YEAR 1, WEEK 1 - Lost Words - 01.11.2020
APPROACH:
I was a bit at a loss as to what to do for a time-based project. as most of my work exists in a still space, timing is one of the few things I've struggled with when making media. one of the strengths of comics and writing is that the pace is up to the viewer. with that little bit of self-doubt out of the way on to the actual work. When Maria introduced our first assignment based around the concept of the "lost words" I've looked into several methods I've been interested in from the start of my Grad school career and among them, the Paralaxing effect and puppet warping in after effects are something I wanted to play with.
CHOICES:
The need to narrow a schism between young people and nature seems like a worthwhile endeavor, but I'm of the mind that a dictionary is not what is needed to inform people of the world around them, I still saw the value in this project as it fills that role. I started sketching my lost word "heron," however I'm a little sad I didn't pick magpie. Looking into what methods I want to explore, I looked into the making work with Clip Studio paint, It's hailed as a good middle ground between photoshop and cheaper less cumbersome raster programs. I plan on using that to make the assets and playing around with them in after effects.
Beginning animatics
A bit of clean up and blocking
RELEVANT SOURCES:
The basis of these issues stems from Websters removing the definition from print runs of their books in favor of newer words like voice-mail. with that said It seemed like a good idea to look into the word definition from the source material.
"Definition of heron
: any of various long-necked and long-legged wading birds (family Ardeidae) with a long tapering bill, large wings, and soft plumage"
I've also looked into some reference material about the animals as a whole, and luckily I was able to look into animal.net's The National Wildlife Federation's site on information about myths in relation to it and on facts pertaining to it. from that I was able to surmise that Heron is no cranes, but they are egrets, and bitterns and people associate them with fishing and elegance. something about their amazing wispy plumage and their ability to pluck fish out of the water in quick succession just lends to that correlation.
CURRENT QUESTIONS AND THE WEEK AHEAD:
There's a huge learning curve in understanding how to do any of these things. I've had to look into Lynda tutorials, as well as several youtube tutorials on how to do one tiny thing hidden in a subfolder. last weeks scope of work was good enough to create a level of information that I felt comfortable with moving forward. and with that, I'd like to focus my attention on the work ahead.
The things I need to do for next ween is actually got the keyframes done for the heron, as well as getting my audio files down and edited. my current idea is an original haiku accompanied by stock nature noises.
"Blotting out the sun Elegant trickster waits feeds upon the fools"