Erika Cho

Tues./Thurs. 8:30-11:30 Room 1048A&AB
Art and Arch. Building

Introduction to Course
Early history of animation: motion without camera or computer
Oskar Fischinger shorts
Nick Park: "Creature Comforts"
The World's Greatest Animation DVD- "Balance" (1994)
Examples of student work from previous years
Animation as socially relevant art form: Free Range Graphics, political cartoons and pieces on my Web Resources page

Samples of flip books

HOMEWORK:
1) Make a flipbook consisting of 30 frames (this represents 1 second of video time) in which something IMPOSSIBLE happens.
Suggestion: use index cards.  Due Thursday, Jan. 12
Read about "Cameraless Animation,"(available on Mirlyn>Course Reserves>Art300 Kumao) This should help you make your flipbook

Online Flipbook resources: Instructions and info on Animation, American Museum of the Moving Image,
Handdrawn flip books, Keith Haring Flipbooks

• Stop-action Animation workshop
• Discuss Assignment #2: Stop-action animation (due Feb. 2)
• Screenings of animations:
  "Neighbors" by Norman McLaren
  Brothers Quay
  Res Fest favorites: "Dog" and "More"
• Use of digital video cameras and still frames, interval record
• In class: create a short stop-action piece with collaborative groups/pairs using Final Cut Pro. Show your short piece at the end of class.
  
  

Homework:

• Work on flip book
• Bring in at least 2 digital image files for Thurs. 1/12: photos, movies, pictures of any kind (drawn, designed, appropriated). They can be jpeg, psd, pict, tiff, quicktime.
• Read chaps. 2,4 in Meyer book. Follow along with Chapter example projects from the CD.

• FLIPBOOKS DUE TODAY!
• More Stop-action animation
  Historic animation of Windsor McKay, Lotte Reiniger, contemporary animation of William Kentridge ("Art from the Ashes"), Political animations from Eastern Europe, Sandow Birk and Paul Zaloom's "Dante's Inferno" (The Paper Puppet version)
• After Effects 101: Creating a composition
  -Project organization, file import into AE, creating first composition
  -Introduction to basic motion "transform" features: Position, Scale, Rotation, Opacity
  -Handling Photoshop and Illustrator images in AE

Homework:

• Work on your stop action animation due Feb. 2
• Read about Narrative --chapter of The Media Student's Book by Gill Branston and Roy Stafford, located on Mirlyn>Course Reserves>ArtDes300 Sec. 05 Kumao
• Read chapters 3 (keyframes), 4 (transformations)

• After Effects basic animation tutorial (Download files needed for tutorial from C-Tools>Resources),
• Screening of documentary on William Kentridge

Homework:

• Use the web to locate an animation that has formal or conceptual similarities to what you would like to do in class. Post the URL to C-Tools by next class.
• Read "Narratives" and "Questions of Representation" from "Media Student's Book," Answer questions Homework #1
  
  

• Discuss readings: "Narratives" and "Questions of Representation"
• View "Students' Choice" animations on web
• Handout/Reading on Eastern European Animation

Homework:

• For next class: Bring in objects for sound making, texts to read, etc. for recording in the V-room in the Duderstadt center. Bring a blank CD to burn your files to.
• Read about Eastern European Animation AND Disney's Alladin from "A Reader in Animation Studies" ed. by Jayne Pilling

• Make your own Audio for Animation: The V-Room in Duderstadt Center
• Audio basics and microphones
• Discuss readings: Homework #2, "Narrative Strategies for Resistance and Protest in Eastern European Animation" and "The Thief of Buena Vista: Disney's Alladin and Orientalism" (articles are bundled together on Course Reserves)
• Finish Bonus Tutorial #1

Homework:

• Work on stop-action project due Feb. 2

• In-class Work Day--David Chung subbing for Heidi
• Screening of various animators

Homework:

• Work on stop-action project due Feb. 2

Homework:

• Work on stop-action project due Feb. 2

• ASSIGNMENT #2 DUE TODAY: Stop-Motion movie
  Have it rendered as a quicktime movie to show class.
• Screening: "Inside the Wrong Trousers" (Nick Park documentary)
• Discuss next assignment

Homework:

• Read chapters 3 (keyframes), 4 (transformations)

