This is Everything

Okay, so I know that I haven't posted in a while — a lot of things have happened in our class, you don't even what to know.


So I'll give you a variety of things: all of the videos I've made since, some examples, a bit of everything.


So first up we have the commercial video we had to make that had to incorporate a grey joined figurine. I made it for Legend of Korra, but since we were told we couldn't use the actually name I called it Kora Nation - I misspelt it on purpose.

Next up is some videos we have been doing as concept review. We created a roller coaster after that. The trick was to not show the track.

Then we had to animate wind with a leaf. Be the leaf!

After that we did a short bit about a tail, moving some wire to look like a tail.

Finally, we went back to the ball bounce using buttons. 

Then we had to do it again with something, not a ball, but that falls like one. Can you guess what it is?

It's a rubber ducky!




So that is what has been going on in class.  I also have for you some editing. This time its audio editing by a guy who has a channel in youtube with a whole bunch of different ones. Here is the first one I heard. He also does ones for movies like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Hook, and Little Princess. Check them out!

It All About Connections

Let's talk about connections, and from that about relationships. 


In many industries you can really only succeed if you have someone to one the back door for you, motion design is no different. True, some people are able to get in on their own, but most people can't.


There is a theory, that everyone in the world is related by at most 6 (or was it 10) steps. It doesn't mean blood relation, but rather acquaintance. For instance, my roommate knows me, I know my sister, my sister knows a boy who is blind — therefore my roommate is 'related' to the blind boy by 3 steps.


What I want to talk to you, and show you, are 2 people in the movie industry that I have a 'relation' to.


The first is Dan Studney, a screen play writer who's current movie "Jack the Giant Killer" is in post production. He also worked on other things like "Stepford House Wives" and "Reefer Madness," so going but steps, I only need 2. Turns out he was one of my mom's best friends in high school. 

Another person is Tim Burton, the one who gave us "Nightmare Before Christmas," "Corpse Bride," and many others. His latest movie is one called "Dark Shadows." Number of steps - 4. I know my aunt, who knows her friend, who knows her boyfriend, who happens to be the brother of Tim Burton. 

When you think about it, we really are all connected. What matters in the real world though is how much we take care of those connections. 


As the Disney ride tells us - It's a small world after all.

More Harry Potter

Sorry for not updating all this week, classes are getting crazy with the end of the year coming up.


There are two things that I want to show you today, both are Harry Potter related — only one of them motion design related.


First lets go with the one that has relevance, the Story of the Three Brothers. For anyone familiar with either the HP books or movies you will know what I'm talking about. For anyone who lives under a rock and never saw the films or picked up the books ( there is someone here at school who knows nothing about the Boy-Who-Lived and she is American) let me give you some back story.


In the final book and movie (movie 7 actually) Hermione tells the story of the three Peveral (sorry for spelling) brothers from a wizarding children's story book the Dumbledore left her. How they met Death and Death gave them gifts...oh just watch it. 


Anyway, the point it that this type of animation is just like motion design if not completely that. So check it out for the first time, or just to refresh your memories.

Next is a video for the true fans. I mentioned Pottermore before and shared the first commercial with J. K.  Rowling in it with all of you. Now I show you the newest video that has been put up on this site. A sneak peek video — not made by beta testers. With this new look into a very much waited for site (at least for those of us not chosen to be testers) an announcement joined the post. No, it is not in the video, but on the website:

Pottermore is coming the beginning of April!

I know, I know, they said October, but still if it's true that means that it is here this month. So I leave you all this official sneak peek by the makers. If you weren't on pins and needles before, you will be now.

   

                            

More About Me

Okay, let's get some things straight.


Things that influence me are as follows:
Family
Theater
Disney
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
Anime


These are the main spots of my influence. I've mentioned each at some point in the blog but I thought it might be good to give everyone a list.


So what am I posting today? Something Harry Potter related. This is a music video created by a fan for a quick summary of the struggle of defeating the Dark. I show this, not just because it is Harry Potter, but because it is beautifully edited. The music and pictures line up so well, the video tells a story that is only hinted at in the lyrics, between the two of them you can connect emotionally to it. Editing is an art, one that few realize, and I want to share this art with you.

I'll leave you with an extra video too. This one is purely for the Harry Potter lovers and has no real relation to motion the way I see it. It is, simply, a video in tribute. It is for the characters who struggled in the story, for the author who saw her world accepted, for the readers who started the series when it first came out and stayed with it till it was over. The ones who waited to receive their own Hogwarts letter when they turned 11, the ones that stayed up all night to read the newest book, the ones that cried during the ending credits of the 8th film when they realized that Harry Potter was truly done. This is for them - Tribute to Magic. May they all keep the stories in their hearts forever.

Pottermore

Okay, so the Harry Potter series is something that has been a major part of my life since the books were first introduced to the US when I was in 2nd grade. The nightly readings of the latest book by my mom was a very important family time for everyone in my house. The tradition of reading the newest book aloud for the first time is something that continued even with the final book that was released during my high school career.


So what I'm sharing is something that any true Harry Potter fan already knows about, but others might not. Its Pottermore. A website made by Rowling to give us even more information than the books hold. This is the commercial that came out at the beginning of last summer. Unfortunately, though the site was to fully launch in October, it has yet to make its public debut. However, the commercial clearly uses stop motion.


Enjoy.

It's Part of Who I Am

Manga, anime — two things that my mom doesn't like because, in her opinion, they have no plot. Anyone who likes them will agree with me that they all have a plot, some of them being very intricate. What I'm posting now is not me saying that anime is awesome — though it is — but rather me show you something that an anime did that isn't done much.


