#10

Hmm things that come easy in the animation process and things that don’t… Under estimating how much time something will actually take comes easy, or at least it has so far. I’m not sure why I always think, oh animating that will only take two days of hard work because that is a big lie! Now I have goals to get things done before the due date as a way to give me extra time on stuff. If I finish my project on Tuesday then I have two more days to make it better before my project is actually due on Thursday. Hopefully things will remain on track. Modern warefare 3 is having it’s first double xp weekend on xbox live so I must resist the urge to shoot people to take hundreds of photos.

                Another thing that comes easy in the animation process is coming up with ideas. Even if it’s a bad idea or an idea that I don’t like I usually come up with ideas pretty quickly. I feel like most of the time I have really good ideas too. People laugh when I present my ideas so that’s a good sign.

                A difficult part of the animation process so far has been the actual animating. These new programs seem insane. I spend so much time just trying to learn how to use the tools even with the helpful videos. Practice may make perfect with things, but with five classes all of the practice I can manage to get is when I’m actually working on these projects. This week has been really adventurous for me, making my first stop motion films. I keep thinking that no matter what I do my frames are going way to fast. Hopefully I won’t have to go back and shoot more photos later.

                Another difficult part of animation is credibility. I told my roommate that I would be busy for hours working on a project and he told me it was nothing compared to his two labs, so I was like well hey I work really hard and he told me, “Yeah well your classes are easy.” Where does that guy get off? He’s an electrical engineer, totally the joke of engineering. Animation makes me feel special and I don’t think that just any random person could pass this class.

Fuzz Progress

#8

Watching movies and then talking about them or framing through tem help me a a lot in this class. Seeing the mistakes in road runner and being told to notice how much little stuff moved in the short film work was very interesting. When we don’t talk about the movies or shows that we watch I sometimes get lost in their entertainment and don’t walk away with much. I sometimes feel that taking up the class period with watching the exercises is a waste of time. I’m not learning from watching the other students work. It’s fun though, I liked the loading bar of a sperm going towards an egg a lot, but I didn’t learn anything from it. I would maybe look at other peoples exercises if there was a link to them but probably not all of them

The advice we received early in the semester about not caring what other people think about our own work because it’s ours was good advice. Thinking that way has made me more confident in my ideas. Even though if no one laughed at my ideas I would probably feel a little sad. Presenting ideas to the class is pretty good. I wish that more students gave feedback though. I’m guilty of sitting their quietly myself but I think that feedback is some awesome stuff.

The kids who often make comments in class hinder me, whether they are funny ones or just weird. It makes me feel like I’m more in a relaxed happy environment instead of a learning one. I guess its good to feel relaxed but I think that feeling pushes me to text more than I should during lecture.

Dropping some exercises have helped me learn more not only in this class, but in all of my classes. The work load freaked me out; I couldn’t focus because I was spending so much time thinking about what to do for each exercise and how to do it. I was putting this class first which hurt my other classes. I’m really glad that there is a chance to redo assignments. Even though the exercises were helping me learn by doing them now I feel like I have more time to devote to better work. I couldn’t do exercise number 5, I did half of it but I was sick, I had a history test, and a sound design project  that week so I just didn’t have the time or energy to do it. I learned a lot about key framing for that exercise and I’m pretty excited about finishing it.

#8

Film one went horrible for me. Just because when I couldn’t get into mcmaster around one am I got really angry and just turned in what I had, a soundless movie with timing that needs to be worked on. After I couldn’t get in to mcmaster I went to the library to check and see if they had any of the programs I needed there but they don’t, the library sucks. When I got back to my place around 3 am I just uploaded what I had to vimeo and went to sleep. I now know that the labs in mcmaster close at 9, which is ridiculous! I thought that media arts students were sleepless creatures that worked late into the night on their projects. The doors/labs in that building need Carolina card swipers so students can get in there at all times. Geez.

For my next film I will start earlier on it, like ridiculously early, I might start tomorrow. I learned that with film one time was of the essence. I want to split film two up into a series of tiny projects to complete before it’s due instead of just taking the whole thing on at once and loosing, time, sleep, and red bulls over it. I started film one on the Saturday before it was due around noon and worked all day on it, but from Saturday to Tuesday wasn’t enough time. From that experience I learned that something will always go wrong, so I will need the appropriate amount time to fix those problems. I also have to get stuff done before nine pm if I want to do something in a mcmaster lab! I could possibly work in mcmaster or gambrel instead of from home too…hmmm…

Film one was received ok, people laughed at it which is good because my comedy got across, but people were confused because I didn’t smooth out the timing enough. I liked the criticism that was really good because now I know what to fix. Sure it was rough having my film critiqued first, but ABC determines the order of things in most class room settings so the last name “Barfield” usually screws me over. The criticism didn’t make me feel bad, but the fact that I gave up and had the movie that I didn’t like very much play bothered me a lot. Next time I’m not going to stop working on my film until it’s just the bees knees. I’m happy that I have some real animating experience now. I feel a lot better towards my next films now that I’ve actually done something.