Monday, December 12, 2011
Project 4 Thumbnails
I thought this would be the best way to show my Flash animation without actually showing it... as I said in the previous post, I tried several blogger-compatible formats and for whatever reason they refused to load for me.
Project 4 Critique and Synopsis
I tried to place the finished movie in this post in several different compatible formats, but for whatever reason they refused to load for me... I think the file size is too big!
The critiques for project 4 were helpful for me, although they were mainly productive in helping to highlight small issues that I needed to fix for the final version. The small group crits did not seem quite as useful this time, for whatever reason... perhaps because people were at such widely varying stages of progress that it was difficult to gauge where some of them would be going with their work. For the final critique, I already had most of the movie animated at that point and there was not much to change as far as content or pacing went, which was a relief! The suggestions I received to fix the sloppy letter fading and work on the stone's shading and movement were helpful, and all proved to be quick fixes. It was so interesting to see what everyone else was doing for their animation! There was a huge variety of approaches to the idea and I was so impressed by what many of my classmates were doing. So, as always, it was a productive and useful critique for me.
Synopsis:
I will admit right from the start that I am not a big fan of working in Adobe Flash. I don't feel particularly comfortable navigating the program and I seem to encounter quite a few frustrations as I go along--which I think is normal, based on what I've heard of classmates' experiences! However, I think the format of this assignment--working in text rather than the symbols from last year--really helped in making the process more straightforward and simple for me.
In the beginning, I planned to do an entirely different poem, but the basic layout and style of the piece was going to be very similar to what I ended up doing. The reason I changed my mind was due to the limited work-time after Thanksgiving break and also because I was drawn to the cheerful nature of the stone poem and thought it would be a little more fun to animate. I wanted to continue to reference the past, as I have over the past three projects this semester, and I thought making the text appear handwritten would be an interesting and challenging way to do that. Once I was finished with that (very long) process, it seemed natural to continue the idea and have the stone animation appear to be simple sketches on the page, moving with and reacting to the words of Dickinson's poem.
One of my issues with Flash is the fact that the pre-made transitions and effects often look... well, pre-made. For many effects, this is fine--it is often simply a matter of combining and tweaking effects to get the desired look. However, for my hand-drawn technique, I knew I would need to, quite literally, hand-draw the effects and transitions needed to get the right look. This was the longest part of the process, for obvious reasons... drawing fifteen versions of the same stone was one thing, but hand-drawing each frame of the dripping words "Whose Coat" took several days! It was repetitive work, but very rewarding for me in the end; it certainly gave me an appreciation for the work that professional animators put into full-length films!
I knew I wanted to have the pen scratching noises in the background of the animation, but I struggled for a while to line up each word written with its own section of sound (to make it sound more realistic). In the end, after playing with Flash's volume effects and trying to edit it down in Audacity, I decided to leave the sound how it was in the beginning. Lest this seem like simply taking the easy way out, I have to say that I found it nearly impossible to make the rapidly fading in-and-out sound seem natural... it sounded fake and forced no matter how closely I tried to edit it. I also think that having a constant scratching does not detract from the animation, because the stone itself is meant to appear hurriedly sketched--the fact that it is in constant motion justifies the scratching sound behind the action.
Although Flash still has its frustrating moments and I do not have as strong a knowledge of how to work and edit the pre-made effects as I probably should, I did warm up to the program over the course of this project. I am very happy with my final result and I think hand-drawing the animation was the best choice for me--it adds a lot of depth and realism to the finished product. I would certainly like to explore the program further, but I already feel 100% more confident than I did last year! Overall this was a very enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding project and I'm so pleased with how mine turned out in the end.
The critiques for project 4 were helpful for me, although they were mainly productive in helping to highlight small issues that I needed to fix for the final version. The small group crits did not seem quite as useful this time, for whatever reason... perhaps because people were at such widely varying stages of progress that it was difficult to gauge where some of them would be going with their work. For the final critique, I already had most of the movie animated at that point and there was not much to change as far as content or pacing went, which was a relief! The suggestions I received to fix the sloppy letter fading and work on the stone's shading and movement were helpful, and all proved to be quick fixes. It was so interesting to see what everyone else was doing for their animation! There was a huge variety of approaches to the idea and I was so impressed by what many of my classmates were doing. So, as always, it was a productive and useful critique for me.
