Starting a new project this quarter. We're doing a stop motion themed project this quarter. And we shall be in groups. Gulp. Scary thought there.
Oh sorry people who have looked at this post for like ever. I changed the format of this post. It was super weird and didn't look normal but now it does. The formating was all screwed up so I fixed it and I basically changed the look of the entire post. Hopefully it is easier to read and you will be able to find what you are looking for easier.
My idea: a younger high school student is trying decide what strand of e-Comm to go into(convergence journalism, entertainment , broadcast, animation, web, or graphic design). While they liked some strands they couldn't commit. He liked the people and all but they couldn't commit. They thought, hey maybe I should do A&E(aerospace and engineering) instead. Might be a better fit. But it wasn't. They realized that e-Comm was where they belonged and the one strand was where the belonged. They had a passion for the work and the people in that strand helped them accomplish great things and they couldn't run from it. The song being played for this idea would be Runaway by Cascada.
Now this idea of mine got a round of applause. I know, very beautiful. But nobody had a similar idea. So I would be in a random group probably with mixed ideas(or so I thought). But the group I'm in, well, let's just say that things shall be interesting.
People in my group are Andrew Stover, Logan Keck, Jake Williamson, and Alex Schmidt. They are 4 seniors that are friends or so it seems(they all sit next to each other during class & talk to each other often enough) and it really wasn't a surprise that they're all in a group together. But to make the group a bit fairer compared to all the others, they need a junior and a girl. I fit both those descriptions so I got put into that group. They tell me that they're insane. And if that's the first thing you hear from your new group, there are a few reactions you can have. 1) be really excited because that describes you perfectly. 2) embrace it because you're friends are insane too so you should be to handle it. 3) fear for your sanity. 4) run & hide because you honestly fear for your life. Now 3 describes me very well. 2 somewhat describes me as my friends are kinda insane so I probably can handle these 4 seniors. But I sure ain't ready to embrace it. I may by Christmas, but now, HECK NO!(Part one of Blog. Written October 26th 2014)
Comes now is the challenge of story boarding. 5 different ideas. Yie. We had 5 Nights at Freddy's, Paper Mages, Chair War, Sports War, & my idea.We spent Thursday looking for places to film a 5 Nights at Freddy's themed thing. But that night when researching 5 Nights at Freddy's, I was like 'kill me before I do this! I will not be able to sleep between now and Christmas! And then I might have to hurt you because I will be a grumpy horrible person from lack of sleep and it's all your fault!' Then Friday came along and people had a beautiful combo of Paper Mages and Chair Wars and it was wonderful! Logan had a great idea of which we are sticking with. So we have a storyboard drawn out. Kind of. We somewhat have an ending.
Now costumes. Logan is one Mage. He'll be in a chicken hat with a bathing suit, tie, socks, and sandels with a stick. Andrew will be in Robe, wizard hat with a typical wand(which is kinda elaborate). Then I will be in rags for a new character introduced at the climax.
To do our final animation we need to time everything out and decide on camera angles. We'll do a rough edit. We won't use stop motion until we do it for real.
Ha ha! Final story! A week after I started writing this post. This story starts on a stage. Upon that stage are 2 magicians. One is your typical Gandolf/Dumbledore type of wizard while the other is quite out there as he's in a chicken hat. Despite their differences they are friends. They start off making simple objects but then they feel like they have to out do the other. The suspense escalates as the objects get bigger and better until this turns into all out war. They summon a stool army and start charging until a poor homeless girl walks right in the middle of them. They both stop losing all anger they had before and decide they best way to help her would be by making her gold bars. Then want to outdo each other by seeing who can make the most gold bars. The few bars she normally would have gotten turn into a giant stack that is nearly impossible to see the top of. She is surprised that they make her such a huge stack of gold bars but then she sees the traditional wizard disappear leaving only his hat. The chicken wizard disappears also leaving only his wand. The girl picks up the hat and puts it on. She then goes over to the wand and picks it up. It changes to become her own. Then the wand starts to glow. She raises it and the screen goes white. Roll the credits. Looking over the shoulders of both wizards you look down from the pile of gold to watch the girl. The normal wizard starts freaking out as the white light starts coming closer while chicken wizard finds it totally normal. The End of Part 1! (Part 2 of Blog. Written October 30th 2014)
Somehow in the mess of filming our project, we lost our story board. We put it with our costumes. But by the time we actually needed the story board for our blogs, someone else took them or something happened to them. So we had to redraw the entire story board. Lucky us.
