Project 1 / Mommy, Where Do Rainbows Come From?

Has your child ever asked where rainbows come from? Well, today you are going to find out.

Trying to describe where the inspiration for this animation came from is difficult. I wanted to do something funny, as I have always thought of myself as a funny person. What is funnier than a unicorn? Yes, a unicorn being blended and/or mixed. Watching a unicorn liquefy is the funniest thing I could think of. But why would someone liquefy a unicorn you ask? To make rainbows of course.

I found the animation process daunting. I feel like I learned as I went and felt limited in what I wanted to achieve. Not knowing how to do many things limited what I was able to do and I had to change many things because I didn’t know how to do some things. I also feel like the project was pretty rushed, and if I had more time to work it could have been much polished.

One of the things that I had to change was the blender itself. Instead of doing a blender, I made it a mixer. This was easier to animate, and I found that I would have had a hard time animating the rainbow goop coming out of the blender.

 

Project 2 / Productivity Error

Productivity Error was the direct result of me NOT being able to come up with an idea. While I sat in front of the computer and contemplated the idea; switching between random Youtube videos and Facebook, I realized that the internet, in itself, was both a powerful tool and a horrible distraction. This, then, is the idea behind my animation.

As the person begins to work on their paper they become distracted by online games, which they pretty much are horrible at apparently, and the game takes over his work space, making his productivity die. I feel like this makes a statement on the internet. Let's take myself as an example. Every single time I sit down at a computer, I immediately go to Facebook, Youtube, or various other sites that have little purpose but to sabotage my productivity. I'm very similar to the metaphorical person whom is trying to be productive. They let the internet become a distraction and allow it to kill their productivity.

On the technical side of the animation, I feel like I did a much better job on this one. On the first animation, it was difficult for me to achieve the ideas that I wanted to due to a limited knowledge of the program. With the second animation, I was able to achieve more of the things that I wanted to. For example, I was able to time the animation and make it more exciting in better ways than before. I had a better understanding of the camera control and ways to make the animation more interesting.

Overall, I like the animation much better than my first attempt, and I feel like it is better in just about every way.

 

Project 3 / Extinction

My animation started out with the music. It was the basis for the entire project, and the inspiration for the animation. When I was looking for audio to go along with the animation, I remembered one of my favorite bands, ÒExplosions in the Sky.Ó When I was listening, I came across a part that reminded me of small explosions, which I in turn thought of as whales doing little waterspouts, but then I decided to do volcanoes erupting. This then, made me think of dinosaurs. And that, in turn, made me think of the extinction of the dinosaurs.

With the idea of extinction, I could either go in one of two directions. I could either do a humorous interpretation or more of an epic, dark, morbid take on it. I decided to combine the two into a humorous, but still serious animation.

The things that make it humorous are of course the dinosaurs themselves, and the sound effect that I created for the dinosaurs. The ending is sad, but then it turns more humorous when you see the dinosaur flying through space. Serious things include the volcanoes and the asteroid.

I found all the sound effects online, but edited all of then in Audactiy. Even the music was edited a little. I slowed part of it and sped part of it up slightly. I changed the pitch of one section slightly lower in order to make the mood slightly more intense.

As for criticisms, I feel like the volcano segment and the part with the dinosaurs running are a little long, but I wanted to make sure that I included the entire part of the song that I liked. I was going to add something to the volcano segment, but I didnÕt want to somehow do something to ruin the particle effects.

I feel like I did a great job, and I am proud of it.

 

Project 4 / Upstream

When I began to work on this animation it was my intention to do something involving text that was not just something that involved text morphing and changing, like movie credits of some sort. I wanted to do something that felt as far away from text as possible, while still being crafted entirely out of text.

I was looking to create a very organic feel, and I think that it was achieved by the fluidity of the animation when it was concerned with the animation of the dirt, fish, water, and clouds. I feel like it has a very natural and calming feel, partially due to the sound effects, I believe.

In the end, I was pretty disappointed with this animation. I feel like I had a good concept going, but I failed to achieve the full potential due to several reasons. I was unable to make the video fluidly loop and I wanted to create seaweed that would flow and sway with the current of the water. Neither one of these were achieved due to the fact that I ran out of time on my trial of After Effects that I was using. I would have worked on the project in the lab, but the lab has After Effects CS4 and when I tried to open the file on the computer, it would not open. Due to this, I had to turn it in as it was at the time, which is the movie you just watched. I still like the animation had a good concept and execution, but I was left a little disappointed in the end.

 

Final Project / Daydream

Trapped deep inside the minds of humans is an amazing world; untouched by the experiences and pain of reality that is nothing but pure happiness- pure childhood wonder. All the pure human emotion is filtered to this wondrous universe to be collected and built into dreams, thoughts, and ideas. This is the world of the imagination.

When I would think about animation before I took this class, I always pictured something very similar to the style of animation that I achieved in this project. I had wanted to do something hand drawn since the very beginning of the class, and I was finally able to attempt it with this final animation.

I am incredibly happy with the end result of my efforts to work with hand drawn animation. I feel like the animation has a very unique and childlike aesthetic, which I really enjoy. I felt that leaving the animation black and white gave it a very imaginative and interesting visual feel.