Brittany Butters

Shelbenstein's Animation

I am having the hardest time finding my video on youtube to upload. Apparently, there are a lot of youtube videos of either animators named Shelby, or things about the Shelby cobra so I'll just link it.ShelbyL'sAnimation

Great new Animation by Juan Pablo Zaramella

Oh, wait, there's more, by Marcel Schindler:

Extra Credit 2

ANIMATION TECHNIQUE PRESENTATION

For this extra credit assignment, you will need to build a presentation on a technique that you plan to use for your animation project.  This should not be a power point, but an actual "demo" of how to do such-and-such using the software program.  You can use any Adobe program we have used this semester to demonstrate your technique, but remember, you must be using it in your animation project.  This demo should take between 5 and 15 minutes; do not go over the time limit.

In total, this presentation will count for up to 5pts towards your total reading grade.  This is approximately enough to raise your reading score 2/3 of a letter grade, i.e. B- to B+.  These points are broken down as follows:
3pts - Adequate demo lasting 5-15 minutes
1pts - Providing handout with step by step instructions for people to follow along
1pts - Providing an example file for people to use during or after the demo

These presentations will only be available on April 9th and 11th with no more than 8 presentations each day.  You must email me your presentation topic and preferred day by Friday, April 6th.  Topics and days will be awarded on a first emailed first served basis.  You will not be able to do a presentation on a topic that someone else has already emailed me about.  Topics could be almost anything, but I can also recommend a few: particle effects in After Effects, batch image processing in Photoshop, and using the puppet warp tool in After Effects.

Brittany Butters

Zarni Nway Oo's Video Art

About life.

Codi Chenoweth, Video

The audio I received for this project sounded like someone was leaving their home, walking through the city, and going to a date at a fancy restaurant. I tried to compile these video clips in a way that gave you the idea of what was going on (with a little comic relief near the end.) Hope you all enjoy. :)

UNIT V: Animation

OBJECTIVE: To demonstrate the understanding of 'Stop motion' (pop. frame-by-frame), a generic term for an animation technique that makes static objects appear to move. The object is moved very small amounts between individual frames, producing the effect of motion when the film is played back, as in conventional drawn and painted animation.  Animations will be 3 minutes long and include audio.

GOAL:  To consider the conceptual topic of spirit worlds and quests, to create an emersive experience though abstraction, moving images, and sound, to build spacial depth over time.

PROJECT:  Through the strength of my vision

PHASE ONE: ConcIptualize

1.     1  Brainstorm at least 10 ideas for a Vision Quest animation.  Consider questions:

a.     Who is performing the vision quest?

b.     Are they trying to answer a specific question or problem?

c.     Are they doing it as part of a rite of passage?  If so, which?

d.     What do they hope to achieve through the vision quest?

e.     What do they actually achieve through the vision quest?

f.      What do they see?

g.     Do they have a guide?

2.     2  Consider the following project requirements:

a.     3 minutes in length at 10 frames per second equals 1800 images

b.     Includes audio

c.     Does not have “characters” or people – think abstractly

d.     Is shot from the first person perspective

3.     3  You will have three different options on how to do the animation, and you can mix and match the different twchniques:

a.     Digital Photography – using a digital camera you can take a series of photos of everyday things or drawings to create an animation.

b.     Photoshop / Illustrator – You can build up intricate settings with layers and Photoshop / Illustrator and export frames while adjusting the layers

c.     After Effects – You can build animations within After Effects.  This is the most advanced option, and I will not be going into great detail on how to do this in class.  This is an option for those who want the extra challenge or who want to get more experience with After Effects.

d.     All methods will be compiled in After Effects to make the movie file.  Audition will be used for the audio.

4.     4  Storyboard 3 distinct ideas from your brainstorm, be detailed on the drawings – use color, and describe each shot / scene on the back.  If you are not comfortable in your drawing abilities, use photographs or Photoshop / Illustrator.  Be prepared to share these in class.

PHASE TWO: Beginnings

1.     Group critique your storyboards to decide which one is best.

2.     Rehash your storyboard to make sure it is how you want, makes conceptual sense, and is visually pleasing.

3.     Come up with a fourth storyboard based on your original three.  Push the abstraction.  Think different.

4.     Photograph / scan your storyboards and bring picture files to class.  Put then in a file called Your Name within the STORYBOARDS folder in HIDA shares.

