final blog post (° ͜ʖ ͡ -)

1. Why did you take this class?

I took this class because I didn't want to leave this classroom and video production techniques are really helpful to know. I also thought  it would be helpful to learn video production since I planned on going to college for animation and a lot of things are similar with both of them.

2. In general, what did you like most about this class?

I like that it was a small class, I felt really comfortable with this class size. I know it won't be like that again in the future so it was nice while it lasted. I also liked when we watched other people's projects because everyone gets really creative with theirs and every project was different.

3. In general, what did you like least about this class?

For me personally, it was filming only because it's not my thing and I struggled for most of the year with it.

4. What was your most favorite project and why?

I like the psa project because my mom helped me with it and we were just driving really slowly around the parking lot. Also, the final because I filmed it with my friends. And the beginning photoshop projects were cool too because I like editing in Photoshop.

5. What was your least favorite project and why?

Probably the kinetic type project because I couldn't make mine look cool at all.

6. Discuss the overall effectiveness of the instructor (for example: preparation, availability, interest, content knowledge, expectations, etc.).

Ms licata is a great teacher. She provided everyone with resources before starting a project and posted helpful articles for our blogs. Also giving us time for planning and writing scripts. Also we had a lot of equipment to use to film with. 

7. What are the most valuable things you learned in the class?

all the different camera shots and angles cause they can be used in animation as well. Also leaning how to make a digital portfolio. 

8. Do you feel that this class will help you achieve your future academic or career goals? How or why (or why not)?

I feel like this class helped me because I learned how to build a portfolio and that portfolio helped me get into a college. I also learned how to make my resume for getting a job as well. Also I made a digital portfolio and those are also really important to have for finding a job in this field.

9. How could this class be improved?

I don't think anything major needs to be changed, maybe there could be more group projects and encouragement to use your classmates in projects. 

10. Additional comments:

I'm very grateful to be in this class for 2 years. And I learned so many useful things that could be relevant in the future when I'm in college. I'm just disappointed I didn't like video better, but at least I know what I'm comfortable doing now. 

tips for a reely awesome reel

Having a great reel and portfolio are really going to help you with getting jobs in the animation field. Since the person hiring you has probably looked for hours at different reels its important that your reel captures their attention and keeps it, or else they will just skip over it. Only include your best work, the stuff that best highlights your creativity and skills. The best work should be placed throughout the entire video to keep viewers attention, instead of just the beginning. Your work should also flow together with pacing and acting animations being balanced out with each other. They also talk about things you shouldn't do in your reel. Like making a reel longer than 5 mins, or doing too many credits and transitions. It looks like most scenes in reels just cut to the next scene. And include multimedia in your portfolio just to show how you work other tools.

I am planning on going into the animation field and I hope to make a very strong reel. This article was really informative in that. There's a lot of do's and don'ts for making a reel but it's also a lot of pressure to hear that someone could just skip over your reel if it doesn't catch someone else's attention. Even if it looked great to you. It's probably a good idea to have people critique your reel before you give it to a recruiter.

sciency things about avengers

in the video it talks about the science behind iron man's suit, and captain america's shield, and super fast healing abilities by black widow. they say iron man's suit is probably made from nitinol. rather than actual iron or aluminum because those would make the suit too heavy. nitinol makes more sense because its lighter and strong. iron man's arc reactor in his chest relies on an element he created himself using a particle reactor, which is what a lot of scientists today do as well. in captain america's shield, it contains steel and an imaginary material called vibranium. it makes his shield quite strong and able to absorb shock. in both captain america and black widow they share quick healing abilities which could be connected to the white blood cell macrophage. their cells would work much faster than they do in regular humans.

