plan for short animation

As I have been thinking about the short animation project over the weekend that passed by far too quickly I have come to decide that i would like to use inspiration from both the word animation and the conversation project to create a very simple animated poem. For our conversation project we are using a very plain palette with a strong focus and emphasis on the words and the emotions they provide on their own. I am picturing my animation to sit against a black background for the most basic and inviting backgrounds and I would like this stark and blank canvas to be a forum for colors and especially white text to animate upon for a fun and bold method to view my piece. Again, more than anything else I would like to focus on the bold and the innovative display of my words that cannot quite be seen on the white printed page of text. I guess I see this piece as flipping roles of text by turning the black text on a white printed page to white text animating on a black screen. I would also like the piece to develop from both the word animation and the conversation piece by focusing on irony for amusement. I think that I would like to use my instinctive thoughts from one word to inspire a sort of poetic and ironic banter that draws the viewer in by the display, bold color contrast and the amusement that irony presents in and of itself. I do not have a plan for the word that i will start off with and I have no direct plan for the words that will follow, but i would like to let the animation and the moment trail into what the piece will become. I am focusing on irony, bold and attractive text, amusement, and the spur of the moment idea notion to form a full piece of off the wall poetry.

"The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry"

“The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry” discusses three major perceptions of creating and understanding poetry in a digital form. The ontological perspective that is brought up in the start of this article is a very interesting perspective to think about. Through the reading of this section of the article, I couldn’t help but to think about my own start and exploration of flash and animated poetry. When I first started work for this class I had no idea how to begin viewing or creating poetry that moved and spoke to the viewer and reader in a whole different way than anything I had every explored. This article explores the basic ideas of computers and explains in detail how people must be at least somewhat computer-literate to view many animated pieces of poetry in hopes to understand the purpose and main idea. When creating a piece of animated poetry the “author” must have a detailed plan of what emotion or reaction they want to receive from the audience. This idea is similar with writing poetry on hard paper but when animating pieces of poetry I find that I have drive to obtain a deeper emotion and reaction from my audience. I feel that when I write poetry on paper I expect that my readers will interpret the piece and think to themselves in piece and among personal experiences, but when I create a piece of animated writing I find that I expect my audience will react more openly and among others about their reaction to the piece. I like that the article mentions the code of language that a computer provides for users, because people do need to possess some computer knowledge and people must understand what it takes for others to create such pieces before they view them. This code of language is the “new” element that computers bring to the table in relation to creating animated pieces of poetry. The article also discusses this possible element of computers adding to literature and writing, “…whether computers and the Internet truly bring forth anything new?” I think that computers and the element of the internet do bring some new tools and sources that writers can use to present new forms of creative writing to their viewers, and they also provide new ways to express emotions and thoughts that cannot be shown on the written printed text.

            I think that computers definitely provide something new and different for writers and for thus for the viewers. Although, I feel that computers provide new elements of creativity, I do not think that they have changed writing itself. Currently, animated poetry and printed poetry seem to exist perfectly balanced in the culture of writing and reading and interpreting, so I think that this balance has the potential to last. Before, this semester began, I had only seen a touch of animated poetry, but I had not nearly the level of understanding about them that I do now. To create and to view animated works of poetry and writing, one must have some sort of understanding of how the process works and what a writer potentially hopes to receive from their creative work.

Plan for research project

deena larsen          
For my independent research project I have been searching through the links provided and I discovered a very neat and interesting. Deena Larsen is a creative producer who has an abundant amount of poetic and fictional based works, using flash and other tools. Clicking through some her popular works, I think that she is an extremely accomplished and creative designer, so I would mostly like to research her works because of their quality and personality and especially the consistent poetic stream. I am hoping that she is established enough for me to find research to fill the required length of the paper, and if so I will need to research her background, educational and career field. I will also need to search through her published pieces and research commentary written about her and her work. The only concern that I have with this project is the length so I can see research support and helpful references becoming a helpful aid from Anne or other students that come across any helpful links. I have also noticed that we have about 1month to write up our first draft so my plan is to take some time out of every weekend until then to research her work and to make notes for the draft itself. I hope that all goes according to plan and that I am able to find more information and work by Deena Larsen.

