Here in my Room

Here's the finished piece. There have been a lot of changes made due to time constraints. The original storyline had two 'ideas' fighting each other at one point but animation takes more time than I realized. Though I must admit animating is a lot of fun, I think I will refrain from doing it for school projects from now on. Using the same shots, I was able to construct a much shorter storyline where the 'idea' simply does not want to be forgotten and seeks my attention; but as soon as I need an idea, I suddenly don't have one. The video does end abruptly but that's because it lines up seamlessly with the beginning of the video to form a loop.

None of the sound is actually from the video footage but I hope you can't tell for the most part (credit to freesound.org). There are actually about 20 sounds used in this short video. I didn't think I would need so many but every time I watched it I noticed something new that should have made a sound. I spent too much time trying to line up the tapping of the pencil but in the end it turned out 1000x better than the original sound when I was filming which strangely didn't sound like a tapping pencil at all. Like I said before, I kept the sounds down to foley and no music because I just liked how ordinary it sounded while something so strange was happening on screen.

I feel like all year my ideas for time based have exceeded my knowledge and skill with editing software; the most valuable thing I think I will take from this project is the experience I got with Final Cut and After Effects. Now having used the software, I feel like inthe future I will have more freedom when coming up with ideas now that I know what I can actually do with the programs at hand. I'd also never had to borrow equipment from the school before so learning what equipment is available to us will also be very helpful in the future.

Where I'm at....

I have come to discover that animation is a long and painful process. It's not as simple as drawing successive frames; there's timing every move to make it look natural, integrating it into the background video so it doesn't look like it's floating on top, and just drawing expressions so the viewer can understand what is going on. There's a million little things that can make or break the animated character and I've run into a roadblock with all of them. So, it's 5:00 on Monday, and I'm not done yet. Close, but not done. So I thought I'd post what I had and keep working away - I've put far too much work into this now not to finish.

While my youtube video uploads, I will discuss what I've done to get where I am. I started by carefully planning all my shots. This is always important, but even more so when you have to film the surrounding for an animated character who is not yet there. Overlapping projects forced me to shoot the video in 3 short sessions; each time I had to make sure the camera settings, my room, my outfit, and every other detail was exactly the same. When cutting these shots together, I adjusted them in AE to ensure they all had the same look and tone.

Once I had my final cut, I took screen shots of the scenes involving my imaginary character and used them as a background layer in photoshop. I animated over these backgrounds making use of layers and opacity in photoshop as a traditional animator might use a lightbox and paper. I wanted a shifting, hand drawn look so rather than only redrawing the limb, expression or whatever was actually moving, I redrew the entire character for each frame. I found that drawing a frame for every 2-4 frames of video was enough to give the character life and movement; drawing every frame made the character look too shifty and it didn't flow right. After compiling the drawings into video, I often found that almost every movement was too fast or too slow due to the lack or excess of frames I had drawn. Getting the timing right was the most time consuming part of animating.

The animations were then exported from photoshop as white drawings on black backgrounds which I then brought into Final Cut to create a video clip. This clip was then brought into AE where I overlaid and positioned it onto the actual video. The glowing effect was also done in AE, the purpose being to give the drawing a dreamy look to enforce the idea that he is imaginary.

I am currently in the process of replacing the blank scenes with the scenes containing the imaginary character. Once I have that, I will be doing some further tone adjustments in AE so all the scenes look like cohesive whole. I to keep the sound natural, using foley sound and an ambient room tone; this is to give the idea that the scene is a normal occurance. Music and weird sound effects would make the video seem like something movie-like, but that's not what this video was about. Seeing something like a little character in the dots on my ceiling is a normal occurrence for me; I see images in random things all the time. My imagination is always working...except when I need it to. That's really what I wanted to show with this video was the creative state I always find myself in until I am asked to create something; then all my ideas vanish.

I would just like to note that the aspect ratio is a youtube problem, and not an issue with the actual file; I just haven't uploaded much to youtube before so I don;t know how to fix that. I will be submitting the final file via digital locker drop box when it is done.

Fixation

Unique world view

I always look at the shape of objects to see if I can see something in them. This is sometimes patterns in floors, clouds, or a scratch on the wall, but I never see the pattern or cloud or scratch; I see a duckling in bed, a dragon with a seal on its back, and a thin old man with a top hat.

In the context of this project, I think it would be great to film the places I go during the day and overlay animations of the things I see in the world coming to life.

Connected to nature

I have a strange fascination for nature. Ever since watching Pocahontas when I was little I felt a connection to living things. I like that even in the city I still feel that connection to the smallest bits of greenery and the fact there is so little makes me appreciate it more.

