Week 3 Comments

This week we learned a lot about physics and how to make animations seem more realistic. We did this through many Exercises like a Pendulum and a Bouncing Ball. One thing that made me frustrated this week was trying to make my animations looks fluid like many other kids in the class. It took me a few trys to get me pendulum right but after awhile it came out pretty good and I eventually was happy with my work. Something that made me happy this week was completing my Bouncing Ball animation which I think came out very nice and humorous.
Ok Link of Interest time.

This is a very cool video of a Gopro strapped onto a hawk while chasing another bird. How they managed to get the camera on the bird is beyond me, But I thought this video looked super cool and If Film makers could figure out how to get an effect like this it would be super rad. Well that's all for this week guys. Thanks for reading my blog so far if anyone else is reading this besides Mrs. Licata, still enjoying the class a lot and I hope I can get my Bowling ball and Balloon animation done by tomorrow afternoon because that is going to take all class for me.

The Boxtrolls: the newest stopmotion film from Laika

Stop motion is some what of a dying art. The article we read on Hullabaloo last week was very similar to this one as both art forms are facing this problem. But Stop motion is even a little more troubled. If you go online you're bound to see tons of 2D cartoons created by people, but how about Stop Motion? I mean sure there's the occasional Lego Stop Motion video or Claymation, but it's not nearly as popular as it was in the past. This is simply because it's seen as the predecessor to CGI Animation or aka it's a thing of the past. But this is simply not true at all. Stop Motion Animation is its own art form and has a unique charm to it that CGI Animation will never be able to match. I mean I'm not trying to sound harsh on CGI at all as I like it just as much, But many studios of today will just stick to CGI because it's what there use to. This is where the studio Laika comes in. They have produced 2 great Stop Motion films in the past years being, Coraline and Paranorman. And now they are coming out with their latest film, The Boxtrolls. This Article is and interview the CEO of Laika and head animator Travis Knight. They ask him questions on how the company has changed in the past years, how The Boxtrolls is diffrent from past movies and how he works in Laika. I thought this Article was very insightful and I'm glad Laika is keeping Stop motion alive.

Cloudy with a chance of animation principles

That title is pretty clever huh? And so is the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I really like this movie for many reasons but one of them is how well it uses the principles of animation. The movie uses Squash and Stretch quite a bit throughout the whole movie actually but one of the more notable examples would be when Flint and Sam are bouncing inside the jello castle. Anticipation is also another animation principle. It is used in the film when Flint extends his arm to catch a cheeseburger from the sky. Staging is used when the giant colorful cloud is seen for the first time which sets the stage for the thousands of cheeseburgers to rain from the sky. With Straight Ahead Animation and Pose to Pose, I think that most of the animation was pose to pose because most of the animation looks planned and exaggerated. Follow through animation is shown when Flint's coat flows in the wind when he runs. For Slow in and Slow out, the food avalanche accelerates in speed after it has gone on for a bit. For Arcs, the characters arms and legs move in arcs a lot of the time. An example of Secondary Action would be when Flint talks on the phone and walks at the same time. One of Timing would be how the fat mayor moves super slowly and pops up at certain times to act creepy and intimidating. Exaggeration would be... well much of the movie but an example would be when the cop is jumping 10 feet in the air when maneuvering around the crowd. For solid drawing, technically there is none because the film is 3D animated but the closest thing would be when he made a David sculpture out of jello. And lastly for Appeal, the movie is very appealing because of how exaggerated and cartoony the characters are which is a little different from the more realistic animation of Pixar or Dreamworks.

Week 2 Comments

If you like colors then you would have loved this week in Digital Media. This week we went over all about colors and how to make them look nice in different ways. We also went over the principles of animation such as squash and stretch, anticipation, staging and many more. What frustrated me mostly this week was trying to organize the file that we had to work with for the color project. The file was really weirdly set up as there was no layers for the different characters and background elements. I thought it would be a great idea to copy and paste all the elements to organize my work flow so I could grab as I please from the different elements that I needed. But that turned out to be a colossal waste of time as it was much easier just to copy and paste the elements and put them on their own layers as I went along, rather then have it set up before hand. Also I was pretty mad at one of my character poses being censored as apparently sitting on a toilet is a little to edgy for Digital Media. What I enjoyed this week was watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and writing down all the principles of animation it showed. I think that it is a very underrated movie that I don't get the hate it gets. It has great animation and is really funny throughout. It was a great choice for showing the class all the different aspects of animation. Now on to the link of interest.

