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.