Lights

For the past 4 years, I’ve noticed that streetlights turn off around me. It might be that I just notice it more than most people but at least one street light will turn off when I’m around it on a daily basis. This is a strange fascination for me as I really don’t know why it happens. Because of when I started to notice this, I connect it to something paranormal, even though I’m not even sure I believe in that stuff. I know that if I tried to film this happening, it probably wouldn’t work, but showing blinking lights mixed with animations of ‘ghosts’ that might be causing the lights to go out is possible.

Thinking

When I was little I used to daydream a lot, imagining the strangest of things. One thing I thought of was listening to people talk about me. I would imagine them saying that they knew I could hear them but I didn’t listen because I thought I was just imagining them. I would imagine them trying to convince me that they were real but I of course would never believe my own imagination. As a fun throwback to my childhood, I could do a film about there being real people watching my life and commenting on what I’m doing. I wouldn’t reveal that they are imaginary until the end.

Shiny Objects

I had a fascination for shiny objects for most of my life. This resulted in a huge jewellery collection that I don’t even wear anymore. But I still find shiny things ridiculously pretty. If I were to use this for a film, it would be a tribute to shiny things, showing how even the most common of objects can be pretty. Though there wouldn’t be much of a storyline, it would be more about showing how visual beauty is everywhere if you just look for it.

Everyday Sounds – Exercise 3 – Part 1

Part A

Outdoors:

Where: On the grass near four winds drive.

When: 4:00pm

Sound Notes:

• a fly buzzing
• air vent from the underground parking garage
• kids making non-sense noises
• people walking
• a loud annoying bug
• kids playing and shouting back and forth
• the wind blowing past my ear and through the leaves in the trees
• the kids bouncing some sort of ball
• a crunchy leaf blowing across the nearby pavement
• the wind catching the pages of my notebook
• a crunchy leaf falling next to me
• a car drives by with some sort of squeaking noise suggesting it needs some sort of tune up
• I become aware of the vent again and then notice the leaves rustling in the bush beside it
• a kid on his bike squeaks by while he shouts non-sense 'whooping' noises
• some sort of loud heavy sounding creaking in the distance
• a car alarm goes off momentarily
• another squeaky car drives by while another squeaks its brakes nearby
• someone walks by on the grass and I hear their rustling footsteps
• birds continue to chirp from near and far
• a dog barks a few times
• more cars drive by
• some different birds start chirping
• the wind picks up again rustling both pages and leaves
• the alarm on my cell phone goes off telling me my 10mins is up

Reflection:

The loudest sound was the vent but I did eventually lose my awareness of it only to remember it was there again later. Many sounds were very faint and I had to listen hard past the nearby sounds; by concentrating on distant noises I began to lose my perception of the sounds nearby. I realized that there was always some sort of noise going on and there was never silence.

Indoors:

Where: Sitting in a classroom before class starts up.

When: 4:30pm

Sound Notes:

• people talking
• footsteps as people walk by
• the guy next to me starts talking to me and I tell him to stop
• he continues talking to annoy me which distracts me from the other sounds in the room
• pages turning
• someone whistling
• my own sniffling
• chairs squeaking and creaking as people roll them around the room
• air moving through the vents
• a mac error message
• coughing
• someone drinking from a water bottle - i can hear the plastic crinkle and the water slosh
• footsteps as someone walks by
• the hiss of someone opening a pop bottle
• someone humming some unknown tune
• more footsteps
• more chairs rolling
• people are still talking and I hear someone say my name
• more footsteps
• I continue to sniffle
• more talking and mumbling with the occasional laugh
• something is set down on a table nearby
• a book gets moved on the tabletop
• I can hear people's conversations
• someone taps a keyboard with a pencil then proceeds to type
• fingers tapping
• more coughing
• more laughing
• my alarm going off to tell me the 10mins have passed

Reflection:

I was very aware that the sound of the air conditioning created a background 'indoor' sound. Even after the exercise when the class started and people stopped talking, I still noticed that there were always little sounds of movement and the noise never really stopped.

Part B

While listening in a crowded room it was very difficult to pick out anything actually being said. The way I found to listen in on peoples conversations was to turn my ear to them and look at their mouths moving; once I determined what part of the noise they were making by the way their lips were moving I found it easier to just tune in on them. I noticed that even though I could probably hear the voices of the people further away, I could not determine what they were saying no matter how hard I tried to listen.

Part C

Sounds that may evoke an image are the sound of birds chirping and the sound of running water.

Images that provoke a sound can be a person screaming or breaking glass

Sounds that provoke a feeling are music (of any kind) and the sound of emotion (like someone crying, laughing, etc)

Sounds that provoke a thought are unidentifiable sounds (because you wonder what it was) and sirens (because you wonder what happened).

Sounds that compete with an image may be the sound of a quaking duck with the picture of a cow or the sound of a woman with the image of a man.

Sounds that counter an image could be the sound of a thunderstorm with a picture of sunshine or a quiet sound with an image of a car crash.