If you happen to find this

Hello Gifted students! If you're looking up old blogs for inspiration, I'm honored that you chose to come here. Please amuse yourselves while watching me be a hopelessly pretentious freshman.

BLOG POST 5: THE END

Before I get started with my reflections on my presentation and this project as a whole, let me post the version of my animation uploaded to YouTube.

Okay. Let's start with my presentation. I'm not going to lie, but I was kind of disappointed with how it turned out. A few things went wrong:

- The presentation was not the most recent version, where a few edits and a missing picture were added
- As far as I can tell, every single joke fell flat
- The music from the animation was playing from the computer's internal speakers, not the external speakers (for this reason watching the video embedded here might be a better experience)
- My timing for many parts was far from perfect

Am I very upset with how it turned out? Not really. Here are a few things that I thought went well:

- My main point was relatively clear
- The power-point itself looked quite nice
- The animation was well received

So, I'm going to grade my own presentation.

1. Final product: 9.5/10 (Although I have not "mastered" the art, I think I have done the best I can with this specific project)
2. Delivery: 3/5 (Timing was off, "jokes" weren't funny, awkward improvised lines... those who were there can probably remember some)
3. Preparation: 4/5 (Power-point was nice, but had a missing picture that some might have interpreted as a deliberate joke)
4. Process: 4/5 (Described three specific methods of animation and also my thoughts)
5. Main point: 4.5/5 (I thought I made this quite clear and wrapped it up nicely with "divide and conquer". Still could have been more polished)

That all comes out to a 25/30. I think I could have done better with this, but like many other students said, I can learn from my mistakes. There is nothing I can do to change what is done, but I can try my best to make the next time better.

***

Now, my presentation experience doesn't change my thoughts about the project in general. Like I said in my presentation, I had a great time making the video and sharing bits and pieces of it before showcasing the final product. I was able to explore different techniques for making stop motion, and the response I saw today after playing the video was very gratifying.

I don't think I will attempt stop motion again in the near future, as so much work must be put into a single video. Nevertheless, if an opportunity comes along, I will have a better idea of what stop motion really is.

After my presentation, I gave our original introduction to the genius project some more thought. Let's go back to the three main concepts of the genius project.

1. Autonomy
2. Mastery
3. Purpose

I think I have achieved two of these three things. I have achieved autonomy, as I was able to freely explore my own creative instincts. I was able to utilize my resources to literally set my ideas in motion. I found a greater purpose in my project, and that was learning how to break down large tasks into smaller hurdles that I can overcome individually.

What about mastery? I think Brett said this impeccably in his presentation, and that mastery is something one strives for but never reaches. What truly is mastery, then? If it cannot be achieved, then how do we define it? I have no solid answer to those questions.

However, recall Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers. He and other thinkers said that 10,000 hours is generally a reasonable time for an individual to achieve mastery of something. My response is that 10,000 is too concrete of a number to describe something as abstract as mastery.

I'm going to use something from a subject area I'm more familiar with to show my point. Here's a video with Janos Starker, a "master" cellist whose technique has been described as near perfection, talking about the concept of never-ending self-improvement. The first minute-and-a-half are of him teaching a student in a masterclass, but he speaks for a while after that portion.

An individual's level relative to the elusive idea of perfection cannot be measured, but an individual's level relative to where it was before can be measured. This is another point presenters have made throughout this past week; instead of trying to be better than something or someone else, try to be better than yourself from the past. That is the most direct and effective method for self-improvement.

***

In conclusion, as I step away from this roller-coaster ride of a project, I feel neither a sense of disappointment nor a feeling of elation. In my mind there now exists a deeper understanding of improvement and how mastery is really quite impossible.

In that sense, my genius project worked quite wonderfully.

Blog Post 4: THE BEGINNING OF THE END

I'll start with some very exciting news... I have finished my final product! All drawing, photography, editing, and music-ing has concluded.

"About time," some of you might be thinking.

Well, I'm planning to upload the video to YouTube on Wednesday night, which is the night before my presentation (what a slacker, right?). This way, the video will be new to most if not all of the audience during my TED talk.

Editing the whole thing was surprisingly quick (albeit monotonous). I had planned out the length of each little clip prior to shooting, and this turned out to be very helpful in the post-production phase. I'll give you an example of one of my plans:

"1 sec: Balloon enters

1 sec: Zoom out, boy is standing

Draw --> 4 sec: Zoom in on boy's face, head turn

1.5 sec: Zoom out... "

And etc... I don't want to give too much away!

I think what I'll do now is post a few pictures and briefly describe some of them. The first picture below shows some cutout sunflowers I used in the second scene (that's the last one I shot). I initially drew these with watercolor markers and scanned them into a computer. After doing so, I printed six of each out and arranged them accordingly on my background.