I don't understand a lot of things in this video, I just summarized what was said in the video but I think it's really cool how all this science goes into the avengers movies rather than mostly made up stuff. its more realistic. it would be cool if some of these things could be made in real life too. I don't know much else about the avengers powers than what I've seen in the movie but now I think i'll read up about it.

animating dragons~

creature animating is very complex. in this article it talks about the process of animating the dragons in game of thrones. the team has been animating the dragons for a long time, since the dragons were babies. the rigs have get more and more complex and heavy as the dragons grow. every season they rebuild the dragon rig with new additions like frills, scales and horns. freidmann says the dragon rig has about 400 controls. every scale and spike is able to be animated. they don't have 3 different rigs for the dragons though, they have 1 rig and they're able to change to a different skin when they need to. for reference they examined different animals like bats, flying foxes,  and eagles. since you can't look at a real dragon. unfortunately. they also added some motion to the dragons. they added wrinkles and animated the eyebrows to indicate emotions without having them actually smile or laugh. they didn't want to make them too human like.

creature animating is kind of intimidating to think about. and animating a dragon is so advanced, I was amazed that they work with 400 controls on the dragon rig. and a lot of research goes into creature animating. especially since dragons are mythical they were able to bring it to life and make it look believable. it was easy to animate the movements because dragons resembled bats and birds and used those for reference. it's also easy to mess up and make the animation look awkward when it comes to creatures. you really have to observe movements before you animate things.

the quality of animation n.n

In this article it talks about the quality of animation over the years and the struggle to create something timeless and artistic with the time they're given. Not enough time is spent on the craft and animators spend too much time making sure the job gets done rather than making sure it looks nice. When the demand for more animated tv shows increased, the quality decreased because there wasn't enough time, they just had t get the job done and get paid. But audiences don't care much for added quality. They just care about delivery.

I most of this article is true, the quality of animation changes all the time depending on the demand for it. It's not the animators fault though, it takes a lot of time and dedication to make something that'll last a while. They should have included examples of this rushed kind of animation so we could get an idea of what it looks like. To me, the story matters a little more than the actual animation in a show. I did a research paper on Hayao Miyazaki for my english class and I learned a lot about him, he talks about the same thing in this article. It seems its the same in Japan for anime as well. Animators don't spend a lot of time making quality animation. But I hope people will understand animators more, it takes a while to make something and these aren't the kinds of things you can rush. People expect animation to always be there but they don't pay attention to hard work artists have to do.

that new animation software tho

Adobe Character animator is new animating software offered by adobe. Instead of drawing frame by frame or editing keyframes, this program allows you to control a characters movements using your own movements. With the help of a webcam and mic they can record your voice and the character's lips will move along with it. You can create the layers of the character in illustrator or photoshop and bring them to the character animator it will do all the work for you. You don't have to make any complex rigs, because the program will do it for you according the names of the layers. Any type of movement can be made and you can even add particle effects as well. You can of course animate using mouse clicks too. 

I think its a really interesting program and I'd like to try it sometime. It does made the animating so much easier. Judging from the video, it looks pretty seamless. And its not just constrained to left, right, up and down movements. You can move back and forward as well which is really cool. I still appreciate the time and effort that goes into traditional animating and keyframe animation. I think this program should be used for scenes that are harder to animate and look natural. I wonder if you can use your entire body to animate these?

tips on directing ( -_- )/

This article has many tips for an aspiring director. Many things go into being a director. Being a director, you take on many duties. You're in charge of everything about the film because its your vision everyone is trying to create. Some things that go into being a director is having a clear direction and well way to communicate it. Having a clear direction going into a film will help you finish earlier rather than just making things up as you go. It could make other people on set confused. Which is why it's also good to provide as many answers to the people on set as you can. Other important tips include making everyone set comfortable and avoid arguments if you can. It'll just make things harder if people are having disagreements. Overall, you should be a good leader when it comes to directing because you're in charge of everything during the production and everyone looks to you for direction. B)

It is true that so many things go into being a director. It's kind of intimidating to think about all the responsibilities you have to take on when making a film. I think you can become a director when you thought you wanted to be something else. In the article it stated that you could be the most creative director but not being a trustworthy director to the set and actors doesn't make you the best director. Being a trustworthy director will reflect on your work.

Weekly comments 4/12

It's always difficult coming back from spring break. This week was a work week so we had to work on our latest projects.

I want to learn how to be motivated to do my work on time, also lately I can't come up with any good ideas. they used to come to me really easily.