Synopsis:
I will admit right from the start that I am not a big fan of working in Adobe Flash. I don't feel particularly comfortable navigating the program and I seem to encounter quite a few frustrations as I go along--which I think is normal, based on what I've heard of classmates' experiences! However, I think the format of this assignment--working in text rather than the symbols from last year--really helped in making the process more straightforward and simple for me.
In the beginning, I planned to do an entirely different poem, but the basic layout and style of the piece was going to be very similar to what I ended up doing. The reason I changed my mind was due to the limited work-time after Thanksgiving break and also because I was drawn to the cheerful nature of the stone poem and thought it would be a little more fun to animate. I wanted to continue to reference the past, as I have over the past three projects this semester, and I thought making the text appear handwritten would be an interesting and challenging way to do that. Once I was finished with that (very long) process, it seemed natural to continue the idea and have the stone animation appear to be simple sketches on the page, moving with and reacting to the words of Dickinson's poem.
One of my issues with Flash is the fact that the pre-made transitions and effects often look... well, pre-made. For many effects, this is fine--it is often simply a matter of combining and tweaking effects to get the desired look. However, for my hand-drawn technique, I knew I would need to, quite literally, hand-draw the effects and transitions needed to get the right look. This was the longest part of the process, for obvious reasons... drawing fifteen versions of the same stone was one thing, but hand-drawing each frame of the dripping words "Whose Coat" took several days! It was repetitive work, but very rewarding for me in the end; it certainly gave me an appreciation for the work that professional animators put into full-length films!
I knew I wanted to have the pen scratching noises in the background of the animation, but I struggled for a while to line up each word written with its own section of sound (to make it sound more realistic). In the end, after playing with Flash's volume effects and trying to edit it down in Audacity, I decided to leave the sound how it was in the beginning. Lest this seem like simply taking the easy way out, I have to say that I found it nearly impossible to make the rapidly fading in-and-out sound seem natural... it sounded fake and forced no matter how closely I tried to edit it. I also think that having a constant scratching does not detract from the animation, because the stone itself is meant to appear hurriedly sketched--the fact that it is in constant motion justifies the scratching sound behind the action.
Although Flash still has its frustrating moments and I do not have as strong a knowledge of how to work and edit the pre-made effects as I probably should, I did warm up to the program over the course of this project. I am very happy with my final result and I think hand-drawing the animation was the best choice for me--it adds a lot of depth and realism to the finished product. I would certainly like to explore the program further, but I already feel 100% more confident than I did last year! Overall this was a very enjoyable, challenging, and rewarding project and I'm so pleased with how mine turned out in the end.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Project 4 Thumbnails
I've had these sitting in my sketchbook for about a week now and haven't gotten around to posting them yet... and I'm already halfway done with the animation! So without further ado, here was my original, rough concept for what the animation would be:
I hadn't quite figured out what I wanted to do with the little stone animation, but now I know I'll be having it move across the screen at several point. I'll also have what is going on in the poem itself affect the qualities of the stone (color, light, objects hitting it, etc). I'm going to try and post a SWF of the animation as it looks right now in the next post and explain the changes further.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Project 4 Initial Work
Following a brief crisis in which I thought I couldn't access my process blog, due entirely to my own forgetfulness (of what email I used for blogger... it logs me in automatically here!), I can finally post an update about how Project 4 is going! I meant to post my choice of poem a lot earlier, because I thought I had it picked out and set in stone about a week and a half ago, but I've since changed my mind...
I planned to use Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, which I really like, and I sketched out thumbnails for it and even started the basic flash version. Over break, however, I started to realize exactly how much I need to get done in the two upcoming weeks and I decided I needed to pick something a little shorter to make this project more manageable. So, after much angst, I am officially starting over on the flash project. The poem I'll be using will be Emily Dickinson's How Happy Is The Little Stone:
How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears--
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity--
I like the pleasant imagery in this one, and while I would still love to do the Thomas poem, I just think this one will be a little more manageable with the very limited time frame I have left.