This is a video by one of my friend's dad that made me almost pee myself. Seriously. It uses a cool VFX trick that I bet none of you can figure out. We will probably do stuff like this next year I'm guessing so I thought it was good for this weeks link of interest. Well that's all for this week. I'm still enjoying the class a lot and hopefully my binder wont be temple of doom by the next notebook check.

Hullabaloo: The 2D Animation Savior

Most animated films today are done through CGI or computer generated imagery. Instead of being hand drawn, they are 3D modeled on a computer and animated in 3D space. It's been like this for a few years now with the last major 2D film being what? Princess and the frog? Let's be honest, who even saw that. 2D and 3D films are two different animals, and there are great examples of both the styles. But with the advancement of computers over the past 15 years or so, Most animation companies stick with 3D. This is where Hullabaloo comes in. The film is being made by Disney animation veterans, James Lopez and Rick Farmiloe. There goal is make this film bring 2D animation back to the mainstream. The movie is in a Steam-punk style, who anyone who has been on Deviantart for two seconds knows is a hybrid between Victorian style fashion, technology and architecture with futuristic technology. The film is also starring two female protagonists. The Film is being funded through Indiegogo which is a crowfunding website similar to Kickstarter where anyone can leave a donation big or small, and has received massive support and praise.
So what do I think of this? Well right now I have kind of mixed feelings about the whole thing. On one hand, I'm glad that 2D is getting more recognition, but I kinda feel that this film is kinda gimmicky and trying to hard to appeal to younger artists. One of the big things that this movie is trying to advertise is that it is changing up things by having the protagonists be woman to differ itself from the mainstream films, which I think is pretty ridiculous. Female protagonists have always been big, there are great movies with great female protagonists such as Ripley in aliens, Sarah Connor in Terminator 1 and 2 and not to mention frozen which had 2 female protagonists just like this movie. I don't like it when movies try to sound like they're being revolutionary by having something new, that has really been in movies sense the beginning. So that didn't settle too well with me reading this article. Also, I've never been a big Steam-punk fan as I think it's really overused and not really that interesting. This movie could be great and that would be awesome as I love me some 2D animation just as much as 3D. But it could also be terrible, and everyone just donated to it because it's "breaking new ground" and finally showing that women can do just as much as men in movies. Here's the thing with that, the character has to be well written or I will hate them if they are male or female. It doesn't mean that films are degrading to women just because they don't have strong female characters, it just means that the movie has bad writing. So hopefully the movie will be good, I just hope its not just trying to ride the current bandwagons of Steam-punk and strong female protagonists and forget that they still have to make a good movie.

Micheal Moore talks about documentaries and how to make them not suck.

Who doesn't like Micheal Moore? Well a lot of people including myself, but the man may have some interesting things to say on documentaries. This article was a lot like last weeks, in list form giving Tips on how to make a documentary that people actually want to watch. First on the list is "Laughter is a way to alleviate the pain of what you know to be true." here he is basically saying make sure the film is not boring and something people are actually interested in. Next is "Don’t tell me stuff I already know." this means that documentaries should bring something new to the table and not informing people on something they have been nagged about to death. Next is "The modern documentary has morphed into a college lecture." this goes along with the last statement saying that it should be a new topic and not something that has already been talked about. "Too many documentaries feel like medicine." people don't like to feel like they are forcing themselves to finish the movie, so again make it interesting! "The left is boring". I think what he means by this is that the liberal people making a lot of these political documentaries need to get a sense of humor and focus on being more funny. "Go after the real villains." here he is saying actually name the people you are criticizing and expose them for what you are complaining about in the first place. "“Make your films personal,” again, he is saying to making your films interesting and something you are interested in. "Point your cameras at the cameras." here he is saying to show how the mainstream media is not showing you the truth. "The American public loves non-fiction." and again...sigh, Moore says in a voice that can only be described in all caps, IF YOU PEOPLE CAN'T EXCEPT THAT PEOPLE WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED BY A MOVIE THEN GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS!!!! “Only film people that disagree with you." here he is saying that filming people who disagree with you helps make your film more interesting, because you have a second opinion to talk to. And finally his last point was " While filming a scene, are you getting mad? Are you crying? Are you cracking up?" Here he is saying that you are the audience along with the people watching the movie, so make sure you are impacted as much as they are.
Good god, how much can a man repeat himself? Even though Moore brings up some good points, they are all points we have heard before if we've ever even thought about being a director or animator. It also doesn't help that almost all of his points are the exact same thing saying "Make something different and not boring". I think Moore should listen to his own advice and talk about something different and not something we have all heard a hundred times. And seriously, who could have guessed that people actually want to be entertained by movies. Do modern filmmakers really suck this much theses days? Did I miss something? I understand Moore's enthusiasm but I think he's seen too many bad movies if he has to give...THIS bad advice on how to make a good one.

