Design Statement:
The last project of this course focused on creating a DVD archive of all the class projects into one DVD with a well designed DVD menu.
I started off with quite a few ideas for this project from TV’s to Desktop recording to a literal archive of stuff. In the end I decided to play around with the windows in the labs to see what sort of structure I could form from drawing on the windows.

Initially what I was thinking of with the windows was to either vinyl cut things on top or physically draw on top of the windows. But because I also wanted to animate the things I wanted to put on the window I opted to drawing illustrations on the computer, animating those and adding them on top of the footage of the lab. This also helped me eliminate the trouble I had initially with trying to line up the things I physically drew onto the window the the background outside the window (e.g. buildings smoke etc.). Despite this ease with editing animations onto the footage, the one part I wish were possible when putting things together with DVD studio pro was button rollovers. Although the idea would be tricky if had I thought of how DVD remotes worked, I still think it could have been a fun element to add in if it were possible.

Process work:

Design Statement:

In the beginning I wasn’t entirely sure about what kind of book I wanted to do a trailer for. Since I had been re-watching a lot of Disney movies recently I decided to do a book trailer for the original story of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson. Unlike its Disney counterpart the original story of the little mermaid is quite a tragic one, a little like Romeo and Juliet except where only one of the pair dies. For this project I wanted to express a gloomier atmosphere within the trailer. But at the same time I didn’t want to give away what might happen at the end of the story. To do this I chose to base my trailer on the section of the story that told of the conditions set by the sea witch that the little mermaid was faced with in exchange for becoming human (which included much pain and endurance).

Originally I had planned to visualize this using a series of still illustrations and transitions however, thinking about traditional animation I decided to take a shot a rotoscoping the entire trailer by reworking a whole bunch of random clips with the movements I wanted to express. This was undoubtedly the more difficult and time consuming part of the project where I converted clips into image sequences, printed them, drew over the movements with tracing paper and scanned in the pages. There were also a few parts where I didn’t trace over image sequences -such as the mermaid’s tail transformation and the potion- transition that was a little more difficult to produce since I didn’t have anything to work off of, but I was rather happy with what I did with those parts in the end. There were also a few parts at the end of the trailer (where it transitioned from the dancing to the foot) that I didn’t animate because I couldn’t think of how to animate it in an interesting way so I did more of that in After Effects. I also decided not to show a book cover at the end of the trailer because none of the book covers I looked at fit the style of my trailer (and because there were dozens of variations of the book covers in print).

Overall, I’m satisfied with what I have in the end despite the long process it took to get there. Something that I would have liked to have possibly tried would be to add some colour into it (other than the red in the blood at the end). I was thinking of blue while I was editing the drawings but opted to stay with black and white thinking it would look gloomier that way.

Process:

Storyboard:

Rough clips:

Other Process:

Design Statement
The goal of this project was to explore a various aspects of a space such as physical, visual, psychological etc. For this I decided to explore Vari Hall as a space for student activity and expression. When I first started exploring Vari Hall the first things I thought about what the fact that it was almost always busy, crowded, full of people walking, sitting, working, promoting etc. I decided to focus on the experience of an individual exploring the main rotunda/circular open area where there was the most change daily/within a day.

Moriyama & Teshima Architects, the firm that designed Vari Hall says:

“Vari Hall is a major campus meeting place. Students gather there to study, eat lunch, visit with friends, or just relax. The large three-storey rotunda, finished with maple and mahogany, is surrounded by intimate spaces that invite individuals and small groups. One of the issues explored in the building’s design was how architecture can support and even encourage the learning process. In Vari Hall learning is not confined to classrooms and lecture halls. Rather, it spills out into stairways, corridors, under stairs, wherever students can gather informally and spontaneously to discuss and debate.”

On top over observing change in this area I overlay-ed random numbers over people in the video I shot to express how the many thoughts that wander people’s heads as they experience being in Vari Hall and how differently people might think about this space. For myself, I thought of it as a hub of student traffic, but for someone else, maybe it’s home, or a good place to hang out.

