Revised my piece from Tuesday. Smoothed the Animation and cleaned up some of the images. Working on assets for the last half of the story, plan to be completely finished by Sunday evening.
Created a Behance login and checked out a few demo reels.
Stills:

From Google doc. Demo reel grade sheet

Adventure - D: Probably should NOT be on demo reel. Not entirely finished piece
Fin Du Monde: A: Best work I did in Intro to Comp. Animation. Definately in demo reel.
Genesis Seed. B-: Might work after some tweaking
ZombieTimeHD C-: A little amerteurish, not good demo reel material.
Nightmare: B: May be good with a little tweaking
ViciousCycle: Ditto, could use some tweaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp-HMh-toHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyXYCSGacUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El2QUTLLkIc

Most of the demo reels I viewed started off with the best foot forward, which makes a lot of sense. Start with the great stuff, and end with the good stuff. The stuff at the beginning grabs attention and ending good leaves a "good taste" in the mouth of the viewer. That doesn't mean you should bookend crap with quality, the entire thing should be of quality, but it makes sense to have your two best pieces at the beginning and the end. Most of the reels I watched contained an audio track but that may be for Youtube purposes rather than professional practice.

Midterm project revision.
The animation is much improved in the revision and the cuts are more sensible. My opening shot tracking the walking feet is a little "stompy." It looks like my character is stomping rather than walking. My shot of the character walking into the bathroom, towards the camera is much improved. I seem to be losing a lot of my animation in the rendering process which probably means I need to extend an animation longer than what it seems in AE.
Travel Fellowship.
I really wanted to see the Madame Toussades (spelling?) Wax Museum when I was in Amsterdam. I guess that is high on my priority with a traveling fellowship. Top of the list would be the Rijksmuseum where much of Rembrandt's paintings are on display as well as those of the other Dutch Masters. The Allard Piersons museum house a great collection of antiquities, including dynastic Egyptian artifacts. It would also be interesting to visit the Pianola Museum wich houses original piano rolls from Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Strauss. There is more to Amsterdam than legal marijuana and prostitution but half the fun is the clash of cultures, where fine arts museums are just across the street from open air porno markets and hashish bars.

ugh.

Google Docs. Spreadsheet (internships)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtP8Fe2mcYU4dHdSMnVheW4tWUx5US1MQ3pZWGhWekE&hl=en_US#gid=0

Inferno Linda Cort 901 278 3773 Junior/Senior in GD, Proficient in Adobe suite, quart, positive attitude, team player All year paid
o2en Katie Russell 901 578 8055 Design Sensibility, Technical design skills, strategic thinking, high quality craftsmanship, time management, quality research Spring, Summer paid
Archer Malmo Inc. Richard Williams 901 524 2000 Eagerness to learn, Adobe Suite proficiency, Craftsmanship, strong design skills Summer depends on operating budget
Morgan Keegan and Co. Gail Rimer 901 524 4183 Proficient in Adobe Suite, Quark, MS Office Spring Paid
Red Deluxe Martin Wilford 901 522 9242 Adobe Suite, Quark, hand skills for mounting & presentation n/a paid
Mpact Memphis Gwyn Fisher 901 528 8340 Adobe, Good work ethic, craftsmanship All year n/a








Assignment write up:
This project was a punishing learning experience in planning and prioritization. I became ill over the weekend therefor I tried to do my project at home. It was one disaster after the other. I would spend hours on backgrounds for scenes I would later not have time to use. I would fail to save and my computer (which has a faulty, overheating video card) would crash..costing me even more hours worth of work.
Overall I feel lucky to even have something to turn in. Next time i'll rough out my backgrounds, then animate, then spend time on all the little details and eye candy.

Travel Fellowship.

I would most like to go to the Netherlands, as I am quite fond of the Northern Renaissance painters. Using the funds provided I would ensure I had relatively inexpensive lodgings (though this would prove to be difficult as Amsterdam has a very high cost of living.) This is the primary financial concern, shelter. And undoubtedly the most expensive component of the traveling fellowship. I can subsist off a low cost diet, funded mostly by myself. Another concern would be public transport, another cost I would carry.

assignment write up

Sorry if my writing runs a little incoherent, I just put away a 40 oz.
Basically tonight I just created various assets for my project. I created a face with iterations of 3 facial expressions. I created a body and another scene.

Mid Term Review

I came into this class with zero understanding or experience with Adobe Aftereffects. Halfway through the semester I feel like I have a working and applicable knowledge of the software. Its not the greatest software for animating in the style I prefer (hand drawn with onion skinning ala Toonboom) but it has it's own cool aesthetic. Despite being absent for a week I think I have grasped an understanding of the software and am able to apply my knowledge a work that plays to the software and the unique aesthetic it enables.

Tyree Guyton

Tyree Guyton is the creator of the Heidelberg Project in Detroit. He takes "junk" and assembles it along with  brightly painted surfaces such as old car hoods. He arranges his art along Heidelberg Street in Detroit, a former example of urban blight. Tyree was charismatic but he often answered questions with riddles and came off as slightly pretentious.

Travel Fellowship

Since I am a Senior AND my GPA is 2.8ish I don't qualify for the Travel Fellowships. But in a perfect world that would not matter some come along with me to my imaginary perfect world.
Amsterdam, Netherlands would be my choice for "New Europe" and not because of the marijuana. The Netherlands was the center of the Northern Renaissance with painters such as Rembrandt, Bruegel the Elder, Heironymous Bosch. They tended to be low key and slightly eerie, a look I am greatly inspired by.
Paris, France is my other choice due to the Impressionists, particularly Degas. Degas for very similar reasons to my admiration for the Dutch Renaissance painters. His scenes of ballet are mesmerizingly spooky and ethereal.

Thumbnails for story concept. Theme "loss of a loved one" + "terror". A young researcher's wife is driven to suicide by vivid recurring nightmares. He uses a new, experimental version of the sensory isolation tank pioneered by John Lilly in order to better understand her death. He is relentlessly stalked through his subconscious by the same demonic entity that drove his wife to suicide.