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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).
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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...
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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).