Week 10A

Final Project:

Week 9 Outside of Class

Production time! I need to get this done by Monday, April 2nd, 2018. I have the scenes chopped up into different videos. I even created my own transitions because I thought it was required. Here are the videos, in order, that I will be putting together:

Week 9B

Today, we were supposed to have a title sequence for our stop motion. This is what I have so far when it comes to an intro:

I wanted to have a scene where it pans out and shows Athena's Temple. I will have clouds in the background slowly moving in the sky.

Then, the screen will go black. This is where the title will come in.

This is just a basic idea. After receiving feedback from Pannafino, I am going to incorporate snakes spelling out her name.

Week 9A

Today in class, we were supposed to have some production done. I was not able to get to production, but I do have my characters ready.

Athena:

Medusa:

I was also able to finish Athena's Temple, one of the scenes I will be using in my animation.

Week 8 Outside of Class

Over the weekend, I was able to start making my joint paper dolls for my animation.

Week 8B

Week 8A

Back from Spring Break

Spring Break is over and I wish it wasn't. But anyway, we had a quiz on Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 in our book Animation Unleashed. I completely forgot, so I don't think I did as well as I thought.

We now have in class work time. I began working on one of the scenes for my animation. This is the beginning of Athena's Temple:

Spring Break 3

Spring Break

Below is an image I'm going to use to build my characters. I decided I am going to create joint paper dolls. I'm going to use brads at the joints so I can easily move them for my stop motion animation.

Here are the brads I purchased. 

And I also began cutting out shapes to make my joint paper dolls.

Spring Break 2

Spring Break

During spring break, I started sketching out a storyboard for my stop motion project.

Spring Break 1

Spring Break

I purchased materials I will be using for my stop motion project. I purchased card stock and some glue.

Week 7 Outside of Class

For my stop motion animation, I am going to do an animation on The Story of Medusa and Athena. 

Medusa was a beautiful maiden who lived in Athens, Greece. She was a priestess to the goddess of wisdom and battle. In order to be a priestess to Athena, you must be a virgin and give your life to the goddess. In the 'kids' version of this legend, it was said that Medusa constantly boasted about how beautiful she was. She boasted about her beauty to anyone who would listen. She admired herself in the mirror for hours each day and when she saw her own reflection. Apparently she boasted to everyone in front of Athena that she was more beautiful than Athena, which made Athena mad. The lesson was that not everything is about looks. Athena curses Medusa by turning her into a monster - She was given chicken legs, giant metal wings, cracked skin, madness, and her signature snake hair and stone eyes. She was banished to an island where men would come to try and kill her. When she would look at them, she would watch them turn to stone. 

But apparently, in other versions, Medusa didn't boast about her looks or anything like that. She was ravishingly beautiful maiden who was admired by lots of men. But because she was a priestess to the goddess Athena, she was not allowed to marry. One day, Athena's rival and the God of the Sea, Poseidon, decided to come by and rape Medusa on the steps of Athena's temple. He did this because he wanted to humiliate Athena. 

Vulnerable and weak, Medusa prayed to Athena for guidance and forgiveness. Apparently in those days, gods claimed their mates as their partners forever. (I guess by having sex with them?) So since Medusa was raped by Poseidon, she was now his wife. (Which I really think shouldn't count due to the fact that she was raped, but whatever.) Anyway, Athena finds out Poseidon raped Medusa and gets very angry at Medusa. She claims Medusa betrayed her, which results in Athena cursing Medusa and turning her into a monster. Anyone she looks at is turned to stone, and no men want her now. She's banished to an island, where men are sent to try and kill her, but because she's angry at the gods for cursing her, she takes her revenge out on the men sent to the island to kill her. 

Years later, Perseus shows up at her island, outsmarts Medusa, and beheads her. Apparently Pegasus and Chrysaor emerge from her body. Perseus takes Medusa's head back to Athena, and Athena turns it into a shield with Medusa's face in the center, so it terrifies enemies when they look at it. 

