Thursday, December 9, 2010

Lectures

Shawn Sheeny- pop-up books
I never thought that pop-up books could be so complex. What really blew me away was the amount of time the artist took to make just one book. One of his books took 7 years to make. That's a freaking third of my life!! ....and i though animation took a long time. The artist said that the best way to learn how to make a pop-up book is to buy one and tear it apart.

The other lecture I went to was the last lecture of the year. I really enjoyed listening to this artist and I really liked his work. His concepts were very interesting. His artwork was based on commercialism and stereotypes. So, he focused on stereotypes in commercials. He himself wasn't the ordinary black man and that inspired his work.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Final continues....

So. I did it :)
I got this stinking project done. I'm sure there are still areas to fix, but it is finished and I'm ready to finish this DVD.
I have put a lot of work in this project. However this ends up, I am proud of myself and the class. So many people have worked very hard.
One thing I need to do is figure out why iI'm having trouble rendering out an MP4 movie.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Final continues....

This project is moving along but it keeps going on and on....
It's looking better and better and is almost coming to an end. I think that 2 more sessions of working on it should let me finish it. I need to rest today because I've been up for 24 hours working on this class and metals. So, after class tomorrow morning, I'm gonna eat some lunch then get back to work on the project for as long as possible. I should finish by saturday night. I need to finish this DVD over the weekend as well as prepare a paper for another class. I just need to manage my time right and it should work out. I have no doubt it will. There is always enough time. I'm kind of impressed with myself. I've never made an animation this long before and for one person to make a piece multiple minutes long in the time I've had allotted is pretty swell. I will not fail. I am so ready to get this done. I hope I receive more helpful feedback in class today. I really need to look at my calendar and update it so I can fit all I need done in my schedule.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Work in Progress

I am planning to be done animating this project by Thursday. I am ready to move on with other things. There are only minor revisions and additions needed for the project and I know I will have those done because I'm ready to be done.
Over the break, I enjoyed filming my family on Thanksgiving Day. I filmed breakfast, lunch, dessert, and the Saints game. I think it's some good footage and filming that day made me realize all the traditions my family has.
So, I will definitely meet my mark on Thursday, because I want my DVD portfolio to be exquisite.
Screenshot from my final

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Rough Draft and Edit

I dedicated this whole entire past weekend to getting work done. At first I thought I was going to be behind, but I'm exactly where I want to be at right now, maybe even better. I made sure that I got plenty of rest this weekend so that I would be able to be fresh and awake while working.

I have my comps laid out in order, roughly edited and not paced out yet. It was hard to judge real time in the project file until I rendered a quicktime. The some of the animation is also rough. There are a few comps that still need to be animated, but I believe to have at least half of my animation completed for the project. The remaining animation depends on have much cut-out and hand-drawn animation I want to add. I have found the puppet tool to be very helping in this piece. It seems to me like a middle ground between the cut-out and the hand-drawn techniques and marries them together.

I believe that I can finish this project in another highly productive weekend.
I'm ready for plenty of feedback, for I'm sure there is plenty to fix.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Final Project Progress

Even before instructed to in class on Thursday, I was already working on a work schedule for finishing my final project. The process is taking me a little longer than I thought, but I should be caught up by Friday because that's when I want to start animating. Whatever the case is, I'm going to start some animation on Friday and just animate the entire weekend. Mac Lab 3 will become my home. I'm a little irritated because it's hard trying to find time to work on this final around working and studying for other classes. I was hoping to have all my assets done by this morning, but it's looking more like the end of the day. That's not too bad, but I really need to work on my BFA. Creating the assets are taking longer than I had thought. All I had do is keeping working hard during every minute of the day like I have and pray.
I'm planning to animate as much as I can from Friday the 19 through Tuesday the 23. I also need to pack Tuesday b/c early Wednesday, I'm heading home for Thanksgiving break. The break will be a good time to get other class work done so I can have more time to work on this project when I return to school.
I'm not going to worry. It is a lot, but I always get my work done.
I'll probably will need the Sunday I get beck to work on BFA stuff, but I should return to animating on Monday the 29 and I'm planning to be finished with the animation by Wednesday, December 1. Next, I'll start working on my class DVD. I really need that following weekend to work on other classes work.
The only time I wasn't working on assets yesterday was when I ate lunch, dinner, was in class and taking a shower.
I'm just gonna keep on trucking. I have the endurance to get this done.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Feedback

