Dear Students
Welcome to Seminar!
I have assembled an exciting variety of guests for you this semester. They range from 2D, CG, stop motion, VR, commercial and independent artists. Something for everyone!
This class will consist of a combination of in-person and online presentations, depending on the guest. The ability to hold classes online has extended the possibility of inviting speakers who are not local.
You are required to post a brief report (1-2 paragraphs) on each guest on this blog. Posts are due no later than 5pm the Tuesday before the following class. Please leave your thoughtful observations and response to each presentation.
For online classes:
When class is held on Zoom, please turn your cameras on so that the
guest does not feel like s/he is speaking to a void. If you have wifi
issues and are unable to turn your camera on, please let me know. When we are viewing films you can turn your cameras off, and turn them back on when you are done so that we know you are back.
Please treat online classes as you would in-person classes. Be fully present and focused on class. I recommend closing all browsers and watching the presentation in speaker mode.
IF WE ARE ZOOM BOMBED I will immediately end class and email you a new Zoom link.
I look forward to a fun semester with you!
I am Shengwei Zhou and my USC ID is 5325630638(email address: szhou894@usc.edu). I have attended today(2021.8.25)'s course and browsed wonderful inspiring works from our alumni. They are not only innovative in terms of their multi-media forms but touching regarding their narrative strategies content and emotional power.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the multi-media experiments, most of these works are blending different media forms like stop motion animation, 3D animation and 2D animation together to tell stories. And they did not just blend these forms for fun, but to combine the mixture visual effects with the theme or character's feelings. Take "Miguel" for instance, Armando used the stop motion part to strengthen the boring life of the main character. The low frame rate of stop motion animation makes the doll movement very stiff, while this kind of stiff effect just exactly reflects the character’s powerlessness and boredom in the face of the school life. On the contrary, Armando used the 2D animation part to show the moments when the character breathed freely. 2D animation part in this film is much fluent than the stop motion part, giving the audience a feeling that the character is more dynamic and happy in this space. These two media forms contrast and mirror each other, creating a very convincing worldview of the story.
As for the content and narrative part of these films, some of them takes multi-level narrative strategies to illustrate concepts or emotions. Take "Freestyle" for example, Ros created two parallel narrative clues and intertwined them to create a very humorous effect.The three characters in Ros's short film all dreamed of being a master of dance in their music world, and each used music to heal the loneliness that arose in their repeated boring life. In the end, they finally met with each other both in the music world and in the real world, and the two clues combined to produce an emotional climax. Not only that, but the interweaving contrast between the narrative clues of the real world and the narrative clues of the music world also produced a lot of punchlines.
All in all, I think a good work needs to mix both forms and content properly to inspire the audience. I am truly inspired by these works and I hope in this semester I could create my own.
Thank you for your insightful comments Shengwei! I am glad you enjoyed the program.
ReplyDelete-Sheila
Lyu Tianyun. USC ID:2799801213
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I was shocked by the works of the previous seniors in the college. In fact, I have seen some of those works on the college's official website and FirstFrame exhibition before, but yesterday I have been showed many excellent works again, which made me very expect to continue studying in this college for three years.
The first stop-motion animation work is the undergraduation final thesis of the senior in college. It has high completion and sincere feelings. It also combines 2D animation techniques so that the visual effect wasn't single, and the audience's emotions were driven. .
The second set of works is my very favorite Gu Xingyu senior's work, her work bring a great shock to my mind which the one from her own spiritual depth excavation.Her work was not a typical narrative film,it is more about to express her deep emotions to create those experimental short film, a kind of self-knowledge of digging. I like very much, very development idea and development train of thought.
Some works use the combination of stop-motion animation and two-dimensional animation, such as Victoria's work. This brand new mode makes me want to try it
Another student's work is a stop-motion animation made by using garbage as materials, telling the current situation of Marine organisms and human destruction to the environment, which makes wonderful use of the characteristics of materials themselves. Excellent!
There are also several narrative shorts, such as a girl accidentally dating a cute dog which is very funny and has a sweet ending.
Ros's " freestyle"----character design is complicated, but he also completes the animation very well, very smooth, very vivid, and the story is very interesting.
There's also a cosmic pizza story, though when it played live,the scene and the sound failed to match ,but still interesting.
Let me burst into laughter is the fly and frog story, technically speaking, the 3D effect has no shortcomings, plus burst into laughter, is my favorite short film! .
For the last film. I was shocked to hear that this was her first 3D short film. The rendering effect was excellent, the character design was interesting, the story was sincere, and the 2d animation made by AE in the middle was exquisite. I really learned a lot.
Seminar makes me think it is a very meaningful course and can broaden my horizon. Thanks for USC.
Hi! This is Charlene from MFA1! I really enjoyed the screening a lot, and was totally amazed at the variety of mediums used.
ReplyDeleteBoth grappling with the issue of new immigrants’ problems, Miguel and Illegitimate Voice take on two entirely different paths. In Miguel the director focuses more on visualizing the internal struggle as a new immigrant with its riveting narrative, while animated doc IIllegitimate Voice utilizes a first person perspective to recount her personal experience as an undocumented immigrant. There were a few interesting moments in Illegitimate Voice such as when the child had to bend over in the tiny basement, and I liked how she portrayed it artistically, as opposed to realistically drawing the environment. I think it’d make the film even more interesting if this artistic choice could be consistent throughout the film. I didn’t know there’s a class specifically for animated documentary, and I was quite surprised and elated at this new finding. I would love to take that class and make the film I’ve always wanted to make.
Two films that stood out the most, in my humble opinion, were “The Best Friend” and “There You Are.” First off they are incredibly well made, and definitely impressive given that “There You Are” was the director’s first 3D film. I think “The Best Friend” perfectly showcased the powerful potential of a short, as a medium per se - crisp, witty, and unexpectedly entertaining. The character designs were truly at work in terms of building up the personalities of the duo and the contrast between them: the bug being innocent and naive, and the frog so macho and predatory. I also LOVED how the bug’s mouth looked like a butt. “There You Are” has such a wonderful visual development design. Very stunning! The film itself is well boarded, edited, and scored. If I had to nitpick, I’d say the character’s facial expressions could be exaggerated more —at some point I thought the emotional energy of their facial expression doesn’t match up to that in the dubbed voices.
One issue I noticed in a lot of the screened films is the quality of the sound design. I think the mixing could be tweaked, as on speakers the problems became very obvious. I wonder if we have any classes on sound designing, and if we have access to the post production resources (ADR, Foley etc.) But again this is just nit picking!
Very much looking forward to next week’s seminar!
-Charlene Xu