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MAGIC FAIL

3D ANIMATION

July 2022
Grey Mater Gary Rig by Squiggly Rigs
Leo Rig by Wonderwell Studios
Magician's Hat Rig by Candy Rigs, Boxx Rig by Jack Lai
Bird cage from Sketchfab.com
Audio from "Wizards of Waverly Place"
Responsible for: Animation in Autodesk Maya
First of all, I love Wizards of Waverly Place! When I was casually rewatching it for the 168749áµ—Ê° time, the episode where Zeke tries performing magic tricks still never fail to make me laugh. I thought the lines were written really well, delivered perfectly and the simple punchline hits the funny bone. It's a twist on the classical "is this your card" line by the magician, when sometimes they deliberately show the wrong card so the audience think they messed up, but then they pulled off another trick for their final reveal that they indeed, know the card all along. It's more powerful than just straight away showing their chosen card - which is quite vanilla in my opinion. Magicians are performers, they need to entertain! I myself love magic as a hobby; I love learning the tricks, practicing them, and performing it to my friends and family. So when this scene from Wizards of Waverly Place comes up, the humor just feels so natural and I was excited to bring it to life in animation!

Here's a look at my reference videos, from both original source and the ones I recorded myself. I also included a work-in-progress of my shot, still mainly in blocking phase:
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