Chinese New Years Break

photo by Laurence & Annie

Well, I'm on break again, but this time for Chinese New Years. I've been trying to think on how I should use it and have been having a hard time deciding since I have quite a few projects that I can create for myself to do or can continue to work on previous projects I've started. After animating some simple stuff this after noon, I think that instead of working on drawing, any of my websites, or a lot of photography stuff, I'm going to create a short animation. It's something that I can't normally do in my dorming situation and I always forget how fun it is seeing something you've done come to life. That week of practice I did before the summer ended also showed me that my skills have developed enough to create something simple yet effective.

I've also realized that my mind set for these things is off a little. Before, I was focusing way too much on the medium and the art of stop motion. That's why I never got anything done. With the research that's come along with this new site I'm developing, as well as just some simple thought, I've come to understand that the medium isn't the point. It's the story(I heard this before, but never really took it to heart) and the characters(realized this more recently). I also shouldn't be trying to create a "clay animation" but rather a piece of work that someone can enjoy or ponder over. Also, after watching Lewimations film, I realize that he didn't get it perfect, and yet he succeeded. I should be showing off the imperfections of the art anyways, showing how tangible it really is. Even if it's not as perfect as I would like it to be sometimes, I can practice through creating a story rather than through boring old practice. These are going to be some of the ideas I will be stressing on the stopmotion site, if I ever get it done, so that people don't get caught up in the same rut I did for over a couple years.

So, hopefully, this week I'll be able to get a good start or finish a short animation with a length of one to five minutes. Things may interupt, like sickness or other plans, but for the most part, instead of spending time on the computer and slacking off, I'm going to try to work on this. Some goals I have are:

- Make it simple
- Create characters with unique personalites
- Create something interesting out of clay
- Add sound (I usually don't add sound because I'm lazy, but it really does help, and I'm trying to enhance the user's experience now)
- Create a decent story line
- Storyboard, but don't take too much time on it
- Make it unique (I'm going to try to personalize it a little in some way or add some twist to it to make it my own)
- Finish it (If not over break, sometime else)

The characters are most likely going to be some sort of blob. Why? It's what I'm comfortable with and I'm going to challenge myself to make them more than just a blob through the animating. I'm probably going to have a minimal amount of props/backdrops as well. My main focuses are going to be camera angles and animation. Hopefully be able to use the camera angle to benefit the animation. I may even break out the digital SLR for this one, even though those posts on the stopmotionanimation.com forums about the sensor dying make me nervous. An SLR would give me much better DOF and stabiltiy and would help me feel like I'm getting better quality.

Now I have to think of a story, but I think that it won't be too hard since I'm looking at this in a different way now. As a side note, if I decide to drop "The Hole", it's because of the very reasons I mentioned in this. It started more as a portfolio/practice type of thing, but I've thought of some ways I can possibly save it. One of the things that concerns me with that one is the set.

I'll hopefully update as I go along.