Metamorphosis Animation

In my Digital Media Class, we've currently been working on a video project called "Metamorphosis Animation". It's a project where we use animation types like stop motion, claymation, Stykz, white board, and digital animation to make an inanimate character come to life and change or morph into something else. We can also use "camera magic", where we trick the viewer into thinking something magical and outstanding is happening. For example, you can make some one look like they're flying by having the person jump, and the camera person takes a picture every time they jump, then you put all of the pictures together and it appears that the person is floating or flying. 

Our class was separated into groups, and together those groups had to come up with a story. In my group, we used two animation types, called white board and stop motion. Our story was called "Sass Promotes Happiness". It's about a girl, Sally Gold, who got stolen from, by an evil villain. The villain takes her bag and runs away with it... but then, A Superhero, named Sass sees all of this happening and goes into to save Sally! She gets her bag back and her and Sally become friends and the villain is terminated.  The metamorphism that took place in our story was when Superhero Sass promoted happiness in Sally Gold's life! 

Our animation started with a white board, where we used white board animation to write "Sass Promotes Happiness". Then the movie begins with Superhero Sass, lying down on the ground and her boots walk/slide up to her and get on her feet with out her doing anything, here we used "camera magic". Then, it shows Sass sliding down a hall way and minding her own business, again, camera magic. Next, it shows Sally Gold sitting under a tree reading a book and relaxing, when all of a sudden, an evil villain comes out of no where and secretly steals her bag. However, Sally Gold sees the villain and starts to chase it. Sally is running around, falling, and trying to get her bag back. Suddenly, Sass sees that Sally needs help and goes to the scene. When Sass gets there, Sass makes a magical, poisonous glitter in her hands and throws it on the villain, the villain lets go of the bag and falls to the ground, curling up into a little, dieing evil villain on the ground. Sass picks up the bag and gives it to Sally Gold. Sally hugs Sass and they become friends and start dancing. Finally, Sally and Sass walk off together and they become great friends, therefore, Sass promotes happiness in Sally and the world. 

Our video has a lot of flaws, like camera movement, not enough animation, or camera magic. This was because a lot of the time, people in my group were absent, making our video lack the full potential and quality it could have had. Over all, despite the troubles, this project was so fun to make!Below is the score we received from our class mates on our final animation project. 

Words of Wisdom

We were assigned to interview an older person that has advice or words of wisdom to share with the world. We decided to interview my grandmother, Annie. The story shows and explains how Annie struggled, dealt with, and overcame alcoholism. We used composition techniques such as the rule of thirds and leading lines. We also used sequencing with a set of three shots with wide, medium and close up. Sequencing shows the action of doing something with three shots. It is a very popular movie production technique and is in every major film. Our words of wisdom are important because it tells people how to always choose the right path in life and know that everything has consequences. This video shows how alcohol can take over someone's life and how dangerous it can be. It pushes people to try and never be in a bad situation because of alcohol. When making this video we could have filmed more b-roll of more important things. We also could have made the voiceovers more clear. Overall, I think we did a good job!

Below is the video we made. 

Five Tips For Maintaining A Clean Room

My team, Isabella, Jasmine, and I, made a "Five Tips" video. It was a video project where we give the viewer five tips for any topic. Our topic was maintaining a clean room. Our tips were, vacuum the floor, pick up any items on the floor, make your bed daily, put all  the clothes neatly in your closet, and get rid of unneeded things and clutter. We chose this topic because we believe that a lot of people have the problem of having a messy room. A lot of our friends have messy rooms and don't have any knowledge on how to clean it and make it look nice. What we could have done better is sequencing and using composition techniques. We also could have made the shot more clear and well focused. We also could have made our voiceovers more natural and clearer. Overall, I think our group did a pretty good job with the completion of this video. Above is the video that my team and I made. 

                                                       

Below is our storyboard for our video.

Practice Profile Story

In our digital media class, three team mates and I made a practice story video. The purpose of our practice story is to show and explain how a teenager, Isabella Kotsol became a tennis player. We show how and why she started playing tennis and how it has changed her life. We also explain how Isabella wants to take tennis all the way to her future. We chose Isabella playing tennis as our practice story because it seemed like an interesting topic that we could get a lot of information and good stories out of. We also chose Isabella because we feel like viewers would be more intrigued by sports and how they have changed someone's life, rather than just a student who doesn't have anything exciting about them. Isabella was a great person to interview! The video below is the final practice story that we made and edited in Final Cut Pro!

