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Filip Stojanovski
Contemporary Storytelling: Comics and Animation
Epilogue: My Personal Animation Experience
In order to gain first hand knowledge of making
animations, I decided to try to produce one of my own. I started with
the idea to explore the process from beginning to finish: starting with
a story idea, through the making of animation, to officially publishing
the finished work. The process would not be complete without the last
part, because a piece of art is worthless without its audience.
The plan was to publish the animation on a web site
called "HotWired Animation Express,"
which expresses readiness to publish "little stand-alone stories
that take our visitors on a mental vacation." HotWired is one of
the most influential sites on the web (related to Wired magazine), with
a long record of achievements in the promotion of the digital
revolution. Exhibition in a place like this would provide exposure of
the work to the widest possible audience, as well as first-hand insight
in the workings of the professional relations.
To achieve this goal, I decided to use
Flash, a
program that can be obtained from the web "for evaluation" for
a limited time period free of charge,
and is intended for creating 2-D animations. Flash’s interface
provides functionality very similar to the technology of making cell
animations: the content of the frames can be "hand-drawn"
(using the mouse) or imported through scanning. The visual elements can
be positioned in layers, emulating the process of producing cells
explained earlier. It also provides help in some aspects of the
processes of tweening and morphing, especially when working with simple
shapes. Flash can save the work in various digital formats, and on top
of that provides full support for interactivity.
I downloaded the program and set out to enhance my
knowledge of its operation. My previous experience was quite helpful,
for I have made some short and simple 2-D computer animations before.
Nevertheless, while trying to master the program, I extensively used the
online help manuals. During this phase, I made several short animation
experiments, including one that was a recreation of the work of Eadward
Muybridge. I scanned some of his photographic series of animals in
motion, and extracting the separate pictures, combined them in a
sequence: an animation that can be displayed on the computer screen.
This provided encouragement for future efforts, but also showed me that
no matter how short it is, if the animation is decent, it takes a lot
more time to produce it than assumed by a layman.
On the content side, I started with the idea to write
several short stories, and connect them into one whole interactive
presentation. This was supposed to have some properties of hypertext
(text with links inside that enable the reader to jump from location to
location in the narration in non-sequential manner). I also spread the
word that I look for short stories that could be adapted into
animations. This was quite useful, because as a consequence my friend
Bojan Antic offered me a synopsis for one of his own. I accepted the
story and started working on the animation, developing the characters
and designing the scenes. Another friend, the musician Vasko Buraliev,
provided me with background music to support the mood of the story.
Unfortunately, the time factor stopped me from
completing this animation before submitting of the presentation and this
paper. It takes a whole day of work to animate a scene lasting several
seconds. The life of the student is often complicated, but I hope that
in the near future I would be able to tie the project together and
achieve the initial goal. The results can be viewed via my web site http://filip.stir.org.
Contents
| Foreword |
Glossary |
Works Cited
Comics: Bits of History |
Modern Age |
Great Adventurers |
Vocabulary
| Grammar: Closure
Animation: Origins |
An Early Animator |
Classical Animation |
Making an Animation
| Epilogue
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