Intermission #3

as I decided to go with the “make it up as you go” approach I continued working on it, I used the feedback I got from the first showing to stick with the theme of “hats” and “loops” and I ran into a couple of blocks. especially when I finished an animation (or character arc) and tried to come up with the next thing without forcing myself to plan it out. the thing that helped me the most with making it was not thinking about it and just doing it.

I kept running into many problems when I tried to export my animation, it turned out that I made the entire thing with a 14 fps while it exported into 24 fps, which made the video a bit longer and made the animation kind of jerky and bad. when I uploaded it into premiere I tried making the speed 114% faster which trimmed back the video to its original length but the animation didn’t look as smooth as it was on my iPad. if I wanted to get better export options I would have had to subscribe to the app to get the full features which I didn’t want to do, so I stuck with my limitations.

 

Intermission #2

I came up with 2 storyboards i can go with, but when i started an experimental animation I decided to stick with it, compared to the storyboards which were calculated and planned out, the “make it up as I go” animation was a lot more interesting and had way more character than the storyboards.

 

the first storyboard I wanted to go with was a scene of windy hills and add a sense of fantasy to it, it was really vague with minimum thought put in it.

the second storyboard I wanted to do an abstract moving shape, which is the most boring idea ever, it was because I knew that actual animating was gonna take up a lot of time and effort. so I came up with something that might have looked cool but didn’t take much effort.

 

Intermission #1

for my 30  sec video I knew I wanted to do something with animation, as a kid I had a program called “flip note” on my DS which I used to learn and make animations.

I do not have an idea beyond this, at this point of the semester I found it difficult to have inspiration on what I want to do, so I wanted to do something I thought I would have fun with.

I only have examples of these animations from youtube or other artists who dabbled in animation.

 

Zine – #2

I went with the dragon idea because it was the one I felt I can do the most with. I started by using pencil sketches and watercolor for the first few spreads. the feedback I on from them was:

– it needs to be more spontaneous.

– each spread should look like a different thing (forget grids)

I got a couple of articles that I wanted to use but I couldn’t decide whether i wanted to do a comparison between eastern and western dragons or whether i should give a mention to popular dragons that appear in media.

when I actually started composing the zine I realized that I could be general and do ‘Dragons’ because that is the core of my interest in them.

It occurred to me that if I make a book on dragons then it shouldn’t really be as cutesy as I was making it. so I ditched the pencil sketches and watercolor for dark textured paper (dragon skin) and picked a fierce color (red) to help with the visuals I wanted to emulate.

I also wanted a good texture to use so I created scales out of a holographic ribbon (took me 4 hours to assemble)

 

 

Zine – #1

after spending the longest time trying to come up with topics I would be interested in I finally ended up with 3 potential topics.

• Evolution of drawing(mine)
• Making comics
• Collecting manga I didn’t find myself interested in any of these to be honest so I came up with two other options that I feel are much more interesting.

 

• Animals that came back from the brink of extinction
• Dragons (eastern-western)

as for research, for the animals, I found a few articles listing a few animals and I found an article about a place called Al Wabra in Qatar where they successfully bred a species of the macaw parrot that almost went extinct. they are also homing other animals and using resources to gather information in order to understand the mating process and genetics in order to help other species on the brink of extinction.

5 Species That Have Come Back From the Brink of Extinction

Breeding rare Brazilian birds in the Qatari desert

 

 

Kinetic Type – Final

I found that my video took many turns until it arrived in its final version. I think what really helped me was me spending a long time learning the camera and using 3D layers to make the movements in the text. By the end, I had a completely different start than the end, so I had to go back and turn the simpler animations I had and group it into the overall movements of the video. I believe that I really gave it my all on this project and I really enjoyed making the video(despite the frustration of the process.)

I had to abandon my storyboard (mostly) in the middle of the project only because as I was making it, everything was coming together without it. However, I still did use some of the main animations that I wanted to do.

Kinetic Type #2

I didn’t feel comfortable with the list of speeches I found and the only one I wanted to do (kill bill 2- Superman and Spiderman) is easily 2 mins long.

