2/21/21
I honestly don't have too much stuff to say this week. This week has been EXTREMELY stressful in terms of schoolwork, but I am actually very proud of the things that I have accomplished. I'm going to break down a few things that I've done that I would like to share with you. Before I do this, I want to talk a little bit more about how I'm doing. This is personal, but my mom's car got stolen a few days ago because she went inside to get items for work while the car was warming up and when she made it to the kitchen window she saw a shadow of someone and before she could make it out in time they were already pulling out of the driveway. This may not be my personal problem, but it certainly upsets me and adds to my emotional turmoil. Recently my anxiety and my depression have been kicking me from behind, but I've been trying to stay one step ahead so that doesn't happen. I keep falling and getting back up. It's just.... Really hard. Anyways... Onto my accomplishments!
The first accomplishment is a side exercise I had for my moving image course which was animating a claw machine. It was sooooooo much fun and I'm really happy with how it turned out. You can check it out if you want by clicking here.
Another really really fun small side project in my moving image course was playing with GIFs. A brief overview: Every student in participating in creating a fun gif series. The first student started us off with 4 gifs and they created a moving collage. Then, the student following the previous will create a new moving collage, but the catch is that they have to use ONE of the GIFS that the previous student used and then the other three they can choose from the curated database. At first I went to work and was having so much fun with creating a random moving collage. But then when I was searching for a soundtrack, I was INSPIRED. I found a mix of "Zelda and Chill" music and instantly I changed my idea and created an entirely new moving collage. It was sooooooooo much fun to make and I love the way that it turned out. Hopefully YouTube doesn't take it down due to the soundtrack, so if the link doesn't work well... I'll find a way around that haha. Here's the link
One more accomplishment of mine is that I've been making significant progress with my animations. The first one is an exercise which I'm still working on, but I will probably share it with you guys in the next blog post since it should be done by then. The second one is my semester-long project which I would love to share with you guys...
At first, I had a completely different animation idea and sometimes it's dangerous to change your idea because animating takes a lot of time. But I went for it because I've fallen in love with my new concept. Literally. Here's the proposal:
For my semester-long project, I plan on using rotoscoping again like my last animation. In my last animation, I used rotoscoping heavily in order to convey the movement of my characters because they were both dancing. Through rotoscoping I was able to ensure that the characters movements were smooth and that each frame correctly clicked into place. My last project was about the concept of fusion, two beings being so in sync with each other that they fuse into one being through love. For this project, I still want to heavily use rotoscoping and I still want to keep the concept of love, but this time the characters won’t be fusing. I have compiled a collection of seven different videos which, when layed out, tell a story of love. This is how the storyline is layed out: The first song is “Shape of You” by Andy Grammar and this (in my opinion) reads as a sexual attraction leading to a deeper relationship. This segways into the second song, “Without Me” by Alessia Cara, which is a song about one person putting all of their love and attention into one person, but then realizing that their lover took advantage of them. The third song then introduces a more mature love that sounds extremely beautiful and is the only dance scene that will have two dancers in order to properly animate the song. This ends then opens with “Happier” by Bastille and Marshmello, which is about being fully aware that the relationship has reached its tail end, but still somehow wanting to hold on. However, deep down within him, he knows that the only way his significant other can be “happier” is by abandoning the relationship and going their separate ways (a more mature breakup than the first one = growth). Then “I Warned Myself” by Shawn Mendes plays which is self-explanatory in the fact that he warned himself not to fall again, but he did anyways. Next, “Break Up With Your Girlfriend I’m Bored” plays and I don’t think I need to say much because the title says it all. The thing to take away from this song is that empathy is lost and she plays dirty by trying to get her ex to leave their new lover because she’s “bored”. This leads to the final song, “Good Thing” by Kehlani, which is about: “The takeaway from both is that time by yourself allows you to be entirely yourself, self-absorbed and reflective and all. Self-care and acceptance aren’t all about being the best person you can, but also about embracing yourself at your worst or most vulnerable or egotistical” (https://www.gq.com/story/the-virtues-of-being-alone). I want to rotoscope these choregraphed performances with these songs in order to tell the true story of how I thought I found someone I loved, how I was misled, how I learned correct ways to love and break up, and eventually how I finally learned how to LOVE MYSELF. Each song and rotoscoped dance are DETRIMENTAL to telling MY story and I’m hoping that when people watch it, they will pay attention to the movements and the lyrics so that they gain the ability to feel both the joy and the pain I went through to become who I am today.
And then here's my animatic that I put together. This is going to be my video reference for my animation.
So that's my weekly blog. And yes. Yes I did make each paragraph a separate color of the rainbow because I love the rainbow THAT MUCH.