Final Project

My final project is composed in After Effects including video elements shot in a studio with the back grounds keyed out. Colorful clips are multiplied, speed ramped, and distorted with Optics Compensation and stretched with the After Effects camera angle to create a more dynamic image.

Kinestasis

For my kinestasis study, I want my project to stand out from the rest. I plan on using the technique used in this music video where the hands create an environment. I have never done this before but I know I can figure it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgEixhE3Oms&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=AL94UKMTqg-9CNbQExnGKaUrbMzbeQnLom

For the story of the project, I am lost. My goal is just simply to create something that is fun to look at and then possibly come up with a story or dialogue from there. I might ask for help from my friends because I am not that creative in that sense.
I plan on taking a tree out of the picture's environment and copying it over and over and placing it in different depths. I'm not even sure that I want to use the picture as a whole, only pieces of it separately. I have already took the picture into photoshop and added color. It doesn't look great but it definitely and improvement from black and white.
I don't know how using the sounds from the folder we were given is going to help me. The only thing I can think of is creating a song or beat out of the random tones that the samples have to offer. I can make a beat out of anything that has sound. I really want to challenge myself to stay within that folder even though it is a major restriction. This will be a fun challenge.

Digital Hybrid

This video has caused me hours of procrastination. It is a silent movie that has a voice over. The voice over makes it hilarious. The video content is unusual as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUDvRT1Lgpo

Filling in the sound for a video can take the video in any direction you want it to. There are plenty of examples that have left me laughing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__2q_OWBktw

I don't have any idea what I want to do for my assignment. I have just gotten to a point where I have no personal projects in the works. It has been an ongoing struggle to get internet in my new house, but today it seems to be working.
I have some old footage of my friend making fake commercials that I have never put online that I could add some sound effects to. That might be a fun project. It isn't something that would look professional for a portfolio but it would be fun to watch with my friends.
I really would like to find more work in my field but haven't had much luck in the metro detroit area. The last interview I had was at a studio in Southfield. They had 2 people running it, 1 was strictly audio and the other specialized in video. That would be ideal because of the complexities in each field. Anyone who knows both video and audio front to back has a leg up on almost anyone in their field. Composing original music for my videos has been a struggle of mine recently. I took a class to learn garageband and now can create a simple beat fairly simply. I'm not sure what I need to learn next because I'm not sure where I'm going to end up working. Its always better to know too much than too little.

Stop Motion

I am currently doing some post production tests on my stop motion project that is due this wednesday. I am morphing each picture together so that the video looks less choppy. I can already tell that the pictures were taken too far apart. Using my friends as talent and camera operators does not work so well. They are impatient and have no idea what they are doing. After reviewing the stop motion pictures on my camera with them they became more exited about it though.
The possibilities of stop motion are unique. You can animate inanimate objects fairly simply. This can also be done using a greenscreen. It can look much better on a greenscreen because you don't have to take a picture for every frame and you have more layers to control. If I was to take pictures at a closer interval and blend each one together, I would think that it would look just like a movie. Retaining picture quality in a movie is another benefit to stop motion.
In the future I would like to make some sort of claymation. I'm pretty sure we were required to use a person as the subject for this assignment so my creativity was restricted. We also were required to display flying, skating, or snaking. These techniques are a little silly for my taste. They are kind of funny sometimes though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JcwU_adEsY&feature=related

This is a professional skate video that implemented animation into their teaser. I think it was effective in getting people excited because it was put together well and was unordinary.

You Say Animation I Say Animation vs. Cameraless Animation

You Say Animation I Say Animation went in depth describing the culture and drama in which Animation techniques were invented and how they reacted to culture. Cameraless Animation is purely about the crafts. It describes in detail how each method works and how we can create our own. It gives advice to those who have no experience with animation and want to learn. You Say Animation I Say Animation had interesting stories about history. I found it funny that they criticized Hannah Barbera cartoons because I enjoy them very much. They do not push the limits of animation but they are conceptually well done. I noticed that the Cameraless Animation article must be outdated because they wrote that the general aspect ratio for computers is 4:3. That is is clearly not correct. Our culture has adopted widescreen because it is easier to view and is more natural. A 16:9 aspect ratio is todays standard.
Both of these articles touch on the different Animation techniques throughout history. They both explain how they work. The techniques of the past still are relevant to today because we can now apply their concepts to contemporary computer based animation. Each technique was probably created in inspiration of the techniques before it. This is why knowing these already valid techniques can help us create new ones in the future. Applying our work to the real world is important. Knowing how the human eye perceives images drastically effects the work we produce. Our work is made for the human eye.