Gaya Third Round from Emma Argiroff on Vimeo.

I continue to add to my experiment and create abstractions of archaic animals (woolly mammoths) and evolutionary concepts (development of the spinal chord). I pay particular attention to layering my drawing techniques and varying my line quality. I am satisfied with the texture of the the trunk-like object that falls from the sky and the overlapping of contour lines and fills that make up the spinal chord. I add more drama by retiming portions of the cockroach and rotating dot clips to have slower and faster movements.

I need to start thinking about creative and clever ways to conclude this piece. I have considered revisiting each of the objects I have introduced but I think a better ending would include visuals that have not been introduced yet. I've been working without a plan but a storyboard might be useful for the final segment.

Finally, one of the music students created an experiment sound piece for my animation. I posted this video to the server since the animation does not include the portions I worked on this week. I am extremely excited to have sound in my piece and I like the progression of the sound he created. I also think the sound syncs well with the explosion and evolution of fish and birds (a slight wild bird sound can be heard in the background). He is working on tweaking the music to make it more subdued, abstract and eerie.

118 North Ingalls intro

pizza supper WIP

super fetus draft of final short animation

After effect Version

toilapocalypse from David Chang on Vimeo.

this is another experiment for the same scene but using after effect I used camera movement with blur effect to show fluent story telling also saw how it looked with different layers I am happy with this version, so I might continue with this style

Final cut version

Toil-Apocalyse (version 1) from David Chang on Vimeo.

tried using final cut for the animatic controlling camera was tough but it has cool effect

Final Animation - Experiment

Bridgett Photo Experiment from Alexa Borromeo on Vimeo.

For this experiment, I mashed up a few different techniques to play with the ideas of memory and how memories come in pieces and often fade in and out.  This technique could be more effective if I used only one or two parts of an actual picture in my final animation to suggest a scene or memory.

Shin_Final Project Progress 2

assembled from Maria Shin on Vimeo.

Here is how far I have gone with my animation on After Effects. Although there isn't much progress, I worked more on finalizing my narration because I thought animating according to the narration was best. Also, I worked a lot on Photoshop with my comic images and making them into separate layers. That took longer time than I thought because I had to redraw some parts after cutting them out. I am almost done with making all my comic drawings into separate layers, so I am excited to start animating. To plan ahead, I am thinking of sketching out a storyboard for animation. I also have a general picture in my head of how I will play it out and what sound effects I want to put it. The only thing that worries me is how limited I am in After Effects.
I am also not sure rather I want to put in a voice or a speech bubble because having both speech bubbles and a narration in the background might be too much to absorb for the audience.

experiment #1 (super delayed!)

My file was waaaaaay to big to export as a video, so I used quicktime to create a screen recording of it.

I really liked the idea of working with a real environment and drawn characters (hence the paper cutout background), so I went ahead and did a little test of this.  This inspired one of my ideas for the final project, animating two characters I created in high school:

I am not going with this idea though for the final.

experiment #5/planning for final

Here is the unfinished animatic for my final project!  I'm working with Alex Goldsmith from the music class to make the sound/music for the final.

The story:
A man goes down in a submarine to visit the submerged city (think New York City-esque location).  He explores a bit and finds his old apartment, specifically his kids' playroom.  He picks up a toy and leaves.  (and I won't spoil the ending)

The Sunrise

The sun rises over a disparate landscape as an observer performs the Auraubade.

Alternate cut:

Only about a second has been added to my project so far. The last line Roscoe says is "Dress up!" It is a little difficult to understand so I am considering writing the words dress up somewhere on that scene for clarity.

Another shot but w/audio. I don't really like how stiff the movements are, or at least the lines, when the hand and folder move before and after the hand animation, so I'm going to go back and draw those instead of just moving the position.

More More Experiment

I am animating one of dreams I had, and the story is that two characters adventure different surreal worlds. So, one of the worlds is created out of the silhouette stop motion I did, and for the other worlds, I would use different types of animation to make my whole piece fun to watch!

