May 6, 2018

Now that I am finished with all of my work, I will compile everything I'm missing in this last post.

Here are two of my storyboards:

I had done my animatic as well:

The ten films I made for 10x10 are uploaded on Vimeo in two sets, one here:

https://vimeo.com/259715302

And one here:

https://vimeo.com/259719303

An earlier animation test can be found on an earlier entry, however here's one from the last third of the film:

The reflective journal can be accounted for with the previous entries in the blog

As for the development portfolio, I've already showcased my storyboards, my concept development can be seen in these drawings of animation:

As for research images, a lot of what I've been doing over the course of the blog has been showcased already. About three images appear on an earlier entry from February of my research in After Effects, and here are a few others during my stop motion part of the film:

in terms of actual photos in which I used for research and reference, drawings of my brothers appear in the film and there are a few photos of them I used to help get a general idea for their designs:

And for my actual finished product, the final externality project came out better than I expected and I am very proud to show it. I plan on submitting it to a festival or two in the coming week. Over the course of the semester, I found it difficult to stay on task, after taking it upon myself to make a film with the intention of submitting it to a festival, because the whole time the focus was on how I, as an artist, perceive as progress. With the improvisational bits of animation, it was simultaneously easy and difficult to surmise what was worth keeping in and what was worth doing over again. With the help of a musician friend, the musical score accompanying this piece I think makes the whole short come together in a way I never really expected going in. In conclusion, I think that the theme of this piece reflects my time spent not only on this project, but my semester as well. Being right in the middle of working on something really does bring out the best in me and I look back upon it with pride as I really do feel I spent the right amount of time where the project needed it.

March 7, 2018

The past two weeks I've been preoccupied with the 10x10x18 project, so I haven't made too much progress on the film I was working on previously. I did some pencil animation tests and tried coloring them but I didn't adjust the settings correctly, and that's when 10x10 began so I haven't made as much progress on it in the past two weeks.

https://vimeo.com/channels/10x10x18/videos/search:macdonald/sort:preset

Here is a link to all of the films that I did make, however, I have tried multiple times to add my Day 9 film to it, however it continues to not show up. Attached is my Day 9 film. Hopefully I'll be able to finish up my pencil animations and get the coloring done because then the motions in After Effects will be simple enough.

https://vimeo.com/258127476 (Day 9)

February 17, 2018

I made a bit more progress this week, I actually started animating some of the film. I started some research on my Issues in Representation project as well, however most of my focus was shifted to trying to make some tests for how the animation will look. Since I am going with a sketchy style, it didn't take much time to get the initial animation done however I've played around with coloring it digitally as well and I believe it will turn out for the best if I digitally color the whole thing monochrome. I made the first few seconds already in After Effects. I still need to do some touch-up work with it and add in the beginning part with the pencil and the hands but overall I think I am making good progress for this part of the assignment. However, ten films starts on monday so I am going to attempt to get a little more done this weekend to try to get further along because after this week there will be a lot happening for me so it's best to get the hand drawn things out of the way.

February 8

So I have recorded a rough take of my monologue and I've just about finished the animatic for it. Attached are a few examples of scenes from it. Bits of this will be done "abstract" and "improvisational" bits of animation, making it rather difficult to truly have a stand-in for it. I still did the best I could with what to expect from it, and time out the bits that don't have quite the concrete images yet. I plan on starting animating next week and doing the hand-drawn bits first. The whole thing will be done starting with simple pencil animation, then transition to notecards with muted paint on them until it gets to stop motion again in the middle, and then it goes back to the cards and then back to the pencil animation again. The more colorful it gets the more "improv" the animation gets and hopefully I can set aside some days to do the improvisational drawings/painting.

Januray 31st

Well I completely forgot about having to do this but hopefully I can make up for it. So far, I've been sort of struggling to find a project to do for the externality portion. I've been putting my focus on to working with others and trying to find a studio space of some kind (like Ko Lik) but as it turns out my best lead is not really offering any work so I was back to square one. I considered doing a short film for a festival however I felt that that might be the "easy way out" just for the sheer fact that I figured I would get a lot more out of working with people in the animation industry while I was out here studying. I put into perspective how many weeks I will have to work on things here and, on top of other projects for my other class, I realize I do not have as much time as I thought I did. I have possible connections with someone who works for an animation studio in France and I have tried getting the contact information to see if there's something I could do, however I feel it would still be a useful piece of my time to work on a film for a festival anyway because, while my time is indeed limited, if I really focus on it I can make it just as good if not better than anything I've made before because of the environment I'll have to work on it. I will still attempt to connect and network with people in professional settings however making a piece for a festival seems to be the main direction in which I will head now. Jared has given me a few books to read that I will try to tackle, also try to work on the concept for the film. Right now I'm thinking a stream of consciousness-type of thing. I'll probably have my standard 2-D mixed with stop motion in there but I'll try to make it a little more abstract at the same time.

January 19, 2018

Here is where I'll record and detail my progress in this semester abroad in Scotland. As of now, I'm beginning to search for different associations to get acquainted with. Right now, my best leads are to research Kolik and their studio and what they do. Also on my radar are potential music videos I could work on for various musicians. There's also the possibility of working with a fourth year student on one of their films or submitting a film to a festival or contest. I have met a student who would be interested already and I have also been asked to check out awn.com for potential festivals I could submit to. This weekend is probably the ideal time to decide what I'm going to do, I am also going to try to compile a reel of my work for various venues in case I do decide to reach out to any external animation foundations.