Anticipation Sketch of Character

Do you remember the second principle of animation?

Spend about ten minutes planning and drawing your character using this principle. Please use an entire page in your sketchbook. Share the sketch with the members in your group.

It this is useful, incorporate the sketch into your story board.

bf

Movie Monday - After The Academy Awards

Last night was the 87th Academy Awards. Birdman won Best Picture and Best Director. There was a

Today we will watch Oscar nominated Animated Shorts. Some of the films have won; some are bird related.
In 1969, It's Tough To Be A Bird won the Academy Award. The 2001 winner was For the Birds. We will watch both in class today.

Sketch a character from both bird films. Finish one sketch before class begins Tuesday; the second sketch will be started and finished in class Tuesday.

Answer these following questions and submit your answers on a piece of paper at the beginning of class.

Who won the 2015 Oscar for Animated Short last night?
What animated film won last night?
Who won the first Oscar for Animated Short?
What film won the first Oscar for Animated Short?
What is the maximum length of an animated short?
When did the Academy award the first Oscar for animated shorts?
How many Oscars did Walt Disney win in this category?
What studio created For the Birds?
What bird was the symbol of NBC?
When did Chik fil-A begin using the "Eat More Chickin" slogan
What year did "It's Tough To Be A Bird" win an Academy Award?
What was the chicken' slogan in "It's Tough To Be A Bird" near the end of the film? (Just after 20 minutes)

6th Period Only
Watch The Making of Daisy Jacobs and behind the scenes of The Dam Keeper.

How many people worked on The Dam Keeper?
How did the film makers of Daisy Jacobs solve the lighting problem? What was the problem?
Describe each movie in two sentences or less.

What is your (character's) Story

Tuesday

Bobette Buster, the author of Do / Story, created 10 Principles of Storytelling. These principles are not as legendary as the Basic Principles of Animations, but they are a good starting point for creating a character's story.

Her first principle begins with the phrase, "Tell your story as if you're telling it to a friend..."

So, after you have described your character's physical features to your sketch partner, tell your sketch partner about your character "as if he or she were your friend." Tell them a story. If possible include redemption or reinvention. Your character may be a hero or anti-hero; that is your choice.


Then write a story about your character. Tell us something special about your character. Write a blog post. Don't bore us.

For more information about story telling, watch the Bobette Buster video about story telling. If you want to listen to the "real version" of The Story of My Life, listen to Social Distortion.

Wednesday

First 10 minutes (10 points) Quick Sketch - What is your one of your character's favorite things? Draw your character with the object.

With your small group, create an interesting story where your characters meet. Each of you post the notes from the meeting. Use a notepad first! 
Post from your character's perspective.

Thursday

Create an 8 panel comic strip for your characters. Each person writes one comic strip that includes all the characters from your group.

Write an amazing story! The stories will be different, because each person will write create a story from their character's perspective. On Wednesday you wrote about how all your characters met. This is different. You all write stories that include the characters. You are developing your characters' stories more. When you write your animation, you might choose to keep some of these stories. You might ignore all of these stories, especially if the other members in your group do not find the stories consistent.

Friday

Share your 8 panel comic strips with your group. Ask each other if the comic strips are consistent with the character's personality traits. Would each character behave that way? If your character is an EFNP, why isn't he or she smiling? If your character is an ISTP, are they active? 

After you have discussed your characters, begin drawing them on the computer. (Some students started drawing their characters already.) This is not the time to learn how to become an excellent computer illustrator!

Quickly research story boards. In your group, create an 8 scene storyboard. Each student should have a similar storyboard, because you will be creating the same initial story. This story is different than the cartoon. What should the storyboard include?

Post the storyboard on your blog when finished. (You might not finish today.)

16 Personalities - Character Development

Thursday
In your groups, you will research the Myers Briggs 16 personality types.

You are only researching the personality types so that you can develop characters. You are not researching your type! 

Once everyone in your group has chosen a personality type from a page similar to this, report to me as a group. One person in the group will email me the responses after I discuss the project with your group.

Friday the 13th

On Friday, you will answer the following questions for your character. (These questions are not about you; they are about your character.)

1. What is your character's name?
2. Where (and when) was your character born?
3. What is your character's theme song?
4. How does your character get along with other characters?
5. What is your character's favorite movie?
6. What is your character's favorite color?
7. What is your character's favorite hobby?
8. What motivates your character?
9. Is your character honest? Does your character lie, cheat and steal?
10. Does your character feel emotions?
11. Does your character know Mr. Richards?
12. Does your character work for a living? (have a job)
13. Is your character afraid of ghosts? Is character a ghost?
14. What scares your character?
15. Is your character superstitious?
16. Who is your character's best friend?
17. How would your character's best friend describe your character?
18. Describe one of your characters biggest failures
19. Describe one of your characters biggest accomplishments
20. If your character could have dinner with three other characters, who would he or she choose?
21. Who is your character's favorite band or musician?

The Cult of Personalities - Test Everything

Today we begin class listening to the song Cult of Personality by Living Colour. ("Only you can set you free....")

We will continue our personality study by looking at Wikipedia. (I do not normally consider Wikipedia a reliable source, so this should give you an idea what I think about personality tests.) We will review the "Big Five" personality traits.

Read the five traits.
Find a character from one of your favorite cartoons or animated feature films that fits under one of the five traits.
Then sketch the character.

I am including a link to the book The Cult of Personality Tests "How Personality Tests are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children..."
You may want this reference for the future. Your character is important, so is your personality, but can we assess your character by a simple test?

Personality Sketch - Extrovert or Introvert

Last night you studied personalities on The Myers & Briggs Foundation site. You learned more about "introverts" and "extroverts." You will apply these lessons to today's sketch.

Choose a character that is either an introvert or extrovert. Write five traits about this character before drawing him or her.

YOU CREATE A CHARACTER based on the personality!

Personality Sketch

Before you draw, write five words that describe you.

(That is 5...and only FIVE...about YOU...not someone else!)

Now draw a self-portrait. The portrait can be a super-hero or an animal... it does not really matter. The objective of this sketch is to help you think about creating a character with personality.

For homework, review The Myers & Briggs Personality Types mtbi basics page.

bf

Photoshop and Blogger Practice

Most students did not finish posting their computer illustrations yesterday. For those students, you can use the links posted below to learn more about adding video to your blog. 

If you have finished, please comment in the comment section below so that others can learn from your knowledge. Afterwards, choose one of these pictures and use Photoshop to turn the image into a cartoon or pencil drawing.

Working with video

Importing to Photoshop

Posting videos into Blogger