5.     With your storyboard, figure out what you want the audio to be and why.  Clips from a song?  Vocals? Dialog? Ambiance? Sound effects?  A mix?  Again, do not make a music video.  Consider how audio can be distorted / abstracted as visuals can.

6.     Go through the video series on Adobe TV for basic animating: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/classroom-after-effects-cs5/episode-1/

      Pay particular attention to the 6^th one on working with Photoshop.  To Follow along, you can download a trial version of After Effects here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=after_effects

7.     Decide how you want to animate (Photos, Photoshop, AE) and if you want to do audio or animation first.

8.     Gather materials for your animation, be it photos, graphics, sound clips, etc.
9.   Remember new time length of 3 minutes.

     

PHASE THREE:  Capture / Create content

1.     Take all the photos you need to build your animation.  This process works best if you divide your animation photos into separate shot folders.  Be sure to maintain the image file name sequence that your camera probably automates for you.  If you have images in non numeric / alphabetical order it can create problems for you down the road.  Remember to reduce your camera resolution to around 1M.

2.     OR, build out the layers for your animation in a Photoshop document.  If doing this its best to keep all elements that cold possibly move on independent layers.  For instance, rather than having a person on a layer you’d want their head, torso, and arms on separate layers.  Depending on how detailed you want to get with the animation, you may want to go further, i.e. layers for hands, fingers…  Again, I recommend having a separate Photoshop document for each shot.

3.     OR just dive into AE.

PHASE FOUR:  Animating

1.     To import photos as a sequence:

a.     Open After Effects and create a new composition that is the same size as your photos, set it’s duration to your_number_of_photos/10 seconds.

b.     Go to File>Import>File

c.     Select the first image in your shot folder and make sure that JPG Sequence is checked.

d.     Drag the new clip into your timeline.

e.     You may need to adjust the speed on the animation to match the length of your composition.  To do so, go to Layer>Time>Time Stretch.

f.      Assemble your sub compositions into a new master composition that is 3 minutes long.

2.     To animate a Photoshop document:

a.     Watch this video:  http://tv.adobe.com/watch/classroom-after-effects-cs5/episode-6/

b.     For a simpler method with less control, watch this video: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-after-effects-cs4/getting-started-08-animating-characters/

3.     You know how to edit audio in Audition already, go for it.

PHASE FIVE:  Working with audio and exporting

1.     Watch this video for doing final audio adjustments and exporting:  http://tv.adobe.com/watch/classroom-after-effects-cs5/episode-7/

2.     Remember that using audio in After Effects is different from Premiere and you need to use ram preview, not the space bar, to hear it.
3.    Put your exported animation, After Effects project file, and all source material in a folder called YourName in the ANIMATION folder on HIDA shares.
4.  Upload your exported animation to the blog.

READING:      Launching the Imagination Ch. 15 Interdisciplinary Arts (read) & Ch. 5 Problem Seeking Problem Solving (cmap)

VOCABULARY: track, clip, volume, amplitude, frequency, key frame, limit, mix, multitrack, noise, transition, effect, title, layer, aspect ratio, widescreen, HD, frame, Compositing, Layers, Masking, Parenting

REFERENCES:  Aardman, Judder Man, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Her Morning Elegance, ThisIsCollassal.com, BLU

GRADING:  (45pts)

Technical: (15pts) 4 Storyboards? 3 minutes? 1^st person? Audio? Titles / credits? In appropriate HIDA Shares folder?

Aesthetic: (15pts) Color? No characters?  Audio matches animation? Abstraction? Spatial Depth?

Conceptual: (15pts) Vision? What happens? Theme? Motivation? More than just moving shapes and blobs? Drama? No flatness (Spatially and in terms of plot)?

FINAL CRIT: 23 April 2012

NOTES:

For extra help / reference / practice, see the After Effects CS4 videos on the blog.          

UNIT VI: Video

OBJECTIVE: To make a three minute video using Adobe Premiere Pro in response to another students audio soundscape.

GOAL: To learn how to edit and mix video with sound to build a visual space and create a story that evolves over time.

PROJECT:  The view outside my window slurs the vastness of our oceans, part 2.

BASIC PROCESS:

1.     Capture Audio / Video

2.     Import Audio / Video

3.     Assemble and refine Audio / Video in a sequence

4.     Add Titles

5.     Add Transitions and Effects

6.     (Mix Audio)

7.     Export

DEATILED PROCESS:

1.     Read over additional handouts on Premiere Pro workflows and video shots.

2.     Pull a randomly selected wav file from the HIDA shares AUDIO file and add it to your Assets>Audio folder.

3.     Double click your new audio file to give it a listen. What does it make you think of?  Story board at least three different video narrative posibilities for your new audio track. Consider abstraction.

