What I Did

Over the weekend, I sketched out my characters, scanned some of them into my computer, and developed the script for the animation.

I changed the format of the audio reel. Rather than having a straight dialogue in which only the characters are speaking, I decided to make it more of a narration, as if it were an audiobook. It will not be a verbatim account of Don Quixote; it’s my own creation entirely.

In class, I did…well, very little. It’s Earth Day, so I defiantly chose to leave my computer at home today, a very nearsighted consideration. I did bring my sketchbook, though, so there’s that…

Why I Did(n’t Do Sh)It

IT’S EARTH DAY I LOVE THE ENVIRONMENT LEAVE ME ALONE.

What I Did

Basic, basic character design. Mainly stylistic; I played around with geometric shapes in Photoshop to try to figure out what kind of feel wanted. I think I’ll end up going with a Behemoth-style look:

He looks kind of like a scarecrow right now. I had to rush to finish the face, because I wanted something to put on this site.

Why I Did It

Well, I didn’t bring my sketchbook, so I wanted to see what kinds of characters I could create out of basic shapes. I haven’t decided if I’ll ultimately go with that or not, and I probably won’t, but it was still fun to play around with.

A “revision plan” implies a product worthy of revising. I’m not there yet.

I should probably do a quick update again, just to let you know why I’m behind:

After spending much of the day on Saturday learning how to use Adobe Flash, I gained confidence from a random project I made (half of the solar system orbiting the sun, yeah!). I wish I could upload it or link it to this page to show off, but WordPress doesn’t allow SWF files, and the GIF version of the scene wouldn’t export properly. But long story short, I’ve decided I can do an animation after all, and that’ll be the emphasis of my weekly workload.

As far as the storyline goes, I might revise one scene: I might have Sancho hiding behind a cactus watching the battle from afar, which isn’t too unlike what I have now, but it’s more…characteristic of how I want my flipped version of Sancho to come across. Also, it’ll make his meekly sarcastic, “Told you!” at the end of the scene all the more ironic and satisfying.

Timing the spoken dialogue in sync with the animation will be difficult. I need to write out the script before I make the animation, so I know exactly how long each scene will have to take. I hadn’t considered that before, but it’s an important decision.

Otherwise, I know I’m behind, but I’m confident in the direction of the project now more than ever. I was disappointed to shift gears when I decided to make it a paper-puppet project, but now that I’ve learned Flash, I think the end result can be what I had envisioned from the start.

Where I Am

Admittedly, production hasn’t exactly started very quickly on this project, partially due to the shift in genre this week. I have the plotline pretty much down pat, and I’ve made a storyboard to demonstrate it, but I haven’t actually started recording the video yet. I guess that little storyboard is the only hard piece of progress I’ve got to show for the project thus far, but that’s not to say there’s been no progress.

What’s Left

Well, this weekend, I plan to sit down and get all of the recording out of the way. That’ll involve character creation, scene setup, and renting a camera from the Center for the Arts/Innovation Space. Once I’ve got the characters all cut out and ready to go, though, it should be a fairly quick process. Come next week, I’ll know if I’m really on pace or not.

Confidence

I’m not expecting to have any problems between now and the end of April, but I guess problems are largely surprising. I’m confident that the video itself will go smoothly. My only concern—well, more like a reservation—is with the audio recording. I’m not a voice actor, and though I do only have two voices in the script, I’m not sure how well I can uniquely portray both of them. Maybe I’ll get a friend who’s got a deeper, more accessible voice to be my Don Quixote. I just don’t think I have a good voice for it.

But wait. I work in radio. Do I automatically have a good radio voice, then?

Hmm….

What I Did

I created a storyboard.

Why I Did It

Because I needed a storyboard.

What I Did

I made a non-round ball bounce!

Why That’s All I Did

BECAUSE IT TAKES FOREVER TO DO.

My two second animation of a simple ball bouncing up and down involved 27 images.

27.

What I Did

I attempted to learn a basic 2D animation program, Pencil, but it isn’t fully supported on Mavericks. In fact, the program hasn’t be properly updated since 2009, it appears, rendering it all but useless in this day and age. Technology moves quick.

Also, I played a game of President in Hoyle Card Games.

Why I Did It

If I hope to make a 2D animation, I’ll have to learn how to make a 2D animation. Seems pretty sensical.

Oh, and I had started playing that game of President in my last class, but it ended before I finished the game. A victor had to be decided.

Important things.