I really appreciate the feedback I received in class today.
I'm redoing the tree so that it resembles a crepe myrtle and I'm putting more contrast in the character outlines.
The tree needs less detail and the characters need a little bit more.
I need to focus on my points of focus and where the eye needs to be drawn.

Look and Feel



Here is an example of what my final project will look like.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

After Thoughts

So, I've been thinking on the first plot point of my narrative and what craziness I can get out of it when it comes to conveying the egret's growing aggressiveness when he becomes dependent on humans for food. So besides being feed bread, the egret will feed off human litter, snatch bread fed to other animals, steal from picnics and tail gating parties, take booze from hobos, and stealing french fries from little kids. I want him to become annoying and a nuisance and I want his actions to be comical. During these events, the weather gets colder, the egret gets older and very fat, and he becomes more and more alone.

3 Act Structure Revised

Act I (Setup)
Exposition: A mother egret is teacher her young how to fish in the canal. Three of her young are involved with the lesson and they successfully learn to fish by their mother's example. However, the fourth baby egret is uninterested with the lesson for he is distracted by what is happening up on the neutral ground. He sees the ducks being feed bread by humans and the egret rather get food from humans rather than fishing from the dirty canal.
Inciting Incident: The young egret decides to leave his family so he can join the ducks on the neutral ground.
Plot Point: Over time, the egret grows dependent on humans for food in any way he can possibly find, whether it is the children and elderly feeding him bread, stealing from picnics and hobos, and human left-overs that are littered onto the neutral ground or in the trash. This food flow does not last.

Act II (Confrontation)
Obstacles: The egret can no longer find humans to get food from for it is now the cold season. The only people he sees are driving by in cars. The egret has a hard time helping himself because he has become fat and lazy and all alone.
First Culmination: The egret sees a man in his car eating french fries and sees him as an opportunity for food. The egret has to walk over the the car because he is far too over weight to fly. The egret spooks the man as he jumps onto his opened window, but the man does not feed the egret for he wants to eat the bird itself! The egret fights and gets away beaten up and exhausted.
Midpoint: The egret has no choice but to return to the canal hoping to find help. The egret sees his brothers in the canal fishing and catching fish. Because he is ashamed of his poor condition, the egret does not want to confront his brothers so a goes behind their backs and steal their fish, but is caught in the act and he is rebuked. The egret then goes to a nutria for he sees him eating roots. The nutria gives the egret a root, but he cannot stomach it and spits it out disgustedly.
Plot Point: The egret is then all alone and helpless.

Act III (Resolution)
Climax/Denouement
: The egret has no choice but to try to get food for himself so he tries to catch fish. The egret struggles to catch fish, for he never learned how and his condition doesn't help his situation. Day becomes night until the egret is able to catch a tiny minnow. Right as the egret is tossing the fish into is beak, the egret is abruptly swallowed whole by an alligator.

Critique

There were many conflicts in my story that were pointed out today, and the feedback should make the story stronger.