Next is my uncolored character model sheet for a farmer (also in the second scene). Here, the character doesn't do much except scratch his head and frown/smile. So, I drew individual frames for his facial expressions and designed a sort of "action figure" for the farmer to scratch his head. The figure on the far left is essentially what the figure would look like put together. The figure directly right of that does not have the arm and was to be taped on top of the third figure near the head and the lower body. One arm, which has a sort of extension in order to keep it from falling out, will be placed in between the middle two figures and can freely rotate. I positioned double-sided tape so that the arm could rotate around a "joint", yet I could take the arm out when needed. 

This is a shot of my "movie set" (a.k.a. a small section of my basement) near the end of filming. I've got to say, even with all of the stress it brought, this project was extremely fun. That's right: extremely.

Next, I'll upload some stills from the video to give you guys a closer look before seeing my presentation (if you aren't in the morning classes, I'll post a link to the video in an update soon after my presentation). 

That should be enough until Thursday! Onward...

Now comes another issue... what am I actually going to say for my TED talk? I've already thought out most of my script, and I'm going to try to avoid repeating the content in my blog too much. My current plan is to have a 3-minute presentation and a 1-minute video, as well as some room to breathe and answer questions. I'm going to try my best not to go overtime.

Some topics I may or may not cover are:

- Struggles

- Initial thoughts and their changes

- What I learned

- Application of what I learned

- Stop motion in the movie industry

I have to say I'm a bit nervous. The presentations I've seen so far have been funny (sometimes accidentally... I'm looking at you, Noah), well-organized, and informative; the bar is high, and I have some work to do to reach it. Although my genius project is not a stand-up routine, I think it's necessary to have a few good jokes to loosen up both the audience and myself. Humor will make me less nervous, I think.

One final thing... I need all of your opinions. I've been debating about whether I should include a random joke about McPerlman. It seems that most people are doing it within the first three slides or so. By the time I present, at least 10 presentations will have had some reference to McPerlman, so I might just not put one of those jokes in. Serious stuff, guys.

I look forward to talking to you all on Thursday!

Comments for this blog (not even sure what cycle anymore):

- Kenny (Yellow)

- Jessica (Orange)

- Dani (Orange)

GENIUS HOUR: THE VLOG

Vimeo's being annoying... apparently, I have to wait "in line". The link below should work.

THE VLOG CAN BE FOUND HERE: https://vimeo.com/122067012

COMMENTS:

- Fred (Brown)
- Jacob (Yellow)
- Josh (Orange)

Update 03/08/15

Hello everyone... hope you all had a nice unplanned four-day weekend.  I think it's time for a brief update! I'm nearly finished all of my backgrounds for the cartoon. They required quite a bit of precision, as demonstrated by the picture below. I had to use a ruler to draw the buildings of the city in this scene.

This next picture includes a mostly colored version of the same background.

I'm using PIGMA SENSEI manga-drawing utensils (not sure if they are considered pens or markers), Fibracolor markers, and some generic color pencils. I did just buy a pack of new color pencils... the green ones are running out fast.

If you've been following my blog, you probably remember this boy. For several plot reasons, I flipped him around digitally. After printing him out, I colored him using Fibracolor markers. I will cut him out later.

Here are some more character designs. Notice the remarkable changes occurring at the top of the paper. I'm not sure how I got from point A to point B...

The whole cartoon will follow the "journey" of a single hot air balloon. I have some preliminary designs for it directly below, as well as another character design.

The following is a drawing of the balloon that I scanned and made a digital copy of. I used a kind of cross-hatching technique to emulate shading and lighting.

After printing the balloon out twice, I colored both but varied the shape of the mouth (open or closed). I will add googly eyes, too (this may turn out to look pleasant or creepy... I sure hope it's not the latter). 

That's about it for this update. There's much more to come in the video blog (which will be edited and uploaded by tomorrow evening) and the next official blog post.

A few inspiring stop motion videos

I've been making lots of progress, especially with these past two snow days. The animation is almost ready to start coming together, as most scenes are already planned out and choreographed.

I spent some time this afternoon to watch certain stop motion animations, and I'm sure glad I did. These videos will probably influence how my final product will turn out. I hope you enjoy!

"MUNRO"

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZey6toSToc)

This one is probably a response to the Vietnam War, given the time period in which it was created. I thought that was rather interesting.

"BALANCE"

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wJj58aLvdQ)

"THE MAKER"

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXOioU_OKM)

I might have a brief update on the project coming tomorrow concerning character models. At least, it will be separate from the next scheduled blog post.

COMMENTS FOR CYCLE 3

- Catelyn Huang (Yellow class)
- Nathan Leung (Red class)
- Matt Autieri (Orange class)
- Jacob Kaffey (Brown class)