Flipbook Fun

I just got done finishing my flip book, and I thought that the most obvious thing to do was to put it in gif form and share it on my blog. So I did just that. Enjoy!

6 Tips from Recruiters Article Response

This article was a very good read and very important for young or even old people interested in getting a career in animation. The article is broken up into a list telling the reader what to do in order to make it into the animation business. The list goes make a good impression in 30 seconds, Don't put everything you have ever done into your demo reel, unique acting is king, know your audience, make sure the link works and be aware of trends. This is a very helpful article and I recommend it to anyone trying to break into animation and doesn't know where to start.

The Order 1886 Article Video Response

This weeks first article is about The Order 1886 and how it is using an advanced way of using cut scenes by creating the imperfections of camera lens that we often take for granted. I thought this article was very good but there's one part of the article that I think that more people should think about. The last paragraph of the article talks about how some critics think that bringing hollywood style cut scenes could break immersion of the game. I could not agree with this more and I think a lot of game developers need to learn this. Lets talk about how a game can do this right. The 2004 game Half Life 2 does not actually incorporate the use of cut scenes and instead lets the story fold right in front of you without breaking the immergance of the game. I'm not saying all games should be like this. But the number one thing a game should be is fun to play. I think games that rely WAY too much on cut scenes and story such as Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain suffer as a result simply for the fact that the game just isn't fun on its own, and I would rather just watch a movie instead. If their is one thing that I hope Game developers learn is that there is a huge difference between video games and film. I hope The Order 1886 is a good game, I really do. I've seen footage of the actual game and it looks quite fun. But I just fear that the more games become like movies the less they are...well...games.

Week 1 Comments

This first full week of Digital Media sure was fun. I was very excited to join the class and after this past week, I am very glad I did. I'm also very excited for the future when we learn more advanced things like frame by frame animation and 3D animation in Maya. But now onto what we learned this week. This week we learned the basics of drawing in Toon Boom Animate Pro which I came to like very much. In Addition we also learned the history of animation, all about computers and different jobs in the industry. The thing that frustrated me the most this week is trying to learn how to render a frame in Animate Pro. For those who don't know what I mean by this, a Rendered shot or animation is what the final version will look like. The reason I wanted to learn how to do this is because I wanted to see what my projects would look like in much better quality than Animate Pro can allow while using the program. But after looking all over the tool bars, I finally figured out how to do it! 

For those interested you go to Play - Render and Play and than move to Time bar to Frame one. 

It's the difference between this....

And this!

It may be a little hard to notice the difference at first (and granted my example isn't great because there's no detail in the background). But if you look carefully you will notice that the second image ( the rendered one) is much more clear and crisp, and also gives you a much better representation of what the final product will look like. 

Sorry for rambling about rendering let's talk about what made me happy now. What made me happy this week was learning how great my personal tablet really is on Animate Pro. I'm not great on drawing on a tablet and I will be the first to admit that. But the drawing tools on Animate Pro are seriously awesome and it works almost perfectly on my bamboo tablet.

Now onto my link of interest. For my first one I chose a clip from one of Richard Williams Animation Survival kit DVDs.

Richard Williams is the author of The Animation Survival kit and is a fantastic animator who's work you might have seen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This video while quite humorous, is also very informative on the importance of different walk cycles between different characters. Thank you for reading my first real blog post, and I look forward to making more posts in the future!

First Post

It works I hope.