Week 14 Blog Post

I can't believe it is almost over! I am so close to officially being done with my second semester of my junior year. All I have left for my classes are my exams which are mostly projects and not written exams. As far as my last animation film, it is going along great. I am pretty excited about it and I have been putting in a lot of time and effort to make it the best that I can be. I am probably about two thirds of the way done with it. I finished up the first part and the last part, so now I just need to bring it together with a middle scene. I had a great time at the narrative screening this past Friday and I really liked seeing my film up on a big screen. Watching it made me even more excited to see the screening for the animation class this upcoming Friday.

Week 13 Blog Post

Hey Chris, how's it going. I don't have a lot of time because I have no idea how long this worm hole will last for. Those weekly blog posts that you are given in your animation class....KEEP TRACK OF THEM! Don't wait till the end of the week to do them because you will get side tracked and forget which will hurt you. Do them at the beginning of the week so you don't have to worry about making time later. Also put more effort into each of the exercises. Don't just do the minimum. They are there to help you improve with your animations and get use to the programs. We're losing signal...I think the worm hole is closing. There's one more thing you need to know....it's very important that you............

Week 12 Blog Post

I never really ever thought of entering in a film festival before. Matter of fact, I've never even been to a film festival. The thought of entering one of my films in a film festival seems nerve racking. After doing some research on different film festivals, I would like to submit my last film in the Savannah International Animation Festival, the Toronto International Student Film Festival, and LA Short Film Fest. The reason for the one in Savannah is because it is a smaller film festival and it is closer to where I live. The Toronto one is a student film festival so other entries will be near the same skill level as mine and the reason for the LA one is because it is such a big festival, if by some slim chance I got selected it would look really good on a resume.

Week 11 Blog Post

I thought Film 2 went very well. I really enjoyed watching everybody's movies. I felt pretty content with what I had for film 2 and I was satisfied with how the class received it. Though if I were to go back and do it again, I would definitely add sound. I had sound for some parts of the film, but it sounded bad since other parts did not so I just took it out all together. I wish I would have added voices and different sounds for the toys instead of leaving it silent. For my next film, I will spend more time on the sound design. Even just the smallest additions of sound in a video can change the entire outcome and drastically make it better.

Blog Post 10

When I started this class, nothing came easy to me as far as animation. I was familiar with final cut and used adobe after effects a couple of time, but that was it. Now that I've been in this class for a little longer than half a semester, I feel a lot more confident with after effects. I have been using after effects a lot more since I have been in this class and in fact have been using it for projects in other classes because of what I've learned from this one. Though any other animation programs, I am lost. Cinema 4-D is really hard for me and does not come easy what so ever. The layout for everything is pretty confusing and it took me a while to make the 3-D bouncing ball project, which came out pretty bad.

Week 9 Blog Post

Some things that really help me with this class are the in class exercises. I really find it helpful when we go over technical aspects of after effects in class and walk through it together. I also really like how we watch animations in class and break it down to discuss all the aspects of it. This not only helps me with editing techniques, but it also helps me think of new creative ideas for projects. I have nothing thus far that has been hindering me.

Week 8 Blog Post

I thought my first film could have been better. It was a lot harder than I expected to edit with after effects. I thought that the constructive criticism I received for my video was very helpful. I did need to add a couple more angles and make the fall off the swing set funnier. For my next film, I need to do more pre-production and plan out more scenes to make the film more visually appealing. I also need to put more time into my storyboard and revise it to make sure I make it the best it can be.

Week 7 Blog Post

What is my daily practice like? Animating is way harder than I expected, but it is a lot of fun to see your final product. I don't get to practice animating as much as I want to. After editing exercises or the project films, I am so drained and it's hard to keep messing around with the programs. I have been looking at animations/cartoons differently since I have been taking this course. I look more at the details of the characters and the movement of all the stuff in the background. I do however use final cut pretty often. I film and edit skateboarding videos as a hobby and I use after effects to use slow motion so I use after effects pretty often. After this course, I want to keep making short animations for fun and potentially get a job with some of my works

What I have So Far

This is what I have so far for the Scar film, which is not very much at all. My animation is going to be of two kids playing on a swing set and on of them tires to jump, but gets his leg caught and instead gets dragged.

http://vimeo.com/37186362

Film 2 Storyboard

Blog Post 5 redo

The reason that we are doing these blogs are so that we can get familiar with social networking and get use to publishing our work onto the internet so people can view it. Once we graduate, we will need to have a way to show employers what we have done and what we are capable of doing and these blogs are a good way of doing so. The reason I am taking this class is because I have always thought animation was cool. I always watched cartoons and played video games when I was younger and I still do. The only other animation class that I have taken was back in high school and we used flash (which was horrible). I've always been interested in learning how to make different types of animation since I am so unfamiliar with any of those programs. Though learning these programs and creating different animations are a lot more difficult than I expected, the outcome is very gratifying and is definitely worth the time and effort.

Blog Post 5

The reason that I am doing these weekly blog posts are because they are assigned. If I were not receiving a grade for these posts, then I would have never made a blog in the first place. Though the blog posts are required, it only takes a few minutes out of my time and it is an easy assignment.

"Scar" Storyboard

Animation: Blog Post 3

I have always watched cartoons ever since I was a little kid. Fifteen years ago, cartoons were much different than they are today. Not only has the content changed, but the aspects have also. Now a days, cartoons are made with programs on a computer rather than drawing them frame by frame. Though I don't watch TV as much as I use to, I still find myself watching cartoons every now and then.

Animation: Blog Post 2

The process of making the flip book was a pain. I am the world's worst drawer and continuously drawing on 100 note book cards was very time consuming. The conversion of making the flip book into an animation was way easier. The only part that I really struggled on was scanning each card which I thought was going to take a long time, but it actually went by pretty fast. Once the I had all the pictures, it was easy because all I had to do was make it into a video. Both methods had the same outcome, but I preferred doing the video rather than the flip book because the final product was easier to view.