Intro

Hello! My name is Reid Shimabukuro, and I am an Animation student at Freestyle Academy. Ever since I joined Freestyle at the start of my junior year, I have really developed and explored my interests, primarily in writing, drawing, and animating. It has been a pleasure and a challenge working on various digital media-based projects that tested my artistic and conceptual skills, as well as my ability to schedule and time-manage work. Outside of Freestyle, I am a very big percussion nerd! I’m a member of my high school’s drumline as well as a long time member of the San Jose Taiko studio for traditional Japanese drumming. This summer I am also touring with the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets drum and bugle corps as a drumline member. Video games are also a personal passion of mine and have definitely influenced my plans for a career, possibly one in game design or development.

I am excited to showcase two video productions I made during my time at Freestyle: my animation reel and Senior Zenith project. I selected both of these projects because I think they best reflect the relationship between my conceptual work and production work. Both projects required some planning before I even started animating as well a written idea of the message or narrative I tried to communicate. My animation reel showcases almost all of my animation work as a Freestyle student. The theme I wanted to convey was meant to be whimsical and fun, and each clip shows how I’ve improved my understanding of the principles of animation and design. All of the projects shown also had a good deal of pre-production in the form of storyboarding, character and sound design. My Senior Zenith project is an animated video essay that discusses video games as an art form. My conceptual work for this project included designing and storyboarding an avatar that best reflects a speaking version of myself while writing a comprehensive, argumentative essay, all while in a two-month timeframe!

I would like to receive feedback on my design and animation principles as well as whether the ideas or messages that I wanted to communicate came through visually. This will help me understand how to approach my conceptual work and build a better visual, artistic sense.

This fall I will be attending CSU Fullerton to continue my passion for animation! I still have a lot of work to do developing my traditional art and storytelling skills, and am excited at the prospect of learning under my new professors. I’m personally interested in developing or designing video games or creating narrative animations. If you need to reach me, my email is reidss090@gmail.com! Thank you and I look forward to your feedback!

Animation Reel

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I tried to emphasize moments of my animation work that displayed a good understanding of animation principles – I lack a background in traditional art but really took to the use of principles(my favorites being timing related) to make characters and objects appear more fluid. As I’ve mentioned I want to develop a stronger sense of design, so while visual elements such as perspective, color and proximity are still a struggle for me I tried to also show some of these design aspects in this reel.

Senior Zenith

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The idea for this project came from an English research paper on a topic of our choice. I have always been a heartfelt fan of video games and call many of them interactive forms of art, especially when one considers the amount of work that goes into their aesthetic and interactivity. In order to more effectively articulate this point it was important to make a well written script and central character that the viewer could latch on to. To try and make a better connection between the audio and visuals I spent time creating a lip sync cycle for all of my character’s scenes.

Concept Galleries

These pictures show some of my concept sketches, digital drawings, or 3D models for the work I did in the animation reel and zenith video.

Reflection

Reflecting on my work on both of these projects as well as my Freestyle work in general, I am met with lingering passion. It was not easy coming into an art heavy curriculum with a limited understanding of traditional art techniques, but over time I’ve developed more as a creator. Just looking back over my reel I recall all of my personal growth as a student and the passion I’ve cultivated for animation as a medium. Meanwhile, my Zenith project reflects part of my ongoing dream of communicating using this visual medium, combining the lip syncing and video editing I learned to make a video essay. As I look forward to college and beyond, I know that my time here will have a large influence on my future work. The work ethic and fervor that I gained here will carry on with me and I believe these two projects are the best results of these learned skills.