Maybe I could change this storyline around. Maybe after Medusa gets raped and is cursed by Athena, Athena realizes that it's stupid to get angry at Medusa because Poseidon raped her. Since she can't reverse the curse, she brings Medusa back from the island, and they team up with Medusa's two immortal sisters,  Stheno and Euryale, to get revenge on Poseidon for what he did. 

I think the materials I am going to use for this project are different colors of construction paper, glitter glue, hand-lettering, and other techniques I can think of to incorporate in the project. I will post pictures later on today.

Week 7A

In Class

In class, we discussed two people's stop-motion videos that stood out to Professor Pannafino. After that, we were introduced to our second project, which is a stop-motion animation. Using stop-motion animation, we have to tell a mythical or legendary story. The rest of class was given to us to do research.

I started by doing a google search:

Then I went to Images:

These are images that have inspired me after google searching "mythical":

This one is from Game of Thrones...Ah I love the dragons.

Then I did a search on Legendary Creatures. Didn't get as much results as mythical, but here are some that stood out to me:

And gryphons... because gryphons are cool.

Also found Mythological Figures. Here are some I am familiar with and would do a story with:

Link: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mythology/characters/

Medusa - One of the three Gorgons. Medusa is a horrible woman-beast with snakes for hair. Her gaze turns men to stone. She is killed by Perseus.

Not sure who this is...but looks awesome.

Week 6 Outside of Class

This weekend, by Saturday at 12 Noon, we have to have our name reveal posted on D2L. I was able to complete and post mine on Friday night.

This is the first video I have. It is a stop-motion of me drawing my name:

This is the second video of my stop-motion. It is of me coloring in the drawing of my name.

Week 6B

In Class

Today in class, we moved on from Rotoscoping to Stop Motion. Over this weekend, by Saturday at 12 Noon, we have to have our name reveal up on D2L. By Sunday at midnight, we have to respond to three other students stop motion projects, each response being 200 words each.

Week 6A

This is my final rotoscoping project for National Love Your Pet Day, on February 22nd.

Critique:

Questions:

- Is there a narrative?
- Do they use rule of 3 well?
- Is boiling consistent with style?
- How does timing work?
- How is overall visual form & composition?
- How can they improve the visual form & composition?

1. Sophia
- Lines are smooth, which made the final execution turn out very well.

2. Ben P.
-  Like how he took initiative and made the clouds slightly move, it sets the scene.

3. Bailey
- Good details, the facial expression is visible even thought it's small.

4. Bryce
- If you fill in the jelly beans it might make Happy Easter easier to read.

5. Summer
- Make the person bolder if you don't want to add color to them, just so the important parts of the video stand out.

My Critique:

• like how the view is expanded to the proper size.
• Have the fish make it's way out from behind the castle faster.
• Use a hand-writing font instead of strong sans serif font
• Add more detail (like to the fur)
• Like how the camera is moving a little bit, makes it dynamic
• Color schemes are nice
• Have the words appear at the end, or appear throughout each scene.
• Like how the words appear, kind of makes it like it's a gif.

Week 5 Outside of Class

Week 5B

In Class

In class we had a meeting with Professor Pannafino about our scenes for the rotoscoping project.

Week 5A

In Class

Today was an in class work day for our rotoscoping project. I continued to work on Scene 2 of my project, and decided to add the castle into the animation.

Week 4 Outside of Class

Rotoscoping Project - Scene 2

Over the weekend, I worked on Scene 2 for my rotoscoping project. This scene is going to involve my goldfish swimming around in his tank. I am also going to add a castle. Here is the progress I have so far.

Week 4B

We did not have class today. I still came in to work on my scenes for my rotoscoping project. I began Scene 2 and continued to edit Scene 1. I had to redo Scene 1 due to the fact that it was not in the proper video format.

