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ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Question/Issue

The original purpose of this project was to practice using digital techniques like camera projection (explained below) and video editing to create a fake video trailer that has a comedic and dramatic effect. This project is also important for giving me a concrete idea of just how time-consuming animation can be.


History & Distinction

I took a lot of inspiration from a Youtube Minecraft animation studio called Black Plasma Studio. Recently, they’ve published an original Minecraft series called Songs of War (David, 2019). The story takes place in a medieval setting with a well-developed plot, a magic system, and stunning graphics. This series pushed my interest in learning about visual effects as I learned that they were created using accessible (free) software. Unsurprisingly, there is a rather large team working on this project but most of the previous animations posted on this channel were made by one person or at most a few. Those animations were encouraging when I first watched them for an aspiring animator like me. 


Another important inspiration for me was a Youtuber called Ryan Higa. From him, I learned about subtle editing techniques that would allow me to fake dialogue scenes without an actual dialogue taking place--meaning there are never two people talking to each other when recording. A video from 2015 called The Last Skitzo! portrays this well (Higa, 2015). The video features 1 actor but 7 characters. Every character was portrayed by Higa himself but he was able to inject drastically different personalities into each and have them seem like independent people. The knowledge of how to use video editing to contribute to this effect was crucial in the dialogue scenes in my video. 


Approach 

My primary method of research consists of mainly Youtube tutorials. It has helped me learn about topics such as camera projection, lip-sync, and animation. The main technique I had to learn for this project was camera projection. It is the process of taking a still image and wrapping the image on top of 3D computer-generated geometry to fake a 3D environment. After this process, a 3D computer-generated camera can be placed at the simulated location where the physical camera was relative to the real-world environment. The camera can also move through the scene to portray a 3D effect. However, one downside of this is that if I move the camera too far from the perspective of the original photo, the environment graphics will become distorted which breaks the effect. Because camera movement is limited, I would have to take many pictures--some are different angles of the same location--to accommodate for the different shots I need in my video. 


Audience & Impact

This project is primarily targetted at Minecraft players, people who are familiar with Minecraft, people who watch Minecraft animations, and aspiring animators. With this project, I want to create something that isn’t seen commonly when it comes to Minecraft animation. People usually wouldn’t expect to see a Minecraft character pop out of their game world and interact with real-life people. I want to break people’s expectations and create some novelty. Additionally, I want to inspire anybody who has an interest in animation, just like how Youtube animators have inspired me. By using free software and by scaling down the project in terms of length and story complexity, even without taking a professional animation course, an animated short is completely doable by one person, albeit with some considerable time commitment. Finally, I would like to portray a trailer that would have people interested in a full movie, even though the movie may never come out. 


References


Acknowledgements

  • Heather (advisor)

  • Harold (advisor) 

  • Brian Finnie (voice actor) 

  • Film Masters (sound effect source)

  • Kevin Macleod (music source)

  • Taira-Komori (sound effect source)

  • The Blast (sound effect source)

  • Scott Buckley (music source)

Artist's Statement: About
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