I think I'm going to not have the nutria entice the egret because some thought that element was conflicting to the character. Instead of a time lapse of environmental change while the egret feeds off of bread, I'm gonna have him do more than feed off of bread, but have him receive food in other ways where he does not have to work for it. The egret will get so fat that he won't be able to fly. I need to show him becoming more aggressive with his lazy habits.
During critique, someone suggested that the egret needs a strong low point in the piece and I agree. I was thinking that while the fat man tries to eat the egret, the egret gets hurt. That's one idea. I think I should consider other ideas for this bird's all time low.
Now, I need to rethink the third act of the piece. I am taking consideration of the feedback I received today. I am thinking that once the egret is wounded and at a low point is where he finds his brothers for help. This is where I'm having trouble with the story since I'm no longer am going to have the egret be rebuked by his own brothers. Someone suggested that the egret becomes greedy and while his brothers are fishing and collecting fish, the egret doesn't help them catch fish, but he eats what they catch anyway and that's when he gets rebuked and he has no where else to go to for food.
I still want the egret to go to the nutria and be given a root for food but can't get himself to eat it. I still want him to be eaten by the gator, but it may be because he cannot fly away that he gets eaten. I really want the gator's eating of the egret to be a surprise factor though. I wanted the focus to be on the egret eating the fish that the gator is totally unexpected and the gator's consuming of the egret is in sync with the egret's consuming of the fish. I think I'm going to stick with the latter because I can show the egret's inability to fly in the second act.

3 Act Structure

Act I
Inciting Incident:
Baby egret is uninterested in learning how to fish and nutria shows him that the "grass is greener" up on the neutral ground.
Plot point: The egret leaves with the nutria to have the easy life up on the neutral ground.

Act II
Midpoint:
The egret grows so dependent on being feed by humans that he has no means to find food once the humans stop coming to feed the animals on the neutral ground.
The egret tries to get food from a human in the car, but the human tries to eat him.
The egret goes to the nutria for food, but all the nutria has to offer are roots to eat, and the egret can't stomach that.
Plot point: The egret goes to his siblings for food, but they rebuke him.

Act III
Climax:
The egret tries to find food for himself, but he struggles to fish because he is fat and unskilled. Once he does catchs small minnow, he himself is consumed by a gator.

Good Morning!!

I be feeling good! I feel like I'm ahead of the game. I finished my story board early and have already started working on my assets. I have all of my backgrounds sketched out. Next, I'm going to sketch out my characters assets. I've done a little bit of hand-drawn animation where I'm going to need it, but a lot of that really isn't needed because most of the character animation can be easily done through cutout in AE.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Story Board

This is the establishing shot, mother egret teaching her young, and uninterested egret.

Nutria shows egret the free food being given up on the neutral ground.
Egret sees the happy ducks eating on the neutral ground.
Egret looks at the dirty canal then leaves with the nutria to the neutral ground.
Time passes as the egret grows dependent on humans.
All the people have left and the egret's food flow stops. He sees a car in the U-turn.
The egret approaches the driver, hoping to get food. The driver is startled, but he tries to eat the egret!
The egret fights off the man and gets away.


The egret is exhausted. He looks towards the canal and sees his nutria friend eating roots.

He goes the the nutria hoping to get food or help towards free food, but the nutria only has roots. He gives a root to the egret but the egret doesn't like it and spits it out.

The egret is all alone and hungry, for he has to one to go to for food, or can he provide food for himself. He sees his siblings with plenty of fish. He goes to them hoping to get some.
The egret is rebuked by his own brothers and sent away to find food for himself. The egret struggles to catch a fish.
The egret finally catches a fish and as he is about to consume it, he himself is consumed.
The egret is eaten by the alligator.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Story Revised

So instead of the nutria being adopted by egrets and being the odd one of the bunch, I'm going to remain with a family of a single species and sticking with a family of egrets and there being an odd egret in the family. I want to keep the nutria character in the story because he is a compelling character so, I've decided that the nutria can be the character who entices the young egret to deviate from his family and his fishing lessens in the canal, to join the nutria and the ducks up on the neutral ground, where they fed free bread by humans.
This neutral ground haven of free food, seems to be the easier and better way to go for the egret, so he follows the nutria up to the neutral ground and that is where the egret begins his life-long dependency on human hands.
The egret is obviously out of place among the ducks and the nutrias. He is tall and stands out, for an egret usually doesn't rely off of people, but hunts on its own for food.
Time passes and the egret grows lazy and fat. The ducks and the nutrias return to the canal to live an eat for themselves, but the egret does not, because he doesn't know any other way.
The people are gone, for it is cold, and the egret has no way of getting food.
He goes to the nutria for help, but he cannot help the egret for he eats roots and grass.
So, he goes to his siblings who are now avid fishermen. He sees that they have a surplus of fish and he goes to them hoping they will give him some, but they rebuke him and the egret is left alone to defend for himself.
The egret cannot find any bread or people willing to give him food, for people just drive by in their cars not caring about this egret's well-being.
His last option is to fish for himself in the canal. The egret struggles to catch a fish because he is fat and unskilled. After much failure, the egret finally spears a minnow with his beak, and right in the act of consuming this catch, the egret becomes prey himself as he is swallowed by a gator.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Setting

The story will be set in a canal in the city.

