Final Project - Open Arms

Here is my final product, the opening to the animated short film Open Arms. I hope you all enjoy and thank you for following me along through this process!

Creative Critical Reflection

This here a video of me reflecting back on all the work I've done throughout this project and the logic behind the choices made during it's development. Hope you enjoy!

Final Feelings

The process of making this animated film opening was grueling, however, I am ultimately glad I put in all the effort. No matter how hard it was and how many hours I spent to create it, I am so glad that I produced an animated short film opening. I love animation, it’s my passion. It’s the career path I want to continue on. Producing my first animated film was a huge feat for me and a great step toward a future career as an animator and creator.

Of course, reflecting back, I can see where my mistakes were made. My scheduling toward the beginning of the year wasn’t strict enough and I should have been more attentive so I could of gotten my animation done much earlier. Also, I wish I was more on top of these updates. However, every time I didn’t spend updating this blog was me finishing up and working on my animation.

Going into this project alone was also tough, however, I didn’t know any other animators and this was something I was extremely passionate about. In the end, I’m even more proud of myself for doing the extra work to animate by myself. I hope all of my hard work paid off.

I hope everyone enjoys the film opening for Open Arms, which is coming very soon.

Thank goodness for Final Cut Pro.

I’ve had some ups and downs with my animation software, Toon Boom. Unfortunately, some of those downs included compiling all of the animation scenes together and fixing the speeds of certain frames. Once the camera work on the animation was set in place, it was difficult to adjust and change certain frames without causing the camera to bug out.

This may seem weird to any other filmmaker who is reading this post. The camera is known for being a tool to record footage, it is not something that is manipulated within the editing. Well, animation is a little different. In order to save time and create more fluid animation, programs have “cameras” as a tool option. This allows for the user to pan, tilt, and zoom the camera in and out. The camera also moves very smoothly, so human error is not accounted for.

Though I find this tool to be extremely useful and essential, especially since my film was designed to replicate a long shot with no cuts (only graphic matches), the camera did not always function as I had hoped. Sometimes the pans were too fast, zooms too slow, etc. So, third party editing software became a necessity.

Final Cut Pro was a program I had mainly used in order to clean up my mistakes. Though I was a Final Cut rookie, my friend and classmate Zoe Milenkovic helped me along the way to compile, edit, and improve my piece. We were able to extend, certain frames and slow down a few others, making the animation a lot more fluid. This is also the program I added the audio in, both the music and the voice over. This program was extremely useful for adding opening titles and credits. Toon Boom did not have as many text options as Final Cut, which was a breeze to utilize.

Though Toon Boom was pretty great to animate on, it definitely wasn’t something I could recommend for editing.  

Representation! Why's it important?

As someone who passionately believes that children’s media should contain strong messages and themes, I wanted to create a film that provided an inside look into how prejudice is cultivated. So, in my production, I had to create my representation of people who would be described as “close-minded”.

It is not my intention to villainize the human, but the prejudice itself. In my beliefs, a human being is neither born good nor evil, it is how they are raised and the environment that they are in that makes them who they are. So, I wanted to show how and why these prejudices came to be. In order to change a person who has prejudice rooted so deeply into their life, a person must understand where those feelings originated from. Everyone believes they are the hero of their own story, so, some people don’t recognize how harmful their beliefs truly are.

Activism is something I am very familiar with. I have dedicated a lot of my time to the LGBT+ movement and have dealt with many people who have opinions separate from my own. By being patient, kind, and understanding of others’ beliefs, my fellow activists and I were able to instigate change and educate those who were willing to be receptive to what we had to say.

I have dealt with my fair share of… well, for a more appropriate word than the one I was thinking of, ignorant people, and I am very experienced with dealing with those who believe differently than I. Though they can be rude, I do not hate these people. I try to understand them. It should be known that you can understand a person’s argument without agreeing with it.

I also wanted to represent how people can change. Some would believe that people who have been indoctrinated since they were a child cannot change who they are and what they think. This is harmful thinking. Everyone has the ability to change and better themselves.

The main character of Open Arms, Royce and Ryu, will learn and grow to be more accepting and caring individuals, which I think is extremely important for kids to see.

Fantastic News!

I have finished all of the animation and coloring! A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Though it was a long and tedious process, it has finally been completed.

Now, what’s the next step I must move onto?

Editing. Now that I have all of my footage, I can arrange my shots in order and add in all the necessary effects in order to create the illusion of a long shot. The camera tool is one of my most utilized tools in the Toon Boom program. It truly does help to establish the proper flow I need.

Also, in my last post I noted how I received my narration from my voice actor. I will add in all the audio tracks as I'm editing in order to time it perfectly with the music.

My major concern now is that I am most likely going to have to edit the entire piece on another video-making software. Either my computer or my program can't seem to handle all the frames, camera movements, and animation at the same time. The frame rate will drop immensely while it's being tested within the program. So, I will most likely have to export it in order to get it to function properly. I want to edit in another software, since this one was made solely for animation, but my hardware limitations don't give me much of a choice.

I am just happy the process is finally over. Time to export!

Audio Editing

Every aspect of creating a film opening comes with challenges. Audio issues weren't expected challenge, but luckily it was one I was able to handle.

The voice actor I chose for my production lives in Tallahassee, which is a good eight hours away from my home. Although it may seem strange that I hired an actor not in my local area, that is one of the benefits of animation. Voice acting can be submitted for a project no matter where a person is in the world.

The reasons I initially chose my actor over any local actor was for two reasons. One, he had acting experience. The person I had chosen, Nicholas Benetatos, had been learning and studying voice acting in his free time pretty much his entire life. I figured he would be able to make the narration very interesting and act out the role very well. The second reason I selected him was because of his equipment. At his school, there is a recording booth that the student may use. He recorded all of his lines at that booth, however, that's when things went wrong.

For some reason, the mic was giving off a strange static sound. He had no idea what he was doing wrong or what had happened with the microphone.

Luckily, I've become very familiar with Audacity, an amazing and free sound editing software. I downloaded his audio file and was able to use the “noise reduction” editing tool to take out the sound of the static.

I also used this program to edit my song down as well. Though I love the music I chose, the original song is over four minutes long. Also, the middle of the track doesn't match the tone of my film, so I had to cut it out and replace it with a later part in the song.

Even though there were audio issues, Audacity is an amazing program and solved so many of my problems with ease.

Group Meetings...Again

This group meeting was unfortunately very unproductive for my project.

For whatever reason, nobody in my group seemed to have real criticism or any advice that they were willing to give for my production. Granted, they all seemed very absorbed in their own thoughts and ideas, and I may have been as well.

The last group meeting was like this as well. Although I was able to show off a lot of my project and a lot of the effort I had put in, nobody had any suggestions on how I could possibly improve my work to make it better. I could take this as a compliment, however, everyone has room for improvement, and I especially know I do.

I wish these group meetings did offer more for my project, however I can't stress enough of how much of a special case I am. Perhaps my fellow classmates don’t know how to criticize animation, or that they do not want to make me feel bad for all the hard work I've put into drawing and putting everything all together. However, even if I may not take or use their critiques, it would be nice to have some advice on how to improve.

Maybe I would get better results if I was doing this project with other animators or others interested in animation. We could find the flaws in each other’s work and help one another improve.
But for now, I will just continue down the path I made for myself.