Final Project

My final project is an animation made in After Effects, practically a brand new program for me.  I am exploring not only the program but the elements of design, shapes and colors.

Mainstream ≠ Art

These videos reminds me of a discussion I had in a previous class. How the art world finds itself within mainstream art such as commercials, music videos and television. Using influences from artists, their techniques, ideas and content. I posted an example of each but there are so many more! These one are just pertaining to apparent animations.  

Relay For Life Luminaria TV Commercial

Her Morning Elegance - Oren Lavie

Desprate House Wives Opening Credits - Season 1

Another good example would be ours truly Lady Gaga. People not of the art world would look at her and her videos and think "Wow, so innovative and weird." After two semesters of Video Art I look at it and think, "Looks a little like Bill Viola?". With her previous education in art I wouldn't be surprised if she knew of him. John Corbin said something like, Lady Gaga becomes this vehicle from the art world to mainstream.

In the end I think most of us can relate to Lady Gaga in the way we look at different artists and their techniques and combine it with our personal touch when we make projects.

So because it is main stream does it make less of art? Do you think because it's selling out that it's more or less? Than think of Warhol who was very main stream but still very much an artist. This might be loaded question because it's basically asking, "What is art?" which I know I can't answer with a unanimous response.


Also, is there a difference between taking something that derived from art turned mainstream to "art"? I don't know if that makes sense. Is there a point where art isn't art any more? This is how I look at it.


Art > Mainstream with art derived > mainstream > mainstream > mainstream.


The way I look at it is it works similar to the game telephone. To certain point it's not the original information or in this case it no longer classifies as "art" whatever you think that means.

Sorry that was kind of rant.

My 3 Find

PES - Fresh Guacamole

PES's videos really exemplifies just the magic of animation.  PES uses objects creatively.  They take objects out of its context and as viewers we believe it and accept it, I think is a remarkable occurrence that happens.  It reminds me of one of my favorite artists Chema Madoz.

Chema Madoz

Chema Madoz is a surrealist photographer that uses objects similar to PES's video.  They both take objects and seperate them from what they were intended for to create something else. I guess that would be the definition of appropriation.

It is also really interesting in the way they use the same techniques and technology.  They both have this idea of prepoduction installation and using a lensed based process.

My 2 Find

Deadline - Bang-Yao Liu

In this piece the sound and music coorelate accordingly to what is showing.  It is a mixture of a looping beat along with sounds to highlight the actions that is taking place throughout the video.  Some of the sounds are a keyboard, sound effects found in a video game, reving of a car, rain and lightening and etc...


In this piece I think that sound and music worked to its benefit.  Listening to the video without sound looses a sense of it's playfulness and rhythm.  As you watch you can imagine and hear the sounds in your head.


After the guest speaker, I start to listen to things differently.  As I was watching and listening to this video I think, "What if that isn't a reving of car, rather it's made by (_______)?" Programs we explored with the speaker really broadened my horizons and stretched my imagination musically.  Basically with some arranging you can make a beat or song or something sound like something else.  Which then reminded me of this video...

Hyperactive - Lasse Gjersten

This technique he used was a combination of sounds he recorded and then edited together to make something rather interesting.  I guess you could just beat box and arrange sound in the way that a musician plays an instrument live.  This technique is similar to how I went about using sound.  I found and/or made sound and arranged it to correlate with my animation.