Character Design

Here are some character designs for my final project.




Nutria and Egret



I know, the bird's legs need to be longer...



Tuesday, November 2, 2010

This Idea I have Brewing

Since my final project is based on Sloth, I look up the fable of The Grasshopper and the Ants. The narrative I am working on strongly follows the morality of that fable.
I want to focus on a nutria and a family of egrets. The egrets are hard working fishermen and the nutria is a lazy scavenger of stale bread thrown to the ducks by humans.
So, that's where I have started and then I moved onto what is going to be happening in this narrative. I asked myself: How will I introduce these characters? How do they become the way they are?
Here is the story that I came up with...
Perhaps the nutria becomes an orphan and a family of egrets adopts him. The mother egret teaches her babies and the nutria to fish in the canal, but the nutria does not pay attention to the fishing lesson because he is more interested in the free food being feed to the ducks up on the neutral ground. So, the nutria never learns to fish and he gets fat and lazy as he feeds off of stale bread. His egret siblings are successful fishermen and have an abundant supply of delicious fish. The nutria sees how the egrets are eating much better than he is and he wants a share of their food. The nutria goes to his siblings for food, but they rebuke him. So, the obese nutria goes into the canal to try to catch fish for himself but he does not know how. As he struggles to catch a fish, the nutria becomes prey himself and is eaten by an alligator.

Of course the story may be modified before my pitch, but this is what I have so far. I'm now also working on character designs, style, color palette, and environments so I can start making assets as soon as possible.
I'm not sure if the nutria getting eaten by the alligator is the best form of death to deliver my message, but starvation seems like it would be hard to strongly portray in animation, while expecting a strong reaction.
I also need to find a way to show a time lapse of the nutria becoming fatter and lazier over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAd0jOuQg8o

The ending to my piece is obviously not going to be a happy ending as in the Disney short of the Grasshopper and the Ants.

Here are some character sketches.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Effects Experiments/Final Project Ideas

The effects experiments are never ending. I've learned that there is so much layering that can be done with these effects. That's what I kept doing. I will play with some old footage I have with effects then go back to what I've made and then add some more effects right on top. I've been experimenting with key framing these effects and exploring their possibilities. In my experiment with my old stop motion project, I was fascinated by the abstract shapes the effects I used was making.
My first experiment probably consists the most layering and exploring of effects. My process began by going through each effect's options and playing with key frames.
I used footage for most of my experiments because I could benefit from already moving forms and images in the footage.

One of the ideas that I have for my final project relates to the project I did for midterm. I'm staying with my theme of destructive pleasure and now focusing on sloth. That is all I know at this very moment so far. I'm thinking about setting and what kind of characters to use. I'd like to set the story in a nola setting again. I've been thinking about all of the weird creatures and places back home. I'm thinking about nutrias and egrets that spend there days in canals and on the neutral grounds. People feed these animals on the neutral ground all of the time. I can perhaps focus on how these animals become dependent on the stale bread people come to feed them and they become unable to find food for themselves or defend themselves. In, consequence, they can get eaten by an alligator. The story could reflect the story of the grasshopper and the ant. The egret could be a hard worker then the be nutria lazy. For those who don't know, a nutria is practically a beaver with a rat tail and and egret is a white crane like bird. So, that's one idea I have brewing in my mind. I think there is more I can get out of this idea. I don't think the story is deep enough. I have to do a lot of time thinking about it. I honestly get some of my best ideas while taking a shower. I'm gonna have to take that old sketchbook out and jot down some random words and draw random pictures. I'm not worried. I'm always lead to something.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Ideas for Typographic Animation Project

When it comes to text, I have never been very interested in it. Though through years of art school, and through thinking of this project, I'm building an interest.
First, I'm gonna think about words. Concrete words. I am very interested in concrete words and in poetry. As an artist, I am interested in the aesthetics of different fonts.
So, I think I should explore different types of fonts, for there are so many and so little that I know.
I also am interested in New Orleans terms and phrases.
e.g., "Yeah, you rite!", "How's ya mom n'em?", "I'm making groceries."
Hand-written text is also interesting.

