with the previous storyline.

The finished project is about a woman who had firmly believed in everlasting love, and being betrayed by her lover after the marriage. She greatly suffers from her borken relationship, but utlimately decides to not let go of her hope, finding another love…That could be the real perpatual love…

Through this project, I wanted to portray the heaven and hell experienced by a vulnerable human being, who is so easily influenced by the relationship with the person one loves.

Also, I wanted to mention that eventhough people experinece hell in their relatioships, they eventually regain their hopes of finding a “real” heaven by finding another love.

I used some lyrics and sentences of my own for the background voice, talking about the woman’s thought and feeling about her belief in love.

For making this animation project, I used tablet and photoshop, and imovie at the end.

I used the image of Duke chapel, my rose cossage, ststue of an angel, flowers, a ring(found on website), and the shdow of a couple(Website found).  

For the transition, I either moved the image for each frame or draw in some transitional pictures for making the animation smooth.

It was composed total of 216 frames, and the length was 1min 50 secs.

 It took more than I expected, since I am not really good at utilizing computer.

However, I like the finished product and I learned a lot of helpful techniques that could be used for other art courses.

]]> http://www.dukevisualstudies.org/artsvis54/?feed=rss2&p=2930 3 http://www.dukevisualstudies.org/artsvis54/?p=2920 http://www.dukevisualstudies.org/artsvis54/?p=2920#comments Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:41:34 +0000 Rose Sheela http://www.dukevisualstudies.org/artsvis54/?p=2920 I completely forgot to update the blog with my final video!

The clip turned out well and I’m really glad I used the “radiohead” song as the soundtrack. Stopmotion was definitely a difficult process but I think the photoshop/digital photography method worked out very well. I would like to experiment with more stopmotion animation techniques, maybe claymation, or a diaporama of landscape photos. This project made me realize how interested I am in the relationship of music and video. Choosing the audio was the most exciting part of the project and I tried to time my slide transitions along with the musical beats. It was very interesting to see how people responded to the survey, some peoples’ “hells” were other peoples’ “heavens” I would have liked to take more pictures around campus but I did not have enough time to incorporate all of those photos into the video clip.

listen to the full song! It’s reallly good!

I’ve attached clips from the story board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puph1hejMQE

and a video of a Ukraine sand artist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOMgDbcA84A

From the beginning I knew I wanted to do a stop motion animation, but I wasn’t sure about what medium I was going to use. I knew I didn’t want to use clay, because while I think it looks great, I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied with the results of my efforts. I decided to do simple drawings and at first I was going to actually do the entire animation on a fridge using magnets and pieces of paper, but in the end I decided to just focus on the scraps of paper. I tossed around several different ideas for the theme and story and eventually decided to use Robert Frost’s Poem Fire and Ice as the focus for my animation.

To make my images for the animation I drew each frame on a square piece of paper that I had ripped by hand. I used a black sharpie and then a few colored pencils. When I had all of the pieces of paper ready I took a picture of every piece. I used a lamp in my room for good consistent light and put the pieces of paper on a black background.

Once I had all the images I uploaded them in Smith and added them to iMovie. I was worried that I would have a lot of trouble with actually making the movie, but I figure it all out after awhile and had the sequence and timing of all the images done pretty quick. I used an effect on the images which made the black background much darker and gave the pieces of paper a yellowish color and old look.

Getting the song I wanted and having it time with the video was definitely the hardest and most time consuming part of making the animation on the computer. I spent a lot of time working with one song and then switched in the end. I eventually found a program online to use to edit it the way I wanted and once I figured out the timing, I saved and added it to iMovie. After that I just exported it to Quicktime.

The finished animation is uploaded on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16XwvERy1I

My original storyboard was on a scrap of paper and in boxes about 1/2 inch big, so for my final I redid it on a piece of computer paper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGSUHKRL5uI

I’m in the Fred Burns Film Anim class, in which we did hand drawn animations and shot each frame with the Oxberry camera behind the BC.

Throughout the semester we worked on our final project, a one minute animation. And every once in a while we had to do an exercise to familiarize ourselves with animating techniques.

Here’s a video with my exercises! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS_8-aJdbVM

The actual class final projects will be screened at the Student Film Showcase this Friday (tomorrow!) at 5pm in White Lecture Hall. I’ll post my final project sometime this weekend on youtube.

