WEEK 2 SUMMARY

WEEK BEGINNING: 3rd of December, 2018

WEEK ENDING: 9th of December, 2018

[DISCLAIMER: I missed some of this week for personal reasons. Sessions I missed will not be covered in depth.]

MONDAY - Introduction to "Guess the Movie" task

Original blog post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2018/12/animation-principles-introduction.html

- This was just our introduction to our "Guess the Movie" project, that's running for 4 weeks and involves taking two props from a live action movie and making them morph into each other.

- "So this project seems REALLY exciting! I love working with media I love; it's the kind of stuff I was doing before starting this course. When both your subject matter and your medium involves something you're passionate about, then you become a lot more invested in it, which is exactly what I'm going for! From here, I think asset creation is what I'm going to aim for next. The drawing tools in After Effects, the program we're making this animation in, aren't really my cup of tea. However, I'm a lot more comfortable in another vector based program, Illustrator. I could make the assets there and import them over somehow? Will have to look into that."

TUESDAY - Narratology: "Only Trouble is Interesting?"

Original blog post: https://ncarolannua1b.blogspot.com/2018/12/narrative-only-trouble-is-interesting.html 

- We discussed if stories had to have some kind of conflict, and looked at the ideals of Western storytelling standards vs Eastern ones.

- "This session was generally very interesting! Before this, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of plot structure, but I learnt a lot more that I wouldn't have known had I not attended! The most interesting thing was definitely Kishotenketsu; it's a fairly unconventional plot structure for western societies, and one I didn't know about beforehand. I really want to keep the structure in the back of my mind, so that when the time comes to make my own story, I can consider this less seen method!"

THURSDAY - (absent) After Effects session

From what I've gathered, this session was just getting a start with the "Guess the Movie" task.

SUMMARY
Getting the brief on our After Effects project was a lot more exciting than I thought it would be! I love working on projects that involve the things we love, and being a huge fan of superhero movies, I was up for working on anything that meant I could incorporate my favourite movie in it! Although it does come with the angle of it having to be done in After Effects... my experience thus far with the program has NOT been good. But I guess it's something I'm just going to have to get used to, especially if I want to be able to do the things I want to with this task.

Narratology this session was really interesting; a lot more so than I usually expect from these types of lectures. I knew beforehand there were certain formulas and tropes that stories fall into, but I never knew there were certain ones that are almost always present dependent on your location. Kishotenketsu was really interesting to look into as well! We also got the 5 question templates for our essays; I think I'm going to look at the one regarding how animation is intrinsic to the narrative. It seems really interesting, and right up my alley! It also means my ideal film of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? fits a lot more.