ones would be hired. Students would come through the program, graduate, and move on to their careers. And unless the students were told about Erik and his contributions to R.I.T.1, both he and his film would be forgotten. So, I set about making Roadworks a part of my collection.

Well, fortunately some of us are bound and determined not to let Erik be forgotten. Case in point: Bill Landers. Bill is the Chief Engineer who keeps all the equipment running at R.I.T.'s School of Film and Animation. Though their relationship was sometimes contentious, Erik and Bill had a respect for each other--so much so that after Erik died, Bill had a plaque to commemorate Erik installed in one of the halls where the SoFA's animation labs are located.

Another example is my friend Leah. Both she and I donated commemorative bricks in Erik's name which were installed on R.I.T.'s Philanthropy Way (the Legacy Walk) -- a sidewalk between the dorms and the campus proper.

Back to Erik's film.



My 'little sisters' got a special screening
at the High Falls Film Festival that year.

In April 2013, I was visiting R.I.T. for the High Falls Film Festival in addition to doing research for my history of Women Animators project. Since I was in the library anyways, I took the opportunity to track down Roadworks and watch it again. Unfortunately, as everything was moving to digital, many of the VHS tapes were being archived and thrown away. The School of Film and Animation's copy had been rescued from a bin by Stephanie Maxwell and mailed to Erik's daughter, Erica, ensuring that at least one of Erik's children had a copy of his film.

The other copy was in the Wallace Library archives. I had done my homework ahead of time and walked into the archives with a printout of the Library's database index entry for Erik's film.

I spoke to the lead Archivist, Ms. Becky Simmons, and told her who Erik was and why I was trying to locate a copy of his film. As it turns out, Becky had never seen the numbering system for Erik's film entry in the database as it hadn’t been used for years. And, even after several phone calls to colleagues, she was unable to locate his film--if a copy even still existed at the Wallace Library. So, she apologized, we exchanged business cards, and she said she’d see what she could do. This was Friday at around 3:00 p.m. I thanked her for her time, and then walked across the library to do my research.

Around 4 p.m., I was elbow deep in the animation section when I received a call from Becky stating that she had found the library’s copy. His film had been located--sitting on a lonely shelf in a box with a couple other VHS tapes. Fifteen minutes later, I was watching Erik’s film downstairs on one of the few remaining VCRs that the library still had hooked up.

As there were only three VHS viewing stations left in the library and they were going to be retired in the not too distant future, I hurriedly ran downstairs, popped in the tape, plugged in my headphones, and watched Erik's film--hoping against hope that the almost fifteen years of sitting in a box hadn't caused the tape to deteriorate too much. Thankfully, it was in excellent condition and I watched Roadworks several times, each time bringing back a new memory of Erik and our time together at R.I.T. I was able to verify that it could be digitized with only minor clean-up needed for the soundtrack.

Afterwards, I returned the tape to Becky and asked about the procedures for preserving Roadworks. We agreed that before any digital copies were made, I first needed to contact one of Erik's children and obtain permission. It took me a couple years to track one of them down, but when I finally did, Erica quickly responded to my e-mail and gave me her permission to move this project forward.

Which brings us to R.I.T.'s 2016 Brick City Homecoming.

I invite you back in August to read part three: "Brick City".


* Erik was the man who started the Graduate Computer Animation program at R.I.T.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman, pt. 1

As longtime readers know, on June 30th I like to write about my friend and mentor Erik Timmerman who passed away on this date back in 2000. Well this year, I'm going to do something different. Instead of sharing a fond memory of Erik or a life lesson he taught me, over the next two months I'm going to write about a personal project involving Erik's filmmaking.

The Roadworks project that I'll be discussing was borne out of a two-fold desire to continue reinforcing many of my memories of Erik in my own mind as well as creating a greater remembrance of my friend such that his contribution to his students' lives, in addition to the animation program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, will be known by the students who come afterwards and never forgotten by those of us who knew him personally.

In order to do this, I'm going to ramble a bit about the steps that brought me and this multi-year project to it's current phase of development--and hopefully, it'll be completed sooner rather than later so I can share it in greater detail.

So tune in next month for part two of this blog post, titled "Roadworks", as I talk about the only experimental film Erik produced during his time at R.I.T. and my attempts to rescue it from obscurity.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

One day, I was in my apartment doing my daily reading before classes when Erik called me on the phone. Turns out, he needed someone to go to the library, check out a couple of films, and cue them up to specific scenes so that he could show them in a class he was teaching that afternoon. He couldn't find his student assistant and was being called into a meeting, therefore he couldn't do it himself before his class started.

