What's the Tale Nightingale?

In quoting Disney: To all that come to this ‘happy’ place, welcome.

It will be oh so happy, for you at least, as you get to watch - read - me kill myself with thesis.

Some of you might be new to my blog(s) and to you a very special welcome. To you whom’s returned, thanks.

Now….why another blog?

Answer…..thesis.

Simply put I need to keep a blog for the next year-and-a-bit to help document my progress in making my MFA thesis. Admittedly I am starting this a bit late - it will all be explained shortly.

Backing up a bit for the newbies:

My name is Christina and I’m currently studying at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY for my MFA in Animation. Last year I finished a BFA in Motion Design with a minor in Sculpture from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota FL. I like 2D and 3D animation, but am much more comfortable with 2D. My biggest influence is Disney (LOVE Disney). Anime is also an influence particularly in design.

Honestly, if you want to know more about me, my life, and my experience outside of this thesis you should check out my other blogs.

Moving on.

Unless told otherwise by my teachers I’m not going to change my writing style for the blog. I write what I think and how I think it - I won’t classy it up unless told to since that isn’t me.

I also feel that, since this is a blog, there should be actual writing. So you’ll see actual words on my blog as opposed to some of my classmates who might just post the video with the name of it in the post title.

Next, I started a thing for my other class blog where all the titles are that from songs be it titles or lyrics. I’m going to do that here too and try not using repeats of the 2 - but who knows. So keep an open mind when reading on and try figuring out where everything is from. (I’ll most likely add ‘answers’ to a post at that end of each term.

Finally, because I will more than likely want to submit my final thesis to festivals - and some demand that the video’s aren’t available online…….so this means that you won’t see the final product unless you are at my school. There might also be occasions where videos won’t be able to be viewed as they will be password protected. I will limit this as much as possible, but it might have to happen every now and again.

Okay. now that all the technical stuff is out of the way we can begin.

As I said I’m starting this blog a bit late. The reason is this:

Last semester in Seminar class we began writing possible thesis stories and carried one to storyboards. Over break I edited and changed the story quite a bit - keeping the basic idea but changing most everything else. Upon returning for the spring we quickly had to create board-a-matics* so I did - for the new version. After 4 weeks, over 120 storyboard panels, 5 story edits, and several late nights to get it finished I was told by my teacher that all the old version was the best and I should scrap all the new stuff. Of course my classmates quickly agreed.

It was a big set back.

(*Quick side note: In reality we where told to make an animatic but based on what I was taught at my previous school an animatic is when you have a good scratch audio, low-res models, all camera moves, and the most basic blocking animation. A board-o-magic is when you take the storyboard panels and put them to music and time - at most the the picture will me moved on screen to help illustrate the motion. Therefore, we where actually told to make board-o-matics.)

Getting back to the story.

So last week I created the following board-o-matic with what I had from before break - adding only a few new frames to illustrate the new beginning and ending.

With that I think I’ll concluded this post - it's really long already. What I’ve done in the past week will be posted shortly after this one and you can continue the journey with me.