looking back on assignment 1...

First off, it was more fun than anticipated. This is not to say that I didn't think it wasn't going to be fun, but having to work on tiny film frames for animation is not something that comes natural to me. However, seeing the end result made all the work worth it. As it turns out, what seemed to be mildly random segments of film cut together turned into somewhat of a coherent film. My animation consisted mainly of images that morphed or moved across the frame --> a smiley face, a circle turning into a square, a man rotating and a rectangle taking over the frame. I'm not necessarily a fan of tedious work, and I suspect many aren't either, especially when having to draw the same images over and over with little changes in between. However, seeing the images come alive was a nice reward for all the hard work put into it. But my days as an animator have come to an end, I'm content with sticking to filming :) The part I liked the best were the magazine transfers. At first, they didn't work out quite the same way they had in class, but eventually, I got the technique down. In sticking to my water theme for the transfers, I used a lot of blue (for obvious reasons.) To jazz it up, I used an advertisement for nail polish and put the bright colors on the film to essentially create a rainbow effect. I may have been stretching the water theme a bit on that one, but it seemed to look pretty once it was projected. Ben and I split up the work to be done, so I let him do the inking and cutting up of the film. But I also learned more from this assignment than just making a pretty looking film without a camera. My most valuable lesson... maybe not super valuable, but it was a lesson learned the hard way... was learning how to load the projector. Or rather use the projector as a whole, as I seem to have a knack for causing havoc anytime I'm near it. But I think I've finally learned how to PROPERLY load the projector, we've come a long way from my days of spilling Dr. Pepper next do it in Intro to Doc!