Multiverse: Greene's 9 Types - Electric Press Kit and Final Reflection

We have compiled our electric press kit for which we used the EPK of "The Maker" as reference. Considering we have not won any awards for this animation, we omitted that page, however, we mimicked accurate layout in design as well as giving people both our contacts and personal short descriptions. Our press kit might serve us properly in the future should we submit our animation to some festival, which as I have mentioned before we have been considering. Nonetheless, I cannot help but be critical of my own work for it deteriorates in quality when rushed - I do not work well under pressure. Although the DVD case design is immaculate from my point of view, the proportions of the spine were not accurate which resulted in our print having a cut-off - something to fix when using the pack for submission to a festival. Time management, although quite in tact during pre-production, slowly dissolved during the stages of production due to an overwhelming submission schedule with other modules, which had a negative influence on this one. Nonetheless, such mistakes must be made to fortify and improve my practice. Luckily next year we will not be overwhelmed with a maelstrom of modules but instead we will thoroughly focus on one such project, successfully increasing in quality

ISSUU Publication - https://issuu.com/vvoinovski/docs/electric_press_pack_multiverse

Applied Animation - Week 16

Finally, the last semi-week representing and annotating our conclusion on this journey of animation that now feels as if it has ran for about a year. Basically, these days were soul post-production (although the final days from the previous week were as well) which diverted a bit from the original Gantt chart, proving to both of us that our time management skills and capability of juggling around modules has to be improved upon. Nevertheless, from Monday up until today, having all the scenes finished beforehand, me and Luke spent our time assembling the scenes together to export the final resolution of the animation. In accordance to that, due to the some of the changes and diversions from the final animatic that we had to acclaim had to be accounted for with a change of narration, as well. In particular, the Holographic Multiverse and the Quantum Multiverse's old narration that we had recorded did not fit the changes, thus, we booked the recording studio on the 16th of May (Tuesday) so that we may make up for these meticulous changes. Other than that, we split the design of the DVD case with me taking care of the back and the spine whereas Luke did the front design. Finally, once we had our respective designs done we merged them and created the title and logo for the documentary's name - Multiverse: Greene's 9 Types - simple, yet coherent. By using all the conventional assets for DVD Case covers that we referenced, I believe that we quite accurately mimicked the appearance of an actual DVD film, something I'm quite proud of. Then again, this is to be classified as an actual documentary film, giving me a more professional feel and pride of our own film. In terms of the animation, we spent this week collating the sound effects which due to a lack of time (me having to work outside of college) did so remotely: I gave Luke all the sound effects I downloaded in accordance to using our final animation as reference whereas he placed them in their respective queues. Finally, we got together and modified some of the sounds, added fade-ins and fade-outs, sped them up or slowed them down to match their visual cues, etc. Now I feel more thankful than ever for suggesting and following through the extended lingering of the beginning and end of every scene, for it allowed us with a bigger flexibility of editing to match the animatic and its reference. Because of this we could mend the length of every scene to fit the natural feel and flow of the narrative so we can weed out any possibility of it going too fast. Conclusively, we did the Press Pack in such a way that it comes across as simple yet legible - simple cover pertaining all the necessary information, contacts, short synopsis that does not give away the details, short individual bio, and stills from the animation itself. Luke and I have also been considering submitting our animation to some festival since we think that it could meet the standards of several small-scale animation festivals, and in the end even if it does not get accepted we will break the ice surrounding our reluctance to participate in such events. Furthermore, it will be good practice I believe to be constantly persistent in our endeavors, for as PPP has taught us so.