The most difficult part of this project was definitely filming motion without a proper dolly. However, at the same time, it was fun to think of ideas of making a make-shift dolly to use instead,

Process Work
Uploading in progress

Should definitely do this with a tripod next time.

The final loop
A concept based on the idea that there is always time to play and have fun (i.e. exercise) outdoors no matter who you are, what the weather is like (clothes).

(do you see anything happening other than angle switches? ;] )

Design Statement

The goal of this project was to explore the idea of a video loop by developing a concept that included actions/scenes that could be looped continuously. With this in mind I initially thought about everyday routines and/or actions that could be repeated seamlessly (e.g. driving somewhere, falling dominoes, walking from point A to point B etc.). To explore the loop, I decided to record 2 of my friends swinging on a swing. Initially I had only planned to do this all in one shot with multiple people, however, after discussions I found that shooting the loop in different angles not only helped me save time in organizing a big group to go film with, but it also allowed my loop to be visually a little more interesting to be able to see the subjects swinging from another point of view.

Some of my biggest challenges for this project was watching how much time I needed to film outside as well as ongoing weather issues that prevented me from filming outside. Once again, as I found, lighting was an important issue while I was filming outside because taking too long to film certain parts meant that my lighting for each clip would be different. Thus one of the reasons why I decided to put my final product in black and white to avoid having to destroy any important contrasted detail from colour-editing. If another opportunity arises I would definitely like to re-film this in colour. Another challenge was the changing environment where I was filming. Besides, the lighting, other elements at some points came in and out of my initial clips such as additional people or cars in the distant background.

Something I enjoyed through this project was looking at the flicker effect (slight visual changes) and just playing around with how much change could I make in between clips without making it incredibly obvious. Though, the one little trouble that came with filming this sort of effect was that it took longer to shoot because of the time needed to make changes in between each scene.

Final Storyboard

Initial Storyboard (Dominoes concept)

Other Process work
See posts under “Project 3″

Some things to consider after doing some test shots.

- lighting (I was definitely there filming for too long so there are noticeable lighting changes between my un-cut clips)
- camera shifts
- background noise (colours and unwanted subjects)

There’s going to be quite a bit of editing to do if the weather isn’t going to work for me this weekend.

(1) Swinging in and out of frame (this video doesn’t do that but it’s kinda how I want it to look with a longer swing):

(2) Dominoes (an infinite loop of knocking down dominoes or objects that could be knocked down in sequence):

Some other initial thoughts:

- driving a car through a scenery (e.g. road, highway, streeet etc.), having a transition (tunnel/black bar) and returning to the beginning (or having a subtle changing in the first frame and repeating

- Alice falling down the rabbit hole with various objects floating upward away from her and out of the frame at the top. The objects will eventually loop after some time.

Creative Brief
See this post

Design Statement

The goal of this project was to develop a 10-second academy leader through a visual narrative development. Based on what we had already learned about composition, pacing and rhythm, as in the sound essay from project 1, I decide to develop my countdown from the idea of presenting a short and easy recipe. With that in mind I choose to present a recipe for an easy strawberry, kiwi and banana smoothie.

To create the narrative I started drawing a storyboard with each frame based on a step that a person would have to go through to make the smoothie. Developing the storyboard was undoubtedly one of the most challenging parts of this project. For example, when I had done my initial storyboard and started filming the footage based on it, I found that some of the shots did not look as interesting as I thought it would have liked them to be. Thus resulting in editing my storyboard a few times before coming up with the right one. In doing this project I learned to carefully consider what is possible to do when developing my storyboard as well as how to carefully pace my footage to fit 10 seconds. I also found that once again sound played an important role in helping me pace my videos, even if it was just ambient background noise or near silence.

Final Storyboard

Initial Storyboards

In terms of content, it generally looks the way I intended it to be. Some changes could be made to improve the focus and picture quality. There’s also a few fixes that need to be made with the sound in between the “3″ and the “credits” scene.