So this video is the opener for the second season of Wakfu. It's an anime that is actually in french, so finding the flow of the words was a bit difficult. So I'm posting it not just because it's a french series, but also because it's a series that was done completely in Flash! 


Enjoy!

Sorry, I couldn't find one with the subtitles.

Inspire and SyFy

So for those who care, London was fun and Avenue Q is a play for all college students.


Once I got back, our SyFy logo commercial was due for motion design. Here it is below.

My teacher really like it in the end, even though he didn't care for it when it was nearly done being edited. But he liked it in the end so who cares.


The other thing I want to show you is this youtube video that advertises 3 X-Box games that weren't that great, however, the commercial is really cool. On top of that it is really relative to our major since it's all clay stop motion.

This is the video one how they made it.

A Week in London

So I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while, but I've been in London visiting my sister. While there we've been going to see many plays: Wicked, Singing in the Rain, Lion King, and Avenue Q. Wicked and Lion King I've been waiting a long time to see, the first one since I was in middle school and for the Lion King since I was about 7 years old. It was very awesome to see them finally.


Let me say a bit about them. Wicked was amazing! Though it made me really not like those in Wizard of Oz since they are so mean to the witch. Singing in the Rain was very funny. I had never seen the play or movie but my sister and I got day of tickets and were able to sit in the front row! We did get we but I was laughing too much to care. Lion King was, like I said, something I've been waiting about 13 years to see. I other words I was crazy happy to see it finally. I was really interesting to see how they did all of the animals and Timon and Zazu were my favorite characters. I actually have yet to see Avenue Q. We're seeing it on Friday up in Wales. That will be interesting.









You might think that seeing 4 plays in the span of a week is a lot, and it kind of is, but not to us. My siblings and I have been raised in the theater since our dad does set and lighting designs for high schools. We counted one time and we've seen about 40 different plays - not including the fact that we have seen multiple productions of several stories that would bring it up to like 60.





So when I say that theater is a thing that influances me, I mean it. Think of the break I took on the blog as a study periode.

How real 3D is filmed

This post has nothing to do with class. In fact, in some ways it has little reference to even motion design, but I thought it was cool.

Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and now The Hobbit, has been posting production video blog entries that have made their way onto youtube. The one that I wan to share with everyone is video number 4 (out of 5 currently). In this video Peter Jackson explains how 3D video taping works and how they accommodate it for their movie. 

Like I said, not really about motion design like how we are doing it at the moment, but since a lot of movies are coming out in 3D I thought people could use an education.

My Lord of the Ring/The Hobbit influence

This is a video that I can 100% say influences me. Okay, maybe not the video, or even what it shows since it’s not out yet, but the movie’s book and the accompanying trilogy are one of the four most influential things in my work. (The other three are Harry Potter, Disney, and family.) 

Anyway, this is a trailer for The Hobbit movie part one that is coming out in December 2012. I have been waiting for this movie since I read the book and the Lord of the Rings series back in sixth grade.

Feb. 23rd

Here are two things new items.

The first one is my animatic for our first long term project. For those who don’t know, an animatic is basically an animated story board. For the project we have to create a commercial that is exactly 15 seconds for SyFy. It’s not really for them, but we’re using that channel to help us learn how to approach such a project.

The other thing that I’m putting up is a video that is for shoes using just origami-like movement using the software Cinema 4D.

Chaos to Order

So this was the third exploration we did for class. We had to record the movement of an animal and go from illustrating something chaotic to simple/organized and in it also show the animal’s motion. I did the following with some beads and origami. Hope you like it.

Valentine's Day

So yesterday was St. Valentine’s Day and a boy in my class poster this video on Facebook. I saw it and thought it was really cool and, in a way, was motion design. So, even though it is an ad in the end, here it is a day late. You have to go to the original posting of the video which is on vimeo so just hit the link. 

http://vimeo.com/3069765

Yes, I know, I'm sorry

Okay, I know that I have been horrible with this blog, but that is going to change. To jump start it all I give you the three explorations we did in class so far. 

The first one is stop motion and has us illustrate a pendulum. The came out decent in my opinion, even though the station I was at was horrible so for most of them the lighting fluctuates in every frame.

The second one was also a stop motion piece were we had to use silhouette to illustrate different motions. My favorite was defiantly the one labeled “Jointed Arm.” Watch it at you’ll see why.

The final project was one that we did using traditional animation, so was drew out each frame by hand and filmed it so others could see it in real time. I had some problems with the balls bouncing, but my 6th animation turned out really well so I’m happy.

So that is what we have been doing so far in class. Right now we have to film or find reference videos of an animal’s movement. We can choose which animal we want and will have to use it to help us go from chaos to order, so I’m going to use a butterfly since it is the animal to illustrate chaos theory. 

I promise I’ll update more often now so don’t worry.

Jan. 12th - meet the stop motion machine

This is a video of something I made in class. It’s my first time ever doing stop motion so no laughing.  

Who am I?

So before I get into posting anything about this semester I’ll tell you a bit about myself so anyone passing by might be able to understand a bit better.

I’m from South Jersey and raise guild dogs for the Seeing Eyes in Morris Town, NJ. I was in marching band for 4 years and was a Girl Scout from Per-School to Senior year when I then became a life time Girl Scout. I attended one year at Moore College of Art and Design - the only all girls art college in the US and is over 160 years old. After taking the design classes there I decided to go into the Motion Design major at Ringling College after having been denied entry to the Computer Animation major two years in a row. But I'm happy and am looking forward to learning about the subject.