Applied Animation - Week 15

The busiest of all weeks had been this 15th one where ALL of our scenes were created and exported as separate TIFF sequences. As I had mentioned before, this week would consist of compensating for the lack of proper time management in production. Considering that now we have nothing other than Applied Animation left we will not have to divide our attention and capability to manage a workload as we did these previous two semi-productive weeks (in terms of Applied, though). In a nutshell, every single day me and Luca were gathering together (except for Sunday) to discuss, exchange necessary assets for scenes, animate backgrounds and foreground assets, give each other feedback and criticism, as well as export and exchange transparent TIFF sequences of pieces of animation. Now, delving into detail, there were several scenes that only I alone needed to collate, some that only Luca needed to, and several that we both had to create. Initially, we got one thing out of the way: the effects used for the black background behind all the universes, nebulas, and branes, which is created by CC Star Burst with consistent proportions that we decided on. The only variation is the speed and the size (opacity) of the stars, whereas every other value remained the same. We first thought of using our newfound After Effects plugin system Trapcode's Particular to animate this, however, found that CC Star Burst is effective as well along with it consuming less time per scene. Before we collated the cosmic assets, with Luca having the universe and galaxy animated through Trapcode, I created the looping animation of the Brane and the Calabi Yau space through a different method. In order for there to be a fluctuation of styles, I drew the Brane and Calabi Yau space in Photoshop layers, which I then proceeded to alter and modify through Form, Particular, Light Burst CC, and other such effects so that it may symbiotically align with the plasma-like look of the rest of Luca's assets while at the same time differentiating itself from them. Once this was taken care of, we started animating. For the Brane multiverse I used Luca's Zap character rig and animated universe in accordance with my looping Brane animation to fuse and create a smooth keyframe animation that captured the enormity of space. Another scene that I did was the Simulated multiverse which featured several of my minions all computing and formulating universes through a projector, For this scene, I used Luke's universe render, which got me to think about the cross-platforming that we have been doing throughout these final steps of the project. In other words, I had not realized the equal division of work we have been assigning each other during this longitudinal endeavor - something that got me to thoroughly understand the parameters behind collaborative practices. I believe if all of this work was not to be submitted for a college module I would not realize the division between the workflow that we've been subconsciously managing, which is something that alludes to my open-mindedness in collaboration - a skill I've been accumulating throughout these college years. However, in an attempt to be self-perceptive, I believe that at times I've been way too radical in assuming a leadership role, which is something that I will acutely fix and mend for from this day on for it will assist me in working in collaborative groups in the future, despite overall this one being the most successful I've ever participated in. Conclusively, in accordance to all the pictures of every separate scene I've done being posted within this blog post, I believe that despite the last minute rearranging of time management, this week has been the most productive and compensating (for the past ones not being as substantial because of other modules' necessity to be placed at a priority) which has hailed the most important lesson within the nature of the collaborative practice: time management is key for a flexible and functional schedule. No one can accustom theirs to yours, which is why you need set some common denominators in order to get the work done - a thought for the future. Nevertheless, I adore the amount of work that can be done within a mutual agreement and necessity (such as a deadline) through the power of extrinsic motivation!

Applied Animation - Week 14

This week consisted of adding small detail adjustments to any character animation I had as well as beginning the assembling of every individual scene. Prior to the Final Crit, me and Luke had constructed a small Power Point presentation where we collated our separate character animations to present to the class along with the 3D simulated style of our backgrounds. Alongside the conclusion of PPP, we did not manage to work as planned on Applied Animation, straying away from the original Gantt chart quite a bit for which we shall make amends as the days progress and the workload slowly evaporates.

UPDATE - 09/05/2017 - FINAL CRIT - We did not take into account the requirement of this stage: collage some final scenes so that the general look of the animation can be absorbed and critique. We had completely gotten sidetracked by the previous presentations conducted by other modules that we failed to comprehend the style of the crit, thus, did not assemble any example scenes over the animatic, although that would have been quite helpful in getting thorough feedback. We got quite substantial constructive criticism on our respective character animation as well as our backgrounds. Initially, I believed that the detailed semi-realistic plasma-like style of our backgrounds would not blend well with our 2D cartoon characters (another reason why we should have assembled some scenes), however, the majority of our peers advocated against it stating that the synthesis of the two styles adds to the both comic and unconventional effect and aesthetic of the animation (something that we later on proved once we started adding the scenes together). In terms of my character, I neglected to mention the stillness of its animation hence I was planning to add all the squash-and-stretch along with the overlapping action through After Effects, thus, was pointed to the minions lack of exaggeration. Furthermore, I took into account the feedback regarding my character's fast motion and his name: he needs not be as fast and it would have been quite more convenient to give him a name for the name "minion" carries a dangerous copyright infringement patent by Universal Pictures - a thought when doing professional work in the future. Once the Final Crit concluded, me and Luca sat down together and devised which scene needs to be collated separately during the following week in After Effects so that the following week will solely consist of us assembling all the scenes together (most of the scenes must be done so together). Nonetheless, from this stage on the train started rolling based on the feedback we got, and so I did the portal scene (without a background so that we may create a template of this together) as well as the initial rotation of the globe. All of these scenes remained as executable After Effects files so that up until we get a mutual agreement for every scene they are not to be exported as TIFF sequences. I started learning Particle World and Particle Effects in order to animate small details, in this case the portal opening along with using CC Spherize for the Earth spinning - made with a world map traced and cartoon-style contoured. As I mentioned previously, time management slipped from our hands a bit, however, it is nothing that we cannot compensate for and learn from, such is the reason we are in college!

Applied Animation - Week 13

With the necessary prioritization of concluding modules, this week for me did not revolve much around this module. Henceforth, no animation was involved due to temporary pressing matters. However, I did design several still assets that I am to use and animate within After Effects once me and Luca get together to start assembling and laying out the individual scenes. Furthermore, what needs to be done is the division of all the scenes that we are to do separately in our non-collective sessions (ergo, while working at home) as well as all the scenes that we MUST collate together. In terms of backgrounds, I have been experimenting with Particle World CC in After Effects to see the possibilities in recreating nebulas, alongside the Star Burst effect that will serve gracefully as the general background blend. Nevertheless, I believe that at this point I have not done as much as work as I imagined to over Easter, effectively teaching me a thing or two about poor time management. I am in no position to place the blame on the condensed submission schedule of all the parallel schedules; I was to plan this ahead of time in order to avoid such rushed situations. Nonetheless, judging by the completion of character animation as well as the swift method of animating abstract cosmic elements through After Effects, our animation will be completed in time.