46

I was glad at the reception to my animation. Now that it's over, all of the time (and pain) I put into it seems fuzzy...I suppose it's like having a baby. After you have one, the pain is forgotten, and you want to have another one because the first one you've had is so wonderful!

44+45

44- Finished touching up the last scenes. I'm done with the animation!

45- Re-watched my work, just to be sure I didn't miss any mistakes. I caught a slight one and corrected it. I saved my work (it was a little confusing, because there many settings on iMovie, so I uploaded it to youtube just in case.) Showing it at STAC night, tonight!

42+43

42: Continued working on animation esp. on the last scene

43: Finished draft of the animation-now I just need a title and need to patch up a few spots:
Video -set to private because it's not completely done-

41

I continued to work on the transition scene, but after a few frames, I switched to working in the ending scene.

To do: Finish (? or do I have enough that you can tell it's a transition...it's taking a bit long)
Definetly finish the end

40

I continued animating and finished the end of a scene. I was able to show Luke a sample that I made before break began (I did quite a few changes after that sample, though). Luke suggested a song called "5 O'clock World" for music. It's a slightly faster pace than "Monday Monday", so I'll see which song fits better.

To do: Finish transition scene
Do the last scene

39

Today I got some animating done I finished...I should really put together a sample to show to people when they ask what I've been doing. I have the frames from last week, but during the break I had to do some major re-editing....

Finish scene with getting grade back (done...have to check one last thing over, though. I want to show the main character's 50-page HW packet getting the same grade as a half-baked paper so it'll be more clear on why the main character gets so upset afterwards...but I don't know if I'm showing it that well.)


Tomorrow:
The ending scene (seeing friends walking home)

Transition scene from home -> school
Finish scenes from alert+taking notes ->bored and falling asleep

38

Did a small storyboard of one of the ending scenes

To do:

Finish scene with getting grade back
The ending scene (seeing friends walking home)
Transition scene from home -> school
Finish scenes from alert+taking notes ->bored and falling asleep

37

Continued to animate another two scenes, but it was a really good day because I did a lot of brainstorming with Dad and now I have a definite plan for how I want the rest of the animation to come out as.

to do:
Finish scene with getting grade back
The ending scene (seeing friends walking home)
Transition scene from home -> school
Finish scenes from alert+taking notes ->bored and falling asleep

36

I had another brainstorming session with Dad. Out of that session, I started to animate the end of the animation. I finished most of it, but I still have a few things left to touch-up/add (I can do that in school or if I have time, but now that I have the scene set up, I know what to do.)

to do: show expression changing as flipping through homework/test
show pages changing as flipping through
show final page

35

I put together all of what I did during the week, and re-edited some scenes. However, I have to do some major thinking-over about the animation...some scenes that I've been drawing/animating, I'm not sure if people will get what's happening. When I was brainstorming with my Dad and showed him the animation, he was confused by a couple scenes...

However, during the brainstorming, I did find a song to go with the animation:

Tomorrow: Brainstorm some more and get animating again (but mostly planning...?)

34

Today: Finished hallway scene. Working on cafeteria scene.

Tomorrow: Finish cafeteria scene.

33

Today was STAC art, so I had less time than usual to animate. However, I drew the first frame of a scene which I'll continue animating tomorrow.

tomorrow: continue animating

32

Wow, I can't believe I've been working on this project for at least month, now!

Today I finished the homework scene and started to work on a shorter scene (the main character sees her friends in the hallway)

Tomorrow: Continue working on hallway scene. If I finish that, start on cafeteria scene.

30+31

30: I started to animate the homework scene. Also, I took advantage of some of my cheerleaders (parents), because I was having troubles with forgetting to color some of the beginning. In the end, I determined that I'd try the approach with finishing the animation first, then going back and editing it.

tomorrow: work on animating the rest.

31: Continuing to animate homework scene. During the day I felt like there should be a lot of repetition in the animation, to show how boring school has become (I had a mental animation of sitting->hallway->sitting->hallway->sitting.)

tomorrow: continue animating homework scene

29

I brainstormed with parents today. I want to get the animation done by STAC night, and I was wondering if I should change a different course than I planned, but I didn't know exactly what.
...I wasn't exactly fully awake when brainstorming so hopefully more will be done tomorrow. I'll be bringing in my laptop again and working on some short scenes, then move onto one of the longer ones.

Tomorrow:
-more brainstorming
-ask about the stick figure
-continue animating

28

I put everything together from this week:

I feel like it's paced a bit fast...I'll have to work on timing. Also, I still have that question about the stick figure: can you tell that the girl is being bumped into, or should I edit that part?

tomorrow: ??? plan out week's work and start animating

27

Today I finished the bump scene. I have to ask someone/a few people what they think about the stick figure...should I make the stick figure a person, or would it be fine as it is (I made the bumper a stick figure because I thought it would help convey that it was just a random person of no importance...)
^This will be clearer when I put up the WIP tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Put everything done from the week together, and before that (or after) start on some shorter scenes.

25+26

25: Got most of the animating down for the bump scene. Still working on it. Since it's a long scene, I plan to get through some shorter scenes afterwards so I don't get as tired.

26: Didn't get any animating done today. I will bring my dad's laptop to STAC tomorrow. I now have a system where I will animate all week, then put together everything on sunday, the last day of the week.

23+24

23: I continued animating the first hallway scene. I finished that, then started to animate the bump scene.

24: I finished the background for the bump scene, then I story boarded the scene so I'd have a clear idea of what to do. After doing a rough storyboard, I started animating again. I managed to get a section done, when I forgot to animate the shoes in the background, so I had to re-do that part over again.

goal for tomorrow: Get the scene finished.

21+22

21: I put together scenes I drew this week:

22: Mostly brainstorming today. I had a thought of starting the whole thing over and just "shooting" the character's face as they go through the day, but I also want to continue what I'm doing...I'll just continue to work and see how things go.

20

20: Not much done. I forgot we had STAC art, so I brought Dad's laptop in for no reason.
I planned to put together what I drew this week, but I didn't get to do that.

19

Today I managed to get another scene done! (I brought the laptop in again).
After that, I started working on the hallway scenes. I'm trying to go for an impressionistic feel, so I'll be able to have an easier time animating, and be able to get this done on time, (and so I can experiment with how to approach a school day, besides in literal sense) so an Idea suddenly hit me: what if instead of drawing all the people in the hallway, I just drew shoes? It would also make the main character stand out, more.

tomorrow: -work on hallway animation

18

I was able to bring my dad's laptop into school today. There was some trouble with wifi and setting up a trial of photoshop elements (apparently my photoshop is only for macs...darn.)

However, I was able to get one of the scenes done, so I'm back on schedule!

Tomorrow: Bring laptop (if possible...I'm walking home tomorrow, so it might be a bit heavy to bring with me unless I can get a ride home...)
+work on school scenes (further storyboard if no laptop, and if I do have the laptop work on storyboarding then draw it out!)...

17

Finished book grabbing scene today. 'Might need to edit one spot (where the fingers bend) to make it a little smoother.

Tomorrow, I'll be able to bring my dad's laptop to school, so I'll have to install photoshop elements either today or tomorrow morning...I'll get to work on the drawing in the book scene, and go from there.

16

In class: I went to planning out a schedule and general storyboard for the scenes I'll be doing.

To do (today, since I didn't get to it, and tomorrow): Finish animation of book grabbing scene, start on reading scene

I should scan all of my planning sheets this weekend....

14+15

14- Very little work done today.

15- I worked on animating another short scene, but there still needs to be work done. It's difficult, since I  made a lot of frames, but I ended up cutting some to make it look smooth. I wonder if I should research how the human body moves, but I feel like I don't have enough time to, since there's only 20 or less days until STAC night.
-Should work on feel of it rather than trying to be as accurate as possible. If people can tell what's going on, that's good. (?)

13

Today I was able to get in touch with my community within STAC.
When we were sharing what we were doing, I was surprised in that a few people had similar themes to what I was doing. I ended up talking to Jill about both of our projects. It was nice telling someone what I was up to, and trying to give advice on their project, too. I realized that I didn't need to keep everything to myself, because while STAC is going to be my audience, they're also fellow (is coworkers the word?) classmates that are also working on their own projects, so I don't need to worry about giving away plot.