Profile Project Progress

In our Digital Media class, Isabella, Jasmine, Angelie, and I are making a documentary about "Words of Wisdom". We interviewed my grandmother, Annie Brown as she talked about being an alcoholic and how she became sober after many years of confusion. The interview takes place at her house, in Kapaa, in her backyard. Annie explains how alcohol had affected her life, and how going to AA meetings has helped her overcome alcoholism. Annie now lives alone with her chickens who lay her fresh eggs everyday, her dog, her cat, her two guinea pigs and her two birds. She is a wonderful and sober grandmother to me and all her other grandchildren. She enjoys going to the beach, spending time with her family, cooking and making art! The documentary explains her life after getting sober and all the benefits from it. Annie is living an alcohol-free life and loving it at the same time!

The technical parts about shooting our b-roll was making sure the camera doesn't move or shake while we are filming. We also had to make sure the shot was within the rule of thirds at all times and that we used composition techniques. In addition, we made sure that our lighting was always natural and great! We also had to keep the camera always in focus! When doing voiceovers you have to make sure that the speaker, which was me, was speaking clearly, loudly and naturally with out messing up. I wasn't allowed to stutter on my words or make any mistakes. Making this video was challenging yet very fun at the same time!

Our team worked together very good, however, my team could work together better by always staying on task! We can also switch jobs more often. It always seemed like one person would always have the same job, every time we filmed. The first time we imported our interview film, it was imported incorrectly and we lost all of the footage, so we had to film the interview again. We learned a lesson, now we know that we always have to check if our footage imported. Sometimes it was difficult because everyone had different ideas and plans for our video, so we had to work together to include everyone's ideas into the video. Overall, we believe that our group worked together very well, which made our video very successful. 

How our group will go from good to great is editing a lot and making our video perfect! We will work together and take turns editing and putting in our voice overs and b-roll. We will make sure our audio is stable through out the whole video and that there is absolutely no camera movement. We can also improve our video by watching and re-watching and re-watching it until we are for sure that there are no mistakes in our final video.

This is our critique from our rough-cut video!

Composition Techniques

Check out the videos that my digital media class mates made!

Their are a lot of different and unique Composition Techniques. However, the main four are named rule or thirds, framing, unusual angles and leading lines. 

Rule of thirds is placing the subject of attention in either the very left of the shot or the very right, never in the center. For example, when you look into the screen on your camera split it into two vertical lines going down, and two horizontal lines going across. Line up the subject of attention in one thirds of the screen to create an interesting perspective.

Framing is using natural things around you to frame and draw attention to the subject of your shot. It causes the viewers eyes to focus more on what is being framed. This is very important because it makes your shot a lot more interesting. 

Unusual angles is placing the camera in  an uncommon or unusual place. You could put the camera on the ground, looking up, or you could put the camera very high up and have it look down on the center of your shot. This technique creates an unusual and interesting angle to make the shot more special. 

Leading lines is another composition technique. It uses natural lines that lead to the center of your shot. For example, you could put the camera at the beginning of a dirt trail with trees and forest on both sides. The trail then leads the viewers eyes to the very end of the trail or the center of your shot, that could be a person or an object!

Three Shot Sequences

View our video me made in our digital media class!

Sequencing is a very useful thing when making any kind of video. Sequencing is using three different shot types, wide, medium and close up, to make an action a lot more interesting. It uses different camera angles and perspectives. We made and edited our video in Final Cut Pro. In the video that Jasmine, Isabella and I made (above) there is a girl who does the action of opening a door. Although this may seem like an easy, simple, one-shot thing to film, you can make it look ten times better by just sequencing! First you choose what you want to film. After that, you shoot the first part with a wide view! Like in the video above, the wide shot is of the girl walking towards the door. Then, the medium shot is from a different angle, a little closer. In the video the wide shot is of the girl opening the door. Finally, the last shot, the camera was placed inside the bathroom to show the girl coming into the bathroom with a close up view. I persuade everyone to try sequencing while making a video to make it look spectacular!

Wide Shot:

 Medium Shot:

 Close Up Shot: