Animation Thoughts

Aside from noticing that both dvd's supplied in class were American Independent Film, i only watched the one but took good notes on what i saw.

Non-likes:

1. Bill Plympton's "Faces" was not a favorite of mine. i failed to find any conflict aside from getting a slight headache from trying to understand why sonmeone's face would contort like he had it do all to some musical score that added nothing to the animation. Even though i found the animation to be fluid and well done, i did not enjoy the story. The non-existant story i might add. The only thing i found interesting was the consistancy and the ideas presented by the animator about how wrinkles and orafices could distort the human face. if there were some othe ropint to the animation, i did not find the desire to dig deeper than i have done.

2. Garbage in Garbage Out:
Arg. A complete idiocy. Even though it had some cyclic humanity to it, i did not enjoy it. i think it is because the climax and conflict are conflicting with one another. The climax being the "animator" throwing away the godzilla-esque animation and conflict being the godzilla animation eating all the other animations for no aparent reason. i feel it being nonsensical. If there were another reason behind the animation, i suppose a brief artist's blurb would help put my mind on the right track. the animation was well done on the other hand, i did enjoy the appearance of the animation and the motion captured therein, but the story and relation to personal experiences were greatly lacking for me. just not my cup of tea.

3. 25 ways to quit smoking
I really enjoyed the idea behind this animation. albeit there being no story or conflict or resolution the list of "25 ways to quit" were quite enjoyable. Unsuccessful to say the least as far as plot goes, but successful as a good idea for an animation.

Good:
1.Snookles: Juliet Strout
I thought this was a well thought and well done animation. It had a clear resolution and plot. I thought the idea behind an innocent looking baby dragon trying to befriend a song bird to learn how to sing was a pretty good idea. there are inherit flaws that shoudl be inferred at the introduction of the character, ie: fire breathing, meat eating, angry, etc... But being a baby dragon the audience tends to forget about that. As the dragon starts to sing like the song bird, it scorches the bird and tries to hide the chared remains in the tree. It is a pretty good story that is easily relatable to mankind.

2. One of Those Days: Bill Plympton
I have seen this animation before several times, and enjoy it every time. The conflict, climax, and resolution are quite clear, especially as the title resonates through the mind as the character goes through "one of those days". It is like a day where everything goes bad, a very good idea behind the animation. A very relatable story to every american who deals with everyday life. It is amusing how the animator ties everything together and twists it someway to make it the worst thing possible. Poor guy.

3. The Diner: Graham Wilson
Not a very enjoyable animation, it was quite creepy actually. I thought the animation was very well done with craftsmanship and technique. Throughout the animation, i almost had an inkling to knock some sense into the short main character. The setup of the story wasnt very clear until the end when the truck ate the old diner and replaced it with mechanical monsters rather than organic biological ones. Although i did not completely understand why the easily spooked character went in the diner in the first place when it was obvious he was very very jumpy and scared of almost everything that moves; it did add a sense of tension that wouldnt have been evident if the confident secondary character entered the diner.

Revised and Expanded Story

Kal the Pamingo rummages through a debris pile close to his home. He left his abode early in the morning with the new morning sun at his back, his body casting dim gray shadows on the road ahead of him. As Kal sifts through a new pile of debris deposited by an orbiting chute, he wipes off loose dirt and soil from a curious looking container. He slowly stands up and twists the container in his hands feeling the rounded edges of the cubic looking container. He peers down at it's gleaming smooth surface curiously and holds it up in the early morning light to notice the container is semi-opaque in it's center. In the dim light Kal sees a sillouhette of an object inside of the container, and he brings it closer to his face. As the container is brought closer to his face, it jolts and opens up jarringly and viciously snapping at Kal's face. Kal tosses the object down to the debris laden
ground in a brief stint of fear.

The container bounces around briefly, as if angry then stops abruptly kicking up a cloud of dust as it heavily drops to the ground on it's final jump. Kal cocks his head as slowly approaches the container once again, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the container. As he gets closer the container commences to writhe and bounce angrily, Kal kicks the container and it forcibly smacks into a nearby wall, knocking over some boards and metallic objects. Kal grabs a board and starts swinging wildly at the container as if to knock it senseless. Kal slows his beating as he grows tired from a constant onslaught of board swinging mayhem. Kal hunches over and drops the board, it resonates off of the cold stone ground and the surrounding debris field. Kal trudges towards the container with heavy feet.

He stops as the container slowly staggers back and forth in front of him, then opens from its center. Kal's eyes widen and a smile spreads across his face as he regains some stregth to bounce towards the opened container. To Kal's delight he can see a
small glinter of something revealed inside of the container, he quickens his stride. As he stops to bend over and separate the object from the container, the container growls and instantly latches onto Kal's hand, completely engulfing his hand up to his forearm. Kal winces in pain and shakes his hand vigorusly for a brief time to try and free himself from the container. He stops after the container closes around his hand. Kal regains his composure, and begins his trek home over the debris as an orbiting chute starts to desposit more debris; another container is seen falling from this chute as Kal's leaves the pile behind unflinching.

Kal opens the door, which is a lashed together sheet of wood and metal objects, to his shack made of various debris. He kicks some loose objects that are in his path as he closes the door and makes his way into his dimly lit shanty. Kal smiles as he detaches his forarm and hand, and places it on a table cluttered with many other hand filled containers. He plucks another arm off of his arm laden wall and smiles as he glares at his table full of trophies.

Character Ideas

i thought i would post a few updates to my character design for those meandering about blogger-space will find something to look at rather than text.

Research Stuff for Environment

i have been looking around the web looking at various images of junkyards and messy, delapidated urban regions where my character will interact in.

7 Sentence Story Revision

seven sentence:
1:Kal the pamingo is rummaging through garbage near his home when he comes across an unopened container he has never seen before.

2: The container blips ands bleeps curiously as Kal approaches it pensively.

3: Kal fumbles with the container trying to figure out how to open it and finds the button.

4: The box flies from Kal's hands and lands heavily on the pavement, so heavily that kal can not pick it up all in the meanwhile the box chatters and a countdown ensues(lights and blipping etc...).

5: Kal then draws on previous experiences with mysteriously counting down containers and gets very agitated.

6: The container stops beeping and the countdown reaches its termination, the container cracks open to reveal a thing of happiness(dont know yet).

7: Kal takes the thing of happiness home and hangs it on his wall of various mundane emotionless objects objects, Kal smiles.

The mindmap

dun dun dun

behold

the MIND MAP

7 sentence story

seven sentence:
1: A pamingo is sitting at home when he notices an unopened package.

2: He opens the package to only be bewildered by the objects/sounds/lights within.

3: The character pulls out a thing of happiness but attributes it to basic instinct(hunger, thirst, bored, excited)

4: The box bounces around and spits out something happy only to get stepped on by the pamingo for its noise.

5: a small form of pamingo pops out of box along with something happy, small demonstration ensues.

6: self realization ensues and pamingo leaves his home/nest/house thing to discover happiness on his own.

7: Box closes and bouces away.

Concept

A pamingo(character thing) opens a package that contains happiness, but he has never experienced it before.