We’ve Come a Long Way…
Thank you all for your hard work and creativity throughout the semester! I hope you’ve found the class to be enjoyable and informative – I know that it has been for me. Here’s a highlight reel that I cut together of work done throughout the semester. It will screen during the student work showcase at the Campus Theatre on Tuesday, December 5 at 7pm. I hope to see you all there!
Start Thinking About the Final
At this point in the semester, you should be fairly comfortable using After Effects. There’s still a lot of new ground to cover, but you should have a good grasp of the basics. If you’re still struggling, send me an email at dan014@bucknell.edu and we can schedule a review session. Everything from this point forward is going to be building on the previous lessons and moving towards the final project.
Your final project is going to be an animated short film, based on the theme “cause and effect.” You can interpret that theme in any way you like; it’s just meant to be a jumping-off point. This week, you’ll be designing the main character for your film. You can start working on your final now, if you like; we’ll touch base on the project again during class in mid-November.
Here are the project details:
That’s it! I’ve deliberately kept the parameters of the assignment pretty open-ended, so that you have room to interpret things creatively. For example, you could film a real background and place your animated character into it; or create everything in Photoshop and Illustrator; or draw things by hand, scan them, and import them into After Effects. Your project could have several characters or just one. It can be comedic, dramatic, abstract, or scary.
Take some time to think about what kind of project you’d like to take away from this class. This is a great chance to make something that you can submit to film festivals or share online – if your film turns out well, it can also play at the student showcase at the Campus Theatre! If you’ve never seen your work projected on the big screen, it’s an extremely cool experience.
Final Project Schedule
October 19 – Project details given, character design is assigned
November 16 – Project check-in, discuss progress in class
November 30 – In-class work time, troubleshooting
December 7 – Final project is due, in-class review and critiques
Grade Breakdown
30 pts. – Creativity and use of theme
30 pts. – Technical proficiency
20 pts. – Meeting project requirements
10 pts. – Formatted and exported correctly
10 pts. – Turned in on time
100 points total
Before We Begin…
Welcome to the Spring 2017 edition of the Film/Media Studies Production Practicum! This course is focused on using Adobe After Effects for the creation of animation. After Effects is a powerful and versatile program – it can be used for everything from compositing to character animation to special effects to title design and graphics. We will also use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and other applications throughout the semester.
There are a few odds and ends we need to take care of before we can really dive into the exciting world of animation. First, you should make sure that you have this class listed as .5 credit on your schedule. It defaults to .25 credit, so you may need to change it manually. If you have trouble with this, please contact Carol Randall at car029@bucknell.edu.
I’ll set up access to the course Moodle page for everyone soon, but I generally only use Moodle for grading. For weekly lessons, we’ll be using this very blog: fmspracticumspring2017.blogs.bucknell.edu. This site will contain assignment details, lectures, work created in class, fun videos to check out, and lots more. It will essentially be your textbook for the course, so be sure to keep it handy!
The only material required for this class is an external hard drive for saving your work. I would suggest an external hard drive over a small thumb drive because they are faster and have higher storage capacity. If you don’t have a hard drive already, I’d suggest getting a USB 3.0 drive with at least 500GB of storage. You can pick up 1TB drives from the Bertrand Library Equipment Services for around $60. There are also lots of options at Amazon, Target, Best Buy, etc.. Both the Digital Video Editing Lab in the library and the Marts video studio have networked storage systems, but they are (unfortunately) different networked storage systems and such options are not always completely reliable. Working of an external hard drive allows you to be mobile. Of course, I would also suggest backing up important work to a different hard drive and/or cloud-based storage, just to be safe.
The course syllabus and schedule are available from the top menu on this website. Of course, I want this course to meet your needs, so if there is anything in particular you’d like to learn, please let me know! If you come across any interesting animated videos online, please send them my way as well.
Regarding attendance and assignments, the basic rules of college etiquette apply here. If you need to miss class, please let me know beforehand if at all possible. If you can’t do that, please touch base with me afterwards. Our in-class time is very limited and we have a lot of material to cover, so please be mindful of that. You will generally be assigned one project per week, which is due before class the next week, unless otherwise specified. If you need to turn something in late, again, let me know beforehand if you can. I will accept late work for reduced credit.
In addition to weekly assignments that overview the lesson materials, you will work on a longer animated project throughout the semester. This project will make up a significant portion of your final grade and serve as a showcase for everything you learned throughout the course. We’ll discuss this project in more detail over the coming weeks, but it’s never too late to start thinking about what sort of piece you’d like to create!
Finally, if you are struggling with anything in the course, please do reach out to me. I am more than happy to work with you, but you need to make that initial request. My office hours this semester are right before class, from 1:30 to 3:00 on Thursdays. I can also meet with you by appointment if that time doesn’t work for your schedule.