How happy is the little Stone
That rambles in the Road alone,
And doesn't care about Careers
And Exigencies never fears--
Whose Coat of elemental Brown
A passing Universe put on,
And independent as the Sun
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute Decree
In casual simplicity--
I like the pleasant imagery in this one, and while I would still love to do the Thomas poem, I just think this one will be a little more manageable with the very limited time frame I have left.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Project 3 Synopsis
After the Dadaism project, I definitely found myself eager to stay in "historical mode" for a while and this project was, luckily, a way for me to continue that. I love history, and I love referencing it in my art and designs whenever it fits, so I knew from the beginning that I wanted to try a classical, traditional design style for this project. This is what led me to choose Garamond Premier Pro as my typeface: I knew that Garamond had a long, rich history--and I also simply like how it looks--so narrowing my selection of current revivals of historical typefaces down was fairly simple.
The reading on grids was very helpful when I started to set up the proportions of my brochure. I initially went with the very traditional 9x9 grid, but after guidance from Prof. Fender I decided to go with a modified 13x13 grid... this allowed me to retain the look and feel that I wanted while giving me ample room to work with text. There was initially a lot of disconnect between my poster and brochure designs... I intended for the brochure to showcase Garamond as it was originally designed (for body copy) and for the poster to show the progression of Garamond into the modern, multi-use face of today. The only element that really remains from that original poster design is the sketchy, hand-drawn letters that I was intent on using from the beginning. They became the uniting factor between the poster and brochure and I think they are a successful design element. I certainly got a lot of interested questions from my classmates about how I created them, followed by compliments on the idea, and that was encouraging!
Overall I'm very pleased with how the finished poster and brochure look, feel, and work together. I think the choice of cream paper was a good move for me, and I love how thick and rich the ink looks printed on it. I also love how the red color shows up... I was iffy about it when I saw it on regular white paper, but I think it works so well with the cream and I'm very happy with it now. I think there is a strong unity between the two project pieces and that they work well as a promotional set for the typeface. After living with them for a few days, I do see a few things that I may choose to tweak in the future, but I am content with how they both turned out and I'm glad I made the design choices that I did.
The reading on grids was very helpful when I started to set up the proportions of my brochure. I initially went with the very traditional 9x9 grid, but after guidance from Prof. Fender I decided to go with a modified 13x13 grid... this allowed me to retain the look and feel that I wanted while giving me ample room to work with text. There was initially a lot of disconnect between my poster and brochure designs... I intended for the brochure to showcase Garamond as it was originally designed (for body copy) and for the poster to show the progression of Garamond into the modern, multi-use face of today. The only element that really remains from that original poster design is the sketchy, hand-drawn letters that I was intent on using from the beginning. They became the uniting factor between the poster and brochure and I think they are a successful design element. I certainly got a lot of interested questions from my classmates about how I created them, followed by compliments on the idea, and that was encouraging!
Overall I'm very pleased with how the finished poster and brochure look, feel, and work together. I think the choice of cream paper was a good move for me, and I love how thick and rich the ink looks printed on it. I also love how the red color shows up... I was iffy about it when I saw it on regular white paper, but I think it works so well with the cream and I'm very happy with it now. I think there is a strong unity between the two project pieces and that they work well as a promotional set for the typeface. After living with them for a few days, I do see a few things that I may choose to tweak in the future, but I am content with how they both turned out and I'm glad I made the design choices that I did.
Project 3 Final Designs
Here are some photos (of very poor quality; I apologize for my senile camera and the non-ideal lighting conditions of my apartment) of the finished poster and brochure.
They look much better in real life, I promise! Also, here are jpegs of the finished digital images:
More thoughts on these in the synopsis.
They look much better in real life, I promise! Also, here are jpegs of the finished digital images:
More thoughts on these in the synopsis.
Project 3 Thoughts on Final Critique
The final critique was very helpful for me, especially in pinning down the major design flaws that I needed to correct for the final version. I was aware of some of these flaws (such as the terrible idea to place all of the title settings on a single, disgraceful spread), but I hadn't yet put thought into how to correct them, and the crit helped get me going on the refinement process. I also enjoyed seeing other classmates' work up to that point and the huge variety of approaches they were taking to showcase their typefaces. I thought it would have been nice to get to see everyone's work, and I felt bad for those who didn't get to have theirs up for the full-class examination, but I understood the need for the final small-group crits during that time as well. That was helpful too, since my small group had seen each other's work every step of the way and was thus reasonably familiar with each member's progress.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Project 3 Brochure, update
I feel like I should do a quick update on what the brochure looks like going into the final weekend of production. I still need to work on pages 6 and 7 but I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with them yet so I'll come back to those.
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