I told him "I'd handle it" then jumped into my car and hightailed it over to the campus library.

About an hour later, I delivered the tapes to his office just in time for his class and went on my way.

I don't know how many other students he called before he contacted me, but as I walked away from his office, it just felt good to know that he did--that he knew that if he asked me to do the job, it would get done, correctly and on time. I can't think of a greater compliment than that, in that one particular instant, he trusted me not to let him down.


Photograph from Andrew Davidhazy's Retired Professors and past colleagues from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT webpage.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

Erik had a quirky sense of humor that I didn't always get at first...

When I started at graduate school, money was tight--like so tight that I couldn't afford to get a hair cut during those first couple weeks of classes. I had saved money over the past few months but it was only enough to get me out to Rochester and cover rent for the first month or two with some left over for gas and food. Until I found a part-time job, things like hair cuts were a luxury that I couldn't afford.

At that time, I had taken to wearing a bandana and a backwards-facing baseball cap with the Apple Computers logo that my sister and brother-in-law had given me--their not-too-subtle way of poking fun at the fact that I owned a PC. But, between the bandana and the cap, it kept my often unruly hair in check while I worked and waited for that first paycheck to come in, thus allowing me to retire the cap and return to my usual part-on-the-side-square-the-back 'Rock Hudson' haircut.

So, one day, Erik walked into our Graduate Seminar class, took one look at me and asked me if I bought my hat that way? Looking back on it, the implication was that the cap was designed and sewn to be worn backwards as opposed to just buying a standard baseball cap and wearing it backwards. At the time, I didn't get it...

A year later, I had gotten used to Erik's sense of humor and even reached the point where I could pull one over on him... not often, mind you, but it did happen from time-to-time. Like when we were walking away from his office and he made a self-deprecating joke about his "middle-aged-Dad's" tummy. Uncomfortable with making a joke at the expense of an authority figure, much less someone I liked and respected, I immediately quipped "Well Erik, all this time I just assumed that you were storing up for the nuclear winter."

He laughed, I laughed, and we continued down the hall.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

Growing up, the consequences for missteps were pretty dire. My Dad rarely took the time to teach me anything, he just assumed that I knew how to do things and do them "his" way. And when I inevitably failed, I'd get punished. It actually lends itself to a sort of mental paralysis that I believe is rather common among those people who either grow up abused or are abused later in life by a spouse. The mindset being: if you're going to be punished regardless, then why even bother trying? A bit grim, I know, but it is what it is.

With my childhood filled with those experiences, it was hard not to fall into a pattern of behavior where I viewed other male authority figures through that particular lens, whether it was justified or not.

So there I was during my first quarter at R.I.T., sitting there in the Photography Core 1 class along with my fellow students, chatting away as we waited for Erik to show up and start teaching. Well, Erik arrived and said he had to do something real quick and then he'd be back. And then he asked me to go get the TV/VCR setup and bring it into the room. I did as he asked and parked the big portable TV stand at the front of the room, then sat back down with my friends.

Erik came back and he started giving his lecture to the class. When it came time to show the example video to the class, he paused, then unwound the cord from the TV/VCR stand, plugged it in, and showed his video.

I was mortified at my screw-up. I should've unwound the cord and plugged it in so he wouldn't have to do it himself. The rest of the class, I was sweating bullets, waiting for the inevitable dressing down for not finishing the job he had given me. When the class was over, I apologized to Erik for not plugging in the unit. He seemed surprised at my behavior and said it was no problem. When he asked why it bothered me, I said that overlooking something like that would've earned me a two-hour lecture from my dad.

He then gave me this quizzical look that telegraphed how "another piece of the puzzle was falling into place" then told me not to worry about the small stuff.

As the relief washed over me I started to see things in a different light. I didn't have to walk on eggshells around Erik. Be polite and respectful, of course, but I shouldn't see him as someone who was just waiting for me to make a mistake so he could drop the hammer.

Looking back at it with years of hindsight, that was one of those moments where I realized that I made the right decision coming to R.I.T. in the first place. That, at least for the moment, I was where I belonged.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

Every so often, I'll log on to the internet and look for breadcrumbs... articles that Erik wrote, memories from people who knew him, the very rare photograph, stuff like that. I was pleasantly surprised when, as a member of ASIFA Central, I discovered an article that Erik had written residing on our website critiquing the '94 Ottawa International Animation Festival.

This particular article had special significance to me because this was the first Ottawa International Animation Festival that I attended as a first year Grad Student at R.I.T.'s Computer Animation M.F.A. program.