When I got home, I did a small test for the beginning of the animation:

12

With animating, I feel like I have to approach it like painting. I'm making the storyboards too long and detailed (like focusing in on drawing the eyelashes of a portrait), and I need to focus on the overall feeling of it.

Today I worked on story boarding scenes that I knew I would definitely use. Then, when my Dad came home, I went over them with him. He pointed out a few ways to make them more simplified, and I bounced ideas off of him on how to make the animation easier, and faster to do. An idea I had was to just focus on the character's face, or a certain part of the character, instead of jumping around with cuts (like a movie would).

11

Today I story boarded 3/4 of the animation. However, I'm still stuck on the ending. I brainstormed with my Dad, and I had a few worries about it:
-time (only 22-20 days left)
-if it's too long--what to cut out
-the ending...what to do with it?
-where to start animating

what came out of the brainstorming:
-do certain things (ex. character, feel of the scene, start w the beginning, play around w how the pencil holds everything together)
-just start it and play around--let it evolve as you do it, other wise you'll end up correcting every little thing
-character could use imagination, too

10

I forgot my layouts in Dad's car, and he went to work, so I tried my best with what I had. I'll be able to get the storyboard back in the morning.

Today I brain stormed a certain part of the ending...it has to do with a pencil and what will happen to it (working with what I remembered from the storyboards). I also tried doodling a few characters/designs for the main character. I'm not sure of the gender of the character yet. I want them to be average looking, since the animation is slice of life.
I also drew thumbnails of most of the settings the animation will take place in.

I started to read about composing music for an animation. I've got to keep it simple, but I found a good link on the process of working with an animation and music simultaneously!

(I want to brainstorm with people other than my Dad for more opinions, but I also don't want to ruin the plot to everyone. What should I do...?)

9

I plotted out goals for tomorrow:

-Finish up draft of plot and start on character designs
-Go over plot with Dad
-?

7+8

Saturday, I mostly brainstormed. I had an idea of the ending, but I needed to put it into more detail.
I also determined that I'd be using the changing of color and styles of lines to show mood changes as the animation went on.

Sunday, today, I showed my Dad the plot, for help with brainstorming, and I came up with a couple more ideas to put in the plot. I have to work on the ending, still.

I plan to start animating by wednesday or thursday this week.

6

Today I started to work on the storyboard. Researching on the animation process gave me a "checklist" of things to do. I didn't get to finish all of it, because of the shortened periods (and distractions) but I'll finish it up this weekend.

I also talked to Luke about using Flash. He said there was a big learning curve for it, so it might be better to focus on doing something you know all ready. He suggested using hand-drawn ways of animating, but I still feel like I want to go with digital, so I can get faster at it...I'll have to decide which option to do, soon.

5

Today was a slower day.

I was debating about whether I should try to download Flash. From all of my research, it seems as though using Flash will make the animating process faster than if I did all of the frames on photoshop elements and then put them in imovie...I shall look into this more tomorrow.

I also plan to do more research tomorrow and start working on carving out the plot!

3

Today I did more research.

I looked up most of the terms I was unfamiliar with, yesterday, and found out more about the process of animating. I found a really good link on howstuffworks.com (but it had some parts about 3D animating which I skipped, since I'm going to be doing my animation in 2D.)

Terms

-ease in/ease out: (From Adobe tutorials understanding the ease in/ease out graph) a way to help with smoothness of tweening using flash

-flash-a program that helps you animate by letting the computer interpolate (what assistants would usually do) and do the tweens in your animation

-photoshop- (I didn't research a lot about using photoshop for animating, but earlier on in the year I found a lot of tutorials about making .gif's on photoshop...)

-vector graphics-(wikipedia'd) computer using geometric shapes + math to represent images in computer graphics

--images made up of vectors/paths/strokes which lead through control pts.

---example program= adobe illustrator, 3D programs

-process of creating music for film/animation

New terms/facts: Raster (usually compared to vector graphics)

-using pixels to make art

--example program= photoshop, oekaki's, paint

-fps (frame per second)

--ex. "one ons" are 24fps

high quality animations are usually "on ones"

0

This is a blog documenting my 4th quarter project for STAC. Here I will be writing down my research, putting up pictures/scans of my process, and writing some reactions to working.

