Making My First Short Animation

Here is Something

It is my first short film that I made in animation class! So watch it and enjoy, then read this. It was a major project, pretty much most of our Quarter grade. So we took a few weeks to make it. The story was probably the easiest part for me to make, since I have experience with plot planning. In the image below, you can see the original concept. The introduction and credits had to be cut, however, because of deadlines.

And the storyboard:

Then I drew our epic anti-hero, Adrianna:

....in Photoshop:

Later, I decided to add expressions:

I didn't sketch the guards on paper first. I just drew them straight from Photoshop. "He looks like a mii." -Actual feedback I got.

Then I drew the backgrounds. There was supposed to be a lot more, as you can see in the storyboard, but *sigh* deadlines.

Then I drew our very sacred orb. I used a picture of an opal as reference. I used some Photoshop effects to make it glow. For the screenshot, I gave it a black backdrop so y'all can see.

But then *spoiler warning* dun Dun DUN...Adrianna is frightened by the bell and breaks it. The glow effect is deleted and I separate it to pieces.

For the final image, I made the title:

Yay! Now everything is done in Photoshop and I can import it into After Effects.

After this I found all the audio files. Here are the links to them:

https://incompetech.com/wordpress/2014/01/pippin-the-hunchback/

http://soundbible.com/2057-Footsteps-On-Cement.html

http://soundbible.com/1765-Glass-Break.html

http://soundbible.com/1496-Japanese-Temple-Bell-Small.html

Okay, now I can start animating. For each scene, I made a composition, and ended up having 12 scenes. As you can see, they are all lined up on the timeline. Inside each of those bars, I used what I knew to make the scene. Here is scene 6 (a.k.a. the one where her arms reach for the orb, but the bell rings):

I have the layers for both her arms, with keyframes for the movement.

I did this for every scene, in different ways. Scene 2 was a panorama, and Scene 4 was a walk cycle (Scene 3 was deleted). After every scene was made, I just lined them all up, added sound effects, and exported it.

Personally though, I feel that it was underdone, and I would like to fix it one day. Yet there is something we learned called appeal. Appeal is story based, and you can get away with bad drawing if your story is good enough. That is what I was aiming for, and I feel like I hit just that. So I guess I'm proud of my first short animation.

Huzzah! Ye Castle Made in Maya

Hear ye, hear ye! Gather thou citizens, and observe ye first structure in Maya! I'm such a nerd...
So here is our first true project in this new program. Before we made this castle, we had a little tutorial project to play around with it, and then we were tasked to make this monstrosity.

How Thou Art is Created

First, we started with the columns. We used the cylinder tool to make, well, a cylinder. Then we made another slightly wider, shorter cylinder for the top. We had some creative freedom, so I used the cone tool to make the spires at the top. Once we were finished with that, we merged it all together and duplicated it 3 times.

Then we made the walls. This part was very simple. First we aligned the columns evenly, so that every wall would be even. Then we used the rectangle tool to make one wall. After that, we duplicated it 3 times and aligned all the walls just right so that the castle is a square from the floor plan view. For creative freedom, I put the little top things on it.

And then we had to cut a door in one of the walls. This is the part I struggled with the most, so it's not perfect. I made a wider rectangle into the side of the wall, and then used a boolean to try to make it cut. Instead of cutting all the way through though, for some reason it cut half-way into the wall and caused some lighting error. I couldn't fix it.

Finally, we colored it. I right clicked everything and selected Blinn. Because of the lighting error, I could not give it a stone texture, and could only make it white, gray, or black. I decided to make is black, and called it shadow castle. Shadow Castle is an evil magical castle. Only when looking at the right angle, can one find the entrance. Hey, when you make a mistake, make it part of the act!

Update on ye 11th of November

I fixed my castle! I somehow made my whole castle disappear by attempting to zoom out, so I started over. Here is a screenshot:

Until then...

So long, ye citizens!

Feature Story Expirience

Look at this Pretty Video

The orchestra at ONW will be going to Carnegie Hall! Of course, this was huge news, and at the same time I had a project for a feature story.

What is a Feature Story?

A feature story is like an interview, which you saw with my ONW 1 in 2000 post. Only, it is a bit more in depth. I had to include a main interview (my good friend, Brenna), and an interview from another source (the orchestra director Mr. Martin). Aside from that, I included b-roll. The difference though, it that this b-roll has natural sound (usually called nat-sound). Yes, I did include Brenna plucking the Mystic Messenger theme. And instead of just two voiceovers, I had to include three (one for the beginning, middle, and end). They are played on the news all the time.

Brenna and Mr. Martin

I interviewed two people: Brenna Regan and Mr. Martin. They both play the violin. Brenna is a sophomore in concert orchestra, and had to audition for a spot to play in Carnegie Hall. The audition is because the stage can only hold 100 people, yet the orchestra has about 170 players. As you can tell, she is very excited. Not every orchestra can perform at Carnegie Hall!

Every 3 years, the orchestra goes on an out of state trip. They haven't gone to New York City yet, and Carnegie Hall had a few open spots for April. So Mr. Martin contacted a few companies, and because he is an great orchestra director, they are able to play there.

Shooting the Video

I had to go to Brenna's house over the weekend, but I didn't have a proper video camera and tripod. I don't know if you could tell, but I filmed this whole video on my phone. It was hard to hold it steady, so the video is a bit shaky. For the interview with Mr. Martin though, I had to get a pass to miss a little bit of 3rd hour. I could've probably gotten a good camera, but instead decided to keep the video consistent. I hope it doesn't bother you too much. As for the lighting, that was a little tricky for Brenna's interview. The room I had to film in was dark, even with the light on. So I had to open up the curtain. It was a bright day. We had just learned about three point lighting, so I tried to incorporate that, yet the only light I had was too intense, so I had to go with the flow.