Sadly, Fred is planning to retire soon, but he hasn’t made an official decision yet! So if he offers it next fall, you should definitely take it if you enjoy animation

Oh and Duke’s Oxberry camera has the LAST PLATEN IN THE WORLD! (platen=glass thingie). how exciting.

Production Still from "fiat lux(xx)"

For my movie, “fiat lux(xx),” I stuck with my claymation idea, and created a shoebox diaroma.  I found that a shoebox was too small, so I actually ended up using a wine crate.  I like how the clay fits within the childish aesthetic of the environment I created, and the shoebox (or wine crate) also lightens the mood of the movie — addressing my concern regarding the dark nature of the storyline.

Claymation proved a challening techinique for my first exploration into animation, so I ended up  scaling my plot down a bit.  I didn’t have a tripod, so I balanced my camera on books.  I now understand the main causes of the jerks in my video, so a second attempt would definitely come out much smoother.  I added the sound effects and music via Final Cut Pro.  The song I decided upon is Shinichi Osawa, “Ami Nu Ku Tuu.”

I posted my finished movie on YouTube for your viewing pleasure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGRws_t56ak

Week 2:

I’ve expanded upon my original idea of church arson, and created a (rough) storyboard.  I’m concerned that my narrative is far too dark, however, as I foresee my completed film having a lighthearted and playful mood.

The narrative opens with an establishing shot of a little bucolic church.  The camera pans around, and we see a priest, drinking from a eucharist.  Next frame is a close-up on his face, revealing a few tears tricking down the side of his face.  At this point, I plan on somehow indicating a flash-forward, and showing a highway where the rural church once stood.  To indicate that this is the same plot of land, I thought to use landmarks — a small church graveyard, and a little creek.

To bring the viewer back to real-time, I will return to a close-up of the priest’s face.  When I zoom out, the viewer will see a canister of gasoline at the priest’s feet.  He drops the eucharist, picks up the gasoline, and turns toward the church.  He slowly walks to the front of the church, and begins to pour gasoline on it.

Next frame is a close-up of the priest  lighting a match.  He throws it on the freshly-’gasolined’ church, which immediately ignites.  He opens the front door, and steps inside.  People from the congregation appear, a few at a time, and watch their church burn.

I went to Michael’s this morning before class and bought a variety of modeling clay (couldn’t resist the 24 pack), and I’ve been playing with the material to get a feel for it.  I first created a little figure out of brown clay and started molding him into different positions.  Erin suggested I start with a skeleton of wire, and then model over it to add some stability, so I squashed my first attempt and picked up some of the leftover wire from my soda can sculpture.

I decided to create the priest out of purple clay, because I think it contributes to a playful aesthetic.  I photographed him alongside some of the other colors I have to work with (!!!).

I also need to decide upon the background.  I’m considering a shoebox diorama because it would align nicely with the naivete of my modeling, but this might be pushing the childish aesthetic too far.

Week 1:

Grizzly Bear’s latest music video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puph1hejMQE) has inspired me to try my hand at claymation.  I love the way the modeling looks unfinished — almost to the point of childhood naivete.  And the way in which the colors blend!

As far as my story line, I’m intrigued by the idea of church arson; a “heavenly” place goes down in flames.

I was too far behind to catch up on time. But here are a couple of images from my animation: heaven, represented by a drug trip, and hell represented by complete isolation.

So I wonder this
As life billows smoke inside my head
This little game where nothing is sure, oh
Why would you play by the rules?
Who did, you did, you
Who did, you did, you

When was she killed
The very last dodo bird
And was she aware
She was the very last one

yes… i did lyrics.com that one, but either way i thought the concept of the last dodo bird tied in well with the quote i am writing some of in the sand during the stop motion film: the dodo’s life was but a series of details, and nothing significant, until she died and her species became extinct. this had far-reaching effects on the world surrounding the dodo, and also our world today (most of which we will never know). it also made me wonder about heaven and hell in relation to the dodo, since i am really looking for more abstract connections to this theme. i wonder what it would be like to be the last of a kind on the planet- heaven or hell? adam and eve were 2 of a kind and in heaven without the rest of mankind. i also wanted to imagine what heaven and hell are like (as we tend to do) if they exist, and i realized that something we all have in common as a race is that we will never be sure, which is another thing that dave’s song “dodo” talks about- the certainty of being unsure in this life. he speaks of life as “this little game where nothing is sure”, and i extend that to ascending or descending post game to heaven or hell.