Final Project Blog

      My interpretation of the script was two college aged boys babysitting and trying to pass time by messing around with the baby. When reading the script I pictured two people sarcastically playing with an object that doesn't really do anything. Just them exaggerating the situation. In the end, when the baby fell asleep, the second object was the grandfather that had been sitting in the room the whole time.

      Of the 12 principles of animation, in this project I focussed on learning more of secondary actions. Between the two characters I tried to keep them moving as much as I could within my time limitations. Whether it blinking, nodding, or hand movements, they both had portrayed secondary actions. Another principle used was exaggeration. This principle was easily found in the fast movements when I used a motion blur in order to exaggerate the speed that the character was moving. I also used follow through for character two's hair. When he was moving his hair continued to move shortly after he had already stopped.

      I feel that I've grown stylistically as well as giving characters more expression. Throughout the year I've had trouble maintaining both style and animation simultaneously but now I feel I've been able to balance out the two. I'm glad to see the style improvements between my first short to this one.

      In the animation I felt that it was strongest in the middle of the short. In the beginning you can tell I was still trying to get comfortable with the animation and style and near the end you can see it gradually becoming more rushed as I reached my deadline. In the future I'd like to take time to figure out my style and figuring out how each character moves and looks at different angles. I'd also like to continue to learn better time management, but I'm realizing that this is something I could always improve on even when I'm in the field.

      I was disappointed that I wasn't able to finish on time and couldn't get the ending how I wanted it, but overall I was happy with how it turned out. I think that next time I'll focus on laying down each keyframe first instead of almost blindly diving in, besides already having a storyboard. I feel like I've improved a lot with this project alone and hopefully after this class I'll continue to improve just as well.