Circles vs. Me

Here we are again, reviewing a week. We've done a lot this week. I've done a lot this week. It has been a busy busy week, but also a good week. So let's get into this, right?

       This week I learned how to properly animate a ball. It was tedious but also really fun when I completed it, it was like the flip book. But it didn't take up three days of my life so I wasn't that frustrated. I also learned to, no matter what (even if you're just quickly coloring), aggressively save while working in harmony. Don't even question it, just aggressively save, constantly. If you feel like you haven't looked at the save button recently, press it immediately, right now.  In history, I learned that I know too much history, and sometimes I regret dropping out of APUSH. I also don't, because I only got a two on the AP World History exam and I really didn't want a repeat of that feeling of disappointment. In English, due to our having to write ten thesis statements, I learned that both president Adamses (that is definitely how you turn Adams into a plural) were a complete mess. I managed to fall asleep in chemistry every day this week, please publicly shame me for this. Statistics was just a lot of crying over messing up charts because I missed one piece of data or some other stupid thing.

       In the future, I hope to learn how to perfect a walking style or just animating faces.  I watch animations all the time, and they make these things look so easy. But I know it is going to take a ton of time and frustration and tears and almost throwing of my electronic devices. But I will prevail because it important for me to learn these things. I may not be going into an animation career, but I would love to just have these skills that I am learning. Plus when I go to college, I could help any animation students I know with their work. That will be exciting!

       This week circles are my main frustration. I am thrilled that I made a handful of animations, but I am sick of looking at circles. They are burned into my retinas, I see them everywhere. The perpetual ball bounce also frustrated me, because I did most of it at home. But when I brought it back here I realized it shrank when it bounced, and I fought with it for a while trying to fix that. Outside of animation I have grown frustrated with the production of our play. We only have about four weeks to get this completely together, and yet important people keep missing rehearsal. I don't even need to be at every rehearsal, and yet I'm there when a lead isn't. I just hope they find the importance of a good production faster.

       I may want to file a lawsuit against circles at this point, but animating them has made me immensely happy this week. I never thought I'd get the ability to learn things like this but I have and I love showing my parents and watching their faces light up. Things in school that have made me happy this week was learning how to stage fight. Another thing that made me happy was when my chemistry teacher said this: "Use the Snapchat in your brain...or is it is Instagram?...Insta....snap? You know what I don't care just remember this." I love when teachers try and fail to be cool™.  Outside of school, there was one thing that made me happy. I went to Fright World with one of my best friends, and we panic sang Hamilton in like two houses, and then I just became a "tour guide" and led a tour through the houses. I also made friends with the lobby clowns because of my hair! My friend hated me for that.

       So, how do you feel about butter? The video I'm sharing this week will give you a weird new opinion. It is hilarious, it even made my mom (who doesn't get anything I'm into) laugh. I just have to warn you about language, there isn't much, just one or three things at the end. I apologize for that, but sometimes language adds to the hilarity of a situation. And believe me! It is funny, I cried a little. The animator also has a very unique design of characters and a good sense of color and a sweet twist. Without further ado: https://youtu.be/yKGeJXk2qWQ. Enjoy!

Color, is it important?

      Color is a powerful thing to use in art. It often sets a mood of a scene or a moment. But too much color is a bad thing. In the Pixar supercut we were given to watch, you have the ability to see just how important color is to animation. Although bad to saturate every single scene in color, the scenes that are completely one color set the mood you need.
        Warm colors are often used for big emotions. The orange and red in the garbage crusher scene from Toy Story 3 and in the lava scene from The Incredibles gives you a feeling of fear, and shows the high tension that resides in those scenes. Red can also be used for love, like the scene in Finding Nemo where you look over all the eggs. Red could even be used for a sense of hope, like in Ratatouille where Remy stands in front of the large red doors. Yellow is often used for a feeling of new beginnings, like the house in Up. Or the feeling of nostalgia in Toy Story 3 when Lots-O thinks back to the time he had with the girl who previously owned him.
        Cool colors tend to belong to simple scenes, or scenes that strike a cord of an extreme emotion like jealously or perhaps fear. Green owns the scene in Monsters University when they've reached the scaring games final, and the group stands worried and slightly jealous because they fear they won't win the scaring simulator. Blue is used for both sadness and calm in Finding Nemo. Marlin's scene of the aftermath of the barracuda, when only one egg remains, brings up a sad, and kind of worried mood. But later in the movie when Dory and Marlin are with the turtles, the blue is used as a calming device. Violet gives you an excited feeling in Finding Nemo, as Marlin and Dory race through the jelly fish. It is also used for excitement during the Monsters University frat/sorority party.
        Pixar is a great example for using colors, because their movies are usually very in depth and eye-catching. They know how to use colors to compliment a scene and to set a mood, and the video shows just how that works for them.

