Culminating Blog Entry

During my completion of the Capstone Project at South San Francisco High School, there are numerous ways in which critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity were done by myself. While I was writing my capstone essay, I needed to brainstorm ideas, research several topics and dive deeper into what I'm learning about by asking myself different questions and challenging ideas in order to form a powerful, persuasive argument in my essay. Critical thinking was also necessary to solve problems during my physical project with my mentor. Communication played a very large role with my Capstone essay, as I met with my mentor weekly and contacted him through e-mail with any questions or confusions that he may help me with, as well as being a great listener when he would teach me something new for my project. With communication comes collaboration. For example, I had to collaborate with my mentor weekly as he would review my week's animation work, by solving problems and receiving his invoice of my work without disagreement. Creativity was another aspect which I had done, as I needed a creative plan for my physical project, whether I wanted to show a video or not, how I presented it, and what I would create in my animations to make it appealing to my audience.

The Capstone Project at SSFHS was an amazing experience for me, as it helped me understand and see the world of animation, as well as improving as a writer during my essay. However, my largest challenge would definitely be my physical project. It was very challenging and exhausting to do animation, although was very rewarding. Through every week, the tasks my mentor would assign me felt very rigorous, as I worked nearly every night after school to get it finished by the following week. Many times, it was extremely frustrating because, for example, I would work on my animation for five hours, scan the frames to my computer and realize that it was not good at all, having to restart all that I've done over those five hours. This aggravation came along with several assignments, such as my leaf drop and my first try at the Final Short especially. The only way I overcame these uncertainties were to power through, or completely throw everything away and start fresh. Despite these difficulties, they were incredibly rewarding and accomplishing at the end of the week to see my final clip. This hard work helped me see the reality of animation, of all the sweat, blood and tears of the work that is done to complete an animated sequence. This Capstone Project helped me see what I truly wanted to pursue as a career, which will be Animation. I also encountered several challenged writing my essay. Beginning, I wanted to argue how Animation integrates all forms of art, from illustration, painting, sculpting, photography and cinematography and many more. However, I could not find proficient sources to use in this essay, which was a problem for me. This led me to basing my essay on how artistic expression can help an individual through life's uncertainties, which was the much better way of going about my Capstone Essay. As you can see, I had many challenges with this project in which I all found solutions to.

I have gained a countless amount of things from this Capstone Project. It gave me an insight to the artistry that is held in the animation industry, as there's so much hard work being set in place that would be easily forgotten by its audience. This insight shaped my perspective of animation and filmmaking and helped me confirm my career choice. This project also improved my artistic skills and draftsmanship, especially in ways of finding gesture, rhythm and motion instead of focusing on the drawing. Legendary Disney animator Ollie Johnston once said, "you're not supposed to animate drawings. You're supposed to animate feelings", which I was able to understand as I grew my animation skills, which applies to nearly any art form. Being able to master gesture, rhythm and motion is most likely the most significant aspect of animation, as it separates a regular animated sequence from a work of art, such as animated films portrayed by Disney & Pixar. This project also helped me become a better writer, as it let me learn and use many new ways of brainstorming, researching, my actual writing, and reviewing work. As you can see, I gained much from this Capstone Project.

Final Animation Reel

My final animation reel. This will be the video I present in my Speech in May. This final reel consists of all of the Animation work I have done edited into one video. It looks great all being compiled in this Animation Reel, and it makes me feel incredibly accomplished. It's been a great journey getting to this point in my project.

Time logged for this session: .25 Hour
Total Time Logged: 63.0 Hours

Short: Powerful Revision

As I watched my final short, I knew there was something that can make it seem more powerful. I've come to realize that I can use the "smear principle" to make my character's jump-action stronger.

In filmmaking, motion blur is a natural occurrence, while in animation, it must be done by literally drawing these motion blurs, and it creates a great effect.

I simply added two in-between frames to capture the smear/motion blur, which wasn't very difficult and the results look amazing. It seems that I'm all done with every animation clip, and now I just need to update my Animation Reel to be presented in my Speech next month.

Time logged for this session: 1.0 Hour
Total Time Logged: 62.75 Hours

Short: Final Product

All finished with my complete short, and it looks great. The clean-up process was very successful and isn't too jittery, although can be even more improved. The short can improve in many aspects, from my consistency with drawing, making motions more fluid and etc. Although as a beginners standpoint, I'm very proud of it.

Short: Clean-Up Process

Cleaned up all of the frames for my Animated Short. I have went through this process for all of my animation clips, and it is definitely the most painstaking. I basically "render" each drawing to make it look cleaner, erasing any rough lines and darkening the drawing. I especially took my time for this process, as I want my animated short to look significantly cleaner than my past animation clips. The next few days I will scan all of these frames and compose them into an animation. I hope it all turns out well!
Time logged for this session: 8.0 Hours
Total Time logged: 61.75 Hours

Short: Rough Animation

Completed doing all of the frames for my animated short. All that was needed was the "in betweens" for the first walk scene and when he jumps into the air, so it was relatively easy to do.

My next step is to clean up all of the drawings, now that I have a good idea of what the final product will look like, which is why it's labelled as a "rough" animation. While I clean up the drawings, i need to remember to have him look up sooner, as it seems it's too sudden.

Time logged for this session: 2.5 Hours
Total time logged: 53.75 Hours

Thank you to my mentor Ben Ridgway

View his art blog at benridgway.com

Ben was a fantastic mentor. He guided me through all of the most basic and most foundational animation principles such as timing, key frames, weight balance, and much more ever since the first day of meeting him. He was supportive of my work and he encouraged me to use my own creativity and go outside of my comfort zone with this project, and provided great help when I needed it. On the other hand, he is an amazing artist, animator and film-maker who creates beautiful films and artwork in his spare time when he's not teaching students at San Francisco State. His style of art will definitely have an influence on my future artwork.