Due Monday( 11/01): rotoscope project and one-paragraph idea for your final animation

At the beginning of class Monday, your rotoscope animation is due.

You also need to email me a one-paragraph description of your idea for your final animation project. Please also indicate your ideas for the style/technique you will use. You can use any technique (or combination of techniques) you'd like -- rotoscope, jointed armature, etc.

The latitude for what your final animation is about is also very open. I just don't want to see things that are mainly spoofs or ripoffs of something else. It should have a personal dimension to it. That doesn't mean it has to be realistic in any way -- it just has to be your own ideas, images, characters, etc.

If you're stuck for an idea, here are some jumping-off places (some of the past sketchbook assignments could be starting-points):

What's an interesting trip you took?
What's a memorable dream you had?
What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you (you have to be brave to pick this one, but your cartoon might get some good laughs)?
What's something (an event, a place, a person) that you were really excited about, but when the event happened (or when you visited the place, or met the person), it wasn't at all what you expected?
Talk about your favorite daydreams.
Talk about your worst fears.
What's a story (funny or serious) that you've told time and time again, because you know it's a good story?
What was the first time you defied one or both of your parents -- or some other authority figure? And what was the consequence?
What's been the greatest achievement of your life so far (it can be rough to go this direction without looking like you're bragging about yourself, but it can be done)?
What's the most difficult decision you've ever had to make?
What was your first pet?
What's something weird you did as a young child, that seemed to make sense to you as a kid, but in retrospect seems pretty bizarre?
What's the thing you hate most about the world?

You can be funny or you can be serious. It could be as serious as dealing with the death of someone close to you, or as goofy as the most successful practical joke you've played on a friend. Just make sure the story is meaningful to you in some way -- meaningful enough that you won't mind spending about a month working on it.

Another option: pick a folk or fairy tale to adapt. That way, you'll have a whole plot laid out for you -- your trick is to invest it with your own sense of style.

Assignment for Monday, Oct. 25

In your sketchbook, I want you to create a short storyboard. As I explained in class, for your final animation project, you'll crate and show a storyboard for feedback in class, so I want to hit you with a few assignments beforehand that will encourage you to think in storyboarding terms.

For this storyboard, you can build on your prior sketchbook assignment (click here for a refresher), taking your "scary" image, and breaking it down in terms of a sequence -- as if you were making a storyboard for a series of shots in an animation or film. You should break down the sequence into a minimum of five shots. Think of how the variety of types of shots (establishing shots, closeups, and so on) and of camera movements (zooms, pans, etc.) will help you to tell the story of the sequence in the most effective way.

If you're not all that interested in expanding upon the "scary" image, you're free to build a storyboard out of some other event that happened to you -- something memorable, it could be something good or bad. Just imagine someone has decided to make a biographical movie about you, and you have to plan out all the camera angles and movements for this particular scene.

We'll take a look at your storyboards at the beginning of Monday's class.

Rotoscope assignment -- have video clip chosen for wednesday

For Wednesday's class, have video clip you've chosen to use for the rotoscoping assignment. This could be video you've shot yourself (and it could be cell phone quality -- since we're just importing it to trace), or video you're going to rip from youtube or a DVD. Remember that the rotoscoping project will incorporate some sort of creative transformation -- for instance, transposing the traced figures into some space that's different from the environment of the original video. The Kid Cudi video I showed in class is full of those sorts of transformations.

Your source video should not have a lot of editing -- if there are 5 or more shots in your clip, that's probably too choppy for this assignment. A single shot, where all the action is clearly framed, would probably be ideal. Also, you probably want some physical action in the clip -- drawing frame after frame of someone running or jumping or dancing will be far more interesting than drawing frame after frame of someone talking, or just standing around.

Don't copy these ideas, but some concrete approaches could be:
You have video of someone swimming -- and in the animation, you'll place them swimming in an aquarium. Or you have a video of someone skipping rope -- and in the animation, you place them skipping rope on the wing of a flying airplane. You will be tracing footage, but I want your animation to move beyond mere tracing -- in animation, it's easy to make impossible things happen, so there should be some element of the impossible to your finished piece.

Your rotoscoped animation has to be at least 10 seconds long. If you don't know how to capture video from youtube or other sources, we'll go over that in Wednesday's class.

due monday (10/11)

Reminder: your two-character animation is due at the beginning of class on Monday.

Due on Monday

By the beginning of class Monday, have a rough storyboard of your two characters acting and reacting to each other. If you don't have a story in mind, perhaps you can use some of your poses as a starting point. You will eventually be making a short animation where your two characters are acting together, and the storyboard will give you a blueprint for this. The drawings can be very sketchy.

An online article on storyboarding, which has some examples I showed in class, is here, if you want to revisit some of the examples:

http://pingmag.jp/2006/10/27/storyboard-design/

Sketchbook assignment for Wednesday

For wednesday's class, in your sketchbook, I want to see sketches of your two characters in various "acting" poses. You're not changing the designs of your characters, just the poses. So, pick three emotions or "transient states" (angry, drunk, sad, flirtatious -- whatever you want to choose), and make each of your characters act them out.

If, for example, you choose angry, sad, and nervous, I want to see both of your characters looking angry, sad and nervous. So it will be a total of six drawings. Bonus points if your characters have different poses for the same emotion. For example, a big, macho character might express anger differently than a meek character would. The big character might look threatening, and the meek character might look ridiculous.

Due on Wednesday: Two Character Designs in Your Sketchbook

Your next project will involve creating (and then animating) a character in silhouette. First we'll concentrate on creating the silhouettes, and then we'll worry about posing them so that their emotions "read" to the viewer, and then finally we'll bring them to life by moving them through a series of poses.

But first -- just worry about the silhouettes themselves. I want you to create two silhouettes, each with a distinct "essential character" or personality. These are the types of qualities that define their identity. This is the realm of stereotype, and of course you can ultimately play against what the "essential character" of your silhouette appears to be. Regardless, an audience will make assumptions about characters based on that first visual cue of what they look like. So -- for example -- you could make a character that seems mean, and a character that seems nice. Or a character that seems pious, and a character that seems devilish. Vain and charitable. Wimpy and belligerent. And so on -- but you only have to pick two.

Eventually, you will have to separate out the various pieces of your character, so that they can exist on independent layers in flash. Think of them as pieces of a jointed paper doll. The pieces should include: head, neck, torso, pelvis, upper arms, lower arms, hands, upper legs, lower legs, feet. Don't worry about separating out the fingers and toes. As you are designing your character, keep in mind that at some point the pieces of your character will have to exist as separate symbols.

In Wednesday's class, you'll execute these characters in Flash. But before the start of class, I want to see a sketch of your two characters in your sketchbook.