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Assignment #3: Si Se Puede

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Reading Reflection #8

Chapter 3 of “The Animation Bible” discusses pre production for animations, specifically how drastically pre production processes can transform the flow and overall outcome of a project.  When collaborating with directors, producers, and other creators, those working on the project must make important decisions regarding the goal of the story, and even things like how the project’s components will be handled after the animation is complete.  

When creating a pitch for an animation, it is also crucial to understand the company that you want to invest in your idea.  Presenters should know how to start a dialogue with an investor and highlight the strengths of a project. Understanding not only how to quickly and effectively communicate the goal of an animation, while also making it seem appealing, is a difficult balance, but is the major goal when pitching an idea.

Chapter 3 finishes by going into further detail about specific aspects of pre production, including planning pacing, sound design, scripting, storyboarding and animatics, and budgeting.  These all may feel like pieces that won’t come up until later in the production process, but thinking about them early on will save time, money, and most importantly, make an animation better.

Chapter 20 of “Design for Motion” covers character design, which involves research on mannerisms and behavior, on top of the artistic process of creating characters.  Shaw recommends doing loose sketches of characters to practice conveying emotions and physical attributes in the most accurate way possible. From there, an animator should move onto creating action poses and designing gestures.  These are crucial to the plot line because they contribute to the audience’s perception of a given character, along with the other characters, as well as the mood and tone of the entire story.

Chapter 5 of “Animation” covers the production process of animation, using mediums such as paper and clay.  Selby also discusses the use of set design and lighting during production, as well as sound production in relation to 3D animation.  He uses animations that are based off of interviews or specific sound bites as an example of this.

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Reading Reflection #7

Chapter one of Understanding Comics begins by referencing Will Eisner’s definition of comics as “sequential art.”  This definition helps us understand the purpose and flow of comic book art.  McCloud builds on this definition by pointing out that comics are different that animation because they occupy a different space, meaning each frame is a different size on the piece of paper, whereas a traditional animation has each each frame taking up the same size frame on the screen.  McCloud concludes by defining comics as “juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence.”  McCloud continues by discussing the history of comics, referring to French Bayeux tapestries and the work of William Hogarth as early forms of comics.  

In Chapter 2 McCloud defines “icon” to refer to anything the resembles a person, place, thing, or idea.  Icons can be straightforward iterations of something, or an abstracted interpretation.  As an image is simplified more and more by a comic artist, it moves farther from its realistic form, but good comic artists can simplify them in a way that allows viewers to recognize them.  He also discusses how the simplification makes comics more accessible and applicable.  More readers are able to identify with the characters when they look less like a specific person.  This also ties in with the power of animation to reach wider audiences because the characters can look non-human while still conveying emotion.  McCloud argues that simplified comics allow us to see ourselves in them, since it is human nature to be selfish in a way, and identify with a character.

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Reading Response #6

Chapter 8 of Austin Shaw’s “Design for Motion” begins by covering the importance of mood boards.  They are especially important for motion design because they are particularly effective in communicating the desired aesthetic of an animation efficiently.  However, it is also important for artists not to simply copy the style of another designer.  When making a mood board, Shaw emphasizes the importance of grouping images for inspiration based on things like color or texture.

The chapter also includes an interview with Alan Williams, an art director for Imaginary Forces in New York.  One of his tips for holding onto inspiration is to immediately take a picture or write about any inspiration one comes across, because we don’t remember things that inspire is every time even if we think we will.

In chapter 17 of, shaw discusses type-driven design boards and the role of kinetic typography in animation.  He covers the difference between serif and sans serif fonts, and emphasizes the importance of the baseline in typographic design.  He claims that the main role of typography in design is to “maximize certainty,” meaning art that has good typography isn’t usually the first thing a viewer notices, but poor type is easy to spot and can ruin an entire piece.  When designing typography for an animation, one must consider what is taking place on screen, and use fonts accordingly to match that mood.  Good designers also give typography a lot of thought, rather than just adding it in at the end.  When typography is used effectively, it’s an integral part of a project.  

