COLLABORATION

24 Hour Animation Challenge

A yearly event where in students are challenged to create a 30 second film based on a given theme in a designated 24 hour period. Teams work from their home school and submit a Youtube link of their films before the deadline, which are judged by industry artists.

In 2018, the theme was empathy. Our team knew that storytelling and development was one of our weak points, so we spent a good time ahead of storyboarding and ideation just talking through what "empathy" is and what that might look like. I was eventually tasked with inbetweening as we had some experienced animators on our team and I was the newcomer. I made the "inbetween" frames based on their key frames. When time started to whittle down, I was also given the task of post, which included visual effects and compositing. Overall, I think we hit the benchmarks we wanted to hit and I'm super proud of what we were able to in only 24 hours.

Then in 2019, the theme was "family". This year, I was one of the more experienced animators in my group. We even had students who were studying graphic design -- not animation. I lead the group in planning, and this year, I wanted to put more of a focus on our storytelling. We spent a lot of time in the storyboarding phase, working and reworking shot sequences until it felt just punchy enough and our concept of "it takes a village to raise a child" shown through.

Insight into Neurodiversity

Students previously scripted and recorded a podcast on neurodiversity through Kendall College of Art & Design and the EPIC Project. Our new assignment was to create visuals for the podcast in accordance with inclusive I. S.E.E. U. Design. Each student was in charge of their own section of animation, but I took on the task of animating 2 segments, as well compositing and color correcting the entire completed video. I had to be incredibly organized and efficient in communicating with my peers. There were almost 40 different video segments that needed to be completed and integrated into the final video. Each student created their visuals independent of each other - so it was my job to try and tie them all together cohesively. The First video shows my parts in the animation along side the storyboards, while the second video is the entire project.

Achieving Despite Resistance: Leontyne Price
Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia

Working with the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia students created animations that centered around 5 historic African-Americans to highlight as part of their existing exhibition. I was in charge of leading a team of 4 other students on the animation about Leontyne Price. I directed my group on working through a production pipeline, set deadlines, communicated with the client, and oversaw the majority of the animation as well as doing the majority of the sound design. Our team of dedicated artists and graphic designers brought assets to me to be compiled and animated.

Adam Answers - Anxiety & Worry

As part of a collaborative project, students were asked to animate an existing YouTube video by children's entertainment & education creator Adam Mellema. Watch the full video here. Adam oversaw the entire project and had final say in creative decisions. I was assigned part 1 of the video and tasked with setting the mood for the entire project. Below is my process start to finish. We were required to use existing models of Adam and his cousin.

UICA - ArtWorks

The Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, or UICA approached me in 2018 to help teach a summer program for high schoolers called ArtWorks. ArtWorks is a unique opportunity for youth to explore art in a professional way -- not only is it free for them to participate, they are paid for the work they create around the city of Grand Rapids. Depending on the year, ArtWorks students may do anything from murals to installations. In 2018, students were to work with video which is why I was enlisted to help. Some students had never touched a camera or editing software before, while others were avid film geeks. It was my job to help the group of about 18 students create 3 short films in 6 weeks. They were split into three groups each doing a different kind of video that interested them; Documentary, Advertisement, or Experimental. It was my responsibility to walk them through all steps of video creation including the basics of storyboarding, location, sound, meeting with clients, scheduling, and editing. I could help them on any technical aspects, but in the end, the creative decisions they made were their own. I helped them format their final films for the big screen, where they presented their projects to friends, family, clients and the public in the theatre at UICA.

Documentary

Students were asked to record and document their experiences during ArtWorks to be used to promote

ArtWorks in the future

Partnering with local public transportation, The DASH, students helped to launch the company's new branding

Experimental

Asked to create their own narrative to explore, students thought it was important to discuss the heavy topic of depression