My 1 Find

"500 People in 100 Seconds!" by Eran Amir

"The Life Size Zoetrope" by Mark Simon Hewis

These two video remind me of one another.  They are "500 People in 100 Seconds!" By Eran Amir and "The Life Size Zeotrope" by Mark Simon Hewis, a video we had watched in class.  
They both use several different people as a frame to hold the actual picture animation.  As the background of people is moving so is the animation.
Although Hewis's piece they use the camera to zoom in to focus on the animation while the background gives a Zoetrope effect Armir piece's animation is done using a program.
Personally, Armir piece is interesting to me, in the way that it has several different narratives going on at the same time. Because you can clearly see the people that are holding the picture and their surroundings along with what is going on with the pictures they are holding. In some of the pictures the people are placed in the same exact place as the person before them, others in random surroundings.  The animation also had several different scenes and narratives going on.  So it has this story within a story feel.
In comparison to Hewis's pieces Amir's piece had a sense of impulse as Hewis's was planned.  Hewis's piece is completely controlled and shows an emphasis on the importance of timing. Everything is synced with the speed of the ride to the narrative of the story.
They both contained sound.  One is a narrative the other is a song.  The narrative was synced to the animation as the song in Armir's piece played was light and somewhat playful throughout the piece.

Study 1 & 2

The superdoodle and skating,sliding,skidding projects were great exercises to the introduction to the animation world.  Speaking for myself, it allowed me to experiment with different processes and alternatives to produce the same general project with some differences.

1. I have dealt with importing pictures into final cut pro, though it is super effective, I don't know about everyone else but loading clunky programs to do fairly small and simple projects is a lot of waiting time. 
2. The route I took began with a series of pictures in order in a folder. 
3. In the finder I selected it all, right click and opened it in preview. 
4. I open up a program called iShowU, which records and captures your screen and exports it to a .mov. (There are varieties all over the Internet, which are free).
5. Hit the record button and reopen the preview window. 
6. View the images as full screen and hold the right arrow button on your keyboard and watch your files "play". 
7. As soon as it hits the end, just to be safe do it a couple times and allow a pause in between the first and last pictures, it will help you during editing. 
8. As soon as your done stop recording and open up the movie that you've made. 
9. Open it on Quicktime and you can begin trimming.
10. As soon as your done go to file, save as, and it will automatically save it as a .mov.

There are definite pro’s and con’s to this process.


Pro’s

• No clunky large programs, so it doesn’t slow down your computer
• The save as/exporting process automatically saves it as a small .mov file,  so uploading onto the web or an email is simple.
• You work with programs already installed into your computer (excluding iShowU)

Con’s

• Does not allow for a lot of customization
• Low quality, not allowing for larger screen display
• Slower transitions in between files

Project 1 - Flip Book

Project 1 - Flip Book

Using photoshop, my handy dandy web cam, sharp objects and stock paper I assembled a flip book.

I began taking pictures of myself moving from one point to another almost every couple inches and came up with 56 images.  I opened them up on photoshop and deleted the background by selecting with either the magic wand, lasso, or using editing mode, whatever your preference.  

Go to File > Save for Web & Devices and save as a .jpg.

Make a separate folder to put all the pictures in, so at this point  you should have a folder with the originals and one photoshopped without the background.  I labeled the pictures from 1-56 to make it easier on me.

Open one of the .jogs.

Go to Windows > Actions then click on the top right hand corner icon. Click Make New Actions > Click OK

Then Press Record icon along the bottom

Go to Filter > Sketch > Stamp  I keep the Light/Dark Balance 25 and the Smoothness 5.  You can customize it differently.

Go to Image > Canvas Size > Click on the right arrow > increase the width an additional 6 inches.

At this point you should have something like this.

Go to File > Save for Web & Devices > save as a .jpg > change the image size width to 400 pixels > click save > save it in the same folder > when it asks if you want to replace click replace

Go to Windows > Actions > click on the stop button along the bottom

Go to File > Automate > Batch > make sure the Source: Folder > Click Choose > and find the folder with all of the photoshopped .jpg images without the backgrounds >  make sure the Destination: Save and Close > Check the Override Action "Save As" Commands > Click OK

All of the images in the folder should be changed to look like this.

Open up the folder > select all > Open With Preview > select all the images along the right > File > Print Selected Images > change Images per page to 6

Then print, cut, arrange and you can attach them to one another using different methods (binder clips, glue, rubber bands, duct tape, binder rings)