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...?)