Gary’s Sneakers: A 3D Animated Short

Gary’s Sneakers is a 3D animated short that I made with my collaborator, Meghan Grube, for the Honors Capstone Creative Project. It is a narrative featuring three main characters: a teenage boy named Gary and his two sneakers. In this animation the large clash with the small as the lazy Gary finds himself at odds with his sneakers. It is a battle of inactivity versus dynamic movement, as the sneakers fight the sedentary lifestyle choices of their owner. Based in the world of 3D animated shorts, Gary’s Sneakers was inspired by many other works in the genre, particularly those from Pixar studios. There are similarities between plot, character, and color and lighting choices, but my partner and I strove to put our own touch on our animation. Like many shorts, it is humorous and involves an unexpected outcome. We worked mainly in Lightwave 3D when creating this animation, and followed the traditional animation pipeline. First we developed a concept and narrative, then Meg made sketches and storyboards. I built the models and while she rigged and weight mapped them, I began work on the textures, using Photoshop and Lightwave’s built-in texturing capabilities. Meg then started animating, and I prepared the light setups and made final render decisions. Meg then compiled the rendered scenes in QuickTime and Final Cut Pro and we worked together with the help of another student to create the sound using Logic Pro. We rendered the final animation and authored it to DVD. The final animation is a little over two and a half minutes in length. It is filled with humor, character, conflict, and consequence. It explores social trends, but still acts as a source of entertainment on the surface level. Even after a year of working on it, it still makes me laugh. Hopefully it will do the same for everyone

Gary’s Sneakers A 3D Animated Short

Gary’s Sneakers, a collaboration between Kelsey Adams and myself, is a 3D animated short about a young boy and his sneakers. The short features Gary, an unmotivated individual who has no other apparent interests aside from playing video games. Unfortunately, his unused pair of running sneakers are very bored and, upon being inspired by a magazine advertisement, conspire to get Gary up and in action. To create this, Kelsey and I covered the entire animation production pipeline. We began with a story, and proceeded to create an animatic that further developed and clarified out storyline. We chose to created our project in Lightwave 3D, so Kelsey created 3D models which I rigged. I then animated the short while Kelsey textured all of her models and added lighting to the scenes. Once this was complete, we rendered the shots, edited it together in Final Cut, and recorded sound with Logic. With this complete, we were able to render the final piece onto a DVD. The animation is an exploration in character. Gary is an exaggeration of today’s topical sedentary individual who is addicted to technology and forgoes and semblance of real action or communication. The static camera shots and lack of movement represent the shoes’ boredom with the situation. This is also represented in the characterization of Gary’s movements: he is visibly sluggish, uncoordinated, and out of shape. The shoes, by contrast, move in a much quicker and snappier way, making them foils to Gary. Once the shoes engage Gary, the viewer is also engaged, as there is much more movement from the characters and the camera. In the end, I felt the project was a success both artistically and personally. Artistically, the short gets it point across and provides the audience with a sense of enjoyment. Yet to complete the project, I had to overcome a myriad of technical difficulties, and by getting past them I feel that I am competent on a professional level

Metadata annotation for dramatic texts

This paper addresses the problem of the metadata annotation for dramatic texts. Metadata for drama describe the dramatic qualities of a text, connecting them with the linguistic expressions. Relying on an ontological representation of the dramatic qualities, the paper presents a proposal for the creation of a corpus of annotated dramatic texts.Questo articolo affronta il problema dell’annotazione di metadati per i testi drammatici. I metadati per il dramma descrivono le qualità drammatiche di un testo, connettendole alle espressioni linguistiche. Basandosi su una rappresentazione ontologica delle qualità drammatiche, l’articolo presenta una proposta per la creazione di un corpus di testi drammatici annotati

La música como motor impulsor del movimiento y la expresión de las emociones en el aula de Educación Primaria

Treball Final de Grau en Mestre o Mestra d'Educació Primària. Codi: MP1040. Curs acadèmic: 2018/2019Con este proyecto se pretende dar al alumnado de Educación Primaria/Infantil la oportunidad de descubrir las distintas emociones o estados de ánimo que son capaces de percibir, sentir y transmitir al resto mediante el movimiento, la danza y su propio lenguaje corporal. Llegando así a comunicarse con el entorno y con las personas que los rodean. En este proceso la música es el principal recurso que se va a utilizar puesto que incita a la acción y al movimiento, además de que favorece el desarrollo emocional en los niños/as. Por tanto, basándonos en ese desarrollo emocional que se quiere favorecer, se va a llevar a cabo una intervención educativa en la didáctica musical dentro de un aula en la que los pilares fundamentales van a ser: los alumnos/as, su lenguaje y expresión corporal, la música y el docente como guía de este proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Con la finalidad de conseguir que los alumnos/as sean capaces de descubrir y transmitir las diversas emociones que provoca la música dentro de ellos/as.In this project is intended to give the pupils of Primary education the opportunity to discover the different emotions or modos that are able to perceive, feel and concey to the rest through movement, dance and his own body language. Reaching to communicate with the environment and people who sorround them. In this process the music is the main resource that will be used since it incites to action and movement, that it promotes emotional development in children. Therefore, based on that emotional development that we want to promote, is going to carry out an educational intervention in music teaching in a classroom in which the fundamental pillars will be: the students, their language and body language, music and the teacher as guide of the teaching-learning process. In order to get students to be able to discover and transmit different emotions causing the music within them

Breaking Out: Film in the MFL Classroom

This chapter examines the advantages of integrating the use of film into foreign language lessons and shows how it can be exploited to meet the requirements of the new national curriculum. It shows how film can address a variety of objectives, such as the provision of cultural input, the development of listening skills and creative speaking and writing. It is argued that the use of film need not be separate from a programme of study and reserved for special occasions, but rather integrated into planning so that it contributes to learners’ progress in the language. The case is made for exploiting film material and responding creatively to it in the target language, so that skills in language production are enhanced. The theoretical aspects are supported by a description of good practice in this area. This includes an outline of the film project which is part of the UCL Institute of Education’s languages PGCE course in collaboration with the British Film Institute. There is also an account of a former PGCE student teacher’s use in the classroom of the materials produced for this project

Let Me Go

This paper is about how my graduation project 3D animation short Let Me Go was developed and produced. The whole process consists of pre-production, production and post-production. It starts with story study and development by analyzing story structure of several animation shorts. Then it talks about experience and process building story for Let Me Go. Next it is design process for character and environment including 2d concept design and 3d model in Autodesk Maya. During production process, this paper focuses on introducing several rigging techniques and explains why to choose them for animation process. Then some rendering and lighting techniques. In post-production process the paper talks about some experience communicating with music composer and sound effect designer and explaining to them what this story is felt like and what it needs in the sound world