After this stop motion, I am currently drawing elements for After Effects to also experiment and play around more and more! For the crucial part I should work on for this piece is to find a sound for this space. Finding a sound is really hard, but I am trying hard to find it from both Final Cut Pro and freesound.org.

Gaya... The Experiment Continues from Emma Argiroff on Vimeo.

I continue to explore transformation and the ideas of creation. I include some more figurative drawings in this segment but I think the abstract gestures are more successful because they allow me to focus on the movement and the transformation of the subjects, rather than realistic depiction. I am excited to include sound effects and would like to continue varying my line quality and movement. I am especially curious about taking a simple image (such as the feather and the water droplet) and transforming it into different characters based on its movement. I will approach the next segment with an open mind and willingness to explore.

Widmer.experiment.05

Rogers_Peter_Rotoscoping Sample

League_DragonFruit -- First Iteration

DragonFruit from Lauren League on Vimeo.

Maxted_The Great God Pan

Test Animation - "Invisible Guest" from Manami Maxted on Vimeo.

A very simple test animation!
Part of my project is animated clips for a play that is going to be put on at the Residential College, and production weekend is in a little less than two weeks.  The longest clip is going to be about a minute long, so I've been dedicating most of my time to that; the clip here is only a small portion of it.  I still have so much to do!
I wanted to show this portion because I think it ended up looking pretty neat.  That is, by omitting the subject (a man), I created an image of a sort of supernatural being passing through the door.  The whole clip is supposed to be a flashback where a certain character is hazy and hard to recall.

I wish I could have started coloring by now, but rotoscoping is kind of a bitch.
I like the way it looks, but it's aggressively time consuming.  Ah, well... I brought it upon myself.
Not exactly complaining, just... empathizing.  You know what I'm saying?  Okay.

Neff_pre-final planning and practice animation

For my animation, I am collaborating with two music students who are hoping to do a performance piece including their music as well as various projected animations onto different sculptural pieces. I matched this animation up to a part of one of their songs "118 North Ingalls", and plan to expand this and do an animation to the full song for my final.

Chen_Experiment05

This is the general style I want to work with, though the drawing of the kid is still pretty rough here.
I lifted audio from an old safety video and spliced it to create a dialogue/narrative, and then I'm planning to animate a story along with it. It's straightforward, though the only part I'm having trouble with is matching the words with the mouth and facial expressions. And that's mostly because I haven't figured out a good way to put markers where certain words are because it moves so fast.

Oh_Longer Project Part

This is an experiment of silhouette stop motion, a starting point for my longer project. It was difficult to move around all the parts I cut, which required such a long time to create this short scene. However, I personally think that it turned out as a pretty good piece, so I would continue experimenting not only the silhouette, but also everything I have learned so far in this class. It is really exciting to experiment with various types of animation techniques, and I hope my longer piece would turn out as an interesting piece.

Shin_Final Project Experiment

This is the basic format I will be going for in my final project. I am thinking of using After Effects and doing very simple animations using the scans of my drawings. However, I am considering about drawing my comic again since they look so pixelated and blurry. I first started off my cutting out and making many layers out of my scanned drawings. So far I made multiple layers for the first three boxes of my comic. I was a bit surprised when I opened the psd files on After Effects because the layers did not show up as it did on Photoshop. For now I experimented more with applying basic transformation effects. It was a little frustrating because I want to do very well on this, good enough to include it in my portfolio, but I am very limited in After Effects since it is my first time learning it. For sound effects, I temporarily borrowed some by the music student. I am interested in working with the music students to create sound effects for my final project.
 
momster test from Maria Shin on Vimeo.

Pedrasa_final animation experiment [wip]

wip wip wip wip wip of a background study
digital painting practice
character not included

Argiroff_Gaya Exp-05

Gaya from Emma Argiroff on Vimeo.

