The movie is essentially a 2-minute look into the week of my sketchbook and all the various things I use it for. The movie will showcase the madness, speed and overwhelming tasks that encompass one of my weeks.

Audience

The intended audience is one composed of individuals who can relate to a busy schedule that is very closely tied to a creative life.

Key Message

I want the audience to be left with a sense of how busy I am in the week, and how I use my sketchbook to deal with some of the stresses and ‘to-do’ lists. I also want to showcase all the various purposes my sketchbook serves me, because it is one of the most valuable objects because it serves me as a creative outlet, but also keeps me organized, helps me get around, solve my ideas, remember directions and recipes, and so much more.

Content Planning

The content is technically one large sheet of tracing paper that has all the days of the week sketched out with all the many things that actually exist in my sketchbook. The content of the various days will be quickly unmasked. The days of the week will now be in order to show the madness that is contained within the pages of by sketchbook. The days will be linked together by arrows, and the very end the camera will zoom out in order to show the entire week.

Bibliography

I created all various aspects of this animation, and no outside sources were used.

Visual/Conceptual References

My main inspiration for this concept is my sketchbook. This animation is essentially my sketchbook in motion.

Pillow:

My pillow is probably one of the things that keeps me going through the day, with just the thought of reuniting with it, even if only for 2 hours, at night. I love sleep and am especially fond of napping and my pillow is always there for me when I need it.

Glasses:

Without my glasses I am totally blind. I can’t see far and therefore without them I cannot do any of my normal daily activities. They are the first thing I reach for as soon as I awake and they help me get through my day without bumping into too many things or people.

Jewelry:

The jewelry in the photo is representative of fashion, uniqueness and taking the time to look nice before I leave my house which I think is important not because I want to impress people but because taking the time to make myself look presentable makes me feel better about my day.

Wallet:

This is an obvious one, but beside the fact that my wallet holds all my money, it also has all my IDs in it that help me get into certain places and allow me to accomplish all my tasks smoothly.

Fridge:

I love food, and love eating more than many things in life. From the moment I wake up the kitchen is my first real destination. Without food, I do not function on a physical level, however cooking in general calms and relaxes me when I’m stressed.

Cell:

My cell phone is not fancy, it’s not a Blackberry or an iPhone but it’s still a huge part of my life. I use it as an alarm clock, watch, phonebook, for security (to call my mom and tell her I’m ok J ), for my schedule, as a calendar, for countdowns, and to generally keep in touch with my friends and family.

Sketchbook:

My sketchbooks are very important to me because they are basically my tactile outlet. I doodle and sketch any chance I get and enjoy every second of it. I also use my sketchbook to record my ideas, and for my to-do lists that are also extremely important to me.

Coffee:

Instant human; just add coffee. That is my motto in life. I am completely addicted to coffee more than any other substance in the world, and it makes my morning, lunch, afternoon amazing. I love the taste of it, its warmth and the happy rush it gives me, which often carries me through my boring classes or the days after all-nighters.

Mac:

My computer is, sadly, almost an extension of me in that I use it to create all my projects for school, to watch my favorite TV shows online (when I miss them due to my crazy schedule), to keep in touch with my family and friends in Bosnia through the internet, and a thousand other things.

Markers:

My markers follow along with the sketchbook in that they allow me to doodle pretty little things that are colorful and make me happy. Furthermore I use the markers to write my notes for classes, and highlight important areas in readings. They keep me organized, allow me to enjoy my doodles, and they make studying time more productive.

The main concept behind this countdown is that numbers appear on the fingernails of two hands. The numbers themselves are written on top of orange nail polish with a black sharpie and than the subject was filmed painting over the orange nail polish with black nail polish. When the footage is reversed and sped up, it appears as though the nail polish brush is eating up the black nail polish to reveal the numbers on the orange nails. All in all it’s a play on time reminiscent of the saying ‘what came first the chicken or the egg?’

This countdown mostly targets a younger audience, anywhere from 7 to 22. It is meant to be fun and intriguing and possibly in the context of a makeover show or a children’s program.

The key message for the audience is to have fun, and to realize the fun in doing something with ones hands even if it is as simple as applying nail polish. 

The content making up this countdown is very simple: two hands, along with orange and black nail polish. The fact that there is not much to the make up of the countdown goes back to the theme that one can have fun with limited resources. 

