April 2018 archive

Something Weird: Experiments with Group Footage, AfterEffects, and Sound Layering

 

After Screening the video in class, my Animation teacher offered the “paper plate award” for most artsy/abstract animation.

Animations in this video were made during our all-class animation day. The bubble gum Sequence is by Chi Chi Chen, and the Frog and Spinning Lions head were made by Selin Karahan.

I used Photoshop and AfterEffects to animate.

I used various effects in AfterEffects: Griddler, Ripples, Scale, Opacity, and Warp.

The music and audio were edited using Premiere Pro

Guitar and voice is by me, while the effects noodling is done by Ben Rolston.

I am reading an excerpt from “Dancing with Cats” by Burton Silver & Heather Busch

Something Weird from FrancesAlbatross on Vimeo.

For the Love of Toast

“For the  Love of Toast” 

I feel like the Badger from the book “Bread and Jam for Frances.”  I love toast an obscene amount, and I often make up songs to sing while eating it. Coincidence?  I think not.

Badger Frances + Jam

Human Frances + Jam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This final animation will be my Ode to toast.

The Plot Proposal: “For the  Love of Toast”

Intro: Person is in their kitchen, putting bread into the toaster.  The suspense builds as they wait for the toast to be done.  IT is taking a long time.  This scene is created using hand drawn 2D animation or rotoscoping.

Development: In a delirious desperation, the person starts to see toast and toasters everywhere.  The fridge is a toaster, the door is a toaster—even the house is a toaster!  (insert hallucinogenic Phenakistiscope sequence).

Turn: The persons is sucked inside of the toaster, being toasted (perhaps this could be a claymation sequence?).

Conclusion: The persons pops out of the toaster. The toast eats the person. The person is crispy.

The end.

My objectives for this project:

  1. Become better acquainted with Aftereffects
  2. Create a scene that uses:
    1. a Phenakistoscope animation OR
    2. some sort of claymation
  3. Practice with morphing scenes together
  4. implement creative transitions from one scene to the next

I am excited for toast.

 

 

 

Graffiti on the Wall Street Bull

A field trip to the Wall Street Bull for on-site drawing proved difficult.  It was an early autumn day, and the mass of tourists surrounding the bull was almost impenetrable.  Some were there to see the bull, while some were more interested in the Fearless Child statue that had been placed in front of it.  The top of the Bull, untouched for the most part by intrusive hands, glimmered in the sunlight, while the bottom half, patinaed from being touched, was a dull grayish gold.

The way that the crowds swarmed the bull invoked a sort of biblical scene.  I imagined the mass of people as the unruly mob below the base of Mount Sinai, violently pushing each other to get close to their false idol.  I view the Wall Street bull as the new sort of God, which stands in as a symbol of greed and money (while that was not it’s initial intention, it’s meaning has certainly shifted over time), instead of the Christian sort of benevolent image of God.

I feel like I can’t leave out the Bulls balls.  Yes, animals have anatomical parts.  It’s just so strange to me, how everyone lined up to touch them.  The bulls balls seemed to be it’s most magical part.  Everyone wanted a piece of them.  Everyone wanted a photo.  Everyone posed in exactly the same way.  I went on Instagram later that day just to make sure the that my theories of their unoriginality were correct.  They were.

So this is the new religion: Gigantic Statues, selfies, and a fixation on balls.

The assignment for Typography class was to Graffitti the Wall Street Bull.  I imagined the Bull as a canvas for the new religion and the old to butt heads.  The Bull sylbolizes the new religion.  The graffiti would be from peopel of the old faith: Phrases such as ” Thou Shall not worship false Idols” are violently carved into the brass flesh.  The back and forth profanities from people with different opinions fill in the space.  Then there’s the peopel who troll just to instigate the situation, not really taking any side. I empathize with them the most.  I snuck in a a Buffalo Bill quote from Silence of the Lambs as well, trying to make it as profane as possible.

As a side note, this piece of art produced some internet trolling from someone who called it “an atrocity” to vandalize something that represented American resilience (I’m paraphrasing, as it was a really long message).  I think that creating art that invokes a reaction out of strangers means I’m heading in the right direction.

Also, it’s a school assignment bro.  Get over it.

 

 

 

 

Experimental Kids Book: Gunther Get Out of Bed

Gunther, my childhood stuffed dinosaur, is the main character in many of my projects.  Because he is small and innocent-llooking, I find that he is easy to place in uncomfortable situations.

Gunther Get out of Bed is my final project for Experimental Kids Books. For a kids book to be considered “experimental”, the book must have some aspect of being non-conventional in form, content, or subject matter. I chose to address the subject of Depression, while maintaining a conventional kids book form and appearance.  As the story processes, Gunther consumes the page, while the main character tries to get him out of bed without success.  This serves as a metaphor for depression and calls into question if Gunther is experiencing depression, or if the main character is projecting her own feelings onto him, blurring the lines between what is real and what is imagined. In creating this work, I am trying to convey the weight of mental illness from two points of view: from the person experiencing it firsthand, and from the person who is powerless to help.

This work was created inking techniques learned in 2D studio.  Contours and forms are suggested using masses of lines and texture.  Coloring was done using Photoshop.

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