This made it my most difficult filming session, but I hope it's at least okay. Yet, Mr. Martin's office had good lighting, so there is still that.

I like this video, what do you think?

Two years of video experience can really make a difference. I just recently rewatched Horse Girl Chase, and cringed a little. So I'm glad I am improving.

Edit: 11/10/16

We had to Make a Written Feature Story Too!

Check it out!

How does an average high school orchestra get the opportunity to perform at one of the world’s most renowned performing venues? Through devotion, practice, hard work, and even more practice. String instrument players pull their bows across their strings at anywhere from staccato to legato, causing rosin particles to fly into the air. They count the beats in their heads: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and, faster, slower, keeping up with the conductor’s baton flying in front of them. They occasionally glance down at the complex, classical sheet music, to make sure they are on the right measure. Arms tiring, sweat beading on their forehead, yet they refuse to stop playing until they are either cut off or make it to the end of the piece.

All of this happens in the orchestra room of Olathe Northwest, as they prepare for the big day in April: when they will travel to New York and play at Carnegie Hall. Since the orchestra is so large though, not everyone could play there. The stage can only hold 100 players, yet the orchestra, advanced and concert combined, has around 170 players. The 40 players in advanced orchestra were the only ones guaranteed to go. As for concert orchestra, though, they needed to audition. Their audition songs were excerpts from “Sentimental Sarabande” by Benjamin Britten and “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones.

Brenna Regan played these for her video audition, and to her surprise and elation, made the cut. “I screamed when I saw [the audition results] and I don’t usually scream,” she said. This goes to show how thrilled she was to be playing at Carnegie Hall.

When asked about what she would do to prepare for the big day: she replied, “Probably practicing more. I have not been good about practicing.” Now that she has something to practice for, she will be on her violin all day.

And let’s not forget about the orchestra director, Mr. Martin, who has lead this group to many medals and trophies. He answered the question, how does an orchestra make it to Carnegie Hall? “There was an audition process. I talked to a couple of different travel agencies about the possibilities, and one of them had a festival,” he replied. So he sent in a video of the advanced orchestra from a previous concert, and got the incredible reply saying that the orchestra was accepted.

Mr. Martin also has hopes that the orchestra will not only give an amazing performance, but also learn about the greatness of the situation. “I hope students just get a sense of how awesome of an experience, what a unique opportunity this is to be able to perform at Carnegie Hall,” he stated.

The performance isn’t until April, but already, there is a strong sense of fear, excitement, and most importantly, hope in the orchestra room.

ONW 1 in 2000 Interview

The second video of the year! Isn't this exciting? It's only September and I'm already getting a lot done. Well, this is probably more exciting to me than it is to all of you, but I'm still happy about it.

I interviewed Lizzie, and then she interviewed me. That's the concept to it. It's basic, but it was still a lot of fun. She had a concept of how it would go in her mind. She showed me a video similar to this one, made by the YouTube stars Phil and Dan (I don't really know them). The concept is a semi-casual interview, one that will stay on topic, yet not bore the audience.

However, it was our technological-unlucky days. We couldn't get a tripod (huge class), and had to figure out the more advanced cameras. In fact, the first day, we had entirely no audio recorded. Because of that, we had to crunch all of our filming into one day. However, we still had to act happy, because that was what our idea called for.

It was still fun though, especially once we got to editing. But I won't jump the gun. Let me tell you the shooting process. We didn't really storyboard this, so we pretty much went around the school and we filmed us having fun walking around. Then my interviewing time came. The first place I chose had bad lighting, and we couldn't figure out how to white balance the camera, so I had to choose the same place she interviewed me. It's a very beautiful hallway filled with windows, so there was absolutely no lighting problem. By the way, I didn't realize my reflection was in the glass until editing. The only problem with that hall though is that people frequented it, even during class. So it isn't quiet. Bear with us, this is a giant high school.

Then the editing came in. I'm getting used to Adobe Premiere. I figured out how to create a title and control the volume of the audio, while not fading it out completely.

And my teacher just came by and complimented the creativity, after showing it to the class. So I guess it was good then. *proud face*

I'm Back!

I'm back! See that video? I made it with my friend Lizzie. This was the first video of my 10th grade year. We've been in school for a few weeks now, and we learned some basics with Adobe Premiere. We won't be using Final Cut Pro anymore. From here on it's all Adobe.

Let me summarize the video.

First there is an angry girl. She left her planner at home, but still has to leave class. So she steals her neighbor's planner. This is shown as a fast hand shot.

So she gets up and stomps over to the teacher (A medium shot). The teacher looks up at her, and she rudely slams the planner onto the teacher's desk. A giant red "X" says "Don't do this!" We all know that she definitely was not allowed to leave class.



Then we have a polite girl. We used a wide shot to show her getting her planner out, then a hand shot to show her filling it out. She takes her planner to the teacher, and the teacher happily signs it.

This one is allowed to leave class to go to the bathroom, nurse, etc. An extra wide of her heading towards the door shows that. A green check mark says "Do this instead."

So guys, always be polite to teachers and classmates. After we were done filming and editing, we received feedback from our peers. They said this video was cleanly shot, even though my head was cut off in a couple of shots. Our teacher also said that we may have to choose someone else to play the teacher, because it can confuse the audience.

What do you think of the video?