I intend for the majority of the entries to be on the short side (just "checking in"), however my beginning entries will probably be longer until I get into some sort of routine.

2

Tuesday, today, I got to work on research while waiting for my idea to be confirmed by Luke.

I had researched a bit about animating before, but I hadn't really looked at the process that professional animators go though. Also, as I wrote in my previous entry, I needed to find a way of animating smoothly (I knew a little bit about "tweening", but I needed to go more in-depth).

I started to fill out the outline (I worked on that during Monday's STAC periods, also), and started to sketch some possible ideas/major scenes for the animation.
---
Research:
process of animation (used google to obtain this information)
from a disney site:
-storyboard
-present as story
-dialogue
-just character sketches
-start animating

from a yahoo source (the animation process: from the drawing room...)
-story/planning/decide on length
-script
-storyboard
--voice actors script
-character model
-model of anything not part of the character
-start animating (they went into traditional animating techniques using cels, but I'm doing it digitally, so I'll research traditional animating later on...earlier on in the year I saw a short youtube on traditional animating, so I know a bit already)

Definitions:
Keyframes-start and end (define movement)
--testing
---then "tweens"-(via. assistants, flash, or photoshop layers)
Keyframing- when the artist does all of the frames (digitally?) (apparently this is what I've been doing)
-"on ones" 24 frames/second (standard for animating)
-"on twos" 12 frames/second
^most animations are a combination of "on one" and "on two" animating

Look up more:
-ease in/ease out
-flash
-photoshop
-vector graphics
-process of creating music for film/animation

1

I've been thinking about this project for a while now...I definitely wanted to do some type of animation (doing it during school would give me the time to be able to finish one faster than I have in the past).

In my community, I'm pretty open with my dad so I was bouncing ideas off of him (in the car on the way to the bookstore, at home, etc.) I was drawing a blank whenever I thought of ideas for an animation, but at the end of the session, I had a few possible ideas:
-A day in the life (animation covering a student's life and the different moods their school day holds)
-Taking inspiration from a dream (I write down my dreams)
-Music video (I don't know what song, though?)
-Making an animation off of my opinion on a controversial topic (my mom suggested this when I brain stormed with her, actually)

On Sunday, after much debate with myself, I decided to go with the school idea, and see where it took me. (It would be fun to see how a project evolves, with the plot).
---
I thought we were going to have to present our ideas on Monday, so I wrote up a draft of my idea:

I would like to create an animated vignette that attempts to capture the flavor of a high school student's day.
Two of my inspirations I know so far are the Rhapsody in Blue segment from Fantasia 2000 and the animated short, The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan (I liked the many characters in Rhapsody in Blue, and Shaun Tan comes up with odd, quiet, little stories that are somehow relatable to)
I see myself using primarily line drawing, with some use of shading and color (I don't know if I'll have the time to color all of it, or if it's necessary to color all of it)
I intend to create music for the animation and add sound effects as needed (I'm not sure if talking will be in it...)

Resources available to me: Wacom tablet (really good), Photoshop Elements (6?), Imovie (really old and crappy version), Zoom recorder

Research: Ways to create smooth animation

Past Experience: I created a couple gif animations using Photoshop Elements; I created a simple music video (started in 7th grade finished in 9th grade), I created an animation for my 7th grade english class for a final project, I created an animation for my 9th grade geometry honors final project, I created an animation from some STAC art I created last year...
---
On Monday, I felt like the idea I had decided on was boring, so I tried to come up with more interesting plots during school and STAC. I came up with three:
-A door man seeing people coming in and out of a doorway (could experiment with different types of walks showing different personalities)
-A sculpture and people's reactions to it (again, showing different characters)
-Someone (a lonely person?) in a bare room throwing half of a "tin can phone" out the window and asking life questions to whomever picks it up. Possibly develops

Again, I consulted part of my community for brain storming, and ended up coming back to my original idea (I mostly rejected the other ideas because they would take too long to do, and I wanted to finish my animation by the end of the 4th quarter).