Chapter 10 of Maureen Furniss’ “The Animation Bible” details a variety of techniques used by stop motion artists, such as clay painting, pinscreen animation, and paper cutouts.  She talks about the use of paper cutouts in Fast Film, which used over $12,000 worth of toner to print all the images needed for the film, much of which was made using folded pieces of paper.  She also discusses the concept behind brickfilm, where artists use children’s toys, like Legos, to create their animations.  They’re convenient because they’re meant to stay together, so they don’t easily fall apart during production, and they can be used over and over.  

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Reading Reflection #5

Chapter 10 of Austin Shaw’s “Design for Motion” covers a series of fundamental techniques in cinematography such as wide shots, close ups, and hero shots.  He also emphasizes the importance of taking on a directorial role when working on animation projects.  The mise en scene, cinematography, and character design should all be overseen by the director.  He discusses the importance of using thumbnail sketches in order to quickly articulate the composition of a shot.  He also covers the difference between a design board and a storyboard.  Storyboards are meant to display the ins and outs of a story, whereas design boards are intended to get across the visual style of a project.  

In Chapter seven, Shaw goes into detail about the creative process of an animation in relation to societal expectations.  He believes that it is important to be politically correct and polite, but then continues by expressing the importance of allowing for freedom and curiosity when working on animations and creative projects.  He recommends free writing and making “mind maps” to aid in brainstorming for animations or design boards.  The overarching idea of the chapter is to allow for stream of consciousness thought.  

In Chapter two of “The Animation Bible,”  Maureen Furniss discusses the storytelling process of a animation.  She emphasizes the importance of worldliness as an animator, and believes that good animators are well read, have experienced life in various contexts, and and understand cultural communication.  Good animators cannot rely on the words of a character if they hope to reach audiences who do not speak the language used in an animation.  Furniss recommends starting with a genre and working from there, even if an idea involves overlapping genres.  She also covers different narrative designs for animations, including linear, multilinear, interactive, episodic, and cyclical.  Animators must also consider the relationship between characters, including their personality types, physical characteristics, as well as more overarching features that may apply to the overall theme.  Furniss also details aspects of storytelling such as color schemes, sound design, cinematography, and editing, all of which are incredibly important in creating a cohesive theme, and making the narrative come across as clearly and creatively as possible.

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Reading Reflection #4

Chapter 18 of Austin Shaw’s “Design for Motion” details the significance of textures and materials in animations.  He discusses methods for both choosing materials to be used in an animation, as well as methods that can be used to incorporate them digitally.  He discusses flat materials such as felt or paper, along with materials typically used for 3D animation such as clay or even found objects.  The last few pages of the chapter is the transcript of an interview with Lucas Zanotto, an animator with a background in architecture, product design, and photography.  He discusses everything from his low-budget tabletop productions, to the interactive designs he makes for children's apps.

Chapter 13 covers Compositing and how it functions in professional animations.  Compositing is essentially combining multiple elements that will be used in a project in order to bring a sense of harmony between them, making them feel like they’re part of a cohesive unit.  Concrete compositing typically follows rigid guidelines to make the composited elements look realistic together.  Abstract compositing, on the other hand, combines visual elements in a way that is stylistically consistent, but does not need to convince viewers of reality.  Shaw continues the chapter by discussing  a number of technical elements for compositing, including basic transformation of scale, position, opacity, and rotation, as well as elements like mattes and feather.  He also breaks down the steps of compositing, beginning with analyzing technical aspects of a project’s assets (lighting, texture, shadow), next creating rough drafts of the composites, and finally creating a process book in order to showcase artistic method.

Chapter three of Francis Glebas’ book covers the process of creating a storyboard.  Artists and directors first create a beat board, with one drawing per scene. Then after the storyboard is compiled, temporary voices and music are added to an animated version of the storyboard to create a design reel, which will help production companies and investors envision how the real animation would look.  Glebas also breaks down how to properly choose what plot points should be included in a storyboard, emphasizing that each storyboard frame should somehow be related to the overall theme.  He also emphasized the importance of staging action to make the plot points clear and dramatic in order to communicate the story most effectively.

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Assignment #1

“Rotten Tomatoes”