Can fruit show emotion? This was a big part of Nicole He and my issue of the week as we tackled storyboarding our project starring fruit as characters. We have decided on only using eyes and eyebrows, but no other facial features. Although I have been a filmmaker for years, this is the first time I have ever considered the exact eyebrow shape one would need to showcase each emotion. What an odd way of thinking about expression? Considering this alone was really quite interesting.

The other big question that came to mind was how many still shots will we have to take for each each camera move? I shoot my live action often with a jib arm on a dolly and my filming style really didn’t change too much from that on our storyboards, but how many shots will it take to mimic the movement? I understand the principal of 24 frames per second so are we really going to be working backwards – considering how many seconds each move should take and then shooting the number of frames accordingly? This is a rather daunting process!

I also took our sketching assignment seriously. Every night before I went to bed, I did either one large sketch or a few smaller ones. Although the art of drawing is not something I have much of a proclivity for, I actually really enjoyed adding this to my daily routine. It might even be a habit I try to keep after this class has concluded.

And the final thing I worked on for animation this week was reading the book Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It would hardly be consider work because it was a great read! Although I have met with comic book companies in the past about potentially writing for them – my drawing skills were obviously never under consideration! And in that time period I began to even dream in panels as I tried to dissect the art for the first time myself. BUT none of my insights scratched the surface of what Scott discussed. Both the history and the inner workings of the art were truly thought-provoking. It really made me consider comics in a whole new light. And I would recommend this book to anyone interested in putting pen to paper.