Thursday, December 30, 2010

Anima*tion Imagination



As some of you may already know, I took my very first *Animation* class this semester. It was entirely hand-drawn, extremely time-consuming and just SO MUCH FUN! :) Above is a lil' video I put together of a bunch of my first exercises and camera tests, and at the bottom of this post is a link to the final 1-minute film I created. Every frame is an individual drawing or layering of drawings. To bring it to life, we shot our drawings frame-by-frame with an Oxberry 16mm camera at 24 frames per second. Our final film was supposed to be 1 minute in length, roughly 12 drawings per second, not including backgrounds and other layers. Like I said, very time consuming, but ultimately very rewarding!

When I was animating the final piece, I had a rough idea of what I wanted the story to be and what kind of things would *come to life* but I discovered that as I animated, wonderful new ideas would pop into my head and I'd end up drawing something that I never had imagined. I told this to my professor, Mr. Fred Burns, which is when he told me that he believes animation is a lot like dreaming. The very act of animating activates a certain part of your imagination that usual lies dormant . . . like dreaming during a deep sleep . . . . I suppose that's how it is with most acts of creation, but this reminder was a beautiful thought.

It's funny because I never thought I'd get into film-making and moving images, but here I am! Who knows where this will take me... ?

Me & the Oxberry~*
November 11, 2010: My date with the Oxberry to shoot my final film took exactly 6 hours .. whew! *

night & day // day & night
Cleaned-up scan of my animation slate that appears at the beginning of every exercise. Real-life version + Inverted version ;)


Watch the final film embedded below or watch it fullscreen here:
http://vimeo.com/18097165










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Thursday, December 9, 2010

~*~

This is a piece of artwork that absolutely must be shared. I can't describe the way I feel right now, beyond the fact that I feel as though it touched a place deep down inside my very being and took my breath away. Beauty sinking into my eyes, and nothing in this moment would make me happier than to share it with your eyes! (*Hello, beautiful people out there!*) Watch full*screen to let it really sink in.

I am beyond inspired.
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*Thank you for sharing, Ezra!*