Maddie's Magnificent Movies!- Multiplane Animation

This week in Animation, we made multiplane animations. Multiplane animation is when you use several layers of animation and move them all separately to create a feeling of depth. It was invented in 1957 by Walt Disney, and he did it using a special device called the multiplane camera, which he and his crew invented. Back then, animations were made using transparent celluloid sheets with drawings on them and large glass frames with cameras above them so they could take a picture of each frame. Then they put the frames together to create an animation. It was a long process, and because of this, old animation studios looked like factories because of how many people it took to draw so many frames.

Now, we don't need to do that anymore because we've got computers! My class made our multiplane animation using Photoshop's multiple layers and AfterEffects' instant motion tweening. I put mine on the moon, because I thought that had a lot of creative possibilities. The first thing I did was draw the earth in the background. Most people in my group put the sun there, but since mine is on the moon, I thought the earth would be more fitting. Then, I created 3 layers of a moonscape, all in different shades of gray, and then added craters on each layer. Then, I added details. On the front layer, I added the Moon Rabbit (a white rabbit from Japanese folklore that lives on the moon, making rice cake) and Majora from The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, who lives inside the moon. On the middle layer, I added the American flag from the Apollo 11 (complete with footsteps that will never go away due to the moon having no wind) and Desmond the Moon Bear (from TomSka's "asdfmovie" videos). On the back layer I added a lunar rover and, of course, the one named Sailor Moon! Then I trimmed down the back and middle layers to make them shorter, put them into AfterEffects, and made them move across the screen. And that is how I made my multiplane animation!

Maddie's Magnificent Movies!- Walk Cycle Animation

Throughout the past 2 weeks, we made a walk cycle animation. Since we weren't skilled enough to make the legs bend, we just didn't bother. Because of this, the instructor recommended we use robots. Now, I have several OCs that are robots, so it was a difficult decision, but I decided to go with Metal Girl, a grumpy and emotional android girl who throws razor blades, is the daughter of Metal Man from Mega Man 2, and is generally Very Edgy™. I sketched her on paper, then drew over it in Photoshop. Also using Photoshop, I separated her arms and legs from the rest of her body, colored her using Metal Man's official art as a base, and shaded her using the Sad Italian- I mean, Burn tool. I worked especially hard on shading the razor blades on her head, shoulders, boots, gloves, and in her hair to make them look metallic. Then, I put Metal Man's stage in the background, put it in AfterEffects, and started animating! The animation went as smoothly as I imagined, and soon enough, I was done.

Most importantly, I learned how to to take a photo of a drawing and draw over it in Photoshop. I also learned how to use the Sad Italian- I mean, Burn tool (no seriously, look at the Burn tool's icon) and how to animate a character walking semi-realistically in AfterEffects.

See why I call it the "Sad Italian" tool?

I think I did best on the character drawing and the actual walking animation. For someone who hasn't shaded digital art before, I find it relatively impressive. And while the walking animation does look like a wind-up doll, that was sort of the intention, since she IS a robot. What I could improve on is giving the background more depth, instead of just using a screenshot from a NES game.

Maddie's Magnificent Movies!- Feature Story

For the past few weeks in Video Production, we had to do an interview video. My group decided to interview me, since out of the 4 of us, I had the most issues to talk about. On the first day of this project, Mr. Cooper asked everyone to share their story. I talked about my Asperger's Syndrome and how it has affected my life. This ended up being the topic of our interview. The filming process was, put simply, tedious. We originally filmed on Thursday of the first week, but because of one of my group members losing all the footage, we had to reshoot the entire thing. After that was all complete, I chose some relaxing Kirby music to play in the background, and I added B-roll.

Technologically, I learned how to use B-roll, sync up two audio clips better, how to use a clip-on microphone, and how to look like you're playing Mega Man on a PC when you really are just watching a video of someone playing it. I also learned about teamwork, how to not be such a drama queen when it comes to how quickly my videos are made, and how to act when I'm interviewed.

If there's anything I could have done better, it's the decision to use subtitles instead of narration. The only reason I didn't use narration is because it seems a little weird for the interviewee to narrate it at all, let alone refer to herself in the third person. I believe I did an excellent job on editing the B-roll and selecting the right music, though.