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.

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.

Thoughts on Critique and Project 2 Synopsis

I felt like I was already in a pretty good spot, progress-wise, for the final critique, but it helped to build on everything that our small-group and one-on-one critiques had been working towards up to that point. I appreciated all the comments that people voiced and wrote on the box (particularly ones involving small spacing issues I hadn't noticed), and the input about lining the inside of the box with paper instead of attempting to make the transfers was very helpful and ended up saving me a lot of time and headaches in the long run! I also left the crit trying to think of ways to unobtrusively move the viewer's eye around the box so that the text could be read in basically the correct order. I ended up painting on small "rust spots" as guides, which blend in with the box itself but also help to lead the reader from panel to panel--but in all honesty, I don't mind if people arbitrarily pick and spot and start reading in any order, and I doubt that Dadaists would have minded, either. I think they would have approved of the chaotic and somewhat confusing layout and enjoyed the fact that the manifesto can essentially be read in any way the reader chooses to.

Synopsis:
     I am well aware that many of my classmates will disagree with me on this, but I have to say that this is easily one of my favorite projects--if not THE favorite--that I've done for a design class here. It incorporated history, which is a huge interest of mine, and allowed me to work with physical things rather than just on-screen and on paper (there's a reason my studio concentration is in sculpture). I got off to a slower start than I would have preferred, only had my "Aha!" moment after working at it for two weeks, and shed rather more stressed-out tears than I would like to admit over the course of completing the piece, but I am very proud of the finished result and am glad I chose to do what I did!
     As I said, I started the project with plenty of enthusiasm but not a lot of direction--I thought of using everything from a book to a toilet, and my early attempts to mimic the Dada style just did not seem cohesive or accurate enough to me. Even after I had decided on the toolbox and inside cards, I still could not quite grasp the design style and struggled with making the cards look satisfyingly Dada. I finally had a sort of epiphany with less than two weeks to go on the project, and after that I made a lot of progress very quickly.
     I tried to base the movement of the design around the flow of the text, emphasizing what I interpreted as the emphatic words and phrases with big, bold typefaces and then structuring the rest of the text around that. I wanted to give the appearance of an underlying grid that had been broken and flipped and turned but was still present below some of the chaotic movement. I also tried to keep it fairly readable--some of the Dadaist example designs were just a little too chaotic for what I deemed reasonable for the assignment. As I said before, though, I am truly not very concerned with whether or not a viewer reads the manifesto in the written order... the writing itself is--for lack of a better word--random enough that switching around the paragraphs or sentences does not disrupt a reader's understanding at all. I did try to capture the way that the text builds in intensity towards the end, and I think the final section on the interior bottom of the box shows that the best.
     I am very happy with my choice of materials and the way that the transfers turned out on the different surfaces. If I had more time, I would have transferred the type onto the lining paper as well, but time constraints made it much easier on me to simply print those out. I would also try to age the paper a little more, with some stains and fading. The wood, too, seems to be just a little bit too new, which could also be something I fix in the future. The exterior of the box, though, turned out perfectly. This is one of those projects that I would certainly continue to refine in the future to push it just a little farther, but I think it is a strong piece overall and I am very, very happy with it!