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?

Weekly comments 12/12

There was shadowing for most of this week and at the end I was so sick of it, only cause I'm not used to having to talk so much. I learned I can only talk for so long until my voice starts to go away and that it gets tiring to keep repeating the same things over and over.  But I do like that these kids want to be in this class bc its a cool class

I'd like to get this project done and move onto making explosions :----)

Something nice this week was getting a 94 on my research paper bc I've never once made a well written research paper before..........& this week I'm trying to apply to a college in canada since it'll save me money so i'm stressing all over again since i need to find a place to live and whatnot

http://bryankonietzko.tumblr.com/post/54495619739/this-past-friday-i-published-this-post-which

this post is from the co-creator of the legend of korra and avatar: the last airbender and he talks about a really huge subject in 2D animation. It's about color correction and how colors in 2D animations are affected by SO MANY THINGS. Its kind of a long read but he talks about the process they go through each episode fixing colors of the characters skin.

CGI and practical effects should just be friends

movies using practical effects, like jurassic park, are all designed by hand and controlled by the filmmakers. Animatronics, puppets, and stop motion was used to animate creatures in older films. Now CGI is used more than practical effects and people argue which is better. Another argument is that CGI is putting  practical effects out of business. Tom Woodruff and Alec Gillis from amalgamated dynamics says that the both make a good team though, CGI and practical effects. 2 of the best practical effects artists, Rick Baker and Tom Savini aren't against CGI at all either. Baker says CGI is only as great as the artist behind it. But great CGI doesn't make a great movie. Savini says he likes is because you can pretty much make anything you want to in the script. So there is a place for both CGI and practical effects, they're both great in their own ways.

I prefer practical effects to CGI but I do like them both. I just like the work that goes into practical effects, everything you made yourself. They probably felt really satisfied after making a giant walking dinosaur look real and making the little kids question if they really were extinct. And they don't all look terrible, in the past they used whatever they had to make fictional creatures and gruesome makeup. So they put a lot of effort into those things and thats what I really admire.

Adventure Time dude

essentially what Pendleton Ward has; a successful TV show and large fan base with a large merchandise line is what every animator may strive for. It seems like all the fame isn't the life for Pendleton though. He's extremely introverted, he prefers to be at home rather than being forced to socialize like a successful show creator must do. Ward says all this is has worn him out. So he quit. And decided to be a storyboard artist and writer for his show Adventure Time. Just animating is what he enjoys and finds comfort in and thats enough for him. He still has goals for Adventure Time, creating a video game and writing a movie for it. But all he cares about is being happy and doing what he truly loves.

I like this article because I had no idea what the creator of Adventure Time was like until I read this. But the author made him seem kind of pathetic. "A four-day-old bowl of Fruity Pebbles lies neglected at his elbow, the milk evaporated to leave just a rainbow of crud stuck to the sides of the bowl." That didn't seem necessary to add, to me at least. He's just an introvert, I can relate to him in a lot of things. Socializing tires me out, I prefer to do things at home because that's where I'm most comfortable. But at times I do like socializing with people I'm really comfortable with. But for people like him, who are young and introverted and want to enter the industry, they should be able to quit like Pendleton and know it's okay if you're not comfortable with that life. Just do what makes you happy.

Weekly comments 11/23

This week we learned after effects so it was all demos and tutorials. We learned animation, masks, and typography.

My favorite demo this week was masks and I've always wondered how to edit more than 1 of yourself in the same shot, I would like to learn how to do that.

This week was pretty okay since I finished swim at my high school and I don't have to carry around an extra bag with me all the time. Also I saw mocking jay and it was pretty coooool.
We had 4 demos and tutorials to go along with them so that was a lot of work. But at least we get to take a small break from premiere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZtbB4D1mDQ this is a music video from one of my favorite artists and since we were talking about masks in class it reminded me of this mv. Since they use mask heavily in the entire video :P Also it's a really great song

Foley polie olie

In the video we learn that most sounds in a film are not the actual sounds that came from the recording. Because it would be difficult to pick up those sounds, instead they are added later in the post production stage. There are 3 types of sounds used in a video. Ambience, library effects, and foley. Ambience is the background noise that helps create the environment of something you're shooting. Library effete prerecorded sounds that you can find anywhere but are sometimes hard to obtain. Like explosions and gunshots. And foley are sounds specially recorded for a shot. And they are usually made from anything. In the early 1900's, foley was used during Vaudeville performances, so people have been doing foley for a very long time.

Sound is really important in a film. Just using sound you can create an atmosphere and you'd be able to tell what kind of environment you're in without looking at anything on the screen. I learned about Vaudeville in class one day and I thought it was really cool, we didn't learn about how they used foley during the live performances though so I learned something new. I think foley seems really interesting and wonder if it's a really high paying job?

Using references for animation

This article talks about the importance of using references in animation. That it isn't cheating to use references. Because you have the entire world to look at and try to apply it to your animations. Some really important references you can look at are in comic books, nature videos, or take a video of yourself acting out a scene. But don't just copy it exactly how you see it. Study it so you can apply it to your own animations.

I liked their article because I like to use references all the time when I'm drawing. Mostly for poses because drawing a natural looking pose is difficult. I think that all skillful animators got that way just because they observe the environment around them. We get a lot of tips and the one we see a lot usually say take a sketch book everywhere with you and draw. I don't think theres any reason for someone to feel like they;re cheating when they use references because how else will we learn?

Weekly comments 11/16

Oops I haven't done my blog in a couple weeks.  This week I learned that premier cc files aren't compatible with premier cs6 so twice I've lost my documentary project files. And also I accidentally deleted my file so I also learned I'm dumb.

I'm interested to start after effects bc briefly I was really fascinated with special effects and I'm curious to see how it works cause I don't have any idea. I'm more interested in special effects than I am with filming so hopefully this is really fun

Something nice this week was going to the villa open house, & I've become familiar with some of the people there so it was nice to see them again. I also already found a group of friends so if I end up going there i don't have to worry about making friends, ha

Something ehh this week was losing my project three times. I've just been having a lot of bad luck and I wanna get this over with.

interesting link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGmKmVvCzkw

it's about a virtual girl called sweetie is used to discover real pedophiles online. until now I only associated 3d characters with 3d animated movies and shows but I learned they can also be used to stop predators online.

Squishy Robots

In this article it talks about the squishy robot of the new 3D animated film from Disney called "Big Hero 6". Instead of a hard metal robot like you mostly see in media, it's a big, soft, marshmallow looking robot named Baymax. It's actually a great idea because of the softness, they are safer to be in certain places like a hospital. Roboticists around the world are researching soft, flexible robots so we can use them in our everyday lives. They can be around children and elderly people and other more fragile environments, and metal robots can be in industrial environments since they are built to last in those places. For the soft robots, instead of using gears and pistons that are on a metal robot, they can use air pressures and artificial muscles in their limbs.

I love cute robots so this article was really interesting to read. I didn't know that there could be anything but a metal robot. Think soft, humanoid robots like Baymax could exist in the future is awesome.  They seem less likely to take over the human race because of their softness. I like that there is a scientifically accurate side to this character, so its possible there can be a real robot like Baymax. I hope that cute little helping robots become a thing because I've always wanted one.