Comments on "Gray Matter"

Ultimately, I had fun with this project. It was frustrating, tedious, challenging and many other annoying things, but for some reason I was very much invested in making this work as well as I could, given my skills and the timeframe. This certainly doesn't mean it's anywhere near perfect or that there are things I wouldn't do over (or may do over in the future) but I am satisfied with the final results, which is more than I can say for some of the other final projects I've completed over the years.

I think I stuck fairly true to my original intent, which was to create something that was simple and emotional and light. The final project was perhaps less "grand" in scope than my original intent (I wanted to have the two characters go through an entire day, rather than have it transform from afternoon into night immediately as it did in the final project) but this also stemmed from my underestimation of the sheer amount of time it would take just to get a few seconds out. It definitely makes me appreciate frame-by-frame animation a lot more!

It also challenged me in the sense of sound. In many of my previous projects I either utilized sounds that came from the environment or pre-made themes (such as the "Mission Impossible Theme" used in "Freedom"). For this one, because I wanted to do something a bit different, I decided to just create a simple tune on the piano that would hopefully add to the sweet aura I was going for. The song was created entirely through GarageBand, on TCNJ's provided keyboards. I think the final tune is decent and fits well thematically, although my meager piano skills could use a bit of work.

Because I do love to draw, the actual animation of the sequences was a great learning experience, though it did take a big chunk of time. Certain parts of the movie are better quality than others though, and it's probably easy to tell at which points I was becoming tired. All the same, I do feel somewhat accomplished for finishing it in the first place. Interestingly enough, I also feel as if this is a project I could still work on and hopefully improve in the future, as I do think it deserves fuller, more patient treatment as well.

Final Project: "Gray Matter"

Comments on "Freedom"

Of all the projects we had this semester, this one proved to be the most challenging. Being completely new to After Effects, it was perhaps a bit ambitious to have an animation project come out in the exact way I imagined it, but I would like to think that I got a crash course in the basics of the program.

My idea was to have an art piece come to life on the page and attempt to escape the confines of its paper. Initially, I wanted to have it take place on a desk but the lighting and the need for consistency made it a bit too difficult. Instead I decided to have it take pace on the face of the refrigerator which I actually thought was an improvement from the first. In regards to the actual animation, I was disappointed with some of the motions and the pacing, as things were a little too slow for my taste (going back into After Effects and changing individual things was a bit too much for my timeframe). The first few seconds turned out well though, I thought, at least the scene where she's still moving in the paper.

Overall, I think there's a lot of room for improvement in regards to some of the animation aspects and though I'm not entirely dissatisfied with it, I think that this can be seen as more of a basic outline of what should be a bigger project.

After Effects Project: Freedom