Thoughts for the week.

As classes resume this week, I look forward to learning some stop motion techniques as well as expanding my newfound knowledge of Final Cut Pro. I also need to catch up with the rest of the class as I missed out on the magazine transfers last week. Should be an eventful tomorrow. In my Experimental Film class today, we learned how to import and edit sound which is actually not as hard as I thought it'd be. Never having worked with FCP before, I was very surprised to see that it's almost like iMovie... except they got it right. It seems very user friendly and reminds me a little of Avid, which I'd used in the past. We also got to experimenting with the audio effects (which I had no idea existed in a video editing program) and plan on applying them to our project.
As far as the reading for this week, I thought it went well. Its very interesting to think about the cartoons I grew up watching and the wide variety there are on television and the internet nowadays. Its good to see animation begin to evolve much like film is at the same time. It really makes you think of what kinds of animation there will be in ten years and also what computer programs will have to offer in assisting the animation process. With the new age of the touchscreen coming upon us, I can only imagine the ease of editing video by simple "cutting" with your fingertips and animating objects drawn right onto the screen the same way.

Below is a film my friend at VCU did using stop motion. He completed it last year and said it took him a good week for the 30 seconds. Enjoy!

The Melephants