quiz.

As many of you have probably already realized I am not naturally inclined to wake up early. Every weekday I have class at 9 am or earlier and in order to wake up I set the alarm on my phone and my computer in addition to a real alarm clock I put on the other side of the room to really get me up and out of bed. Most mornings I also get a concerned series of calls from my father whose experience waking me up as I was growing up gave him a better idea of just how deep of a sleeper I am. I have been told that I can be pretty tricky in my half conscious state between real wakefulness and that ridiculously sound sleep I can get in to by the people who have tried to wake me up in the past too. I can have entire conversations with people in that in between state, assuring them that I am indeed awake, that I don't recall at all minutes later when I've actually become fully conscious.  Last summer I was interested in this phenomenon and created a system where I rigged my macbook to take a picture of me with its built in camera when the alarm sounds. Unfortunately the files got deleted so photos to come for that. Taking the picture gave purpose to the one part of my day I don't remember.

storyboard.

video scavenger hunting

Spacial:




Temporal:

stop motion: shark attack

I tried to make it more simple than those other tries but I still think I have work to do on it.



Questions:
Is it easy enough to comprehend?
Does the end get too choppy?
How could sound help me out here?

stop motion.

Bringing Food to Life from Marissa McClain on Vimeo.



So this is a piece I made for my animation class. The storyline seemed super clear to me when I was making it, but after critique and showing it to a few people I have been able to take a step back and realize that it is actually pretty tough for all of those living outside of the mess in my mind to understand.  What I realized was perhaps I was trying to rely too heavily on the audio and by not incorporating any farming or natural imagery into the photos it feels disjointed. 




Question for all of you is:
Even though I haven't really worked out the subject matter in my next piece I mostly just wanted to ask if you all could give me advice on how to maintain a simple clean look (this time without meat) but still make a storyline that can be easily understood but at the same time surprising. 


It is a pretty loaded question with a million answers, but I am curious to hear about other solutions to the problem of having to introduce and resolve a plot in such a short amount of time.

Stacey Steers

Heidi made it a point to introduce Stacey Steers as one of the most patient artists in the animation world and considering her animations take around 4 years to produce, I would say that's a pretty accurate evaluation. Since Steers doesn't make her collages under a camera, and instead creates each frame as if it were an individual art work - using clip art from old archives as her subject matter - the process of creating her stop motion animations is incredibly time consuming. While her process is lengthy, her attention to detail makes for really beautiful work. She was discussing how since each frame is made separate from the last it allows her to not only manipulate each detail in the image at her whim (by painting on them, etc.), but also so there is the added element of movement that the small imperfections and incongruities between one frame and the next create. Stacey explained that she doesn't story board her pieces or even plan out her storyline ahead of time, instead she lets her materials guide the work's trajectory. Often times I think that when an artist gets so wrapped up in process the end product can suffer, but in this case I feel the quite the opposite. Sometimes leaving a piece's outcome in the hands of a material puts the artist's point of view on the back burner. It can give an artist the excuse to take themselves out of the picture because they can blame its outcome on outside factors. Stacey's work, however, is wrought with really conscience choices that take her animations from a simple study of technique to something  an audience can connect to on multiple levels.

scavenging.

  RULE OF THIRDS: 

9/22/11 Merrill & Shelly in Yorktown, Indiana



 DEPTH OF FIELD: 

 9/24/11 Kevin Koger in MIchigan Stadium

 TEXTURE: 

9/24/11 Fans at the Big House




 USE OF LIGHT: 

 9/25/11 Hershey Dog

 LINE:  

9/25/11 Ikea