Response to my word animation.

From the two responses that i recieved in class today I am really not surprised at all. i am really pleased with the satisfaction that people seemed to have with my ideas, and I am pleased to see that my plan and ideas were understood. I understand that some of the color choices made the viewing of piece a challenge and I also have come to understand that some of my motion tweens could have been slightly more fluid and easier to see. With more time I would like to perfect some of the tweens and adjust the timeline a bit. I would also very much like to expand on the poem itself and possibly incorporate actual pictures of real peonies/gardens. I would like to learn to be able to develop more fluid tweens, and shape tweens that do not dissappear-not sure why this kept happening. I would also like to view/learn more about poetic or story-telling expressions through the art of flash. Lastly, i think that more required development times/ stages imposed by the class or myself will help my pieces become more strong and have clear fluid ideas/poetic development throughout the peices.

topic for conversation project.

For my conversation project with Hayley we will be exploring the current debate that most people in our nation are dealing with-of gay marriage. We will be exploring this idea by forming characters to push across the ideas of one side being for the possibilities of gay marriage and the perspective of many people who are anti-gay marriage. This project will developed very much like a debate between not our personal perspectives but characters formed to demonstrate the common and most powerful debate points. We will ensure that the perspectives are clear by distinguishing between each character through color, passion and relationship.

final word animation--Peony

Comparing Clips

Visual and Audio enhanced writing provides new perspectives and ideas for typical viewers of simple, typed writing pieces. Through the start of this semester we have looked at both ‘movie’ animated writing and writing that is visually interesting but on a flat page still. I have become entirely fascinated with both forms of poetic writing, but the pieces with audio files that move about and make noise on my screen naturally catch my attention the most, because they are so beyond anything I have seen done before, and I am not sure to what extent I will eventually be capable of reproducing such pieces, but I would like to try. Recently I ventured into two animated pieces of poetry that both tell very moving and inspiring stories through words, pictures, music, sounds, and moving bits. These two pieces are “Blue Velvet: Re-dressing New Orleans in Katrina’s wake, and “Ask me For the Moon,” by John Zuern.

Both of these pieces are very interesting and tell stories within themselves. I would say that in their own methods, the creators are trying to inspire people to take action and to embrace reality and life. The Katrina piece is very real and actually a bit harsh, in that the topics the piece displays are tough realms to accept and to talk about. Words such as racism and control and catastrophe are harsh realities that the people of New Orleans are and have been learning to cope with. The other piece, is really in my opinion a story of an adventure and of a real place and time in the author’s stream of life experiences. Ultimately both of these pieces of animation were created to catch a viewer’s eye and to invoke a great deal of realism, and emotion.

A very crucial decision to look into is the choice of which each author had to make to produce these animated pieces of writing instead of just writing this poetic realism onto a white piece of paper for anyone to read. The truth is that with animated literature people are given the chance, not only to read amazing pieces of creativity and emotion, but to see it, hear it and to really feel it. I think that animated writing allows viewers to actually connect with the piece and the creator at a deeper and more personal level than if the same pieces of work were typed up just like this. This very piece of writing probably does not invoke very much emotion or entertainment but as the creator I made the valid choice to leave out such opportunities to stick to the facts and analysis of other works that do invoke emotions and entertainment factors for any viewer(s).

I think that in order to understand the moon poetic piece very little background information is needed to enjoy the piece but a patient attitude is probably needed to understand the piece. In addition, with the Katrina piece, some background knowledge of the natural disaster are helpful to understand the work in its’ entirety. I can also see that as the contexts of each piece are quite different, the animated pieces are still both thoughts and realities streaming across a screen with sounds, and visual effects to expand the possibilities for the reader.

After viewing and trying to analyze each of these pieces of work I would most like to imitate the poetic passion and influence they were able to hold on to in their work, for my word piece. I think that the use of words to express something specific to anyone while not explaining oneself is really exciting and educating. I would like to use the inspiration each of these pieces drives into me to create a word animation that displays emotion and the very beauty that it represents through the thoughtful use of words and poetic inspiration.