I can still remember seeing Erik standing there outside the National Arts Centre in Ottawa after one of the evening screenings. He was wearing a black leather trenchcoat and sunglasses. Erik smiled when me and the other grad students walked up to him and said 'hi'.

The following article meant so much more with the connection that I had to the films. I remember sitting in the balcony with my fellow students, howling with laughter as we watched Nick Park's film "The Wrong Trousers" or when we marveled at the sublime artistry of Barry Purves' stop-motion film "Rigoletto".

Now that Erik is gone, these memories become more and more valuable because I won't be able to make any new memories with him. However, they also become a treasure map of sorts. When writing the introduction to Erik's article for this entry, I was able to reach back to my memory of him in Ottawa, then reach over to my desk and pull out the 1994 Ottawa festival reader to verify the date of that particular festival (sort of a parity check for my memory), and finally, retrieve a DVD from my collection and play Skip Battaglia's film "Restlessness" in the background as I typed these words.

Later on, I'll go back and re-read Erik's article. And I'll watch Skip's film again. I'll think about Erik's words and analyze Skip's film in order to see what Erik saw and think what he thought. And when it's over, I'll reflect on those days when Erik was alive and I'll let those thoughts be the catalyst to recovering more memories of my days at R.I.T. and the too short years I had with my friend.

Another View of Ottawa by Erik Timmerman

"You want a review of the Ottawa International Animation Festival?" The judges lacked the one quality essential to judges: judgment. There's your review of Ottawa.

Skip Battaglia was robbed. His new film "Restlessness" was, in my book (JR by William Gaddis), the best film of the festival. And I'm not saying this just because he has an office down the hall from mine. Rarely do I see a film which evokes a "yes! that's exactly how it feels" response from me. "Restlessness" was one such film. Combine this with the adventuresome graphics we have come to expect in Skip's movies and you have an obvious winner. One mild criticism: he shoulda called it "Lust." Erica Russell was robbed. Her new film "Triangle" demonstrates significant artistic growth since her earlier, excellent "Feet of Song." "Triangle" is everything an animated movie should be: a good story told through motion and color. Russell's use of picture space to represent three dimensional figures in motion, while, at the same time, presenting us with formal, two dimensional geometrics, is simply exquisite. To quote my pal Morty Avalon, the Hollywood agent: "This [woman] is a gorilla!" High praise indeed. Barry Purves was robbed. His "Rigoletto." a 30 minute, in English, version of Joe Green's (well, how would YOU translate Giuseppe Verdi?) opera is a masterpiece of puppet animation. The sets are magnificent, breathtaking; the puppets imaginative, the puppetry flawless. I guess you can tell I liked this film a lot. Puppets, it is said, are better than actors because actors have to find the character whereas puppets are the character. Certainly true of Purves' film. Nick Park's "The Wrong Trousers" won the Public Prize (le Prix du Publique), and deservedly so. This is a half hour of rousing good fun in which Park tells the Hitchcockian tale of a mysterious roomer, an unscrupulous penguin, who, in dastardly fashion, disguises himself as a rooster. Gromit, a faithful dog, must use all his resources and then some to rescue Wallace, his boob of a master, from the penguin's evil machinations. Phil Mulloy, who shocked, outraged, and entertained the hell out of the Ottawa '92 festivalgoers with "Cowboy Fun," was back and topped himself with "The Sound of Music." I personally know a dozen audience members who are still recovering. "My Favorite Things That I Love" by Janet Perlman poured sweet syrup over the audience until we all were howling with laughter. Special mention must be made of "The Big Story" by Tim Watts and David Stoten. To make a movie in which all the parts are played...ahem, overplayed by Kirk Douglas is a significant (and hilarious) accomplishment. Both "Bob's Birthday" and "The Janitor" both won awards. Both shouldn't have. Both had clever and funny sound tracks. To which animated images added nothing. "Bob's Birthday" quite possibly would have been funnier as a live action short. I don't like bashing any animated film because the simple fact that it is completed and shown is a testament to human courage and endurance, but when I think that these two films won prizes and "Triangle" and "Restless" went away hungry, my mind reels (no pun intended). I can't rest until I comment on the film that opened the Festival: "Trawna Tuh Belvul." Somebody heard a 14 and a half minute monologue describing events on a train journey from Toronto to Bellville, Ontario and thought to himself: "hey, that would make a great movie." He was wrong. Dead wrong.

Where is all the computer animation? There were only two or three computer pieces at the Festival. What are all you people doing with all your magnificent animation machines?


* * *
Photograph from Andrew Davidhazy's Retired Professors and past colleagues from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT webpage.

Article reprinted in it's entirety from the ASIFA/Central newsletter archive, circa 1994.