An idea I came up with:
What also is interesting is that a letter in itself could be its own character and maybe a whole word could be a family of letters, and maybe a sentence a community, a paragraph, a nation, an essay could be a continent, and a book could be an entire world. A library could be a universe.

Title sequences also have my interest when it comes to text.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/

For font:
http://www.dafont.com/

How can my text be a pattern or a texture?
I need to see these characters of text not only as letters, but as shapes and forms.

I kind of want to stay away from being too literal and relying on words. I want to focus more on texture and form.
Text can be used to create images:
http://www.mediacircus.co.nz/userfiles/image/jamesbrown.jpg
(except for the teeth)
http://cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/phpthumbnails/34351_1_230.jpeg
http://psdtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/275_GraphicDesignWeek/typography/Steven_Paul_Jobs_by_dylanroscover.jpg

Text as texture:
http://www.artext.co.uk/images/amazing%20typography%20ideas.jpg

I start to see shapes and forms with the repetition of a letter in different fonts, styles and sizes and colors!
Thumbnail sketch:

















Thursday, October 7, 2010

It feels good to be ahead!

Today, I will continue working on my AE project. I have my comps set up and I'm ready to make shit happen. woot! Hopefully I can knock out a lot of work on the project this weekend so that my last week before fall break is a little less stressful and more relaxing and so I can have time to work on homework for other classes. That's the plan and I plan to stick to it!!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Outline

Act I (setup)
The setting is introduced (restaurant).
In the kitchen, the hot sausage is introduced as he is plopped onto the grill.
The french bread is introduced as she is taken out of her sleeve, placed on the kitchen counter, and sliced in half.
These two pieces of food come to life and see each other and tension builds as they lust to be together.
Act II (confrontation)
The hot sausage tries to woo this french bread but has trouble to, for he has competition on the grill, other pieces of meat. Plus, he is being handled by the cook. He is seasoned and flipped all the while he is trying to impress the french bread and win her affection. Before he gets to be with his object of lust, the french bread is "undressed" of her lettuce and tomato, b/c the customer wanted his po'boy not dressed but only with mayo. So she is also slathered with mayo and this piece of sausage wants this bread more than ever!
He is almost replaced with hot sausage links but, the order is corrected even though the patty takes the situation into his own hands. He is then finally scooped up with the spatula and placed onto the french bread.
Act III (resolution)
So, the french bread and the hot sausage are finally united together. They are in complete bliss. They are then wrapped up in paper and brought out to the dining room, where a a very large and heavy customer awaits his meal. They together as a sandwich are unwrapped and then rapidly consumed by the glutton. Right as they meet their tragic ending, the one who consumes them meets his own ending. He collapses of a heart attack. All the characters die from self-destructive pleasure.

Character Breakdowns

French Bread
1. She thinks like a piece of bread. She does not know what her destiny is. She is anxious and will take the first thing she sees.
2. She wants the hot sausage. Really, she'd take any piece of meat but the hot sausage patty is the most appealing to her.
She wants the best, the quickest, most gratifying thing. She thinks she wants love, but that is not what she seeks.
3. She believes in her destiny to be united with a piece of meet and become a po'boy. She believes Mr. Hot Sausage is the one and only for her. She is blinded to everything else in her surroundings.
4. The truth is, she's only a piece of bread. She lacks self-control and will power. She is powerless.
5. She needs nothing in reality. She just wants and she gets what she wants.
6. She undertakes the preparation of becoming a sandwich. She is cut longways, slathered in mayo and joined together with a hot sausage patty. As a sandwich she is wrapped up and then served and eaten.
7. She thinks she does what she does because that is just what has to be done. What she does is expected of her.
8. She has a flaw of committing to the first thing she sees, but then again she is powerless of her destiny.