• Discuss reading: "What is Digital Cinema?" by Lev Manovich, Homework #3
• AFTER EFFECTS: Basic transformations, Different types of Keyframes-from Chap. 3 of Meyer book, Keyframe interpolation, Keyframe assistants
• After Effects: Getting Hold of Layers, Layer Markers, Switches, Transfer Modes, commonly used keyboard shortcuts, Rendering Queue

Homework:

• Read Meyer book Chaps.5 (Anchor Point), 6 (Layer essentials), skim 7 (Trimming the Fat--controlling layers)

• AFTER EFFECTS DEMO: Position keyframing again
• more on layers, masking (in brief), effects (in brief)
• Screening of "Dissing Dare" and "Animaquiladora" (live action and animation combinations)

Homework:

• Read Lev Manovich's chapter on "The New Language of Cinema," Answer Questions Homework #4
• Read on Masks and Mattes --Chaps. 11, 12

• AFTER EFFECTS
• Tutorial on masks and mattes
• Examples of movies that use Masks or other special fx:
  "Triplets of Belleville" (2003)
  "Fast Film" by Virgil Widrich (2003?)
  George Melies (earliest innovator of special effects)

• AFTER EFFECTS
• NAME THAT ANIMATION GAME: TV EXERCISE

• WORK DAY

• After Effects Composited animation due! Collag-imation: The Modern Hybrid.

• Finish Viewing hybrid work
• Screening of Walid Ra'ad's "The Dead weight of a quarrel hangs"
• "Inside the Wrong Trousers with Nick Park," documentary on Wallace and Gromit creator/process
  

Homework:

• Read/look over Chapters on 3-D (Basic 3D, cameras) in After Effects

• Intro to 3-D in After Effects (Basic 3D, cameras), look at samples from TV
• Work Day

• REDO's of your Hybrid Animation due today
• 10:45 am discussion and class visit re: A&D TV Intro animation assignment with Katherine Weider (Creative Producer employed by A&D and Michigan Public Media), Kevin Tudball (senior A&D), and Hannah Smotrich (faculty A&D)

Homework:

• Read 3 articles and answer questions (Homework #5) about art and appropriation (available on Mirlyn>Course Reserves)
  Read (1) Fair Use from the Negativland website
  (2) "20-year Extension of Existing Copyrights is Upheld," New York Times' article on copyright, Thursday, January 16, 2003,
  (3) Chapters of Lawrence Lessig's "The Future of Ideas:" Chapter 11 and Chapter 14.
  Skim: Alan Korn "Renaming that Tune: Audio Collage, Parody and Fair Use" (1992) from Negativland's book, Fair Use
• For additional info check out:
• Lawrence Lessig's web site (author of "The Future of Ideas") key promoter of the Creative Commons, also involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Defending Freedom in the Digital World"
• Detritus.net--critical art site using appropriated art--FUN!
• ®™ark --Funders/supporters of corporate products sabotage and intellectual property disobedience.
• Adbusters-culture jammers magazine and website, "creative resistance" projects, etc.
• Check out: Using materials from the internet
• Check out:Crash course on copyright
• Check out: Textz.com- texts available on the internet--you won't find anywhere else
• Critical Art Ensemble's essay,"Utopian Plagiarism, Hypertextuality, and Electronic Cultural Production"

• CLASS CANCELLED--HEIDI WAS ILL
  
  
  

• Creativity in the Age of Reproduction: Appropriation and Copyright
• Discuss Homework #5: Appropriation as Artistic Practice
• Screening of Sonic Outlaws by Craig Baldwin, Guerilla News Network
• Listen to radio show on copyright issues (from WYNC, "On the Media"): Disney's Copyrighted Rodent and The Future of Ideas

• After Effects: Effects and Adjustment Layers
• TEXT animation in AE
• Ann Arbor Film Festival opens tonight! Festivities start at 7 pm Michigan Theater. Screenings from tonight to Sunday March 26. Don't miss it.

Homework:

• Attend a screening of the AA Film Festival. Write a response/analysis of one of the films you watched. Due Tues. March 28.

• "PLAY" an A&D TV 6-25 second animation due today!

Homework:

• Look through the various chapters of our textbook "Creating Motion Graphics with After Effect.s" Pick one new method/approach/compositing technique/effect/ etc. that you have never tried before but looks like it might be useful for your project. Experiment with it and be prepared to show it to me in class on Thursday.

• ??SITE VISIT TO Streetlamp Studios, Waterford, MI
  Depart from back of A&A Building 8:30 am

• Work Day