Broken Wand
Summery
The short is about a boy who goes to visit his grandfather who loves magic. The grandfather is excited that the boy is there and tries to do magic tricks with his, but the boy cares more about his gaming system.
Analysis
The short was very well made, being Disney and all. Even though there are no words, the emotion is still shown through expression and lighting, especially at 2:00 where the grandfather is in light, but the grandson is in darkness with only the screen of his gaming system proving sufficient lighting. Then, at 2:54 when the grandfather loses hope, he is shrouded in shadow, but after the grandson does his magic trick, 3:04-3:06, it suddenly gets lighter, showing happiness.
If we think about the physics of animation, such as squash, stretch and follow through, there are some good examples of that. If you pause or watch in slow motion at 0:57, you can see that the boy's body is stretch. When watching at normal speed, you can't see it, but it gives it a more realistic vibe. We continue this at 0:58 where the force of the grandfather's pulling makes the boy stumble, giving us follow through If he had just stayed completely stiff, it would be less human-like and more mechanical, which is all good and well if that is the vibe you are going for. There are several more examples of this throughout the short like at 0:33 and the credit/into with the car.
While the project is very good, there are somethings I would change, such as the color palette. The colors are darker and they put me off. I would have brightened the yellows and added a bit more contrast. All the colors seem to blend together, except for the kid's hair which makes it a little more awkward.
Conclusion
Even though this is a Disney short, so the animation is very good, there are some things I would change just from a personal aesthetic. I enjoyed the story and how it was portrayed with sound and lighting. This is proof that something can always be improved on and that no animator is perfect.
DisneyShorts. ""Broken Wand" by Anne Yang & Michael Altman." YouTube. Walt Disney Studios, 31 Jan. 2015. Web. 25 May 2017.
Creative•Passionate•Unique•Idealistic
Aspiring Cinematographer
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Year Review: Exploring Animation
This year was quite an adventure. I learned so much with special effects 3D and 2D animation, Although I am heading into the Entertainment Strand next year, I've learned how to put my animation knowledge into my videos.
Collaboration: Collaboration is a big life skill. Although most of the time, animation is solo, there are still many occasions where you need good collaboration skills. One of these times was our VFX assignment. My group was Sarah Pitts, Nicholas Compton and Johnny Robinson. We decided to "remake" the classic cartoon, Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner.
This combined a lot of skills that we learned this year, including greenscreening, and 3D modeling in Maya. It was a way to show how all of these different skills cam be combined. The hardest part was the rock. It was modeled in Maya and it involved a lot of masking, some of which we forgot to do. While this is by far not professional grade, you have to admit, It's kind of funny.
Communication: When learning a new skill, communication with the teacher is very important because if you learn wrong, then that is how you are going to keep doing it like that. Learning in Maya involved a lot of communication because of all the parts that I had to remember.
Project Management: I cannot stress how much project/time management is. You have to work when you have the time and stay on task. If you are not focused, your project will not be done on time, and if you are rushing to finish, there are going to be mistakes. If you are working for a client and it's late, you might be payed less or not at all.
Leadership: Leadership skills are an important life skill. You must take charge and make sure people are keeping up with the project. It can also be seen as helping a fellow animator and taking that initiative to make things in the workplace/ environment run smoother,
Strengths/Weaknesses
My greatest strengths are my Maya models. I am very proud of my skills. It takes a lot of skill to make things look realistic and I think I achieved that pretty well. I think I could definitely work harder on them and improve my skills majorly.
My weakness is my 2D animations. That includes my walk cycle and multi-plane animations. Using the pin tool and not allowing it to slide was a problem I struggled with, although my worm looks pretty good.
Overall, this year was a great learning experience. It has taught me so much that I can apply next year in Entertainment Video. There is a lot I can improve on some of these projects. I also learned a lot about time management that will help me in the future.