I realized that I know a couple of video games speeches but none of them was longer than 45 secs. however, I remembered an older video game called Far Cry 3 which has an iconic cutscene called the “definition of insanity.” which I really liked.

I also remembered all the iconic joker quotes and dialogues but almost all the good ones are under one minute. so I went to the next best thing which is Alfred’s speech “some men just want to watch the world burn” which I was also hyped about.

I couldn’t decide about between these two so I decided to experiment with the two.

in the end, I found that I was really into making the “definition of insanity” because I had a way clearer idea of what it would look like. I made a really rough storyboard with the major animations in the piece where I would just wing the stuff in between.

Kinetic Type #1

for the first two classes, I was trying to find a speech or dialogue that I really wanted to do. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head so I looked up “best dialogues in movies.” the problem was that I either didn’t like the dialogue or that the movie was too old.

However, I did manage to dredge up a small list of possible dialogues.

-American History X – “Hate is baggage.”

–Kill Bill Vol. 2 – “Superman and Spider-Man…”

–Do the Right Thing – “Love and Hate.”

and also a poem from a book that I couldn’t find spoken out well.

-“once on a yellow piece of paper…” Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

 

Film Posters – #2 and #3

I realized soon after showing my first draft posters that white space has a lot of significance in the anime. whether its “truth” or even the fact that the animes came from the manga which is in black and white. However, I still didn’t have any specific composition for Pragmatic, Poetic and Persuasive. so in order to get the flow going, I decided to create as many variations with all the content I’ve gathered and experiment with them.

then based on what I made I would decide what is what. then, I would narrow them down to three posters.

after this critique, I realized that a working system between my posters is the transmutation circle and the frame. so for my final posters, I decided to use both of them and incorporate them into “pragmatic” ” poetic” and “persuasive.”

after I got the critique I was trying to think of how to create something “persuasive” and something a bit more “pragmatic.” so I decided to use an actual picture of the characters. but in order to find one that is black and white, I would have to refer to the manga. which only exists as scans on the internet, which means that they are probably very low quality. which was apparent when we tiled our first posters. so in order to fix that I downloaded the image on my Ipad and made the image bigger, then I cleaned up the lines by hand using a Sketchbook program.

by then I was almost done with the posters and I was stuck with the last minute of deciding which to pick because I had too many.

I decided to to go with 2, 7 and 8. and print the rest of the posters as A3 to provide options for my “persuasive” poster.

after the last critique, I only had minor changes to do but everyone liked poster no. 3 better than 8. so I decided to go with that one. especially after realizing that it didn’t make much sense to promote the anime as a sad movie.

these are the final posters that I ended up with.

Film Posters – #1

Fullmetal Alchemist

Two brothers seek to find the philosopher’s stone to fix their mistake but are shocked to find themselves in the middle of a plan that had been set in motion hundreds of years ago.

The main theme of the series is Equivalent Exchange which is something that is proven false by the end of the series. Another one is brotherly love. Seeking to find the ‘truth’. One for all and all for one.

Plot points

• Edward and Alphonse Elric lose their mom
• they try to transmute her back using their father’s books on Alchemy
• it goes wrong and Ed loses a leg and Al loses his entire body. Ed then sacrifices his arm to attach his brother’s soul to a metal armor.
• Ed decides to find the philosopher stone under the guise of working for the military.
• they find out the secret of how Philosophers stones are made.
• after a series of tragic events, Al gets turned into a philosopher stone.
• Dante tries to use Al to transfer to a younger body
• Ed fights Envy and Dies
• Alphonse sacrifices himself and brings ed back
• ed comes back and passes through the gate in exchange for Alphonse
• alphonse comes back as an 8-year-old with no memory and Ed passes over to our word.

Sentimental Concepts

• Eds Sacrifice – brotherly love
• burning down their house – symbolizing never going back
• paying for your sins

Practical Concepts

• seeking immortality
• the law of equivalent exchange.
• the reign of military
• Racism and prejudices