Half-Way Through the Course

In this experience, I found that the most significant issue that arose was staying on task and getting work done. For this section I was only able to get through one character concept and a basic story outline for the song. The story outline itself feels like it’s too short and won’t fulfill the entire song duration, but in my personal opinion, I believe that’s okay because I’ll be able to start on another mini animation for this course. Writing this Mid-Term blog hit me with this realization that time is moving pretty quickly and I need to start kicking my gears. I know I’m wasting a lot of valuable animation time by procrastinating and coming up with new project ideas without actually getting started on one.


Right now my mind is divided into many animation ideas I’d like to get started on, but it’s not focused on the task in front of me. I need to get back on track and focus on the current animation before starting another one. Hopefully during the next section I’ll be more productive and not rush in my TO-DO list the very last minute. It kind of sucks realizing that I’ve gotten probably less than 10% of my animation process done because I haven’t been fully committed to this project.


I don’t want this animation to be poorly drawn, choppy, and out of sync. My standards aren’t at a Disney level animation but I want the production to look clean. If I keep moving at the current pace I’m at, the animation will probably will be extremely poor quality. It will not only waste my time trying to put together a crappy project, but it will also waste my classmate’s time for having to watch such disaster unfold.


Without a doubt, I’m going to stick to this animation plan that I wrote up a few blogs ago:

The boy is living in a dark gray scale world, while the girl is living in color. The animation is gonna be where they're living in their own little world surrounded with people like them, but the twist is the girl need to feel a little sad because It's okay to cry and the boy needs to cheer up because there's happy things in life. some filler stuff then eventually, their worlds will collide together (it will be like a connection in Your Name).. And then it will be like an emotional realization that they need each other to feel complete?


My reason for choosing this song is because the final product will be a gift for someone very special to me. I feel like if I make this project personal it me, it’s value will be worth a lot more. I’ll put a lot more effort and make sure the animation isn’t something like my past animations I made as a twelve/thirteen year-old.

The song I’ve decided to use for this animation is Out of My League by Fitz and the Tantrums. This song is about how the protagonist is with a significant other that seems to be “out of their league” because they’re amazing in all these different ways the protagonist isn’t. Since the significant other is “too good to be true” the relationship they have feels like a dream, but luckily for the protagonist: it’s reality.


The first verse of the song really hit me hard because the person I’m planning on gifting this animation talks about how they went through a lot of suffering and hardship before meeting me. All those days of self-doubt faded away when I gave this person hope for the future. The chorus perfectly describes the way this person feels: That I’m out of their league. Due to their own insecurities and the fear of trusting another human, they feel as if they’re not worthy of a friend like me. The second verse of the song describes the “too good to be true” kind of feeling on both of our ends, and the realization that we are together and “it’s more than just a dream”.


Here are an example of a warm up sketch that I did during this week:




I most likely won't be using this character design because it seems too action/fantasy base. The boy will probably have something more simplistic and basic (since he's living in a gray scale kind of world), in contrast to the girl who will wear something more pop and colorful (because of the world she lives in).

For the next section, I hope to start working on a storyboard of how I'd like the animation to go and complete the character designs for my two main characters. On top of that, I'd like to start sketching out the setting of my story. This time, I'll be sure to stay on task and get work done. Time is moving quickly and I don't want to make this project feel rushed when I had all the time in the world to create something amazing.