Project Final Animation

For my final animation I chose to use coloured paper because I felt after having made different sculptures of the frog the green one seemed to have more life and that is what I was looking for in my animation. I took several images and having learnt from my previous attempts I needed to make sure I took more pictures than before to ensure the animation was smooth. This process took a really long amount of time and the main challenge I faced was making the frog jump. To do this I held the frog and took pictures of it in the air. However when comming down the stairs I found it would be too difficult to do the same so I changed the angle and took pictures of the frog on each stair step. Overall I am pleased with my final outcome as I managed to bring life to a piece of paper which is what I intended however to improve I believe I could perhaps use a better quality camera and I could be more consistent in terms of the zooming of my images. I learnt several skills from completing the project one of them was making origami sculptures. Although I had previous knowledge I had to research the art and experiment with different sculptures. Another skill I learnt musically was minimalistic improvisation. Although I already knew how to improvise successfully I incorporated my learnt skills of minimalistic music and composed a piece of music that was fit for purpose in terms of the animation. Finally I learnt a lot more about animating in particular the problems animators face when animating and I have learnt to appreciate animations more as I now know the large amounts of time taken to produce an overall product.

I tried animating my frog at school and had around 2 hours to get every single photo done. Taking that into consideration my first attempt was not as good as I imagined it would have been. I found the whole animation process really hard and the draft looked really rough. As well as this the animation itself was dull and not much happened. However I did learn some important lessons whilst doing my first attempt and that was that I must include every single detailed movement in the animation. The part of the animation where the paper folds itself looked rough because not every movement was documented so for the final animation I must make sure that this part of the animation looks smooth and captures every bit of the folding methods. After talking with Ms Stower I also figured out that changing the angles of the shots would add variety to the overall animation and make it more interesting.

Origami Experimentation

I experimented with some artificial lighting and found this worked a lot better than the room's lighting. I liked the way the black paper added a contrast to the white paper from the frog. Black and white is a simplistic idea so I am considering just using plain white paper to keep the simplicity the images above captured.

Japanese Experiment 2

I made two Asian-style improvisations because I wanted to test out different instruments. With the piano used in this one it sounded a bit out of place because pianos would rarely be used in traditional Japanese music. Nevertheless I wanted to test this instrument out because it sustained the notes fairly well unlike the guitar. It also gave a really different mood with the guitar the sound was more detached and staccato like however on the piano it was very legato and smooth.

Looking at music genres and types I came across a special type of improvisation which involves in only playing the black notes on the keyboard. This gives the piece of music an Asian sound to it. This whole piece was an improvisation experiment however it had a beginning middle and end and was structure accordingly to a relaxed mood I wanted to create. There wasn't really a pulse or beat to the music as Japanese style music usually doesn't follow a rhythm and it is impossible to clap the pulse.

Minimalist Improvisation Experiment

Whilst experimenting with minimalistic music I improvised a short piece incorporating all the aspects of minimalistic music. For example I repeated a pattern over and over again and i tried to create a hypnotic mood. This piece was improvised meaning there was no planning behind it and literally means making it up as you go along. However I had my background knowledge of minimalistic music for my improvisation so it helped me knowing what to do next and i roughly tested the chords to see if they would work in harmony with one another.

I researched into origami art from looking at my Japanese Samurai helmet. It originated in Japan in the 17th century and has been popularized in modern culture. It is very simplistic in comparison to other art forms and requires only a piece of paper and some folding.