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.
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