Animation Idea

I've done several animations in the past, some of which used Flash, but mostly it was a series of cells I threaded together in Image Ready to make an animated gif. Aside from one or two assignments the animation I’ve created in Flash was mostly for animated websites than an animated movie.

One of my earlier animations was Dogbert from Dilbert doing the dance from the movie Flashdance!. It captivated the 10 people that saw it.

This time around, I was thinking of animating Greenie going on an adventure. He would either be scaling a mountain or riding a skateboard. Both seem viable.

Animation Critique

I admire most forms of animation. When Flash-styled animation first began getting popular with cartoons like the Power Puff Girls, it got me annoyed that this choppy, cookie cutter styled animation was paving over old types of cell animation. It really impresses me that Hiyao Miyazaki still uses cells. Then there is computer animation which has come a long way with the rendering of fur, hair, water, etc. in films like Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo. Of course, this isn’t to say I don’t like any Flash animation. There is a series of Flash animations called Xiao Xiao which captivates me.

The series is basically just stick-figure kung-fu fighting. What I enjoy most about this series is the simplicity and fluidity of the animation. The action has great flow and captures the viewers’ attention even with a rather bland background. In this day of short attention spans, this animation grabs hold of the viewer quickly and maintains the audience throughout.


Xiao Xiao #3

Dang that technology...

Although I work with technology often, a lot of it frustrates me. Why do designers like to update things that work really well? They should just improve on things that need improving. This is pretty easy to say since I'm not the one with a manager breathing down my neck to invent the next best thing.

I use my PDA everyday. I use it to set up meetings, message my co-workers, store everyone's contact info, play games, etc... I can hardly believe there was a day that I didn't have one. So what's the problem you may ask? My thumbs! My thumbs are killing me at the end of the day. The PDA requires a lot of thumb action. If you are typing a message you use your thumbs on the keypad. If you need to select something with the stylus, you are using your thumb to grip the stylus. What if I didn't have thumbs? I wouldn't even be able to hold the PDA let alone use it efficiently. My PDA doesn't have voice recognition, but I'm sure there are either ones available or in the design stages as we speak.

Another thing that frustrates me is the toast crumbs that are impossible to get out of the toaster. What an awful design? The solution is one of them toaster ovens, but that doesn't do nearly as good a job to make a few pieces of toast. So I live with the unremovable crumbs to get my perfect toast.

Devices that run on batteries frustrate me. For instance when a device requires 2AA batteries which is 3V to run will stop running when the power threshold is low to about 2.7V. Most people just throw out the batteries assuming that the batteries have been exhausted when that is not the case. It is just too low for the particular device that is in need of power. It's very wasteful and problematic if the device is being used when the threshold is reached. It can be a situation of not being able to finish a song on your MP3 player or it could be and electric wheelchair going up a ramp.

I'm sure there are other things, but these are the ones that I came across today.


Amendment [1 December 2005]

For the Treo and other PDA/cell phones it seems to need to be used by folks with thumbs or most of their fingers. If these devices were updated with a tuner much like the IPod, they would be a bit easier for those folks without thumbs. The user can just scroll up and down the menu with another finger or appendage. The motion mimics the old rotary phones so it is not as disorienting as creating a whole new button system. It would still take some getting used to but that holds true with all new technology.

Embed that Video!

Or watch it on Vimeo.com!

Video - Final

I added an intro and ending to the clip. The music is by Franz Ferdinand. The song is called "Outsiders".

I used Sorenson Squeeze to get a cleaner compression and not have the degradation of sound. When I picked 512K_Stream it would not compile the entire file, so I chose View video Lg_Prog and Med_Prog which yielded two manageable files.

For the full screen file, to try to maintain it's quality, I used Open Shiva to convert the file to an MP4. It's still a bit pixel-ly so I'm going to keep on trying different compressions but it may be a lost cause since the original footage wasn't completely sharp.

Video - Part 3

So we discussed a bit on the transitions and I worked on the edits. There were only a few edits that needed to be made since the "tree" takes were close to perfect.

The short is basically done. We spoke about adding and intro and end credits. It will probably take us over the 3 minutes, but we'll figure something out. This compressed version degraded the sound about. I need to try some other compressions.

View video here.

Video - Part 2

I had to compress the video to post, so here is a small tidbit of the squirrel footage.

The tree footage can be found on Kaki's Site.

Video - Part 1

Jeff worked on the storyboard of the idea which is basically this:

"A guy is sitting under a tree and then the tree goes "yeah, buddy" and the guy is freaked out and then the tree goes "run away and I'll sik the squirrels on you" we zoom to a picture of a squirrel looking evil...basically the tree wants a drink (a 40) and the kid gets it for the tree pours it about its roots and they are friends..."

This past weekend we split up into 2 groups to film footage for the video. I worked in the Second Unit Filming Crew, aka Squirrel Squad. I was able to film about 3 minutes of squirrel footage. Having some issues posting since the smallest segment I have is 30Megs. I don't want to compress since this footage will be editted for the main video.