Animation - Final Reflection

  Takeaways from the five e-Comm guarantees? Well, I'd say that technical skills are arguably the most important. If you can't do the project, then it doesn't matter how well you prepare. But in a group setting, collaboration keeps a project running smoothly, and communication is much the same. Leadership contributes to project management; a good leader keeps everyone else on track so that the project is finished efficiently. I learned all of this through my experiences and observations in group projects. These lessons are important because they keep the project going. My biggest challenge was working with people. I am an independent, introverted person. I don't enjoy group settings, and I had trouble cooperating. In the final project of the year, our group made a short parody of "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids". They asked me to stand in front of a green screen and run around like I was terrified. Instead, I stood there for a few seconds, then walked out of the shot. I hate being in front of the camera...

  My greatest strength was definitely the technical part of the class. And I wasn't even that great at it. I just can't seem to cooperate with people. Social skills are definitely my biggest weakness. I improved by being able to tolerate people. That doesn't seem that great, but that's a big step for me. I just hate it when people try to tell me what to do, and that happens every time there's a group project. Obviously, social skills are important in the world, and I will continue to develop them to a degree that I can at least fool people into thinking I like them. Hopefully, I will actually be a cooperative person by the time I leave high school. 

  I hope to apply my learning to video production next year. Perhaps the special effects I learned with the green screen and explosions. Not to mention the website that we used to learn how to do the explosions. I plan to use other tutorials on that website to expand my experience and knowledge. Specifically, I have been interested in creating an under-skin glow, like in the show "Iron Fist". 

  If I could change anything, I would work on my project management. There were a few projects that I missed in class and neglected to make up. I would go back and finish those projects, or at least get something that I could turn in. 

  Throughout the year in animation I have learned so many things. 2D animation in Photoshop, the usefulness of Adobe After Effects, 3D animation in MAYA, and special effects. My knowledge of animation has grown exponentially, and I enjoyed the sarcastic humor of the teacher. Overall, I had a great experience in this class and I wish I could spend a few more days there. But all good things must come to an end. So as I leave, I remind the teacher that I did learn, and I did enjoy it. For now, that's all I have to say.  

Video Production - Final Reflection

  This year in video production, I extended my learning of everything video. First semester was all about convergence journalism, but this semester was everything entertainment. Communication, collaboration, project management, leadership, and technical skills were put to the test as we pushed through three major projects. A music video, a high school trailer, and a short film. 

  The music video was our first big project in entertainment. We used the technical skills that we had learned in convergence to make a music video worth watching. The vast majority of our time was spent in preproduction. Filming only took a couple of days, and the editing process was even faster. Some of the major challenges that we faced involved scheduling. One person couldn't do this one day, and another person couldn't fit any time this day. It was a mess, but we got it done. The most important lesson we learned is that if you don't plan ahead, you're not going to finish. Prep work is the key to success. Once we were done, our feedback was mostly positive. It was a good video, consisting of a one-shot to the tune of Sweet Dreams. 

  The second project of entertainment was the high school trailer. We had to take a trailer of a movie based in high school and replicate it shot for shot. My group decided to do The Breakfast Club. I had never seen it before and was a little slow on figuring everything out, but that isn't what killed us. Our biggest challenge again was scheduling. Due to jobs, after school activities, parents, and actors simply not showing up, the video was not completed. It was frustrating, annoying, stupid, and overall it made me want to punch something. All we could do was sit and come up with ideas. Ideas that were never to be used. 

  The final and most successful project was our short film. This time, I was placed in a different group. The prep work took up most of the allotted time, and the filming and editing was relatively simple comparatively. Our biggest challenge, just like the last two times, was scheduling. The person who was supposed to be scheduling everything told us the wrong places, so for the first few days nothing got done. But eventually it was finished. 

  Overall, I enjoyed entertainment much more than convergence. Despite the constant frustrations and issues, it was just a better environment for me. Call me crazy, but I just didn't enjoy journalism as much as I enjoyed slamming my head on a wall. During class, I would double check my project to make sure it was as good as it could be. Once I had done that, I would usually watch movies on my tablet, taking mental notes on the shots and strategies used to make the film. I also do this outside of class, and I keep a journal of any cool plot ideas that I might come up with. I am very good at actually doing the work, I just have a hard time finding the time and desire to do it. I often have other things to do, and a school project is often at the bottom of the list. 

  I don't know what I enjoyed most about this semester. Nothing seemed to go right, everything and everyone annoyed me, yet I just loved it. I don't even know how to explain it. If I could change anything, it would be my schedule. I need to plan ahead better so that I can get stuff done. Overall, my big takeaway from this semester is that prep work and planning are the most important aspects to video production. Next year, I hope to keep learning and improving on my skills. I have no specific final thoughts. Nothing that needs to be said, nothing that needs to be done. I'll move on to next year with a renewed purpose, one which I hope will lead me to a long and successful life.