Hot Sausage
1.
He thinks that he is the hottest piece of meat on the grill and the french bread totally thinks he is.
2. He wants to be the winner, the one who gets to be with the french bread. She is the one and only and the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and he lusts for her. He thinks he wants happiness and love but that is not what he seeks.
3. He believes that he is the one piece of meat to win this piece of bread over. He believes that being with her will be the end all be all complete ultimate bliss and destiny in his life.
4. In truth, he is just a piece of meat that doesn't think wisely. He makes decisions based of off his emotions. He does not think things through.
5. As a piece of meet, he needs nothing. He just wants. He thinks he needs to be with the french bread, and indeed that is his destiny and what he will get.
6. He undertakes the hot surface of the grill, lustful thoughts, and uncontrolled actions. He is joined with his object of infatuation and then with her, he is consumed.
7. He does not know why he makes the choices he makes. He makes impulsive decisions. He knows in the back of his mind that he is meant to be with a piece of bread. He has no idea of a different path or any thought of a different life. He is trapped.
8. He too, is flawed, a slave to his emotions.

Customer
1. This rather large man thinks that he is hungry. He too, thinks and acts of off his emotions.
2. He wants food. He wants to eat. He wants to satisfy his hunger. He is a slave to his hunger.
3. He believes that food is the only thing that can fulfill many of his needs. He believes that eating can be a solution to anything. He loves to eat. He finds great satisfying pleasure in eating.
4. The truth is, he is a slave to his hunger. He relies and temporary delights to fulfill his needs and amend his feelings. Eating is the only thing he thinks can help himself, yet it only makes things worse.
5. He needs to seek help where help is not temporary. He needs God, prayer, trust, and faith. He needs to keep his desires in check, because food will not solve his problems.
6. He undertakes what could be the final meal of his life. He inhales his po'boy so fast that he suffers a heart attack as soon as the sandwich is consumed. He undergoes self-destruction because of immediate gratification.
7. He thinks he does what he does because he believes that he has no other way out. He believes that nothing else on earth can make him happy and ease his anxiety as food can.
8. This man is human, and flawed because he does not exercise self-control or the will power to change his life. He does not open his heart to change and does not attempt to amend his life. He is trapped in a vicious cycle of destructive pleasure, a pleasure that will destroy him in the end.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Genre

My concept of destructive pleasure is quite serious but this short movie will have a more comedic genre. There will be comedy established through the sexual references made by the lusting between the hot sausage and the french bread. The sudden heart attack of the consumer is a bit of a dark humor, but humorous because of its sudden happening. So, the humor is very dark, like in "Burn After Reading."

Story

Plot and Symbolism

The story starts outside of the restaurant to establish setting and then cuts to the kitchen where the characters are introduced. The french bread is first introduced as it is pulled out of its bag and it is placed on the counter to be cut and sliced open. The hot sausage is introduced as it is plopped onto the flat grill and he spots his lover from afar. As the sausage patty cooks and sizzles, he tries to impress this slice of bread over everything else cooking on the grill. He captures her affection as they gaze at each other from across the kitchen. The french bread begins to get dressed with lettuce and tomato until the cook is corrected that the po'boy is not dressed but with only mayo. So before the sausage's lusting eyes, the french bread is seductively undressed and slathered with mayo. The patty is scooped up by a spatula and then placed onto the french bread. They and their lustful bliss are then wrapped up in paper and served to a customer where they are then consumed tragically and rapidly, which causes the consumer to suffer a heart attack and fall over.
The symbolism lies in the whole consumption of the po'boy. Lust and gluttony is destructive pleasure.

An Idea I Believe in...

