Final Statement For animation

Animation-

There were many principles that I learned from project 1&2 that are parallel to project 3. We started off picking out a three line Japanese haiku.

When first reading my haiku I wanted to focus on the Whippoorwill (which is a Japanese bird). However, the more I read the haiku and started to make the analogy shapes about the haiku my personal connotation of the bird was the symbol of someone or something being lonely all together. This was important for me to really understand my haiku, have my own personal interpretation of it, because eventually that is what I will want the viewer to see.This is something that I had learned in project one, and something that then I did not execute very well. It doesn’t matter if it is a line, shape, word, or piece of text, it is crucial as a designer to be able to execute that “denotation” well, so the viewer is able to understand. Another aspect that I took from project one was the importance of variety. In the first project we started with mind maps, and to be honest mine was not expanded. It seemed like in the most creative step of the project, I did not experiment into different approaches. In project 3 I did not want to make the same mistake. By the end of the class I no longer looked at the “ minimal requirements” for the next class but the “maximum possibilities”. For example turning my animation into black with white shapes and texts instead of the reverse.

When I thought of this it was suggested that I take that idea and show both ways of executing it. Going further into the process of my haiku we experimented with marks that would make the analog shape. This is a aspect that project 2 came back into mind, experimenting with media, and letting the “tool” be the focus. So much of what I do sometimes I think would be easier to just take it into Illustrator/ Photoshop and manipulate it. While making the image a vector is an important step into craft, sometimes the designer looses some of the more interesting qualities or possibilities in that image. In project 2 we made line studies and let the projector, scanner, and photocopier make a new line study. As a designer I hope to carry the building up of hand skills and not wanting always to depend on the computer. Who knows, in the future it might be my assignment to create something without the computer, and using these tools and tricks is important. In project 3 it was important to let the tool whether it maybe a whistle, feather, or string to do most of the work. By letting this happen the out come was usually better texture, shape, or contrast in the image, which probably could have not been made on the computer.

In the final animation I learned many new skills too. A storyline, after looking at my animation it seemed that having a narrative made the whole project in itself stronger. I think going further into the up coming semester’s this is something that I take into consideration. In my personal belief people are able to respond better to any type of artwork when a narrative is given.

Untitled from Janna Johnsrud on Vimeo.

The song I choose was "Old Piano" by Frou Frou