The 4/17 Recap & Class Reflection

The festival was pretty spectacular. Actually, the staff who made this Visions 5 festival as successful as it was are all spectacular, because when people stick together and work hard... other people get blown away. Not literally, but compared to Visions 4 (the spectacular predecessor) the turnout was terrifically splendid; I'm not trying to write everything that pops in my head... Ned Flanders...
Meeting the filmmakers prior to the event was interesting, and really opened my eyes, specifically interpreting personalities with their submissions. I basically tried to read a certain auteur's relationship with their work and others who were attending the festival. Frogboy, The Sound of Where, Beast, these films we viewed together on our computers before passing judgement became gladiators of the theatre, on that day in April, on the 17th. The highlight of my day at the festival was the radiance of the Visions bumper, which received an unexpected amount of praise from both staff and filmmakers alike. Oh, and Caroline Roberts delivered probably the most inspiring presentation I've had the pleasure to witness for the past three years. Our very own Bahr slayed that second conference block, and Ceiling Finger is still haunting my dreams.. 

Heroes and Villains united.

The class was not what I had originally perceived it to be. While I was able to perform my regular duties as a staff member, you were also required to (emphasizing on this) actively share your thoughts on literally everything in class. I understand why this was more important, something that was valued more than anything else because without discussion, progress would be far from nigh. Regrettably not an ideal environment for introversion, but I'm thankful for involving myself in this type of experience. I never thought I could master my fear publicly speaking (this is a half lie) whenever I was required to showcase art-related content. Over the course of the semester, I became wary of the importance of my role; even after three weeks of agonizing pain that still lingers, I pushed myself to continue working on portraits for the staff members. My role was that of exposure, and I was given the privilege of creative freedom at my fingertips, the 'world' in my grasp. In the end, my hard work paid off. Funny how I was the first of my kind... Lead Animator. I just hope that, I'll never be that introverted weirdo that never speaks because of his 'hyper' social anxiety in any class environment ever again. 



To my successor as Lead Animator,

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a mentor for people like you. If you give up your current role now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will support you!!

Good luck mystery person, I have a lot of faith in you!! Wishing Visions 6 all the best!!

blog post 4/11/15

On my computer. Working hard to keep promoting the festival. After Effects. Installing 'xscale' font for clearer purpose; usage being creative accessibility to wider audience(s). Starts with regular black solid background and creates a text layer. This text layer uses the 'xscale' font, and then duplicates it several times. 3D boxes checked, complying layers parented to the adjustment layer for security purposes; wouldn't want the composition to collapse because of some error made on the editor's part.

Just a few of the several thousand steps it took to make exmachina.

4/3/15 Update

Two more weeks 'til the grand finale. The last bumper was decent, and hopefully the next two will be just as good. First, I plan on working with the upcoming bake sale promo (new approach), and changing the concept of the it's vanilla state. Then, I will finish the green 'atomic' bumper so that people will be drawn into the festival like mosquitos. Just kidding. I'm content over the success of the headshots too; most of them were a bit aggravating because the images were small. Still though, gradually being accustomed to making the headshots helped with the overall process. Not that they need to know, but I'm also really proud of my group last week for kicking major ass with brand new content. Two more weeks to go.

3/30 Update

It's been a short while since my momentary leave of absence. I'm hoping this recovery could speed up, and cease distracting me from all of my work. Produced a lot of work for the department this weekend; it should pay off via the special presentation this week. Prepare yourselves.

Week 7 & K.O.

Week seven was a short period of time before my ultimately leaving school for a dire medical condition. The week consisted of frivolously working on headshots of Visions 5 members, and uploading them to the drive as they were being uploaded to Facebook (and other social net. sites most liikely?). Work was constantly being interrupted by my condition which is why I left and...

K.O.

...had to receive immediate medical attention. My "knockout" period of three weeks was pretty ruthless; despite being in an abundance of pain, I tried to work on several of the photographs for staff members that had remembered to upload their headshots on the drive. Despite the fact that I was receiving treatment and in a bed for quite some time, I still worked on the headshots (this was mostly towards the beginning of my absence) which was always a somewhat long processing consisting of brushing 'contours' and aligning outlines with the pixels of the images. Most of the images weren't lossless so their resolution collapsed whenever I zoomed in any section. The rest was simple.

Week 6-Work Update

Pictures. Faces. Eyeballs. I've been staring at these everyday for the past couple of weeks. The staff bios must be reflec... wait. I think I'll just create these kickass photos and not worry about relating with the written part of each staff member's biography. Saying that procures a 'sort-of' idea I have in mind; a very special 'celebratory' animation that combines everyone into a fiesta of awesomeness. More details on that later.. but for now lets discuss the photos. The style I'm using spurred from yet another idea that took Kyle's concept, and multilayered the crap out of both the target picture and brush tools. The more I used this method, the sharper my technique became (has becoming). To those who are dissatisfied with their photos, the following should be noted:

Ask me for a redo, please. Thanks.

-Mike

Week 5-Work Update

The first director interview is in limbo, not that it hasn't been done, but I'm thinking of other creative ways to showcase this type of project. While the speech bubbles are great, there has to be something that separates the interviews from every other animation made in class, or even all other videos in that promotional category. Despite all of that, Kyle's new approach for the interviews may fare well with the content itself. If it works, it works! On a side note, the proposal for three dimensional promotional videos is something I think will rock; bluntly put because no other word can describe my excitement for the next promo I've been putting together. Time however is problematic considering how tedious this animation has been, and will eventually end up being when I'm nearing a conclusion. Alright, back to work.