This group awesome has been filming the storyboard. We didn't do it in full out costume or anything. We only did it to figure out camera angles and to time everything out. That was an adventure. My group discussed many different angle for the different actions that we'd be doing in the video. That was nice. Then we filmed it all and put it together. Here is our rough edit. (Part 3 of Blog. Written November 4th 2014)
Oh sorry people who have looked at this post for like ever. I changed the format of this post. It was super weird and didn't look normal but now it does. The formating was all screwed up so I fixed it and I basically changed the look of the entire post. Hopefully it is easier to read and you will be able to find what you are looking for easier.
Getting groups
To organize these groups my teacher had us pitch ideas. Then based on our similar ideas he would put us into groups. These groups would have a few other requirements such as mixed genders & mixed grades(grade levels).My idea: a younger high school student is trying decide what strand of e-Comm to go into(convergence journalism, entertainment , broadcast, animation, web, or graphic design). While they liked some strands they couldn't commit. He liked the people and all but they couldn't commit. They thought, hey maybe I should do A&E(aerospace and engineering) instead. Might be a better fit. But it wasn't. They realized that e-Comm was where they belonged and the one strand was where the belonged. They had a passion for the work and the people in that strand helped them accomplish great things and they couldn't run from it. The song being played for this idea would be Runaway by Cascada.
Now this idea of mine got a round of applause. I know, very beautiful. But nobody had a similar idea. So I would be in a random group probably with mixed ideas(or so I thought). But the group I'm in, well, let's just say that things shall be interesting.
People in my group are Andrew Stover, Logan Keck, Jake Williamson, and Alex Schmidt. They are 4 seniors that are friends or so it seems(they all sit next to each other during class & talk to each other often enough) and it really wasn't a surprise that they're all in a group together. But to make the group a bit fairer compared to all the others, they need a junior and a girl. I fit both those descriptions so I got put into that group. They tell me that they're insane. And if that's the first thing you hear from your new group, there are a few reactions you can have. 1) be really excited because that describes you perfectly. 2) embrace it because you're friends are insane too so you should be to handle it. 3) fear for your sanity. 4) run & hide because you honestly fear for your life. Now 3 describes me very well. 2 somewhat describes me as my friends are kinda insane so I probably can handle these 4 seniors. But I sure ain't ready to embrace it. I may by Christmas, but now, HECK NO!(Part one of Blog. Written October 26th 2014)
Group Story
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| Part 1 of our story board |
Now costumes. Logan is one Mage. He'll be in a chicken hat with a bathing suit, tie, socks, and sandels with a stick. Andrew will be in Robe, wizard hat with a typical wand(which is kinda elaborate). Then I will be in rags for a new character introduced at the climax.
To do our final animation we need to time everything out and decide on camera angles. We'll do a rough edit. We won't use stop motion until we do it for real.
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| Page 2 of story board |
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| Page 3 of story board |
This group awesome has been filming the storyboard. We didn't do it in full out costume or anything. We only did it to figure out camera angles and to time everything out. That was an adventure. My group discussed many different angle for the different actions that we'd be doing in the video. That was nice. Then we filmed it all and put it together. Here is our rough edit. (Part 3 of Blog. Written November 4th 2014)
Acting Out the Storyboard
When sharing the idea with the class we figured out that our ending sucked. As an audience seeing the video for the first time it made no sense. So we need to smooth it over. We'll plan that out and all other major issues on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are when we can't use the green screen down in broadcast. So we'll use Tuesdays to our planning advantage. We'll probably do some major editing then too. It'll help with taking out the green screen and knowing what we need to re-film. We have tons of post production work so it'll be nice to figure out what filming errors we have while making the video. (Part 4 of Blog. Written November 4th 2014)
Filming wise, we basically have the ending done. We've started editing that. Because it's green screen work Jake is doing it. Andrew and I will be doing the later editing in After Effects. I'll be doing a ton of special effects as I've had tons of experience with it last year. The explosion and graffiti will help with this project. Alex and Logan will be looking at sound effects and music. If they don't get music I can easily work on it. I wouldn't mind doing it because I absolutely love music.