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

 Erik helped me work through a lot of issues from my childhood. Or rather, he set me walking down a road towards resolving a lot of those issues. From time to time, we would sit there in his office and talk about our fathers--the good and the bad. In reality, nothing really got resolved during those discussions, but he provided me with an objective, non-judgmental perspective seeded with the hard won wisdom of a lifetime of successes and failures with his own children and parents.

One day, after a particularly intense discussion, I looked at Erik and said that there were times when I wished that he had been my father and I wondered where I could have been in life if he was (or how much further along in life). Erik looked down through his glasses at me, gave me that knowing smile of his, put his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair as he always did when he was ready to impart wisdom on his students. "It is our fathers who make us who we are", he said, "and we wouldn't be who we are if it wasn't for them."

When I went to R.I.T., Marla once asked me what direction I planned to take my career. I said that I was going to go back to Michigan and do forensic animation for the family business. In many ways, Erik was preparing me for that experience should my road take me home. As I watch my father's behavior, I see where I learned so many of the things that I do--like the personality quirks and how I behave when I get stressed out. On a daily basis, I get to see why I act and react in a lot of the ways that I do--both the good and the bad. I see the positive behavior traits in my father that I want to emulate and make a part of me as well as the negative ones that embarass me when I think 'is that how I look when I do that?'

Erik was by no means a perfect man, and by the same token, my father is not as bad as my childhood memories would make him out to be. But whether they be our fathers or the father-figures/mentors that come and go throughout our lives, we never truly stop looking for their approval. As I look back on my career since graduating from R.I.T. I wonder, would Erik be proud of what I have accomplished, or would he lean back in his chair, place his hands behind his head and look down at me through his glasses, perched precariously on the end of his nose, and say: "well that's pretty good, but what are you going to do next?"

Animated People: Erik Timmerman

Erik Timmerman

It has been eleven years since Erik Timmerman passed away. So, in memory of Erik, I'd like to share a story from grad school that illustrates how Erik would teach larger lessons about life in the context of the smaller lessons found in our class assignments.

We were all first year grad students, sitting in the classroom. But, being budding artists, none of us had taken the time to develop a thick skin regarding taking criticism of our work. I think part of it was also due to the fact that none of us knew how to properly provide constructive criticism. But, during our classes, this would lead to the usual hurt feelings, snippy comments, and oversensitivity when hearing the thoughts of people whom we thought either "didn't get it" or had their own ideas of what "it" was.

So. The assignment was to create a storyboard that described a scene where Don Quixote tilted at windmills. We had all produced our storyboards and Erik was expecting us to show them to the class for peer (and instructor) review before handing them in the following week for a final grade. Well, when Erik asked who wanted to go first, no one moved. We all sat there with this deer in headlights look. Erik prodded us a little further, but no one made a move. So, understandably frustrated, Erik dismissed the class for the day so we could finish up our storyboard assignment.

Afterwards, Erik and I retired to the Graduate Student's lab as he had some work for me to do. It was nearing the end of the quarter so time was precious and the work needed to get done--he wanted to give me detailed instructions. When I sat down, Erik shook his head and said how he didn't understand why everyone just sat there.

"Don't they understand that this is a chance to fix problems with their storyboards so they can get a better grade," he asked me somewhat rhetorically. I responded with a truthful, albeit lame, excuse about how everyone put a lot of work into our storyboards and couldn't handle the criticism from everyone. Erik looked at me and said the following:

"When you were a child, you said to your mother 'I want a cookie' and she gave you a cookie. And when she wouldn't, you would cry with tears streaming down your face until she gave you one. When you get older, if you asked your boss, 'I want a cookie', and if you didn't get one, you started to cry, he'd look at you like you're crazy."

The point being that the things you did when you were a child are clearly inappropriate when you're an adult. Sort of an Erik way of saying that 'when I was a child, I thought like a child, spoke like a child, acted like a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.'

I said that I understood what he was trying to get at. And I think that he believed me because when I asked him to take a quick look at my storyboards, he did so and then gave me some sound advice on how to fix a couple of problems. Then we went back to work on the lab.

Although I'm sure he didn't know it at the time, that was one of those moments where Erik, in his own way, helped usher me into manhood--one of those many moments where it all started to make sense in my head and I could almost feel myself maturing mentally/emotionally in a real, concrete sense.

Erik died eleven years ago. And yet when I reminisce about him, he's still there, giving me lessons about life.

Eleven years later, he is still my teacher.

* * *
Photograph from Andrew Davidhazy's Retired Professors and past colleagues from the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences at RIT webpage.