Zenith

For my Zenith project I chose to do animation. I wanted to portray the Freestyle community so I used my friends as reference for the characters. The first two animations I made was for practice in Photoshop so I could get the general feel of how the program works.

 

 

 

Reflection Essay

 

My original plan for this Zenith project was to do some kind of event planning. I soon found that I was only really doing the project for the other students and I truly wasn’t passionate about planning another giant event. As fun as it was for me to plan the Freestyle Homecoming, I figured that event planning wouldn’t really be a challenge for me and 3 months would be too much time to create another event and would be a waste of precious time. Last year when I found out that Freestyle was going to have an animation class I was really excited because when I first signed up for Freestyle I was torn between Film and Web because Web had animation. Even though I really enjoy being in Film, I wanted to be able to use my illustration skills more. I was really bummed out that the animation class wasn’t going to be made this year so I was determined to find some kind of way to make an animation. I was really inspired and intrigued with Peter Coish’s animation last year, and having the opportunity for myself, I was set on doing so.

However, I had absolutely no clue on how to animate or what program to use. As a self-taught artist, I figured that I should just start messing around with Adobe Animate. After watching a few tutorials, I started to draw a guy and I wanted him to be waving his hand. It seemed a lot easier in my head and the outcome was a disaster. I then asked Mr.T about how I could use Animate a lot better. The method of animating wasn’t what I was going for. Even if I had someone who was basically an expert on using Animate, and would help me through the process, I decided to take the harder route. I wanted to do frame-by-frame animation because I wanted the smooth hand drawn style that I had grown up watching. Mr. T directed me to use Photoshop to animate, which I didn’t know was possible.

I was able to do a director’s presentation in Film which helped me understand the process of animation. I chose Hayao Miyazaki as my director mainly because of his beautiful art style and his skill of still animating frame by frame. Although I didn’t have the luxury of a whole production crew and years to create a full-length animation, I figured I would make a few short animations to experiment with my skill. However, this was an unreasonable goal that I was setting. I somewhat overlooked the time it takes to animate frame by frame. I didn’t think it would take that long because I was so used to filming everything and not having to create each individual frame.

I started off with some help on storyboarding with Ian and asking classmates on ideas for my animation. I wanted to incorporate the Freestyle community and the atmosphere we have into my animation. I started off with base illustrations of my characters, Brooke, Ian, and Payton. I was also going to use these illustrations for my consumer project in Design.

I think my skills of self direction and risk taking have improved the most. I was surprised at how much work I was able to do even if I changed my topic. Also, the fact that I was able to create a 30 second animation with absolutely no knowledge I think is pretty well done. Even if I was starting to go insane from all the minute changes I had to make in order to create smooth transitions… However, I wish I was able to incorporate more of the Social and Civic responsibility of creating an animation. I could’ve addressed more taboo topics and shed light on current events. But now that I have my skill set of comfortably being able to animate on Photoshop, I can create another animation that would include the bits that I lacked on this project.

After presenting to the other students, I realized that I really had a passion for animation and illustration. I usually get nervous about presenting but I was actually really excited to present my project. I was really happy about all the support and shout outs that I had gotten, and I hope that I have inspired someone to do their Zenith project on animation next year. All the feedback from the crowd let me feel confident in my skills and has inspired me to create more animations.

Looking back, I am really proud of my decision to change my topic and be a bit selfish. Even if I wasn’t able to meet my goal of creating multiple animations, I know that the skills that I have developed will be used a lot more in the future. I think having a self directed project gave me an insight to what my future will be like when I pursue art. It also helped me expand my skill set and my knowledge of programs and has solidified my interest in art.