Megan’s Blog

Here is the basic layout of my homepage. I’m currently finishing my main project, my animation, so neither the header nor the rat are mine, they will be replaced with parts of the animation.

I create worlds. No matter the medium, everything I create is three dimensional; characters and ideas spill over the edges of the frame and wrap around to form another side not shown, yet. My work captures a frame of time in a story and I encapsulate that story as best I can within the limitations. These stories start in worlds we all know, but a slightly different perspective on them takes the viewer down a slightly offset path, and finds itself spiraling into something wholly different.

I draw out these ideas through animation, writing, and traditional mediums like pencil, paint, and charcoal. First comes the idea, then choosing the medium that would match it. Sometimes a story spans several mediums, each taking a different perspective. My work is becoming progressively more exploratory in this manner, taking pages from science fiction, fantasy, and newer Disney films before delving into the smaller details that eventually carry the story away. Having gained a well rounded knowledge of the world we do live in, and not just the arts, this enables me to increase the level of detail I am able to create.

My work strives to create a living, breathing world out of an idea, something that will pull viewers in and set them adrift someplace new. When it ends, I want them to continue the story in their own mind and wonder what happens next. As I improve, I hope to gain as much control over a digital world as I do a written one, so I am able to make worlds and stories that are reachable by anyone.

Mine is very simple, with little bits I picked up from the five websites I like, like a changing corresponding headbar and a link bar to the left that always has links to anywhere on the site.

Ok, because I know everyone is just dying to know what I’m up to… I’m going a different way with my animation. I’m abandoning the robot family and instead fixing up three of my old animations and stringing them together. These animations were an assignment in my animation class last semester, we had to model an object as perfectly as we could, and show that object in three emotional contexts, without animating the object itself. My animations starred….a water bottle! Tada:

Here are the 5 sites that I go most often to:

gaiaonline.com

+Nice color scheme

+Lots of ways to get to a particular place

-Very busy

-’Ads’ for parts of the site just fill the page

tektek.org

+Wonderful concept (plug-in site for gaia)

+Very well organized right from the start

-No real ‘back to home’ button

-Some parts take a long time to load

google.com

+Simple, clear layout, changeable with holidays

+Very easy to navigate

- Page looks empty sometimes

-What exactly is ‘feeling lucky’?

rammstein.com

+Easy to navigate, clearly labeled buttons

+Simple but pleasing page layout

-Sometimes switches to an uglier layout for no real reason (url bar calls it “Simpleball”

-Even though it’s an english site for a german band, some of the translations are a little off

facebook.com 

+Practical layout

+Sticks to a color scheme

-Lots of boxes one may not use, but no way to delete (“New Stuff” “Invite your Friends”…)

-Limited customization beyond info and applications

I’m doing an animation on my own to use in my portfolio to get an internship this summer. I figured since it’ll be dominating my spring break, I’ll post my progress here. The animation’s about a family of robots, and the little sister bot is just running around shooting a home movie of their life. She peeks in on each of the family members, including Brother Bot, Dad Bot, and Mom Bot comes home at the end of the movie. Here is a nice family photo of the Bolt Family:

Tada! My training video for your viewing pleasure. Once it clears processing at least.

My camera won’t let me take my footage off it. I go to capture it, and it just rewinds way back past the clip and keeps coming up with a runtime error message. It’s not the end of the world, since everyone seemed to like my rough draft anyway, and I can modify in some of the changes I was going to make anyway. So I suppose this is a simultaneous call for help and a warning that my final draft will look a lot like my rough draft.

I think it might have to do with the kind of camera they gave me, I asked for a miniDV camcorder, I thought it’s what I asked for last time and I got something different. It’s the one that’s a bit bigger than the regular one, with a eye thing you can lift up on the top. I didn’t realize until the weekend when I went to shoot, and it was too late to return it, but it seemed to work just fine so I stuck with it. Anyway, simultaneous cry for help, forewarning, and blog update.

And maybe my brain isn’t quite working properly, but I can’t seem to find James’ email address. I know I have it somewhere, or it’s on the blog somewhere, but it’s not jumping out at me.