Week 4A

In Class

Today in class, we went around the room and critiqued everyone's first scenes for their rotoscoping project. Here is some of the feedback I received:

• The dog goes pretty good, you've even got the motion of the wagging tail just right
• fluid movement, I imagine muted colors with maybe some bright accents
• the hand is a little cut off which makes it tough to see the petting movement
• Interesting first few seconds...excited to see more
• good depth & realism
• not 100% sure about holiday yet, however you only have a few seconds done
• why portrait?
• eyes could look more "finished"
• I like the squiggly eyes
• can't tell what line on floor is
• Fill in the dog's eyes with some color
• The form is there and there are not many shaky lines
• full of life; make the style a confident, consistent choice. I like the loose scribbly eyes - go with that
• The style choice to make it look like it was filmed on a phone was a cool choice; Perhaps play around with that concept.

Week 3 Outside of Class

Rotoscoping Progress

This weekend we are supposed to continue working on the progress of our scene for our holiday greeting.

Week 3B

Rotoscoping: First Scene

This is my first attempt at my first rotoscoping scene for our holiday. This is a video of my dog walking up to me and I'm petting him. This is for the holiday National Love Your Pet Day.

Week 3A

Today in class, we took a quiz on the first 33 pages of Animation Unleashed. We were allowed to have notes with the quiz - except it had to be one page, one side of notes. Here are my notes:

I think I didn't do bad on the quiz.
After the quiz, Professor Pannafino showed us some basic skills in Adobe Animate, the program we are using for our first rotoscoping project. We were supposed to have our storyboards today, along with a video you will be using in your project. Here is my storyboard:

Explanations of each frame is in my previous post, Week 2 Outside of Class. 

I recorded 3 possible videos to use in my video. I have posted one below that I will be using in my rotoscoping project.

Week 2 Outside of Class

Storyboard Sketches and ideas

Top Left: My chinchilla can sit on my shoulder. I was thinking to add a small clip of him sitting on my shoulder, maybe while I'm on the computer or something. 

Top Right: I give my chinchilla a treat every day when I wake up, before I leave to go anywhere, and before I go to sleep. I could film a clip of me giving him a treat and have him take it and nibbling on it.

Bottom Left: As the ending, I could have a clip of a family member (or me) hugging my dogs, and having hearts pop up behind us in the background. Then have that clip fade out to National Love Your Pet Day showing up (Bottom Right). Obviously the text will be centered and proper. 

Below my first 4 sketches, I sketched out a storyboard of 9-12 frames. 

• The first clip would be of one of my dogs, and him coming up to me, wagging his tail, and me petting him. (Frames 1-2)
• The next 3 frames would be of my chinchilla coming up to his cage door, and then I would open it. I would pet him and give him a treat. 
• The next two frames will involve my fish. I am going to be looking in the tank and it will be filmed where you see my face through the tank and you will see my fish swimming around. If that doesn't work out, I will film myself feeding my fish. Except I don't think the first idea will be an issue.
• The next 3 frames will be where myself or another family member will be sitting on the couch, and the dogs will come up and sit on the couch with the owner. The owner will pet them and they will all sit together. Hearts will be animated into the clip, and then the clip will fade out into the last frame.
• The last frame will show "National Love Your Pet Day" on the screen. I think I will handwrite it so it will apply more to the style.

Week 2B

Today in class, we went over some concepts for the quiz, and what's going to be on the quiz. The quiz is going to be open note, except you can only have one sheet of notes on only one side of the paper.

Notes we took for the quiz:

• Shaky lines in rotoscoping are result of what is called "boiling" which is caused when an image isn't traced consistently from frame to frame.
• Concept of the uncanny valley suggests that humanoid objects which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings evict uncanny, or strangely familiar, feelings of eeriness and revulsion in observers.

The rest of the class time was given to us to work on our storyboards. On D2L, we are supposed to post our storyboard ideas by Friday at 12:00 midnight. Make sure that:

• Storyboards are clear
• To create a thread with your name
• Provide a short description (If you'd like)

We also need to respond to four other students by Sunday at 12:00 midnight. Make sure you:

• Give thoughts on ideas and alternative directions
• Around 200 or more words for each response

We also need to read pages 1-33 of "Animation Unleashed book" for the quiz, and we need to record at least one video of our scenes and bring the files into class next week. 