4.     Using the Free Clips links in 4D Training on the class blog, find video files to use in your movie.  Pay careful attention to creative commons vs copyright material.  In addition, you may shoot some of your own video for this project outside of class if you have your own video camera / iDevice.  Or, you may be able to shoot some video in class using our equipment, but you will need your own mini DV tape.  Now is also a good time to decide if you will be working with HDV(16:9) or DV(4:3) video – choose one type and be consistent, mixing different aspect ratios of video never works out well.  Put all your clips in your video assests folder.

5.     Open Premiere Pro and select New Project.  Select the appropriate capture format to your media.  Check the scratch disks.  In an ideal set up your scratch disks are on a seprate high speed drive from your editing drive.  In the New Sequence dialog, be sure to select a format matching some of your found footage. 

6.     In premiere, go to File>Import and select all your video clips and your audio file, they will appear in your project pane. 

7.     Drag your exchanged audio file into the audio timeline so that it starts at time 0 in a new audio layer. 

8.     In the project pane, scroll over until you see the Descriptions category, and add detail text about each of your clips.

9.     To stay organized it is a good idea to make separate bins, or folders, for your audio and video files by clicking the new bin button and dragging your files into the appropriate folder.

10.  Double click each of your clips, which opens them in the viewer.  Add in and out points for each clip, and then drag them into the video timeline.  The clip will then appear in the canvas, which shows your whole movie.  It’s good to set ins and outs so that if you add transitions the effect has some media to work with.

11.  While in the viewer, you can click the effects tab to make adjustments to the basic effects: Motion, Oppacity, and Time Remapping, and any other effects you have added.

12.  In the timeline you can readjust your clips to match events in the audio track.  Click and drag over the ends of a clip to make it longer.  Holding down the command key to ripple edit the end of a clip so that all the clips after it are pushed down in time.  Click the top bar of a clip and drag to change its position in time. 

13.  If you drag a clip into the timeline and place it on top of other clips it will remove those clips!  If you hold down the command key while doing so it will ripple edit the clips underneath further down the timeline so that they are not lost. 

14.  In the time line toggle Audio Track 1 off so that you don’t hear the audio that came in with your video clips.

15.  You can preview your movie at any time by pressing the space bar or play in the canvas.  You can aslo drag the blue time head in the time line.

16.  Make sure all your clips fill up the whole canvas.  If not, you can scale them by dragging their corners.  Hold shift to do so proportionally. 

17.  Add Titles by going to Title>New Title>Defsult Still.  Name your title, click ok, and add text to your window view.  Keep text within the border lines to make sure people on all TVs can read it.  You can adjust a slew of properties on the right side.  You can set the alignment in the lower left. 

18.  Use the roll crawl options on the top to add motion to your title.  When you’re down, just close the titles window.

19.  Your title will appear in the the Projects pane.  Just click and drag it onto the timeline as you would a regular video clip.  If you want it to be on top of another video clip, drag it to the next video layer up in the timeline stack.

20.  The best transition is usually a simple cut.  But sometimes it’s nice to have a fade, particularly at the beginning and end of a movie.  Try some transitions in the Effects pane Video Transisiton folder.  Under Dissolve, drag a dip to black to the beginning of your first clip in the timeline and the end of your last clip.  You can also trya  cross disolve or other transition between any two clips on your timeline.  Pay attention to how it gets placed though, if you don’t have lead in and out time on your clip, it may not look the way you want it.

21.  You can change the duration and attributes of a transition by double clicking it and then using the viewer.

22.  Use the same process for video effects.  One you might want to try is Video Effects>Color Correction>Change to Color and Adjust>Auto Contrast.

23.  If you loose the windows, you can always try the menu system, Window>Effects and Window>Effects Control.

24.  Use the effects tab of the viewer pane to adjust your new effect.  Unlike a transition, it changes the entire clip, not just the beginning or the end.  The amazing thing about premiere is that you can preview effects and transitions live before rendering.