This animation will be the foundation for my final project. I continue to explore themes of creation and metamorphosis and experiment with drawing techniques and self-made sound effects. I limited myself to drawing with a white line on a black background in order to focus creating smooth transformations and interesting line qualities. I don't know if I will limit myself in the same way for my final project. I am also interested in collaborating with the music and technology students to see what sound effects/ music they could provide. I feel like their sounds would really add to an abstract animation like this.

Burns_Claymation Test

)

Neff_clay experiment

)

Strand_Claymation Experiment

For this animation, I wanted to create some sort of character.  I was inspired by the computer generated creatures (such as the Anomalocaris) in the BBC documentary "Walking with Monsters".

http://supernovacondensate.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/screen-shot-2012-06-21-at-19-05-10.png?w=640

I also wanted to try to animate the character so that it moved quickly.  I think that the jumpy movement that I created is fairly successful.  I am not sure the sound for this video is as successful, however.  I tried to create a "slimy" noise for the creature, but I'm not sure that this resulting video is as interesting or entertaining as it could be.

I found this experiment to be particularly enjoyable, as it was one of my first attempts to animate a dynamic character.

Borromeo_Haaay Claaay

Claymation Experiment from Alexa Borromeo on Vimeo.

Chen_clay experiment

Strand_Claymation Inspiration

An interesting claymation that I forgot to post last week.  I really like the level of detail that is achieved in each of the animated forms.

Oh_Bloom_claymation test

Claymation Experiment!

Maxted_Half a Mermaid

Test Animation - "Mermaid Flail" from Manami Maxted on Vimeo.

Through this experimental animation, I wanted to replicate the loose, floppy movements of a fish's tail.
I was surprised by how smooth the final product turned out.  However, I did not anticipate the white paper (laid under and extended behind the clay) bubbling, nor did I foresee the camera moving (well, it could have been the camera, or perhaps I sometimes placed the clay in such a way that made the animation look jerky at some parts).
Overall though, it was a great learning experience.  Dragonframe is a great tool!

Shin_Chang_Claymation Test

Claymation test from Maria Shin on Vimeo.

For our claymation experiment, we first created very abstract, strange creatures and built our storyline from them. We also challenged ourselves by including a candle. We tried imitating the movement of a candle light, although we did not have much success. Moreover, we worked on the motion of moving, accelerating, and embracing. The yellow creature comes in at first while walking slowly, but later accelerates when it approaches close to the stone character. I like how smooth the hugging motion came out. 

Widmer_swimming clay experiment

Brueggemann-clay experiment_Colors

Colors from Raj Brueggemann on Vimeo.


Over spring break, I used what clay I had lying around my old preschool play set to experiment with claymation. I wanted to use stop motion to combine with a dynamic camera shot, in which the subject of the image remained stationary but objects moved around the figure. I placed pieces of clay at different distances to enhance sense of depth and movement, while moving the character in a way to specifically react to the moving camera: peering over his shoulder, turning suspiciously, and limited by the form of his squishy, oily body.

The idea I called "Colors". I'd written a short story of a plain clay figure that was slowly being surrounded by colored monoliths that bounced and crept toward him.

I shot the video over four hours, but I only ended up with five seconds of footage. This experiment, I cannot help but feel like it was a failure. But it was a good failure. Here are the mistakes I made, and want to correct in the future:

-The camera panned too fast. I need to make the changes in camera angle more subtle between shots to have a smoother, slower view of the scene.
-I needed to make the character smoother, thinner, and move with more fluidity by having him ease in and out of poses. His overall motion, too, could have been slower.
-The lighting on some of the clay pieces could have been stronger, to help the color pop.

Overall, this experiment was a great learning exercise, and taught me to discipline myself by shooting more in-between frames. Animation is hard work, and to create a stunning video, there is no shortcut. It takes time, and perseverance, more than anything else.

Argiroff_walrus-clay

Walrus. from Emma Argiroff on Vimeo.

This is a claymation collaboration with Peter.
We made our own sound effects.
And clay creatures.
Walrus.

Robert_clay_"ew" by me!

Haven't made sounds for it (yet?), but it adequately grossed my parents out, so mission accomplished!