My Valuable Takeaways:
 |
| My final product (Can you count how many copies of me are there?) |
Technology: Jeez. I've learned so much this year. I learned how to use a green screen for one. My teacher, Mr. Netterville took my class down to the studio and each student got a photo taken of them to edit onto a background. it was quite a struggle for me because, back in February, I dyed my hair blue and turquoise, so by the time this project came around, my hair was fading into mostly green, so it was pretty see through when I keyed out the green screen in AfterEffects.
I'm very happy that I learned how to edit with a green screen because that allows me to make my videos more interesting with certain effects. This will further my skills and increase the quality of my content.
I'm very happy that I learned how to edit with a green screen because that allows me to make my videos more interesting with certain effects. This will further my skills and increase the quality of my content.
Collaboration: Collaboration is a big life skill. Although most of the time, animation is solo, there are still many occasions where you need good collaboration skills. One of these times was our VFX assignment. My group was Sarah Pitts, Nicholas Compton and Johnny Robinson. We decided to "remake" the classic cartoon, Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner.
This combined a lot of skills that we learned this year, including greenscreening, and 3D modeling in Maya. It was a way to show how all of these different skills cam be combined. The hardest part was the rock. It was modeled in Maya and it involved a lot of masking, some of which we forgot to do. While this is by far not professional grade, you have to admit, It's kind of funny.
Communication: When learning a new skill, communication with the teacher is very important because if you learn wrong, then that is how you are going to keep doing it like that. Learning in Maya involved a lot of communication because of all the parts that I had to remember.
Project Management: I cannot stress how much project/time management is. You have to work when you have the time and stay on task. If you are not focused, your project will not be done on time, and if you are rushing to finish, there are going to be mistakes. If you are working for a client and it's late, you might be payed less or not at all.
Leadership: Leadership skills are an important life skill. You must take charge and make sure people are keeping up with the project. It can also be seen as helping a fellow animator and taking that initiative to make things in the workplace/ environment run smoother,
Strengths/Weaknesses
My greatest strengths are my Maya models. I am very proud of my skills. It takes a lot of skill to make things look realistic and I think I achieved that pretty well. I think I could definitely work harder on them and improve my skills majorly.
My weakness is my 2D animations. That includes my walk cycle and multi-plane animations. Using the pin tool and not allowing it to slide was a problem I struggled with, although my worm looks pretty good.Overall, this year was a great learning experience. It has taught me so much that I can apply next year in Entertainment Video. There is a lot I can improve on some of these projects. I also learned a lot about time management that will help me in the future.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
Semester Review: Entertainment Video
Overview
This semester in Exploring Video Production, the focus was on the Entertainment strand. We created a music video, remade movie trailer and produced a short film written by fellow classmate, Lina Satterin. I was able to make each project my own and put my own creative spin on everything.
We Didn't Start The Fire (actually we did)
Assignment: Recreate/make music video for a song of our choice.
We Didn't Start The Fire is an iconic song; It was so much fun to bring to life I worked with Ariel Seemann, Austin Wilson and Brett Taylor to complete this. We made the decision to not recreate the official video and to make our own version which took a while.
Preproduction seemed to go by really fast. I was out with a concussion for most of it, so Ariel, Austin and Brett did most of the work. To save ourselves some editing, we took the creative liberty to use signs instead of lip-synching, so they worked on those while I was gone.
Filming took about 3-4 hours. Here is where we faced some challenges. It was a cold January Sunday. The outside temperature ranged from about 34-46 degrees. We struggled with starting our fire it was so cold and windy, but you can't have a music video talking about fire without featuring flames, so we persevered. We were at Austin's grandparents' house, so after a few failed attempts, we took shelter inside, drank some hot cocoa and tried to make a secondary plan. We were going to film inside, but then we headed back outdoors and surprise, it had warmed up a little. We decided to start filming and to start the fire (pun not intended) later when it was dark outside. We didn't account for the time of year we were filming though. Because it was during the middle of winter, the days are drastically shorter and this affected filming as well. As you can see in the video below, it got too dark to see the signs and we resorted to starting the fire in order to make the signs visible. We soon got it figured out and we can learn from these mistakes.