My theme is pleasure. The title of my story will probably be "Destructive Pleasure."
The story follows the preparation and the serving of a hot sausage po'boy in the kitchen of a restaurant. There will be a "steamy" affair between the hot sausage patty and the french bread. They lust over each other as they are prepared to come together as a sandwich. Once they finally are united, they are served to a hungry customer and then pleasurably devoured.
This story makes the point of how an relationship based purely on lust and actions made by emotions and immediate gratification can cause self-destruction.
I have the idea to deepen this idea and theme by having the consumer of the po'boy to collapse of a heart attack as he eats the sandwich which will strengthen the idea that gluttony is another destructive pleasure.
Self-destruction caused by pleasure seems like the best way to describe my concept.
I have this story set in New Orleans because this is the area where I am from and the sins of lust and gluttony are two issues I had struggled with over a certain period of time in my life.
As serious as this concept is, the story will be quite comical especially between the lusting going on between the french bread and the hot sausage.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Midterm Concept: New Focus

Since the beginning of the semester there has been many topics going through my head such as love, culture, character, family, life, renewal. In the last project, I got lost in a non conceptual, personal "lala" land. I'm getting the hell out of "lala" land. So I started to focus on my ideas and play with them as I play with words in order to write a poem and hopefully I will find my concept. You can't write a poem for explaining and making points and being up front. A poem is not a research paper but an art. It's all about using words to express an experience and emotions with a concept supporting it. My project shouldn't be up front personal scrapbook but a conceptual piece of art with an idea to support it. I want to treat this project the same way I treat a poem. I need to go to conceptual land! Back to the drawing board!

Screw renewal, I'm going to focus on character. I love the character. I love character animation. I am fascinated by the evoking of like, the greatest illusion, the art of creating feelings, ideas, thoughts, and emotions through a character as a musician creates music with instruments, a poet creates an experience with words, an actress creates an emotional character with her body. My characters are the instruments I play to express a certain experience in my art. I want them to be living and breathing. I want them to think, act, and react with their environment and with other characters.

I am going back to an idea that I have had at the beginning of the semester. I have come up with a love story between two characters. These two characters are inanimate objects in real life, but my idea is that the preparation of a hot sausage po'boy is a love story between the hot sausage patty and the french bread. The french bread and the hot sausage will fall in love with each other and they become happily united but only to be consumed together as a po'boy sandwich.

This 2D narrative will be constructed in AE with the use of photoshop to create an illustrated environment and possibly the use of Toonboom to bring my characters to life with some hand drawn animation. There is no dialogue in this piece as well.
This is an emotional piece so these food characters will have a face, eyeballs for sure.
This piece will not only reflect my focus on character, but on the love of my culture and my love of food. I guess overall, there is a focus on pleasure, the pleasures of being in love and eating.

So, maybe my whole focus isn't about food, love, culture, or character. Maybe it is about immediate gratification, pleasure.
Pleasure is a shared emotion, a common experience, my focus and concept to support this narrative.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Proposal

The topic I plan to focus on for the class is renewal. This year I was blessed with a fresh start in life and I want to express my appreciation for the things I have because those are the reasons I have changed for the better. While deciding upon a topic of focus for the class, I kept thinking about my culture, love, family, friends, and the talents I have. If I had continued living the sinful life style I had been living, I would just have been throwing all those wonderful blessings away. I am now focused, my priorities are getting straight, and I'm striving to make good decisions. So, as I explore the topic of renewal, I will be exploring the things that I am most thankful for in life.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Research Sources

http://www.jstor.org/pss/27680265?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfaith%2Brenewal%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Drenewal%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don

http://www.jstor.org/pss/286689?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfaith%2Brenewal%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff

http://www.jstor.org/pss/27660213?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26la%3D%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff%26gw%3Djtx%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Dfaith%2Brenewal%26sbq%3Dfaith%2Brenewal%26si%3D26%26jtxsi%3D26

http://www.jstor.org/pss/27679745?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26la%3D%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff%26gw%3Djtx%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Dfaith%2Brenewal%26sbq%3Dfaith%2Brenewal%26si%3D26%26jtxsi%3D26

Psalm 51

Proverbs 3:5-6

contrasting visuals