25.  Go to Sequence>Render Entire Work Area.

26.  When you’ve got everything finished, export your moving by going to File>Export>Media.  Be sure to check that the source and output tabs are the same!  You may need to adjust your pixel aspect ratio.  I like quicktime as a format, and H.264 as a codec.  Makes ure export audio and video are selected, and hit export.  Rendering and exporting can take a long time, be prepared to hang around for at least half an hour for your video to render.

27.  Add copies of your premiere project and your quicktime export to the VIDEO folder in HIDA Shares.

28.  Upload your video to the blog with a one paragraph descirption of the video.

PREMIERE EDITING TIPS:

READING:      Launching the Imagination Ch. 13 Aspects and elements of Time (cmap) & Ch. 8 Constructing Meaning (cmap)

           

VOCABULARY: track, clip, volume, amplitude, frequency, key frame, limit, mix, multitrack, noise, transition, effect, title, layer, aspect ratio, widescreen, HD

REFERENCES:  Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, Peter Campus

GRADING:  (15pts)

Technical: (5pts) Do you have three different storyboards? Are there at least five distinct shots?  Does your video last three minutes?  Did you save your work in the appropriate formats? Does it include titles and credits?  Did you upload to the blog?

Aesthetic: (5pts) Do your transitions and cuts make sense?  Are there a variety of shot types: medium, close and wide? Are these shots well composed?

Conceptual: (5pts) Does your video tell a story?  Does it have a plot?  Is there a climax?           

NOTES:

For extra help / reference / practice, see the Premiere Pro CS4 videos on the blog.        

UNIT IV: AUDIO

UNIT IV: Audio

OBJECTIVE: To make a three minute audio soundscapre using Adobe Audition.

GOAL:  To gain an understanding of how sound can create space, to learn how to edit and mix sounds to achieve your desired effects.

PROJECT:  The view outside my window slurs the vastness of our oceans.

PROCESS:

1.     Copy the Assets folder from HIDA shares to your external drive.

2.     Search FreeSounds and other websites for sound files to make your soundscape.  Download and add them to your Assets>Audio folder.

3.     Open Adobe Audition and go to File>Import>File and select your audio files.

4.     Double click your audio files, now in the browser (top left) to view them in the editor (top right).

5.     Go to View>Show Spectral Display to see the frequency map along side the amplitude waveform.

6.     Make any edits necessary to the file (see below).

7.     Hit the multitrack button on the top left to make a new multitrack project.  Drag your files from the browser to different audio tracks in the mixer.

8.     Save your project as an Audition Your_Name.sesx .

9.     Click and drag the files around to position them in time.  You can also trim the files by hovering over either edge of the clip and then clicking and dragging.

10.  Adjust the volume of each clip by clicking and dragging the yellow line on the clip up or down.  You can also single click to add keyframes, which can then be moved to create fade ins and outs. 

11.  Another way to create a fade in / out is to click and drag the split box in the corner of each clip. 

12.  When you are finished save your work again.  Go to File>Export>Multitrack Mixdown>Entire Session to save a copy of your soundscape as a Your_Name.wav .  Put both of your files in the HIDA shares AUDIO file. 

AUDITION EDITING TIPS:

1.     To edit a spike, use the Spectral Display and the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

2.     To edit a frequency noise, like a car horn or cell phone ring, use the Spectral Display and one of the marquee tools to select the offending noise.  Then hit the delete key and deselect. 

3.     To adjust the volume of a clip, use the Waveform Display and the Time Selection Tool to select part of the clip and adjust the volume in the HUD. 

4.     Or, go to Effects>Amplitude and Compression>Volume Envelope to get a yellow editable volume line (like in multitrack).

5.     To remove vocals from a Center Mixed file (not all recording studios center mix the vocals) go to Effects>Stereo Imagery>Center Channel Extractor.

READING:      Launching the Imagination Ch. 14 (cmap) & Digital Design Media Ch. 5

           

VOCABULARY: track, clip, volume, amplitude, frequency, key frame, limit, mix, multitrack, noise

REFERENCES:  Janett Cardiff, Laurie Anderson

GRADING:  (15pts)

Technical: (6pts) Does your mix include at least 5 different sound files?  Did you edit a flaw out of at least two of them? Does your track last three minutes?  Did you save your work in the appropriate formats?

Aesthetic: (6pts) Is there depth and richness to your soundscape?  Are there any dead spots (no noise)? Does it flow with out spikes and pops?

Conceptual: (3pts) Did you create a believable sound scape?         

NOTES:

For extra help / reference / practice, see the SoundBooth CS4 videos on the blog.