Other things that have been accomplished is the intro of the wizards and the first 2 magical exchanges. That's bit. Nothing left to tell. So umm, til next time.(Part 5 of Blog. Written November 10th 2014)
We've started editing. Jake is getting rid of all the green screen. Logan and Andrew are putting everything together so it looks nice. Then Logan will be getting rid of all the shadows and highlights in the first half of the animation while I will be addressing the rest.
But then it was realized that we had to reshoot everything. Due to the glare from the green screen, hats were disappearing. That wasn't ok so we reshot everything. Because of the reflectivity of the hats we've changed hats for both mages. But now we're done reshooting and we are getting rid of the green screen in post-production areas.
Andrew will start working on some special effects with Jake with the stuff that Logan and I have finished working on. Alex is currently looking for music or is supposed to be looking for music. But Logan and Alex have been arguing about the music. Pretty loud and annoying if you ask me, but I've stopped listening so everything's ok. We'll try to be done by tomorrow but that most likely won't happen. We'll try.
Ya. This was NOT finished by Thanksgiving. It is almost Christmas break now. Or winter break as the school district wishes us to call it (they want us to call it winter break because there are many people that celebrate hanukah and kawanza or don't celebrate these holidays at all and to make sure nobody is offended they call it winter break. And I apologize if I spelled your holiday wrong; I don't mean to offend anyone in any way. I just suck at spelling. The only reason I know how to spell Christmas is because I celebrate it and have been forced to spell it every year for like ever.). So um ya.
Filming/Editing
I thought I'd give an update on Paper Mages. Well it has been decided that the ending will be: a show. It was all just a show. The audience was so involved in the war between 2 friends that the forgot it was a show. Reactions are: clap with enthusiasm, they hated it, they were so bored they fell asleep, or they are just to shocked to do anything. We are using still images for the sleeping person(Alex) and the shocked person who can't believe they paided for this(moi). Then the clappers(Andrew & Logan) are being animated and put in. The person in the box can't believe he just sat through another show. Otherwise the theater is empty.Filming wise, we basically have the ending done. We've started editing that. Because it's green screen work Jake is doing it. Andrew and I will be doing the later editing in After Effects. I'll be doing a ton of special effects as I've had tons of experience with it last year. The explosion and graffiti will help with this project. Alex and Logan will be looking at sound effects and music. If they don't get music I can easily work on it. I wouldn't mind doing it because I absolutely love music.
Other things that have been accomplished is the intro of the wizards and the first 2 magical exchanges. That's bit. Nothing left to tell. So umm, til next time.(Part 5 of Blog. Written November 10th 2014)
We've started editing. Jake is getting rid of all the green screen. Logan and Andrew are putting everything together so it looks nice. Then Logan will be getting rid of all the shadows and highlights in the first half of the animation while I will be addressing the rest.
But then it was realized that we had to reshoot everything. Due to the glare from the green screen, hats were disappearing. That wasn't ok so we reshot everything. Because of the reflectivity of the hats we've changed hats for both mages. But now we're done reshooting and we are getting rid of the green screen in post-production areas.
Andrew will start working on some special effects with Jake with the stuff that Logan and I have finished working on. Alex is currently looking for music or is supposed to be looking for music. But Logan and Alex have been arguing about the music. Pretty loud and annoying if you ask me, but I've stopped listening so everything's ok. We'll try to be done by tomorrow but that most likely won't happen. We'll try.
Ya. This was NOT finished by Thanksgiving. It is almost Christmas break now. Or winter break as the school district wishes us to call it (they want us to call it winter break because there are many people that celebrate hanukah and kawanza or don't celebrate these holidays at all and to make sure nobody is offended they call it winter break. And I apologize if I spelled your holiday wrong; I don't mean to offend anyone in any way. I just suck at spelling. The only reason I know how to spell Christmas is because I celebrate it and have been forced to spell it every year for like ever.). So um ya.
