I was unable to attend visions so i have no paper

Blog Entries (all together )

Personal Entries for Blog

Entry 1: So far the plan for this semester seems solid. I have a game plan and know what I

should try to have done ay certain points in the semester. I am kind of disappointed still that I don’t have a team like everyone else, but I will make due with what I have. I should be able to finish by the end of the semester and if not definitely over the summer.

Entry 2: It is the end of the first month of the semester. I know I am supposed to be keeping up

with these “journal entries” every week, but it is honesty hard to remember the little things to keep up with when I am working by myself. At least one goof thing out of this is I realize that I do not work better alone. Hopefully in the real world if I work for some animation studio or what have you I will be a part of a group. Anyway, so far the project is still going according to plan. I have begun modeling my elephant characters with Maya. This doesn’t pose to be too challenging at the time, but the actual animating part may become challenging. I have begun gathering supplies for the set as well.

Entry 3: It is the sixth week in to the semester and production for Ella and the island of

Penguins is still going well. I have begun fabricating random props like trees, houses, props etc. The trees had a couple of test runs before I discovered how I like to make them. I have taken some 20-gauge wire and twisted hemp rope around it to make it look like palm tree bark. I have also cut up some fake leaves that I had purchased from a craft store. Next week I plan on starting to construct the green screen and island scenes.

Entry 4: Week seven of the semester and I have started making the island to be put on a green

screen and filmed for the live action background of the film. I have cut up an old refrigerator box and shaped a 5 foot by 3 foot “island shaped” box for me to fill with sand so I can make the island for the scenes. I am falling behind a little on how I panned things. I was expecting to have got clay and started modeling my characters for my stop motion character scenes, but I still have plenty of time to complete this. On the plus side I found out that I can take 497 next semesters just in case I am unable to finish this semester.

Entry 5: Week eight of this semester and I have finished constructing my model island. I have

taken a few test shots and I am concerned that I took the wrong approach to create this island. I realize now that I didn’t need to create a whole island. This island is constructed with 200 pounds of sand. After discussing it with the class, I have decided to tear down this first version of the island and stick to much smaller scale.  I now plan on making more of a stage with much less sand. These will be just based on my storyboards and I will create the back drop for the shots. I guess I should have thought that the background is going to be still and being that I can make it look as though the island is whole with just separate scenes that I will create. Thank you Kuleshov.

Entry 6: Week ten of the semester. At this point I do not believe I am going to finish this

semester. After speaking with my professor I know that I it will be ok as far as my grade, but I will have to take another class next year. Since I am almost positive that I will not finish this semester I have changed my game plan as to what is to be done this semester. I want to have all my characters created and scenes shot and edited. Hopefully if all goes according to plan all I will have to do to finish next semester is to actually animate the film and edit everything together. This should be a much easier goal to have what I need done at the time I need it in order to pass this class. As far as other things I have had to make for the film, almost all of my props and set pieces are finished. I am ready to take my scene file photos soon.

Entry 7: Week eleven of the semester and I have finally been able to shoot the photos to

make my scenes. The fabric I obtained to use as a green screen covers everything that needs to be covered so everything should go fine. I had to rewrite how some scenes where going to be played out due to framing/blocking of characters in the scenes since all the characters will be put in the scenes in post. The next week I will spend on Photoshop getting rid of the green screen and compiling the characters together. I have also had to change how I shot the clay penguin characters. To save time I have decided against using true stop motion photography to animate the penguin characters, instead I plan of taking photos of each piece of the penguins and putting them all together in Photoshop. I feel like this isn’t going to set me back much since I have used this technique in animation projects in the past.

Entry 8: Week thirteen. This semesters project is proving to be much more complicated than I

had originally perceived. I still haven’t lost all hope. Since I plan on doing it next semester I have time over the summer to reshoot all of my scenes. I was not thinking about elements in the scene that are green so the green screen was sort of pointless. The trees and parts of the huts are keyed out as well as the green screen. I now plan on using a different color and re shoot the scenes. I want to get some color that stand out and will definitely not resemble any color that is in my shot, so probably a neon pink color will work. Along with green screen problems the character models are posing more difficult as well. The green is reflecting a lot on the characters so I have a lot of color correcting to do, but it is easily manageable.  So now the plan is to have at least all the characters complied and color corrected by the end of the semester. I will be reshooting the scenes over the summer to prepare for next school year.

Entry 9: Week 15, with the semester coming to an end I have just about everything that I need

to get to work over the summer. I have bought new pink fabric for the new scene shoots. The shoot should be simple since I have the original pictures to base the setups off of, plus I have all of the props and such completed. It should be a smooth process. The Character editing is going good as well. I have made a front, profile and quarter turn view of the penguin character to be used to help make the animations more seamless (when I get to that part.) At this point I do not have much more stuff planned. I need to reshoot the scenes and it would hurt to touch up characters as props. I still need to texture and animate the book for the opening shots of the film. I almost wish I knew how to make a real prop book to use instead so I wouldn’t have to spend so much time in Maya. Hopefully the rest of the semester ends smoothly and the summer will give me plenty of time to prepare for my independent study sessions I plan on having next semester in order to finish this film