Week 4-Work Update

Was working on the interviews, and now I'm also experimenting with the headshots for the class (or fraternity of heroes). The interview looks really good, but I want it to look great, so I'm going to spend more time refining it. In it's beta state, if it were uploaded prior to my impending refinement session, then well... it just wouldn't look great. Something else I should mention are the headshots that I'm working on; these headshots will be used to illustrate each and every staff member on the appropriate Visions web page. What I'm trying to achieve with this assignment is diversity, or simply just radically different designs per headshot. This will make each of them unique in their own way, at least I hope the palette I'm using for the headshots are effective. I know that Adam is working on the next promotional video, so hopefully it'll be quite awesome. This week will still be focused on that interview, and making plans for my next promotional video.

Week 3-Work Update

The table has been set. Next week, I will (hopefully) have the animation for the bake sale, the following promotional video, and the first director interview animation ready to go. The function within the bake sale animation is to make people laugh, or at least inform the community of the cupcake storm. Will not be using the word hope from now on. If the animation works, then the promotional video that follows will certainly grasp the attention of the customer, and reel them into our 'sugary' trap. What sucks is that I made a New Year's resolution, stating that I cannot have candy/chocolate forever. Ever heard of a chocoholic?

Week 2-Work update

So far the experience has been challenging, and that's always a good thing from a productive perspective. I am currently working on an animation that involves familiar 'comic-booky' faces. The animation will be used to promote the bake sale, as well as (if it's alright) provide some information about exactly what the event will do for Visions. This will work well with the other promotional videos that will follow shortly after in the coming weeks/months. I'm thinking of either producing animations that relate with one another, or completely separate works; in the end, they'll all perform the same job. Looking forward to the upcoming projects my department and I have in store for everyone!

Week 2-Dirty Dozen for upcoming Animation Project

1.  What is the project supposed to achieve?

    -Hopefully to get people interested in the event. Hopefully. But not only will it benefit the members of Visions, but the viewers as well; it may provide information for those seeking to understand.

2.  Who is the customer?

 -Anybody really. It's basically whoever's using a social network, and they happen to scroll down and find this bit of awesomeness.

3.  What are the deliverables of the project?  (These are tangible and intangible.) 

-An animation that viewers can enjoy and be informed with. It's also eye-candy if it isn't informative.

4.  What is the budget?

-Absolutely nothing. The animation software currently being used will have no effect on the (or any) budget whatsoever.

5.  How long will it take?

-A couple of days at most, give or take.

6.  What specific skills are needed?

-Prior knowledge involving Adobe: Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere etc.

7.  What special resources are needed?

-None. Everything is created via After Effects plus resources found online.

8.  Who is working the project?  What is each person's job?

-It's just me for now, but if I'm ever in a pickle I'll ask my fellow animators for help.

  

9.  What is the schedule?

-Animate one layer in continuity with the other, work on the next. A very simple process of creation, if everything works out.

26th: Background elements, rough draft

27th: Revision, final animation upload

10.  What are the risks?  (Small vs. large impact, likely vs. unlikely)

-The only real risk I can run into could involve uploading an animation with the wrong message, which will never happen.

11.  How will you communicate with your team?

-By various means, including email, Facebook, maybe by phone etc. This animation is a 1-2 man job.

12.  How will you determine if the project is successful?

-If it meets specific parameters, and more importantly if it's approved by my department.

Week 1-'Festivals of their Own'

This article was, in any case, informative for the average film festival aficionado, like most of us here in Visions. In response to this piece, it was an interesting read as it did include not only insight from some of the most well known writers and directors of the underground scene, but also a little bit of history surrounding the topic. More importantly, the fact that it superbly presented several aspects of the film festival scene. For example, the spawning of smaller festival conglomerates, in response to the wider known Sundance or Slamdance festivals, marked the start of a new era in indie cinema. These smaller festivals served (or serve) as 'roots' for smaller films to sometimes climb their way up the 'tree', while gaining worldwide exposure for themselves and their works. A filmmaker who found good fortune after the U.S. release of his first film, Josh Koury, received so much attention at Slamdance (NY Film etc.) for his incredible work titled Standing by Yourself. Shortly afterwards, the film began sweeping other festivals, and continued to be highly acclaimed by critics and audiences within the festival circuit. After his swift success, he would then go on to making his own indie company. Another example of an aspect this piece broadens upon is the history behind the foundation of Sundance. Before it was called the latter, the United States Film Festival, as the writer suggests, arose via the contemporary decline of independent films in; this was due to the high volume of companies that simply ignored non-blockbuster films. Probably, the most interesting thing regarding Sundance is that the festival eventually became so huge, that the acceptance rate of smaller films dropped significantly as they were forced to compete with titles like sex, lies and videotape.

Week 1-Art Department

A considerable amount of information is written for each department within both the job descriptions and the manual. The Visions manual contains an elaborately organized schedule of all events and festival activities; among the list events are tasks required to be completed. This is useful as they are already available for everyone to view and utilize, however it should probably be assumed that several of these tasks are subject to change. Overall, it seems that coordination is the key factor behind the manual. The job descriptions from the documents that were available in the administration folder gave an (per member/group) applicable amount of insight into each of the occupations that make up (certain sections of) the Visions staff. The first document consists mainly of the descriptions for the Hospitality/Travel and Outreach department. After reviewing it, I noticed the division of labor particularly in groups structured hierarchically; the first segment included basic areas of responsibility, while the rest of the document had information about each of the members and the specifics of their jobs. The second document with the descriptions for the Operations department was exactly the same. I hope to learn how a film festival works! As far as how meetings are regulated go, it really does seem like the heart of a (redundant as it may sound) entertainment business operation. My experience on the first day was the equivalent of a goldfish being dropped into a shark tank. But overall, the class will be an extremely beneficial learning experience for myself and the newer members of Visions.