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).