Sunday, January 13, 2013

Introducing.....My Twenty Percent Project!

I apologise, but this may be a shorter post than usual. For my twenty-percent project this year in Rogate, I plan on constructing a project on animation and anime. If, for some odd reason, you do not know what animation is, you shall soon be brought into its depths. Animation is, in short, a drawing that moves. Walt Disney's famous classics such as 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' are animated, because they are a film that contains nothing but drawings. It is a bit more understandable for you not to know what anime is. (In English pronounced a-nih-may, in Japanese pronounced ah-nee-may) Anyways, anime is a Japanese drawing style, manga, taking the form of an animation. A commonly known anime in the States are the Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films, such as 'My Neighbor Totoro,' or 'Howl's Moving Castle,' or 'Grave of the Fireflies.' The style of the drawings in these films is the style that I shall use in my project. I'm sure you're dying to know exactly what i'm doing for my project on animation, so here it is in a wrap:

I will put together a somewhat-short animated film based off of the novel that I wrote entitled 'The Fallen Realm' using traditional animation in softwares such as Pencil or Flipbook.

Sounds challenging, huh? I guess it will be. I don't know how far I'm going to get with it, and I am not expecting to accomplish an entire film, maybe just twenty minutes of a film. However i will learn how the animation process works, and if I really do get the hang of it, I may even get quite a bit done. So, what will I need for this project? the main element of this project will be paper and an artist pen. I am going to need a LOT of paper. Like, a lot. Seriously, a lot. And I will also need an artist pen, found at most art or craft stores around the world. Oh, i'll also need a pencil, for the first draft of my drawings. Those are he key elements to this procedure. I will need my handy-dandy computer, of course! This will be used to color the pictures, to scan the pictures in, and to actually put them into an animation. I will also need what is called a 'light-box' which I can construct myself. All I need is a sheet of class and a light. When i am drawing, I will be able to see the drawing that i did beforehand underneath of it, so that the pictures are in the same place and only slightly altered to make them an animation. Lastly, I need the novel, 'The Fallen Realm' by yours truly, to base the script off of.

The steps I shall take in producing this animation are as follows:
-I will write a script. This is based off of my novel for NaNoWriMo 2012.
-I will record the script with actors from my family, and friends, and possibly from an open casting call that I can put on YouTube to find someone with the correct voice.
-I will create the characters. I am going to need to make a simple profile for each one, based on how they look in the book.
-I will create the scenery. I need to maker each scene in the book a background that may look a bit more detailed then the drawings. I also may find images for backgrounds that have a Creative Commons liscense
-Using the characters and scenery, I will animate. It is difficult to have an entire film in just a few months, so i'm going to aim at having a few scenes done by the end of the school year.

Of course, I will have some obstacles in my journey. These may be:\
-I cannot find/draw the correct backgrounds for the animations.
-I will need to draw thousands of frames. Literally.
-I will need to make each movement very precise. If it looks awkward or unrealistic, I shall not pass!
-There may not be enough time, and I may only have like twenty seconds of animation in the end.
-The right actors may not be out there that will fit the voice parts correctly.

To overcome these fears, I will need consultants.
It is not easy finding animators in this area. So my number one consultant shall be the Internet. I wil consult YouTube, in which I mean:
Mark Crilley, an excellent anime artist
Sheila Graber, a famous animator who gives tutorials on her channel.
I will consult drawing websites, in which I mean:
DragoArt, a collection of thousands of drawing tutorials, including manga! ( a bit like Wikipedia, where anyone can add their own tutorial)
MangaTutorials, a collection of specifically manga tutorials.



2 comments:

  1. *Otaku Stamp of Approval*

    Hm, sounds hard. I would be waaay too lazy to do any of this. But hey, I think you can do it!

    I'm excited for this, not to put any pressure on you or anything. .kcul dooG

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  2. This sounds like a really great idea Charles and I am very excited to see how this turns out in the end. Even though you may not get very far in your film, the whole point is that you learn something new from it and I think that this project will teach you a lot. It's all in the process you know...Good Luck!

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