What I Learned
Well I did some learning. I don't know everything. Obviously. I feel like I would be a total brat if I did. I mean I can be a bit bratty but not all the time. Here are some general thought about what I've learned.- Group wise- I learned that working with people you don't know can be really fun. Netterville put me in the right group. But I think that putting four friends together might have been a not so great idea because they get distracted really easily, but that does end up being very very funny. I kinda wish we had some of it on film so we could make bloopers. But for these guys being friends, they sure do argue a lot.
- Teaching wise- I also learned that Netterville taught my grade alot more than he did the seniors. I've taught Andrew how to use the pen tool to create a mask(by the way, he doesn't use the pen tool to it's full capabilities and it is ANNOYING!). And I know how to insert smoke charges like no other in my group. SO I've taught Jake and Andrew that too. That was interesting.
- Collaboration wise- We talk about what we're doing, when we're doing it, how it's going to be done, and then we execute. We make group decisions or majority rule. Usually a 4-1 vote all against Alex. If there ends up being an argument I usually walk away and let them figure it out. Which might not be such a great idea especially if I am really passionate about a project. For this project I'm not so "I LOVE THIS!!!!!" so I'm not voicing my opinion so much. I've also figured that they've argued a lot before now and they didn't need my help then and probably don't need it now, so they can carry on. Now thinking about that, it might not be the greatest philosophy.
- Teamwork- We work well together but sometimes I feel a bit out of the loop because the four guys are friends. But I don't think they mean to, it's just that I'm different from them. Ok maybe not to terribly different, but different enough.
- Deadlines- Umm we made the rough edit deadline but end project wise, maybe not. We'll see about that tomorrow. You'll find out when we finish our project. Ok well the deadline was pushed back. We actually might make it!
- Technically- I've learned more about the green screen! I've learned that you can use Adobe's After Effects to get rid of the green screen as well as a ton of the bad lighting effects! But it does tend to make the other stuff become more ghostly. Or change colors.
What To Do Differently
In every project there are things that you would do differently. Here is the list of things I would change for future projects.- I think I'd try to get the group working at the beginning of the project time period. It seemed like we wasted classes playing games when we could have been storyboarding or filming. SO I think I'd try to encourage them to work a bit more at the start of our project. Can't change that now.
- When doing another group project I would totally keep the element of fun. We have laughed so hard on multiple occasions and we've made progress on our project. It's a nice balance but the work side is slightly lacking I do have to admit. But we do have a lot of fun. The guys are a group I'd love to a part of again.
- I think that we have to like what we're doing and be passionate about our storyline. Otherwise we won't have any fun making the animation. And if we don't like it, then who will? Parents don't count because they have to like everything their child does. It's like mandatory parenting (Who made these parenting laws? I don't like all of them.). But I think that we'd have to like what our story is.
- I also think you need to have story planned out from the beginning and have it be unchangeable. You can't just add in random scenes. Then the story won't make sense and you'll never get done with project especially if you have a lot of post-production work. Which my group kinda does have and my group is creative and always is coming up with new ideas so we end up yelling no at each other so we can continue filming our original storyboard. It takes a bit of effort keeping these guys on track.
Chopping Block
Our class critiqued our animation. We had sound and credits and everything in there. What was said was that the link between the stage and the wild west scenes made no sense. The whole vs thing wasn't working out so well. The other thing was the clapping sound effect that we had sounded like that horse coconut sound from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. As our animation is not Monty Python, we needed t change that sound. But if we haven't found a new sound, it will stay. We are deleting the vs part just to make the transition easier.Finally
Here is the final render of our project. It has been long coming and we have had many renders but thanks to the chopping block this render is the best one and looks fabulous!Well it will be here once it has been rendered out. And I know what it is called. And I find it. My group members can't file mange and name things logically. Because we used After Effects I can't move anything to make the folders more organized and prettier than the flat mess that it is. But it ain't my problem. It is Stover's problem.
Ok guys! I found it! It took me going to Logan and asking him to show me where the heck it was, but I got it! So here you guys go! Enjoy it!
Extras
To get more information or maybe a different perspective, maybe without so much bias and first impressions, you can look at the blogs of the four guys in my group.So if you really want to look at others blogs here are the links:
Logan Keck's Blog
Andrew Stover's Blog
Alex Schmidt's Blog
Jake Williamson's Blog
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