But of course, I’ve been breathing ever since. Class 5 started out pretty slow with no animation. Some students took this opportunity to polish their shots, but I really needed that break. I still havn’t opened Maya to do homework this term. From what I hear, I won’t have to until week 8 (it is week4 right now).

What I’m doing in the meantime is coming up with the story for my short film. This mission is haunting me, because I counter-argue myself into doing nothing a LOT. Story is a simply complicated thing. The film must be 30 seconds in length (emphasis on it not being longer). And for me, the bar is raised to which I can barely cross. It must be awesome!

So, the results of the first 3 weeks of hammering out written ideas back and forth with my mentor, this is the first thing I can show. My first video pitch of my 2 best ideas:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/uploads//2009/04/classfive_videopitch01web.mov 480 360]

And because of my slurring of words and mumblings, here is the outline of each story idea:

Lee and Jade
We open midday at a cafe in Paris.
There is a ninja reading a tourist guide and sipping tea.
When he motions to the waiter for a refill, he sees the most beautiful female ninja he’s ever seen.
She is facing away from him and hasn’t noticed him.
He must go and meet her, but how would he break the ice?
After quickly snatching the flower from the vase on his table, he throws a smoke bomb and disappears.
We cut to her eyes as she is suddenly aware of the ninja appearing behind her in a puff of smoke.
As he reaches to lay the flower by her, she grabs his arm and flips him over, crashing down the furniture.
He’s shocked at her speed, but regains his footing and remains calm as he continues dodging strikes.
She’s so beautiful when she’s angry!
While fighting, he keeps trying to put up his hands in protest and show her the flower, but she is relentless.
He dodges as she strikes the wall of the cafe. The building rumbles and the sign breaks and swings down one one of its hinges.
He pauses for a split second to admire the strength and beauty of this warrior. He raises an eyebrow and a smile.
She takes the opportunity to kick him into a nearby cheese cart.
As she comes in for the final blow, he quickly puts the flower in between them.
This time she sees it and pauses.
She takes the flower and smiles.
She smells it and smiles even more.
As she extends her free hand, the broken sign falls off its hinge and crashes into the handles of the cheese cart.
The ninja is launched with extreme prejudice over the horizon.
She looks dejected and sad that he’s gone.
As she turns away, she sees a fluttering piece of paper falling slowly next to her.
She catches it with her ninja reflexes and opens it.
It reads “Call me!” with the phone number of the ninja below.
She smiles toward the horizon.
The end.

Carl
Midday down a desert highway.
Carl is driving down the road, listening to country music.
Up ahead, he sees a swarm of bees!
He notices his window down, so he quickly tries to roll it up before he gets to the swarm.
It’s close, but he believes he gets it up in time as the bees splatter all over the windshield.
He breathes a sigh of relief, but then suddenly is interrupted by the sound of a bee in the truck.
He panics, looks around and sees it on the door against the window.
He freaks out. Maybe screaming like a little girl.
He gets an idea to start rolling down the window while blowing on it.
The window is sticky and loud. It only goes down about halfway.
It responds with buzzing. He doesn’t like the sound of that.
It starts flying around the cabin and buzzes the driver before landing on the edge of the window.
He’s freaked, but happier as he starts rolling up the window while really trying to blow on it to fly out.
The window is stuck and the bee’s not moving. Only making angry bee sounds.
Carl breathes deep and gives it a hard push to get it rolled up.
*squeak squeak* goes the window
He looks up to see the bee wedged in between the window and the door frame.
We zoom in close to the bee to see his face as he mouths the word “Nooooooooo!”
Carl shuts his eyes tight and grits his teeth as he cranks the window handle hard. *insert crushing sound*
You can see that he’s disgusted by his actions but relieved. “Oh my god!” he mouths as he tries to regain his composure.
As he breathes out, he looks out the passenger window, then the windshield, then down the driver’s side window.
All he can see is sky!
We cut to the outside of the truck to reveal the cloud of bees that he drove through had picked his truck up and carried it skyward.
From the outside, looking into the sealed truck, we see Carl mouth the word “Nooooooooo!”
The cloud of bees suddenly separates and the truck falls, looney toons style down to the desert below.
We see the classic ring of dust come from the pinpoint where he hit.
The End.

I managed to finagle it as much as possible to take in the advice. The first hit against the wall is with a little more force now (the tangent is now straight and not bent there), and I even have it lose energy in that hit as well to make up for the speed difference and to drop the ball a little lower on the rebound so it doesn’t feel so snappy after that.

So, this is the update with everyone’s advice to heart. What do you think?

Next note was all about the rotation, to which the end solution was ‘to not focus on the rotation until the vertical bounce was right’. So, Viola! No rotation to deal with yet!

Next note was a personal observation. The whole shimole needed to be at maximum, 100 frames. *grumble* *grumble*

Here it is; Revision 03:
[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_03.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_03.mov 480 360]

And this is the sketch of the bouncing ball I have to do. I’m groaning on this one. Besides the number of times it hits the walls, nothing ever comes out the way its sketched here.

But, this is what I got out of it:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_02.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_02.mov 480 360]

Today during my lunch hour, I went and picked up a new basketball. This is me and my friend filming it:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballstraightbounce_01.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballstraightbounce_01.mov 320 240]

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballagainstwall_01.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballagainstwall_01.mov 320 240]

This is not a serious upload! But if you want to crit, they are always welcome!