MTV 2 Sharts

My project is to create an animation involving musical celebrities I listen to their music on my MPG4. I researched Nexus Production, watched videos on Youtube about trailers and movies of MTV. I looked at soul train. Soul Train is a syndicated, music-related television program. In it’s 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by rhythm and blues, soul, and hip-hops artists, also jazz musicians and gospel singers. I have also watched MTV music channel along with MTV+1 base, hits and dance. These inspired me to develop my project. I listened to different types of music I was hoping to obtain music representing the sound of a train. I listened to music of Thomas the Tank Engine-Night Train and the Railway (Train) Music Theme on DVD Extras menu. However I did not find them suitable. Therefore I used music from the celebrity I chose -50 Cent.

On completing my research I chose three celebrities because I liked their music. I listen to their music to relax. However I then reduced the celebrities to one to complete my project because of the deadline. The research also helped me with my ideas for example a train line resembled the notations of music. Therefore I decided to use a train line and the musical notes to represent it.

I then decided to use symbols to depict the particular celebrity e.g. money to represent the celebrity-50 Cent. Having identified the symbols I decided to show the musical notes being transformed into the symbols. I chose a light background to enhance the symbols that I used. At the end the chosen celebrity 50 cent comes alive. The softwares I used were Flash, Illustrator, Photoshop, Stop motion, and After-Effects. I ensured that the ‘animated project’ lasted for fifteen seconds.

Portrait and Place Project : The Regeneration of Lewisham

My idea for the portrait and place project is the “Regeneration of Lewisham”. I discovered that areas around Lewisham were changing. I had taken pictures before the regeneration began and have recently taken more pictures showing the progress. Phase one and two are now completed. Phase three is now being discussed. There appears to be some resistance towards the demolition of the primary school replacing it with a combined primary and a secondary school. The logo used by Lewisham is “Making Lewisham the best place to live, work and learn”.

I researched a few artists who gave me ideas to develop my project. Masayashi Nakano gave me some insight into using the different sites undergoing regeneration in Lewisham. e.g houses, restaurants, train station. Researching Maira Kalman gave me the idea to use mix media of photographs and drawings to enable me to finish within the time frame.

It went very well because I planned which software to use early in the project and which media to use to animate the scenes. I used the pictures of areas around Lewisham from years ago with the recent pictures I took. I decided to choose a few pictures of the new road called Silver Road, the new site of Burger King and Lewisham Train Station.

I used Photoshop and After Effects. I used Photoshop to animate using layers and overlapping the pictures with a mix of drawing and photographs. To animate the scenes I used Photoshop and made many layers to create a character walking into the Burger King and a Taxi Cab driver travelling along the road near the train station. I decided to add in an extra scene of the Gypsy Site before the changes.

I have recorded many sounds around Lewisham. The sound device was small so I needed to get a closer range to obtain the sounds I needed and then I mixed them with other sounds using Soundtrack Pro. I decided to use text and the DVD menu to display the title and to play the animation film. The title screen is “Regeneration of Lewisham” and it ends with a text “Making Lewisham the best place to work, live and learn”.

I experienced difficulty using Flash. When I was importing my drawings and photographs I used the wrong settings. I used Photoshop instead because I realized it was better for film and TV and Flash is for web design. I used After Effects because I was able to import files from Photoshop as JEPG, PNG to put them together.

I forgot the number of frames per second to animate and the instructions. To remember the frames per second and instructions I then decided to type the notes to remind me. I was thinking of using Dragon (I Stop Motion) but it was not possible to use Dragon (I Stop Motion) because I decided that I wanted to use more photographs and drawings to develop my project. I enjoyed this project because it made me more aware of my surroundings.

My Final Animation