During Class

I came up with a few ideas during class time. 

Sketch 1:

This is the first sketch I came up with for a possible video scene. It's obviously a very sloppy sketch, but what I'm picturing is a dog laying down, with it's nose really close to the camera and kind of wiggling like it's sniffing the camera. I thought about including this to give the viewers the "cuteness" factor of pets.

Sketch 2:

This is the second sketch I came up with for a possible video scene. This would be a video of my fish swimming around in it's tank. Maybe I could get a video of me feeding my fish and film myself watching my fish swim around. (Film through the tank, so my face looks distorted or something like that)

Other Sketches:

After discussing my ideas with Pannafino, he suggested I hide the letters that spell out the word "pet" throughout my video scenes. I decided to draw them out in the sketches above. The couch represents a scene where one of my dogs would hop up on the couch with me or another family member and sit beside them. The letter "P" would be making up one of the arms of the couch. In the next sketch (below the couch) I tried to draw a fish castle with the letter "E" making up the castle. Deciding that's too obvious, I tried a different approach (Refer to the drawing of the castle to the right). I decided to make the fish castle, and have an E drawn on the side of the castle. After giving these ideas some thought, I decided to hide the word "pet" in each scene, instead of just a single letter. It might be obvious, but I believe it would get the message across more clearly.

Week 2A

Today in class, we went over our blog posts we were required to do over the weekend. I initially wanted to do International Rabbit Day, but realized I would need to purchase a rabbit for the project. So instead, I went with the holiday National Love Your Pet Day. I am going to involve all the pets I own for this project. I have 3 dogs, a chinchilla, and a fish.

During class, I decided to draw a chinchilla from observation. I chose an image from Google, since my chinchilla could not be in class.

Image:

My Drawing:

Professor Pannafino came around to discuss our ideas with each one of us. There wasn't really much to discuss with mine. He believed that I had a good grasp on what I was going to do.

Week 1 Outside of Class

3 Ideas

Holiday: National Love Your Pet Day
Idea 1:
 Have a series of clips put together where the owner is doing different things with their pet. (For example: Watching tv, reading a book, etc.) Kind of like a "best friend" video. Have a heart show up at the end with the name of the holiday and the date.  
Idea 2:
If the person has multiple pets (like me), a video could be made of different snippets with each pet. For example: one with my chinchilla, one with each of my 3 dogs, one with my fish. Just to show the relationship the owner has with each of their pets. 
Idea 3:
The greeting could also be snippets of a pet getting close to the camera (kind of sniffing it) with their nose wiggling. Capture snippets of the overall cuteness of your pet, to give the audience the "awww" kind of feeling. Sending out a message to all pet owners to show their pet extra love on the special holiday. 

Week 1B

Today in class, we presented our receipts to Professor Pannafino as proof that we completed our homework: To purchase the required textbook, Animation Unleashed: 100 Principles Every Animator, Comic Book Writer, Filmmaker, Video Artist, and Game Developer Should Know for class. We also watched a video on Rotoscoping, an animation technique we will be using for our first project. We also watched videos providing examples of what Rotoscoping looks like. 
Our first project is to create a digital message for a holiday. This project will be completed within the first five weeks of class. For homework, we are required to come up with three holidays we plan on doing by Friday at midnight. We also need to post 3 responses to other classmates' ideas on D2L by Sunday at midnight. Our ideas should be posted on D2L and on our process blogs.

Week 1A

Today was the first day of Spring classes at Millersville University. Today was primarily focused on going over the syllabus, and purchasing our required textbooks for class. For this class, we need the book Animation Unleashed: 100 Principles Every Animator, Comic Book Writer, Filmmaker, Video Artist, and Game Developer Should Know. I completed the purchase and had the receipt ready for next class. Also, we got our blogs set up for the semester.