Notes

Write Up

I finished my rough version of my animation. I had a few problems at first, but I feel like I can use After Effects more comfortably now. I also feel like I can take a few of my scenes further to make them more interesting.

Revised Storyboard

Storyboard

Technical Review of 3 Videos

In the Realms of the Unreal used drawings, photographs, and real objects to create the story. They would zoom in out and pan across a photograph, to make the viewer feel more involved. They used multiple layers to animate the drawings, and they also combined drawings with real video in some parts. They paid close attention to transitions using fade ins and fade outs and other transition effects. They used overlays, collage, copying, tracing, and shadows. They combined all these effects to make a very interesting story by using mainly still images.
The Kid Stays in the Picture used a combination of mainly photgraphs and video clips. They would also zoom in on pictures and pan across them. They would do this slow or fast at times. They would cut out parts of pictures and paste them onto other backgrounds. These cut out pictures would then move foreward to create a foreground and background. They also used the blur effect to emphasize this at times. Sometimes they would cut the focal point out and rotate it slightly to make it seem more alive. They would use the brightness and darkness of clips to make a glistening effect. They would use several layers on top of one another playing with transparency and the direction each layer moves. They would make some parts of the pictures move like water glistening. They also used fade ins and fade outs to make everything dissolve together. They placed with the saturation and contrast of the layers in photographs to emphasize things. They also used flares and lighting effects to make things like sunlight and smoke move across the photo. They used shadows behind things, and made the shadows move as it appears that the camera is getting closer.
Ken Burns used pretty much all photographs. He would make them shake slightly to create an old film effect. He also used fade-ins and fade-outs between scenes. He would zoom in on the photographs and pan across them to make it feel like the viewer is moving through the photographs.

Proposal

I have chosen my topic to be dreams and the blur between dreams and reality. I realize that this is a very broad subject so I plan on breaking it down into sub-categories. These categories are ordinary dreams, lucid dreams, telepathic dreams, premonitory dreams, and nightmares. Ordinary dreams resemble waking life the most. Lucid dreams are where the dreamer has control, telepathic dreams are when the dreamer makes contact with the dead in the dream world. Premonitory dreams sometimes reveal the future. Nightmares are frightening dreams that are usually warnings to the dreamer.
I have chosen this topic because I have always been interested in dreams in general and my dreams. It is also interesting how we don't know many facts about dreams. I believe there are lots of directions I could go with the topic of dreams.

Write Up

My animation is done using photographs. I tried to show the randomness of dreams. I made one frame regular color and then the next inverted. Then, I made a frame in between the two that overlapped the regular and inverted. I think I am getting a little better with photoshop.