WEEK 1 SUMMARY

WEEK BEGINNING: 26th of November, 2018

WEEK ENDING: 2nd of December, 2018

MONDAY: Introduction to Unit BA1b, Introduction to After Effects

Original blog posts:

Intro to BA1b - https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2018/11/unit-ba1b-introduction.html

- A general introduction to what we'd be doing over the next few months, involving a practice task involving morphing.

- "Overall, I was happy with this session! But what I'm most looking forward to is the rest of the unit. Especially learning how to do 3D animation in Maya; I've never done CGI animation before, so it'll be interesting learning if it'll be easy, difficult, or maybe even something I'd want to keep doing throughout all 3 years! The Mystery Box project seems interesting as well; I'd seen previous examples of it, and it looks like a lot of fun to come up with the ideas and execute them!"

After Effects - https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2018/11/animation-principles-after-effects.html

- An introduction to our Motion Graphics and After Effects Morphing projects. Taught us the basics of After Effects.

- "Overall thoughts? Honestly, I didn't really like this session. Motion graphics usually don't interest me, but I thought I'd give it a fair shot with this introductory session like I had done for things I previously didn't like in the last unit. But ultimately... I don't think it's for me. The combination of the subject matter itself and After Effects wasn't my cup of tea, and I can't see myself utilising motion graphics outside my university work."

TUESDAY: Introduction to Narratology

Original blog post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2018/11/narrative-introduction.html

- An introduction to our new essay project, looking at Narratology.

- "[...]But I did enjoy this lecture! Granted, the subject matter for this essay isn't as personally interesting as the last one was (the subject was characters). But I just need to make sure I choose something I'll be happy writing about and then it should all be alright from there! I'm struggling to come up with a comprehensive pool of films I could choose from for this, the one I'm gravitating towards most is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. I'm going to have to double check if I'd be able to use that film though, since it's only partially animated. But overall, enthusiastic about this project!"

THURSDAY: After Effects Development

Original blog post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2018/11/animation-principles-after-effects_29.html

- Further development on After Effects skills

- "Overall, this session was a lot like the last After Effects one; I didn't really enjoy it too much, nothing really appealed to me personally. After Effects still doesn't feel like "my thing", especially after giving it a fair go both at uni and when finishing work at home. While the animation came out alright, it just about meets my own personal standard. The thing I feel holding me back from making it better is just my incompatibility with After Effects. I should try and find ways to make things easier to work with next week."

SUMMARY
Overall, this was a solid week in terms of introductions to the new projects. 

The entirety of BA1b looks interesting, in terms of the range of things we do and the time we get to do it. It seems as if it'll be more fast paced than BA1a was, where it was 1 project for about 2 months; now it's a few weeks per project. CGI and the Mystery Box are what interest me the most; aspiring to do CGI at an early age was what got me into animation, but I've not done it before up to this point. And seeing previous year's Mystery Box animations look really cool, creating a character of your own and bringing them to life! That's right up my alley!

After Effects on the other hand... is not. I've said it in my previous blog posts about the program, but I don't really get along with it. I gave it a fair chance to sway me, but I think it's gone under the listing of "programs I don't like". I'll use it if necessary, like for this project and such, but I can't see myself using it outside of university usage any time soon.

Finally, the Narratology project. Like I said, the topic we're looking at doesn't appeal to me as much as the Character project did, I can still spin it to become a lot more engaging to me personally! One of my main goals with this research project is to use a film I don't know inside and out; that means no LEGO Movie (even though I did that one last unit) and none of the Toy Story trilogy. This still leaves me with a lot of films I really enjoy that I could write about; as stated before, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? has been on my mind a lot; that could be a good choice.