Editing prove to be a challenge within itself. Because some of clips were so dark, they were unsalvageable, but we used them anyway. Another problem is we didn't think about possible B-Roll and there are only so many ways you can show fire in one video without boring the audience, so we had to get creative, but it all worked out.
This video is pretty good for my first music video. It could be majorly improved if we reshot and put new knowledge to work.
The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend)
Assignment: Recreate shot for shot a high school themed movie.
I had never seen The Duff before, so this was an interesting project. I worked with Mackenzie Jefferson and Ariel Seemann. Even though this project was all laid out for us, I found it much harder.
I am a perfectionist when it comes to certain things and this video was my kryptonite. I was the storyboard creator, so I went through the official trailer in slow motion in order to screenshot every little shot change. I wrote down the camera movements, what shot it was and who was in it. Because I had all this knowledge of what was supposed to happen, I was also cinematographer. There were some days that we didn't get all that we needed done in class and I was unable to film, so others did. Because of this, not all the shots got filmed and there were some missing lines, which my job as editor a living nightmare because it was a struggle to get things to flow correctly. We also had the problem that a lot of our actors were not in our class, so they couldn't always film. Most of them also didn't bother to memorize their lines, which make filming take longer.
Personally, I believe this project was a giant flop and it could have been executed much better. I hope that in the future, the people in my group (including me) learn from this and improve their/our future projects. This video could be majorly improved with a reshoot.
Running: A Short Film
Assignment: Create an original short film
This project was by far my favorite. It is an original film written by Lina Sattarin. It's about a runner with unsupportive parents and girl who was once a ballerina and is now a paraplegic. This was the project that took the most time. We spent the entire quarter working on it which means from after spring break in March until the a week before school lets out in May.
It all began with a treatment, which is pretty much the first draft. It is written like a short story and covers the Act I, Act II and Act III. Everyone in my class wrote one and shared it. My teacher, Mrs. Smith, then put us into groups and everyone wrote a script based off their treatment. My group was made up of Ann-Reita Cox, Gianni Lopez, Lina Sattarin and myself. Once in our groups, we shared our scripts and chose our final script unanimously. As you can see, Lina's was the winner. Hers was physically possible for teens like us to do. It was also very well written.
For this project, I was in charge of story boarding and cinematography. We were able to film the entire thing in two sessions. Lina was head editor, but I helped while she was gone.
In the end, I believe that this was my best project. I'm really proud of how it turned out, although there are some things that need to be fixed such as mood of the film and some jump cuts.
I really enjoyed this semester. Entertainment is definitely my strong suit and I'm excited to continue learning and furthering my skills. Next year, I would really like to take on some more projects and make it all my own. I did a lot of growing and learning this year and I can't wait to put it to use.
This semester in Exploring Video Production, the focus was on the Entertainment strand. We created a music video, remade movie trailer and produced a short film written by fellow classmate, Lina Satterin. I was able to make each project my own and put my own creative spin on everything.
We Didn't Start The Fire (actually we did)
Assignment: Recreate/make music video for a song of our choice.
We Didn't Start The Fire is an iconic song; It was so much fun to bring to life I worked with Ariel Seemann, Austin Wilson and Brett Taylor to complete this. We made the decision to not recreate the official video and to make our own version which took a while.
Preproduction seemed to go by really fast. I was out with a concussion for most of it, so Ariel, Austin and Brett did most of the work. To save ourselves some editing, we took the creative liberty to use signs instead of lip-synching, so they worked on those while I was gone.
Filming took about 3-4 hours. Here is where we faced some challenges. It was a cold January Sunday. The outside temperature ranged from about 34-46 degrees. We struggled with starting our fire it was so cold and windy, but you can't have a music video talking about fire without featuring flames, so we persevered. We were at Austin's grandparents' house, so after a few failed attempts, we took shelter inside, drank some hot cocoa and tried to make a secondary plan. We were going to film inside, but then we headed back outdoors and surprise, it had warmed up a little. We decided to start filming and to start the fire (pun not intended) later when it was dark outside. We didn't account for the time of year we were filming though. Because it was during the middle of winter, the days are drastically shorter and this affected filming as well. As you can see in the video below, it got too dark to see the signs and we resorted to starting the fire in order to make the signs visible. We soon got it figured out and we can learn from these mistakes.