What I Did

Today I researched 2D animation tools and looked into just how much artistry is required to make a basic animated video. The answer, of course, varied, but the real problem may lie in the sheer number of drawings required to make an animation. One set of suggestions I found (from Pencil, a free 2D animation program) says that 12 frames per second (fps) is generally acceptable for an average animation. For a two-minute video, the approximate length I was aiming for, that’d be 1,440 drawings.

Yikes.

I don’t claim any amount of artistic ability, so this could get interesting.

Here is an example of Pencil in action.

Why I Did It

I still hold that the windmill scene is best portrayed as an animation rather than an image slideshow. (I realise that a 2D animation is, in fact, an image slideshow, but you know what I mean.)

If I can figure out how to create a halfway decent-looking animation, I think it would really benefit the project as a whole.

I’m going to try to learn Adobe Flash Pro, but that’s an intimidating order. I’ll fall back on Pencil, which seems more rudimentary than Flash, meaning it’ll be easier for a novice like me to use.

It seems like we have such a long time until this project’s deadline, but drawing 1,440 images would chew right through that timeframe.

Ugh.

Selected Sources

• The novel El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, part 1, chapter 8, originally published in 1605.
  A free download of the ebook version is available at Project Gutenberg.
  For a relatively brief summary of the chapter, see The Literature Network’s synopsis of it.
• A Georgetown University art exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of Don Quixote’s release back in 2005.
  Specifically, the webpage (linked above) detailing the artworks and their inspirations.
• The television miniseries Don Quijote de la Mancha, released in Spain in 1992.
  Specifically, this scene.

Why I Chose Them

• The novel: Obviously, I wanted to read the scene as Cervantes originally wrote it. This tells me exactly what the scene was intended to be and in what context it’s presented.
• The exhibition: Georgetown University’s webpage about the exhibition has a very detailed analysis of the novel’s importance and cultural impact, including its themes and implications. It then goes on to explain what sorts of artistic styles have been applied to the book’s scenes and why they fit so well. Understanding the rhetorics behind those decisions will help me figure out what kind of artistic style I would want to use in my project.
• The miniseries: Seeing one director’s interpretation of the windmill scene helps me understand the general emotive quality that he thought the scene suggests, allowing me to take those emotions and satirise them, which is the ultimate goal of my project.

Footnote: I just had an idea and wanted to jot it down:

Symbolism in the original scene: Making something out of nothing can make you obsessively crazy, which will ultimately defeat you.

Symbolism for my parody: Making nothing out of something can make you ignorant to what’s around you, which will ultimately defeat you.

The underlying theme of defeat remains intact. I’m such a pessimist.

What I Chose

The Story

Seventeenth-century author Miguel de Cervantes’ masterpiece Don Quixote has been immortalised by one small scene from the book:

Don Quixote’s persistence that a set of windmills is actually a group of giants that he needed to fight.

That scene is what I’ve chosen to remix.

The Project

Specifically, I plan to make an inverted parody of the scene, reversing the opinions of both Don Quixote and Sancho, as well as the passage’s end result.

From a media standpoint, though, I’m not fully sure how I plan to tackle the project. I know I want to do some sort of an animation with a vocal overlay, but I have no artistic blood in my veins and don’t know how to make an animation. For that matter, I really don’t know how to create any kind of original visuals that could tell a compelling story.

I’m sure I’ll come up with something, but for now, I’m stuck.

Why I Chose It

The Story

I chose the windmill scene for a relatively simple reason: I’ve always been fascinated by it. Don Quixote, for one or another, intrigues me. I’m culturally drawn to the Spanish conquistador era, and though the book takes place in Spain and not in the Americas, the characters’ personalities and motivations are largely the same.

Also, the windmill scene is easily the most relatable feature of the novel. Its pop culture references range from idioms (“tilting at windmills”) to paintings (artist of note: Picasso, a copy of which my parents own).

The scene itself, taken out of context, is rather humorous on its own, though it has much darker implications within the overlying story. The comedic value is still there, though, and parodying it would exaggerate those comic themes.

The Project

A story like this—rooted in visual confusion—can benefit heavily from images and pictorial representations of the standard text. My initial thought was a faux-dramatic film scene, but I don’t have the location, the props, or the actors to accomplish that. A way to avoid needed real-world resources is to create the entire scene yourself: hence, an animation. But as I previously mentioned, I haven’t the first idea where to start with making an animation.

I may ultimately fall on generic comic-strip style drawings of the scene overdubbed with vocals.

I guess we’ll see.