Reception

The official viewing for my first animation film happened this past Tuesday. I must say it was pretty terrifying waiting for my turn. My professor can be quite intimidating, not because what he says isn't true, but because what he says is like a slap in the face. But in a good way. Like a slap-in-the-face that wakes you up and gets your head on straight. Nevertheless, I am so glad I wasn't first. I'm one of those people that likes to see other people's work first so that I can kind of see where my work places. Knowing where my work is helps to prepare myself for what kind of reaction my work will have. Should I beg and plead others not to destroy it? Should I give a warning of terribleness before it begins? Should I play it cool? Those sorts of things.

Overall, I don't think my work was bad. Compared to some, I can definitely feel better about the effort I put into the work and the time I spent on it. I don't think the piece got very much reaction in class for a couple reasons. One, many of them had already seen most of the animation during progress day since I was already halfway through the piece by then. Two, I didn't have sound in my piece. I'll discuss this a bit more in a bit. And third, the pacing on my piece was a bit off. There were some unnecessary scenes and some scenes ran a bit long so the joke got a little distracted. By the end of the class period, my professor was not happy with the results of the animations. He did say that "most" had potential [I will not discuss the epic fail of the bat and the scarecrow, but my mind = blown. Not in a good way.], but there was still work to be done for these animations to be portfolio worthy. I agree with him. He decided to give us the opportunity to redo our first animation to not only receive a better grade, but also I think to give us the opportunity to show him what we've really got.

As for my redo, there are a couple things I plan on changing. First and foremost, it needs sound. I know it needed sound, but honestly I don't know that much about sound design. I haven't had that much experience actually building a sound envelope and I wasn't sure where to start. I was afraid the piece wouldn't flow very well and so I just opted out of sound all together. For the redo, I'm definitely going to tackle sound. I have a couple ideas to drag the piece along, but there are some moments where I'm not sure what sound to use if any at all. I know what I'm working on for my spring break. -.- My next plan is I'm shortening the time sequence in the piece. I portrayed the time piece this way because we're not allowed to have text, but I think the piece just got a little long winded and annoying. So I plan on fixing this issue. Finally, I'm going to take another look at the beginning of the piece and try to clean up the animation, change the point of view, and remove unnecessary scenes. If I can pull all this off, I think this piece should clean up very well.

As for my next project, I'm still at a lost really. I know what I need to do and I've managed to collect all the props I need, but since this is my first stop motion, I know I'm going to have to redo this several times. I also plan on putting sound in this piece the first time I submit it, but I'm also at a lost as to what the sound design should be like. I have a lot of work to do. So while everyone else is taking a break and going to the beach on spring break, I'll be home. Making animations. Yay.


BTW, here's my Scarred For Life animation completed. I forgot to post the final piece earlier.

Scarred For Life from Brandi Palmer on Vimeo.

Butterfly Wish

STORYBOARD TIME. Again. -.-

So for the final film, there are no guidelines. Scary. Originally this story was suppose to be inspired by a poem by Pablo Neruda, but as I went along the idea kinda morphed into my own thing. This story is about unrequited love with a bittersweet end. My idea is to create the entire piece with paper stop motion, but we'll see if I come to hate myself later for it.




And just in case, Google Docs decides to be stupid, here's the link. https://docs.google.com/presentation/pub?id=18iUxRk_NBjMiNm_4jEOf_5syIVuZmSpRwRFhB4gy_QE&start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000