Here is the link to the Word Document for the Settings and Forms Salon, March 13, 2008.

click here

A few ideas on implementing an Interactive Piece n the Tenement Museum.

http://itp.nyu.edu/~mp1852/INTERACTIVITY/TENEMENT.ppt

Now, this is something I just do NOT understand… WHY is this semester called “Spring Semester”? Sort of to uplift our spirits that Spring will, eventually and inexorably, COME during it? Because now it is winter, winter, winter, with only some snow.

I specially don’t get it, since last semester was called “Fall”, as it in fact began with fall… Following the logic of the Spring Semester, it should be called “Winter” right? Or is it that we are trying to forget that in fact, winter IS happening?

Here is the final product: please click here.

So, Sandra and myself met around one to work on our animation. In retrospective, it turned out to be a really good idea to story board on Illustrator, since this way, our main characters were easily transfered into the Flash environment. Although we did not need to redraw any frame, we did have to discuss the main ideas and what we wanted the main characters to do, so we did had a small white paper to work on nearby.

The only big “problem” we encountered was the fact that once we “cloned” the characters, and started working on them it turned out that the program - or our lack on expertise on it - decided to apply those changes to the original character. Hopefully we have saved the original work, and now we know that we have to be really careful regarding this.

Finally, and after some discussion, we have “added” a couple of actions, and taken away some others. We think it works better this way, and are eagerly waiting to see what the class has to say.

The more I read about how to Story Board, whether for a “live” shoot or for animation, the more it reminds me of “Understanding Comics”. It is becoming clear that we are working on the invisible, on the being able to produce adequate triggers for the audience. When we present our projects in class, it is obvious that the audience wants to fill in the gaps, wants to interpret what is being presented as something that is familiar. There is almost a desire to identify the particular situation and empathize with it. We, as audience, as human beings in the face of other’s work are almost compelled to “fill in the blanks”.
Because of all this, in the end “less is more”. In my opinion, the best advice (if it could be taken as such) the hand out gives is: “Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye”.
So, animation is not necessary – or not at all – meant for children. Is just another way to illustrate ideas or thoughts, and we have to concentrate of delivering the story in a compact fashion. Thus it is indispensable to have a plan, i.e. a GOOD Story Board to be able to perform at an adequate level.

Kristen and myself met on Monday morning, to decide what to do, and how to do it.

We story boarded the “Lost Balloon” story, and immediately got to work. Neither of us imagined it was going to take so long (8 hours straight) to shoot such a simple story, nor that the Play - Doh will get dry so quickly!

We also had to “upgrade” our figures, i.e. make them bigger while shooting, since we realized that it would be nearly impossible to make the little character cry if the figures were so small.

It was a little tricky to work with Final Cut Pro, but we received some help, and in the end managed to tell the story. Please click to watch.

Sandra and myself (since this exercise was meant to be done in pairs)  met over dinner, and decided on the  story line, as well as “divided” between ourselves who was going to do what according to our schedules.

The finished story board is a post, under this same category (animation) and is called “Gol!”. Enjoy.

Although we brought ALL audio tracks to the class, it was impossible to locate the very first one. We could only listen to the finished story once we exported it as .wav.

This happened to various groups, so we concluded, as a class, that it must be something with the new Audacity version, that somehow “hides” some of the tracks, and therefore, the final product can only be listened to in the computer were the files were created.

Here is our file: Click to listen.

Since we already had the “storyboard” for the sounds we had recorded, which took the shape of a list of noises that will happen in a specific order, and therefore tell a story through sound, the editing process was quick and efficient as well.

Although neither of us had used Audacity before, it proved to be a user friendly and easy environment to work in.

We were careful to record our work with a different name, and thus leave original files “intact” since we have been warned in class that it was a destructive environment.