Elle

it's FINISHED!!

2005-03-11T21:06:00.000-08:00

heyyyyaz !!

I finally can proudly say that i finished my animation..! It was long, exhausting and hard work.. but i enjoyed every minute of it :) I went in to school on Saturday (i know) at around 10 o'clock and didn't leave until some where around 5.30! In that time Ms Basile and myself were just filming the actual 'animation.' I had a couple of problems.. for instance there's one sequence in the film where Penny puts her headphones on .. i'll just say that the weight of the headphones was twice the amount of her arms lifting them.. that was a bit of fun! There were a couple of camera shots i loved, but won't tell you too much as it might spoil the animation. For the day, in total we completed 256 frames which is the equivalent of 256 clicks of the camera!!! And i'll tell you the best bit, we didn't finish.. i don't know whether i'm just really fastidious or a slow worker, but i had to go in early Tuesday morning to finish ..

Can i just say a BIG THANK YOU to Danielle.B for coming in and helping me finish.. (she didn't start until 10 o'clock and she still came in early to help me)

Then on Wednesday when we had our weekly meeting with Sarah i was free to just concentrate on editing.. I had no stand out problems during this process, everything ran fairly smoothly. The only glitch i can recall is there were a few frames that needed to be found because they caused the animation to jump. I had already recorded the voice over so i just captured it onto the piece .. all that was left was music, (courtesy of 'THE USED') which sounds great.. and i had finished!!!

Thanks everyone for reading my progress week after week, also to those of you have written comments helping me out with ideas...Just wanted to thank Sarah for the opportunity and for all her commitment and enthusiasm. Also wanted to thank my film teacher Dianne Basile, all her dedication and hard work is very much appreciated as there is no way i could have been able to achieve what i did without her.. It's been great fun and an will definitely be a memorable experience...

Elle :)

p.s Hope to see you at the launch..! Come and say hi if you see me :)

"Places to be, people to meet..."

2005-03-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone...
Yesterday was so exciting and tiring!!
But ill start from the beggining, shall i ...?

In the morning we had our last visit from Al, he showed us how to use a dope sheet, which for all u out there that have absolutely no idea what im talking about its a kind of graph, that shows the animator exactly how a piece of dialogue breaks down into frames (lip synching). It can also tell the animator how each syllable is pronounced, and if there are any coughs, grunts, etc in the scene. It was really helpful because i decided not to go with the whole dialogue through out the movie, i thought i might make it more of a narration, as Penny's thoughts.. Might try to include some talking, we'll see how it looks!!

After that we had a reporter come in, to take some photos of us, with our sets and models, that was a bit of fun and a laugh... Just a tad embarrasing as the whole of the yr 11 media class was present! She was doing an article on Pop Fiction and thought it would be kool if she got to meet us and take some photos. I'm a very busy girl, but i said i would give her a few minutes of my time... quite generous I thought.

After lunch ..( and a very exhausting english SAC) we had the channel ten news crew waiting to interview us! It was great fun, didnt take us too many takes... Made a nice change to be in front of the camera rather than behind it!!

I think i could get used to this kind of life..

Elle :)

It's coming along...

2005-02-23T17:46:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!!!

I made my model!! She looks so cool (if i do say so myself!) Im really proud of her. As u know Al (the animator) came to talk to us today. He was so kool! He gave us a lot of helpful hints and tricks to use and bcoz i want to get into the animation field as a career i was hanging on to his every word. I read an article a while back which depicted animators as being "obsessive control freaks" haha... thats me down to a tea! But its soo true u gotta have a lot of patience for it and the ability to mentally break down an action into frame by frame. But anyway, the point of my story... i came to school today all excited to show my film teacher my model and see what she thought about her and she and Al both said that she's too small!!
:( So after scrutinizing every little detail down to the earrings in her head, i need to make a new, slightly bigger version of "Penny". Which i wasn't too rapt about! (as u can imagine) But hey, they're the experts...

I've been watching a fair few of Peter Lord's animations, to get some ideas, they've really helped with inspiration.. can i just say he is an absolute legend at animation!! Soo talented...

Attention: Em, Morgana, Natasha & Nicole.. Thanx heaps for ur ideas guys!! They'll be really helpful. It was so weird bcoz i had thought of some of the same kind of props, like the candles, witchcraft books even the rug! ( I love the ideas of the "scattered pictures she'd drawn" & "the black bean bag with moons and stars on it" I'll definitely incorporate them in somewhere) I hadnt thought of things like the art stuff! Dont know how that slipped my mind.. her being an art student and all!! But ow well..

that's about all i've got to say for today...

till next time.. Be good!

Elle :)

The Idea

2005-02-15T14:32:00.000-08:00

hey guys!!
Back again for another week. I've come further with my film entry for Pop Fiction and thought of an idea!! :) As i said last time i really want to work with Penny. The book 'To Love Veronica Bee' is told from Veronicas point of view, so i've decided to create a monologue for Penny and let her express her thoughts and feelings on the situation. I think it would be important to see how she interprets the whole thing.

I've come up with clay model character designs, which i think really suit her character. As you know she has blue hair, wears black clothes and is very much 'me against the world'. I want to make the model out of clay and perhaps make her clothes using material. I've written the script and let me tell u its very much Penny.

Im really excited because next week Al (an animator) is coming down to give us any handy hints and tips to make our animation more interesting or more "unamateurish." So hopefully we'll all learn a bit from him.

This week im going to come up with a set design, create the actual model and create a story board.

Should be fun!!
Til next time...

elle :)

Pop Fiction...

2005-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

hey, im danielle a.k.a elle, this is my first entry. Pop Fiction 2005 had its first launch in November 2004. I was fortunate enough to go along and have a look at what it's all about. Pop fiction has been inspired by the author of 'To Love Veronica Bee' Sarah Boland. When I was there I got to see all the artwork that had already been created by enthusiastic students of Princes Secondary. I also met the artist Chris he was really cool, who made an animation about singing and dancing rocks! Who'd have thought you could make an interesting visual out of rocks!? At the Launch there was a viewing of all the yr 7 students' artwork, I also got to see other animations that had been done specially for Pop Fiction.

Im not a big reader, it takes me a while to get into a book without having to read the first page at least 5 times!! However it only took me three days to read 'To Love Veronica Bee'! I literally couldnt put it down.. I loved it. My favourite character is Penny maybe because im close to her age and can relate to her and know what she is going through.. though i assure u im not that violent!!

I just started today coming up with ideas for my project to enter into the pop festival .. so far ive come up with clay as my medium and penny as my character, as you can see ive thought a lot about it!! By the next time i make an entry i should know where im heading in more depth.
Until then .... be good!! :)