        So, is color important? I vote yes. This video gave me a slew of emotions I never realized I was feeling at the moment of watching those scenes, because I never realized just how in depth Pixar goes with its colors. Color is vastly important for story telling. Mood and scene setting is important, and the concept of color plays a huge role in the ability to do just that.
       

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"

        The thing about our society is that we always go, go go. We do not like to wait or stall or sit idly. So we don't take our time and constantly dive in head first without looking around to discover consequences that could be looming. And the article we read this week tells us just why that is a bad idea.

      In the article "The Single Biggest Mistake Animators Make", J.K. Riki talks about how beginning animators always want to skip ahead and get to "the good stuff". He talks about how he also made the mistake. He was in school for animation but kept failing because he couldn't work the way his professor wanted him to. So he did what any stubborn and frustrated kid would do and quit, deciding he could learn to animate on his own. Riki found a site with a program called "Micromedia Flash", that he thought would be his fast track to becoming an animator. But, as he says, there is no animator fast track. He did not learn the principles of animation, and this hurt him in the long run. Had he not tried to do it all on his own, he could have been a lot farther with what he knew.
        He ends his article by telling the reader to never neglect the principles of animation, because even though they could be repetitive and annoying, they are necessary. He also says to keep a balance between work and fun, so that you aren't making something you don't care for. Balance is a key aspect of life, and you need to take it and run wild.
       
        What J.K. Riki says is very informative to me. I learned just why it is bad to skip over or ignore learning the principles of animation because doing just that can take you off the track towards becoming a skilled animator. I agree with what he says. With tedious things like animation, it is never good to try and skip everything in an attempt to become the best. The solution is to just walk down the long road, and learn as you go. It is inefficient and impossible to look at a topic and decide you're going to learn everything in one quick go or learn nothing at all.
        The idea of not racing ahead is important to the field of digital media because quality things are never rushed. It takes time and patience to animate anything, and without the principles of animation in your hand you don't really have the ability to completely develop your ideas. However, I just want to note one question: What if you can't grasp the use of the principles? Where do you go from there? There is no way to tell, but this article has taught me to not give up; even if I am stubborn and want to get from train A to train B without any obstacles or things to learn.

A "week" in review

        So yeah, it's Thursday, so technically this is not a full week of thoughts. But Friday always has this mantra of "So and so many more hours until freedom, no don't punch the slow walker, just go, I believe in you", so I'm laying it on hot today.
          I learned about colors this week! I mean I already knew about colors, but I honestly did not know there were so many color harmonies. I've always only really acknowledged monochromatic  and maybe split complements existing, mostly because I don't particularly care for color in my art, and when I do it is disgusting combinations that make me giggle to myself because of how ugly they are. I also learned about the animation principles! Twelve entire things to memorize! I'm a little nervous. (Squash and stretch was said so many times yesterday that I don't even catalog it as a real phrase anymore.) Now let us venture out of the animation classroom for a moment to look at other things I learned this week. I actually haven't learned anything else, or if I did I was too zoned out to remember. Oops.
        So, future right? Right. I don't like to think too much about my future, but I do know what I want to learn in this class. In the future coming up right now, I was to learn just how to squash and stretch. I've never really thought about putting anything I do into motion, but I like the physics of squash and stretch and I hope to grasp it. It seems to be something that will be beneficial to me in this class. Also, I want to be about to tell someone "Oh yeah, I learned how to squash and stretch," and watch their faces when they try to comprehend what I just said.
       It is only Thursday, and yet a lot has frustrated me this week, to be honest. I've frustrated myself a total of fifteen times today alone. But mostly I was frustrated with the flip book that took over my life for approximately 72 hours. I would work for hours, take a break, and come back to the book to discover forty cards I thought I had finished were really just twenty. I distracted myself a lot and fought with the book a lot too. But even with all that frustration, when I finally finished, I sat there for 10 minutes just watching it. I was in awe that I had created something that I've always admired the concept of. But I'm never creating one again. I refuse.
        Something that made me happy this week wasn't really in animation, but animation caused it. Since the flip book took all weekend I didn't do any other homework really, and I openly admitted it to my English teacher. He was alright with it, but he wanted to see the flip book, and he was so amazed by it that he passed it around the class. He also told me that my writing makes him proud, and he couldn't wait to read the next essay by me. One more thing that made me happy was Bronwyn and I creating a son, out of a dumb little doodle I gave her. His name is Apollo and he is trash (he unironically likes Minions guys).
        So, my "week" aside, let me share something with you, yea? So you all know I'm  a bucket of Hamilton trash, and I don't stop. You probably really don't care, but when Mrs. Licata mentioned animatics I got excited because I watch tons of animatics. Nine times out of ten, those animatics are (as you've already probably concluded) Hamilton animatics. Just the talent one simple and unfinished video can hold amazes me! So here, I'll go easy on you and give you a simple little "Aaron Burr, Sir" one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1BVB3tTW6c.

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