marwahs-animation

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My Final Project, “A Butterfly’s Path”

When I finished editing my final project, I am happy that I improved from my last animatic when it comes to timing and use of music. Although, I have struggled a lot with using the Adobe Premiere and trying to find the correct ratio of the frame and it wouldn’t fit to the normal size. Even though I should have known how to use it professionally, the mac computers in Silverstone kept shutting down the application from time to time, resulting in me to re-do my project even when I saved. Other than the ratio, I feel like the music has brought the animatic to life, yet I wish I had extended to story a bit further seeing that a few more scenes could’ve explained the story better. But as an overall, I am content that I was able to produce a minute of a short film animatic. 

Seeing that my blog does not have many posts, I would have had more time to practice and reflect on my workshops but unfortunately I did not attend all the classes due to being sick for a while. Although I did research as much as I can outside the classroom. This shows me that my project has a lot of space for improvement if I managed to practice and attend workshops. But after submitting this animation, it has motivated and aspired me to learn more about animating and creating art in various ways.

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I tried uploading the sounds I used for the animation but the file was too large, so I placed them in the project files folder. In the screenshot shown, I used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit and configure both diegetic and non-diegetic sounds into the animatic. Using Adobe Audition would have been better because I am more familiar with the set-up, but it wasn’t hard to get used to Adobe Premiere. The main sounds that were used from the beginning until the end would be a down-tempo music piece to set the scene of the story, as well as the natural sound of birds, wind, and the outside world. Other small sections of sounds that I added would be the heartbeat, barking, and laughing. I tried finding specific sounds of a person gasping and other details but with the websites I used I couldn’t find any; but the animatic still made sense without it.  

The sources of sounds I used were from:

http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/

https://www.audiotool.com/genre/downtempo

https://freesound.org/

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While editing my animation, I had trouble finding the right size for the frame therefore making the pictures look way smaller than intended. I tried checking the settings and changing the frame sizes but it would end up deleting the entire frame so I had to keep it as is.

Other than the frame sizing problem, I had tampered with the seconds per frame; emphasizing on specific moments in the short film to show its importance. For example, when the butterfly lands on the dogs nose and when the two dogs finally meet.I was thinking about making the film colored but I thought the black and white effect would look better when finalized. 

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When I finally decided on my storyline for the final project, I decided to look up pictures of dogs in order to practice drawing for me to get familiar with it since it is the main focus of the story. After looking at different breeds, I thought practicing on a small puppy would be interesting since their facial features could be exaggerated in many ways. I also practiced drawing it in various angles so I could envision how the story would go consecutively. 

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Inspiration:

Even though this isn’t hand drawn, I was inspired with the diegetic sounds used because it makes the video look more believable and realistic to watch; such as the utensils, the clock ticking, and etc. Another thing I was inspired by from this video was the transition from one scene to another and how smoothly it would go. I tried incorporating that in my final project where every scene would cut to the other without it looking choppy. 

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Ideas for the Final Project

I have decided to change the story of my final project since the first one was too serious for me to continue. I had envisioned my final project to be light-hearted and enjoyable to watch since it’s going to be around one minute long. Instead of it being about a news event or culture, I came to the conclusion of drawing a story about a dog and his owner; a simple yet effective story. Also when drawing samples of different dog breeds and practicing angles, I enjoyed drawing dogs a lot since adding facial expressions on them was easier than expected.

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My 10 Second Animatic

For the news event, I decided to raise awareness towards systematic racism against Muslim; who are wrongfully accused of terroristic activities, merely based on their appearance. This is the first cartoon animatic I have created and I learned many of my mistakes throughout its production. Since I only used pencil when drawing the frames, the lines weren’t as sharp when I edited them together. Another thing I learned is that for each scene, I should have drawn more pictures in order for it be longer and look more authentic. Also, I should have added both diegetic and non-diegetic sound for the animatic to be more interesting to watch.

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Seeing that this was the first keyframe cartoon, it has put a lot of ideas in my head for both the 10 second animatic as well as the final project since I find it so fascinating to construct many frames and join them together and bring them to life.

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Out of all kinds of animations, I enjoy hand drawn animations with either pencils or pens, line art in general. And while researching, I found Richard Taylor’s style very interesting with his use of shading and coloring. Additionally, he mainly draws people and nature which I found myself enjoy doing the most.

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In this workshop, we practiced drawing circles in different animatic forms as seen, as well as re drawing lines over and over again just to get used to drawing ourselves. Although many chose to do their animatics digitally and on the computers, I’d much rather draw it out since I feel like I have more control of exactly how I want it to be.

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Animation: Narrative & Genre

WEEK 2

When it comes to categorizing animations into genres, I agree with Richard Taylor (1996) more than Paul Wells since Taylor placed animated films in six, different yet well defined categories: dramatic, lyrical, didactic, comic, commercials, and children’s entertainment. The genre I’m most interested in and would like to create is comic because it includes dark humor and it’s light-hearted, sarcastic, and overall silly. Because of that, the animations tend to be more exaggerated and creative rather than realistic.

Whereas for the narrative, Tzetvan Todorov’s narrative theory was:

Protagonist, equilibrium, Antagonist

Disruption

Quest

Climax/Resolution

Re-equilibrium

This helps when writing for my storyboard since it makes it easier to draw for each part of the plot. A narrative structure that I would like to try is metamorphosis where an image completely changes into another image, an example of that would be Betty Boo & Snow White. This makes the overall animation look smoother and pleasing to the eye.

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This is the gif I produced using the lightroom box then exporting it into photoshop to turn the two pictures into a gif. If I had drawn more than only two pictures the gif would’ve turned out more smooth but I got the idea of how to make my first gif. Also, I used my phone to take the pictures that is why there are shadows.

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Inspiration:

These are few of the many animations that have inspired me to study animation because of the creativity and artistic aesthetics that have been used in these shows. Some day I would like to draw my own animations and bring them to life just like the creators of these shows did.

[marwahs-animation]

What is Animation?

WEEK 1

Before entering the class, I have always associated animation with cartoons and graphics; not realizing that it included much more than just TV shows and movies for young people. It also includes art, advertising, and is used as a wide-spread platform. I was always inspired by shows on Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, as well as video games because the graphics and artistic aspect of it has always intrigued me. When defining animation, it is “The process of drawing and photographing a character - a person, an animal, or an inanimate object - in successive positions to create lifelike movements.” But when researching into it, it doesn’t necessarily need to be realistic, it could be extremely exaggerated. Although, when Disney predominantly took over the animation world since 1928, it could be argued that the American cartoon tradition has set out how animation should be viewed; very realistic and relatable.

Workshop:

During the workshop, I learned more about the origin of animation, as well as the phenakistiscope: the first animation device that created the illusion of motion. Also, I used a lightbox where I drew two drawings of a penguin and used Photoshop in order to create a GIF out of them, creating the illusion that the penguin was moving. Additionally, the use of stop motion, where you take multiple pictures of a subject but in different places; creating a story with only pictures.