Professional Article Review - How Special Effects Transformed the Movies

  This article, located on techradar.com, talks about several different ways that CGI has transformed the movie experience. First, it talks about the ways different companies can customize their own brand of CGI; second, it gave a brief background of the history of CGI and some of the first movies to incorporate it, and how CGI was revolutionized after the release of Tron; third, it talked about how Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy used a new program for the huge battle scenes; and finally, the article talked about how the best CGI is used when blending fact and fiction. The author does a good job making an argument, using historical events and examples to push points through. The article seems accurate, and I might consider reading more of the content of this website.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/computing/how-special-effects-transformed-the-movies-590842/2

Professional Project Review - Frozen

  Honestly, I hated the movie. Yeah, I'm a pessimist. Deal with it. But I'm not here to review the plot or the overwhelmingly numerous musical numbers, I'm talking about the animation segment of it.
  Overall, it was well animated, as most Disney/Pixar movies are. Anywhere from the giant snowman down to the reindeer, the attention to detail was spectacular. However, there were a few mistakes. When Elsa is singing "Let it Go", she pulls her hair out of its bun and throws it around, unwittingly passing it straight through her shoulder. Another mistake was during the song "Love is an Open Door". In the scene where the singers' shadows are dancing across the wall, both shadows are floating, indicating that the characters would have had to be floating too. These are just a few mistakes, and let's be honest, no kids movie is going to be perfect. They don't have to make it perfect because no normal kid looks for these kinds of things. Overall, it was still well done, but a little more double checking couldn't have hurt.

Personal Project - Explosions

  This quarter in animation, our class has been learning about special effects and how to properly input them into video. Once we learned the basics, we created two projects based on explosions. Nothing is happening, then BOOM! Because why not...

  Overall, the projects were just an introduction into special effects. They were meant to test how well we learned, then how fast we could repeat it. There wasn't any pre-production for this project other than downloading the effects used. We used the explosion, dust, smoke, debris, and some other effects to make the blast as real as possible. Along the way, I learned that it rarely works perfectly the first time, and the key to being successful is being patient until you find something that works. If I did anything differently, it would definitely be my lack of patience. At the beginning, some of the things that I wanted didn't work out, and I slammed my head on my desk out of frustration multiple times. But the technical work would stay the same. I'm satisfied with how the two videos turned out. 

Movie Trailer Remake - Reflection

  In my video class, we had to remake a movie trailer. Of course, the movie had to be based in a high school. My group chose to remake "The Breakfast Club". We planned everything, made a script, a storyboard, and a cast and crew list. We began production, but we didn't get anything filmed. As it happens, the actors either didn't show up or couldn't, members of the crew (including myself) had to skip production for our jobs, and overall, nothing got done. There was absolutely nothing we could do about it. So unfortunately, we have nothing to show for over a month of scrambling and preparing. Oops.

Animation-Semester Reflection

Walk Cycle:

  Another project from this year is the walk cycle. It consists of a robot walking across the screen. Yep, that's it. We drew something, scanned it into the computer, put the pieces together, then made it move. We used Adobe After Effects for this project, and for every 2D animation. Making it move was easy, but I can't draw to save my life. it looked like it was drawn by a five-year-old. I would have include the project, except the video isn't uploading to Blogger.

Multi-Plane:
  Using different layers from Photoshop, I was able to create a multi-plane animation. Rolling hills, trees and bushes going by, like driving by on the highway. The farthest layers moved more slowly, just like it looks in real life. The hardest part of this project was again, drawing. It took more time to draw it all out than it did to export out of Photoshop, import into After Effects, reorganize them, put them into a timeline, reorganize them in the timeline, make them move, and export the final project. Just like the last project, the video won't work, so you're stuck with my description.

Castle:
  This was the first project made in MAYA, a 3D animation program. It was a quick way to learn how to use the program, and get some experience using it at the same time. The castle had to consist of four towers, four walls, an entrance, a flat plane, and color. Mine included all of the requirements, but some of my classmates went a little over the top.


Hammer:
  Hammers are common in homes. They are useful tools, capable of putting things together or tearing them apart. But in animation land, they're nothing but a collection of polygons thrown together. The hammer was supposed to be an easy project, but nothing was working right. When I tried to round the handle, random extra planes stuck out the side. And when I tried to delete these extra planes, the whole handle disappeared. The head worked well, at least to an extent. The claws were fine and easy to adjust. They stayed in place and they're really the only part of the project that turned out perfectly. The rest of the hammer wouldn't cooperate and screwed up horribly when I tried to fix it. Plus, the lighting's not great, and I had no idea how to fix it when I was making this.


Ice Cream:
  The Ice Cream animation went well. All of the polygons did exactly what they were supposed to, the textures worked well, the lighting was decent, and the rendering was smooth. This project was probably one of the top two among my best projects this year. All of the images rendered beautifully, and the animation process went well. This project was made in MAYA, then a series of images were taken. These images were transferred to Adobe After Effects, where they were put into a timeline as a full animation. Overall, I was very pleased with this project, but I probably could've tried to make the chocolate ice cream look a little less like poop.