To view painting by numbers go to Painting by Numbers

As for other options, I’ve been told any bright green paint works (on cardboard/wood/etc) however those aren’t that easy to transport.

Lastly you could always beg the Seneca film department to rent one of their green screens to you (they rent them to their students)

That pretty much sums up my green screen findings so far. I plan to use After Effects to edit everything, so I will post more about this adventure as it comes.

Personal Reflection 

I would like to start off by saying that this project was one of the most fun and exciting projects I have done in YSDN for the sole reason that we got to do a lot of exploring and experimenting, both with the sound and our visuals. Due to the open nature of this assignment we were able to make a sound clip that is inherently unique to us and our personalities with a video to match. Knowing that animation was not allowed in the project we decided to use stop motion photography and give an illusion of animation by using a white board in the lab to draw on. 

In comparison to most of the other work we saw I would have to say ours is quiet different. Our video has a lot humor and quirkiness that I find I don’t often see in other projects. Furthermore the playful nature of the our project is a direct reflection of how Cristina, Anastasia and I interact with each other, making the project an abstract extension of us.

Through all our technical difficulties while producing this project, we learned a lot about sound layering, managed to manipulate stop motion to our needs and refined our timing skills. There were many instances in which we had to retake images, rethink our concept, rework our sounds to fit, etc but I believe it was worth it in the end. Although we spent a great deal of time completing this project I am very happy with the end result.

Initial Idea:

Since our sound clip was composed of spontaneous sounds created by the three of us, we wanted to follow it up with appropriate images. We decided that we would select individuals at random and have them do spontaneous movements while we took consecutive photographs. We then planned to compile our scenes in a way that would be interesting and build-up the sequence/timing to follow the sound clip.

When we tried to execute this idea we found it hard to follow through because:
1) lack of enthusiastic candidates
2) lack of consistency between the backgrounds
3) lack of time to properly edit, organize and compile the image sequence

Current Idea:

We decided to slightly re-work the first idea, we collectively agreed to use the three of us, to act out in the visual scenes. This seemed like an even better idea seeing as the sound clip is our own vocal improve.

After taking some of the initial photographs, we noticed that it was easier to restrict ourselves to the white background of the labs to keep the main focus on our movements. This we found helped us when we did our transitions.

We took separate pictures of moving feet/legs, moving hands/mid section, and moving head. We then re-took photos of all the separate parts, and compiled them into one frame. The end result was a full person consisting of Anastasia’s feet/legs, Cristina’s arms/mid section, and Sanja’s head. When played in sequence all three sections are visible at once, but consist of individual movements making up the “person”. Reminiscent of the old cheese string commercials, and the new Activia 14 day trial yogurt commercials (with the moving mid section).

While experimenting with our photos, we decided to use the white board behind Cristina. The end result turned out to be an interesting combination of spontaneous movements that drove the animation and ended with the animation driving the spontaneous movements.

Group Members – Sanja Menicanin, Cristina Saldutto, and Anastasia Danilovitch

For this exercise our initial idea was to record sounds in the TEL cafe. For the noun we selected environment and our verbs were burst and unite. On our test run we observed sounds fitting into three different categories: speech, electronic and sounds specific to that area. THrough this test run we decided to record sounds on our own. However when we realized that recording with Garage Band and Audacity gave a lot of static and fuzzy background noise we went back to the handout sheet and picked new words.

We stuck with our noun environment, but chose escape and mix as our new verbs. We isolated ourselves in the type room beside lab 4 and recorded all our sounds with found objects within our environment (including ourselves). These are the inanimate objects we used: bangles, keys, seeds, paper, can of spray paint, wooden type blocks, bristles on a plastic brush, cardboard cylinder, metal clasp, plastic wrapper, loose change, zipper, blinds, cupboard door, running water.

After exhausting all the objects in the room we decided to record ourselves making sounds with the word escape in mind. The result was a variety of playful child-like noises that were a great juxtaposition to the noises of the inanimate objects. When we mixed the sets together our goal was to have an equal balance of the objects and vocals, while still creating crescendos and highlighting certain noises to add interest and play on our chosen words: escape, mix and environment.

The final result is posted on Anastasia’s blog.  http://anastasia3.wordpress.com/