First Impressions
- My mindset was changed to understand that text cannot be the driving force in animation unless it is about words the animated image should speak for itself.
- Grid work got me looking around in areas I usually avoid but it made me realize how much trash really littered London.
- It changed my point of view on perceiving the world as I am always on my way to somewhere so I can get to a safe location, stopping and looking at things has caused me to enjoy the beauty of the outside more. Opening my lenses a bit more.
Developed Response to the Workshop
In the very first lecture I created a storyboard which depicts who I am in three panels. By doing this simple task I had come to a realization what kind of mind-set was expected of an animator, which was to use motion and actions to present a narrative rather than using words. In most instances in animation actions spoke louder than words.
My first Workshop was ‘Picture Perfect’ had me learn about the composition of artwork as well as the meaning behind of it. There was a previous task where I was to gather 20 images telling a story with it. My story consisted showing my travel from one train station to another. As I went I took photos of interesting aspects around me in the environment when travelling.
Analyzing my composition a grid helped keep the narrative clear and concise I also used different angles in my images to force perspective onto the viewers to view exactly what I was seeing and conveying. An example of this is the second image where I tilted the camera to look down onto the train tracks, making the viewer look through the bars created a lens that framed the whole image.
Looking upon my story I believe I conveyed it well with the initial look upon the train tracks and the train itself, zooming in the pavement adds this personal touch as closer the camera is it is as if the viewer is looking through my eyes carefully looking upon these objects.
Ways I could improve my composition is varying the sizes of the images as well as changing the shapes of the grids. This could add a new level of importance to each image as well as add more visual aspects giving the images more character and could give more insight to the impact I want to convey with each image. An example could be the can in the train could be a cylindrical shape and the images of leaves could be a silhouette of a leaf to reflect the objects in the images.
To improve on showing the narrative I could zoom out as a lot of the shots are very up close which can be very specific but lacks in some context as the train station images are too close to identify its location that well.
Overall this Workshop was very insightful on broadening my personal view finder and caught me looking at objects I would usually not pay attention to, this also had me realize that when I travel I rarely pay attention to my surroundings. So from now on I will subconsciously continue this task in my everyday life to broaden visual ideas I could use in my own narratives.
