Introduction
In this unit, students learned how to explore creative risk taking by using poetry, music, art, and animation. This challenged them to explore their own opinions and develop their own self. Students were taught how to use a variety of equipment such as DSLR Cameras, Tascam Audio Recorders, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Pro Tools, WordPress, and Google Apps.
What I valued learning most in this unit was how to use the various adobe software. I’ve always heard professionals used them, but never had the money to buy any of them. It was super cool learning how to use Premiere, Photoshop and Dreamweaver and I’m excited to learn whats next.
Poetry
In English we had a poem unit to help us learn about how to show not tell and the different techniques poets used to convey their meaning. We wrote a Haiku poem and were given the option to write either a freeverse or ekphrastic poem. We went to the MOMA in San Francisco to get inspiration for our ekphrastic poems. For my project I wrote a freeverse poem following the concept statement, I am exploring the feeling of hopelessness through the experience of death.
My concept statement was, I am exploring the feeling of hopelessness through the experience of death. I wrote my free verse poem about my goldfish dying. When I recorded my audio for my poem I was slightly sick so my voice sounded nasally in the recording. I wish I could have rerecorded it. I was also able to get around the coughing in Pro Tools and I’m pretty proud of myself. I valued the experience of learning how to use all of these great tools.
Photo Haiku
Our first project in English was to create a haiku based off of concept statement we drew out of a hat. This project helped introduce us to poetry and taught us how to use premire pro. My concept statement was exploring the feeling of impatience through the experience of learning to love. I wrote my poem about having a crush, and used the words in my poem to create a overwhelming feeling to show how I interpret love.
I really like the end product of my project. I had a lot of fun learning how to edit in premiere and I enjoyed taking pictures for my project. I wish I could have edited my poem to make it seem likes it more about love and not gluttony.
Elements And Principles of Art
In this project we were asked to find art that used each the Elements and Priniples of Art to help deepen our understanding of the fundementals of art. We had to find 3 peices of art, one traditional, one modern, and a photograph. There are 7 elements of art line, shape, color, value, spce and texture. The 6 principles of design are for, texture, balance, emphasis, unity, movement, scale, and rythmn.
Zoetrope
For this project, we made a zoetrope consistent of 12 frames. I made an animation of a basketball bouncing up and down. We put our zoetropes into a device that we can spin to see our animation come to life.
Exquisite Corpse
For this project we were asked to create 24 frames of animation converting one shape into another. This was a group collaborative projected that combined both the works of the am and pm classes. I drew the frames for part 25, 26 and 47.
Flip Book
For this roject we made flipbooks out of index cards and made 8 seconds of animation. For this project I wanted to represent the emotion of fear. To show this, I made an animation of a chicken getting eaten by a cat. The chicken is excited to explore the world and wanders away from its home. It gets spotted by a cat, notices it, but dosen’t have enough time to react or run away. I didn’t have enough time to draw a backgorund so I had to get rid of it halfway through my animation.
Direct Technique 1
For this project we were challenged to make a 5 second animation using either paper, charcoal, paint, or white boards. I used paper for my first direct technique project. My animation shows the principles of animation anticipations and follow through.
Direct Technique 2
For this project we were challenged to make a 5 second animation using either paper, charcoal, paint, or white boards. In my second direct technique animation, I used a white board. I drew a cat jumping over the moon instead of a cow. This animation shows the principles anticipation and follow through.
Phenakistoscope Wheel
For this project, we created wheels that could be spun to show an animation. These wheels were called phenakistoscopes and were created by a Belgium man for entertainment. For my phenakistoscope I decided to make a person juicing an apple. I used minimal coloring to make my apples bold.
Production
I’ve had a lot of fun with the projects in animation class. So far we have made 5 projects as you can see above. We have only done paper animation, so I’m very excited to do digital animation. I’m also really excited to work on 3-D animation next year because it will help with my career in the future. I’m really excited to see what we do next.