Idea

I've been churning out the idea of using my dreams, or nightmares, when I was a child since this first project deals with self. Sketching a concept that will probably be digitally painted...as of now. This idea can change.

Previous Works

Created with flickr slideshow.

After Thoughts

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The "Sugar Run" movie followed the blueprint of the final proposal from the race between the gingerbread man and I to the advertising scene with the product placement at the end. It was good in that the original plan was actually carried out.

Using After Effects was much smoother for me this time around than during the animation project. Using the computer mac towers instead of the mac sandwiches also helped in the rendering processes. Compiling of the compositions and using the zoom and panning features was not as stressful this time around.

I also used and experimented with Adobe Flash, for the first time, for the animation. After exporting images from Photoshop to Flash I experimented with the bone tool. Fortunately, the bone tool was actually useful in creating the waddling movement and the running hands movement, much more efficiently than using just Photoshop. However I could not find a solution to importing the animation files into After Effects without a translucent background and instead resorted to using After Effects' key color masking option.

Using sound from Logic Pro also became ideal with the tremendous amount of loop sounds available for the user. When it came to recording the voices for the characters, it seemed ok when just played by itself, but when I placed pitch and amplitude modifications, the sound quality somewhat became too muddled and static-like. It was modified in Soundtrack Pro.

If more time was placed in this project, the simple animation of the gingerbread man would have been more refined with added textures. I would also fix the pixelation when the gingerbread man zooms into the camera. The music transitions should be smoother along with the video clips of me running. The sound during the talking scenes would be refined as well. Overall, I liked how it came out and how it makes the audience laugh/smile, to me that was a success.

Creating a DVD menu was also new to me and very glad to be exposed to it. All my links worked fine using a simple interface. Definitely will use that program again for future projects.

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From not knowing a thing of Soundtrack Pro, After Effects, and Flash, to making a movie using these programs unfamiliar to me was a good improvement. Like all things new learned I just need refinement through more practice and projects. The ideas from my fellow students also spurred good ideas and possible future collaborations. I made mistakes but I'm also glad I did because I learn best from those mistakes. It may take some time but I do learn to be better.

Sugar Run

Proposal for Final

This project will delve into the theme of compressed time and advertising utilizing a short action film. This will be a story of two characters, one will be the author while the other will be an animated gingerbread man. The story will slowly unfold to the viewer about a race to the kitchen table. The author will be running in an action sequence with perspective action shots, while the gingerbread man will slowly waddle it's way across background pictures of a suburb street. The ending will focus on a kitchen table with the author panting near it and then the gingerbread man will come into the scene with its back turned and say, "Where are the cookies!?" Then there will be an advertising product placement placed on the table.

Critic-tique...ing...myself - Vessel

This was really my first time melding animation with a video. This was also my first time delving into Adobe After Effects, where the bulk of my sluggishness in the project came from. The learning process always take a longer time with me because mastering the details in a program is where my speed usually comes from, so I take my time learning these small nuances. With this animation project, the figuring out/thinking part of my brain overshadowed the creativity in this project. Just trying to adhere the entire project together using the programs became the main goal.

Critique of the Video
I was able to do what I intended to do in my blueprint for the project, which was to make a fish with a video of an eye, create a zooming out scene from the eye to the environment, make the fish jump from water to land, create a panning sequence of the animated plant, and end it with the blinking eye. I think the whole piece can be taken lightheartedly from the oddity of the piece. I was thinking of adding music to the end, but I felt the sound of the waves and the video of the wave behind the eye added a right atmosphere to the project.

Now that the positive is out of the way, time to tear into myself
-The pacing, especially in the introduction with the zoomed-in eye, needed to longer scene and the viewer should be introduced slowly into the watery environment.
-The animation, is below my intended capabilities. If I could get my technical difficulties out of the way and have more time for this, that fish would be of something almost surrealistic. Same goes for the plant animation, the plant would be a vine that slowly twirls as it grows from the ground, not a bunch of slashes.
-The sounds of the plant growing cut off with the last orange branch being made and should have another sound for creation of the head, or eye of the plant.
-I also enjoyed the part where I walk onto the scene on the beach looking like a human lego figure with my especially square bulbous head that day.

I did learn critical details from making this project.
-To create a transparent background from PS to AE. Hide the background and when done with the animation, render the video and save it as an animation compression, not H.264 for this will create a black background when transferred; this was a lot of frustration figuring it out.
-Compositions and Nesting is a great way to organize scenes in AE. You also have to finish rendering a composition before you add it with another composition, under a composition.
-Rendering can take a long time so shortening a composition length helps in making it go faster. Having a strong and capable computer with processing power also helps. I'm going to make a new computer build specifically for rendering and 3d animation this summer.
-You can pan and zoom in your video using the camera layer and null object by linking them together and making your layers 3d.
-Always save...to your own hard drive.
-Make animation in Flash in the future, compile video in After Effects, Finishing touches with sound in Final Cut Pro.

This project laid the rough foundations for future projects for me.

Vessel