Something that frustrated me is my computer at home is ridiculous and can't run premiere or after effects very well.

Something that made me happy was this week being really short so the weekend came faster. I'm also going to toronto and I just like being in this city.

Cool link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/wes-anderson-movie_n_4225333.html

I did my research paper on Wes Anderson and I learned a lot of cool things about this film maker. I used this article as a reference, it has a bunch of things that show up in his films all of the time.

Neurocinema :~0

The term neurocinema is the study of how the brain and your emotions are affected by a film. We've all experienced suspense or paranoia from watching a film, but they say there's more to just that. In the video it talks about an experiment where subjects watched clips of a movie while in MRI machines so they can monitor their brain activity. They found that each of the subjects had similar brain activity watching the film and had similar eye movements as well. Their brains also increased activity and decreased activity at the same time while watching certain clips. It also talked about how films were used to control people during WWII with propaganda films. Films can be very powerful, and it talks about how films in the future could become interactive.

This article could probably explain why when we leave the movie theatre we feel like we've just come out of a trance. Its easy to manipulate someones emotions when you have the right sounds and music to go along with the film. It's kind of scary to think that films could control us in a bad way. But movies also make us think differently and can inspire us, so there's also a good part. Documentaries about certain issues can also affect our emotions. Art in general inspires us and controls our emotions but films are definitely one of the most powerful in affecting our brains.

a career, not a job in animation

This article talks about an animator who has worked in the industry for 36 years. He talks about the same ambition that we've all had before we start out as an animator, we want to work at Disney or Dreamworks. Some big company and we expect to be doing that the rest of our career. The author explains its not that easy to achieve and there are things that could constantly get in your way. He is basically saying that animation isn't a job because you have to find or keeping creating work yourself. Which is what he's done for his whole life, he's worked on several different projects and has had different roles in animation production. Like helping design Sebastian on the little mermaid or being a supervising animator for cogsworth on beauty and the beast & Aladdin. In between these projects he'd work as a freelance. He says that we should never take a job for granted and each of those jobs are part of career and help shape it.

This article isn't to scare away future animators and people who want to go into the industry, like myself, its to tell us what its going to be like as a career. Work isn't always going to come to you, you may have to find it yourself. Which is why you have to be really passionate about this kind of thing. Most of the events he talked about in this article happened 10 or 20 years ago, the industry is probably a lot different now and there may be more demand for jobs from animators too. I'm not sure what it's really like now. But despite the job outlook, he is right about animation being a career. Rather than a job.

How filming everyday can help you :{D

This article explains many ways that shooting everyday with a camera is beneficial. Practicing shots all the time, you become better and better each time at certain shots. And shooting everyday can help you see what your strengths and weaknesses are so you can improve on them. While shooting, you may be inspired to experiment with different kinds of shots and angles. Also you'll become inspired to shoot different things. And from using your camera everyday, you'll get used to using it and you'll understand your camera more from using it all the time.

I never thought about how shooting everyday can help you and i never considered doing it either. But I can understand how it helps. I will try it someday though because there has been times where I'm outside and without my phone and I wish I could take a video or picture of something really pretty. I do agree that practicing everyday will help you improve because one of the reasons I don't like shooting much is because I'm not that good at it. But that just means I need to do it more.

animation and music

Animation becomes more appealing when you add music to it. Music also adds a lot more emotion to the animation and it makes it easier for the audience to connect to it. The music can be added to make things seem more fast or slow. Like the tempo of a song can be played fast or slow when the speed of a characters movement changes. Shows like the looney toons can still be entertaining without much dialogue. One of the videos in the article had Baton Bunny which had no dialogue at all. But with all the movements and orchestra music it was still funny and had you watching the entire video. The music often goes along with characters movement and gives it more emphasis and importance.

I think this article was cool because I did have ambitions to write and create music but I never learned how. I still really do but I want to apply it to animations like this article explained. I really hope to make animated music videos someday. Sometimes it's a lot easier to animate with music than with just dialogue and sound effects. It would be really cool if music went a long with our actions in real life wouldnt it?