Introduction
The Zenith project was my final project of Freestyle. Our teachers have taught us everything for the year, and now it was time to do our own thing. The word zenith means the pinnacle, peak, or culmination of something. It’s where something is at its best. In relation to Freestyle, it meant “Now that you know everything Freestyle has to offer, go out there and make the best project you can with your skills.”
The Zenith was the project where we were allowed to do anything. I knew since I first joined that I wanted to make an animated short. Animation had been my hobby since I took an animation class in 2019. I have always wanted to make an animated short like Disney, Pixar, and independent animators make, but I’ve never gotten the chance.
This project was a challenge and a risk for me because usually animation takes me a long time. For this project I wanted it to be complete animaiton with color and backgrounds and usually projects like that took me nearly a year. I was only given a couple months to work on this and I wasn’t sure if I’d finish but I wanted to try anyway.
I used the skills I learned in film production class to work on this film. I wrote a screenplay, storyboarded, directed actors, edited everything in Premiere Pro just like we did over the past 2 years in film. I split everything up into pre-production, production, and post production. Mr. Taylor also helped me with learning Adobe Animate using symbols. This sped up the animation process a lot, and I don’t think I would have finished on time if I didn’t learn this.
Thankfully, I finished right on time. I completed the last of my credits the day before I presented. I worked every day for many hours on this for two months and I think it turned out good. I’m proud to present my final Freestyle project: “The Storm.”
Process
For this project, I was inspired by independent animators like vewn and lewvk on YouTube. I was also inspired by trippy, colorful, psychadelic art that I saw on Pinterest and in tattoos and fashion. I hadn’t seen this style replicated in an animation until I watched some Adult Swim animations. I loved this style and was heavily inspired by it in my film.
I started by coming up with a story and then character designs. Then I spent a week doing the character animation. After that, I did background design and started putting animation and backgrounds together. Then it was a week of doing finishing touches and I was done. That was a really simplified version of what I did, but I do explain more in my showcase video and my final presentation. Click through the gallery below to see the inside look of my process for this film.
Below is a video I mades showcasing my project and how I made it. This was sent off to a professional animator to review my work and give me feedback.
Final Project
In May, after months of hard work, I finally got to present my Zenith to the whole class. Below is the film posted on my personal YouTube channel.
Below is a recording of my actual presentation. I go a bit more in depth about pre-production, production, and post-production. I also have a short Q&A section at the end.
Reflection
I’m really happy I was able to do this project. A lot of people told me they liked it afterward and I’m proud of what I have accomplished. I hope I can do more with this story in the future because I have grown attached to these characters. Maybe something like an animated TV show. Anyway, I’m happy with how I’ve ended the year with this film.
Below is my audio reflection about this project showcased on the Freestyle soundcloud.
Advanced Learning Projects
For our final project in Digial Media, we were encouraged to learn something new about a program we already knew about, such as After Effects or Photoshop. I decided to connect this to my Zenith project by making a Photoshop painting. I created a movie poster for my film. In the video below the picture, I explain how I did it.