Editing prove to be a challenge within itself. Because some of clips were so dark, they were unsalvageable, but we used them anyway. Another problem is we didn't think about possible B-Roll and there are only so many ways you can show fire in one video without boring the audience, so we had to get creative, but it all worked out.
This video is pretty good for my first music video. It could be majorly improved if we reshot and put new knowledge to work.
The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend)
Assignment: Recreate shot for shot a high school themed movie.
I had never seen The Duff before, so this was an interesting project. I worked with Mackenzie Jefferson and Ariel Seemann. Even though this project was all laid out for us, I found it much harder.
I am a perfectionist when it comes to certain things and this video was my kryptonite. I was the storyboard creator, so I went through the official trailer in slow motion in order to screenshot every little shot change. I wrote down the camera movements, what shot it was and who was in it. Because I had all this knowledge of what was supposed to happen, I was also cinematographer. There were some days that we didn't get all that we needed done in class and I was unable to film, so others did. Because of this, not all the shots got filmed and there were some missing lines, which my job as editor a living nightmare because it was a struggle to get things to flow correctly. We also had the problem that a lot of our actors were not in our class, so they couldn't always film. Most of them also didn't bother to memorize their lines, which make filming take longer.
Personally, I believe this project was a giant flop and it could have been executed much better. I hope that in the future, the people in my group (including me) learn from this and improve their/our future projects. This video could be majorly improved with a reshoot.
Running: A Short Film
Assignment: Create an original short film
This project was by far my favorite. It is an original film written by Lina Sattarin. It's about a runner with unsupportive parents and girl who was once a ballerina and is now a paraplegic. This was the project that took the most time. We spent the entire quarter working on it which means from after spring break in March until the a week before school lets out in May.
It all began with a treatment, which is pretty much the first draft. It is written like a short story and covers the Act I, Act II and Act III. Everyone in my class wrote one and shared it. My teacher, Mrs. Smith, then put us into groups and everyone wrote a script based off their treatment. My group was made up of Ann-Reita Cox, Gianni Lopez, Lina Sattarin and myself. Once in our groups, we shared our scripts and chose our final script unanimously. As you can see, Lina's was the winner. Hers was physically possible for teens like us to do. It was also very well written.
For this project, I was in charge of story boarding and cinematography. We were able to film the entire thing in two sessions. Lina was head editor, but I helped while she was gone.
In the end, I believe that this was my best project. I'm really proud of how it turned out, although there are some things that need to be fixed such as mood of the film and some jump cuts.
I really enjoyed this semester. Entertainment is definitely my strong suit and I'm excited to continue learning and furthering my skills. Next year, I would really like to take on some more projects and make it all my own. I did a lot of growing and learning this year and I can't wait to put it to use.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Special Effects: Explosion
For this project,I needed to create an explosion using different special effect elements. I was given all the features and a tutorial and had to put it together. Some of the elements included a "falling glass" graphic, a "big fire" graphic and soundbyte of the explosion noise.
I used masks in order to keep the explosion realistic and behind certain parts of the video and each part had to be manipulated and timed perfectly. Along with the masks shown, I also had to use a different type in order to add the "light" from the fire and add a slight glow.
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| Workspace with timeline |
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| Outline of masks |
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| Mask |
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Senior Final Exam
Four years of e-Comm has gone so quickly. It's been a blur of projects and fun times, yet a time of indescribable grow...
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Broken Wand Summery The short is about a boy who goes to visit his grandfather who loves magic. The grandfather is excited that th...
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This my first sketch up project! I believe with a little more work, I could do a lot better. I ran into a few problems with components an...
