Metamorphosis Pencil Test

I'm currently working on my next project, which is a metamorphosis animation. We picked one image and then received a second image at random and had to morph from one to the other. I picked a cupcake and got a picture of some dude weight lifting. I thought it was kind of funny.

I have a pencil test completed and will be coloring for the next week or so. I'll post the final project when it's done!



My friend Jordon is also in my animation class and since we sit next to each other, our images morph into each other. So just for fun we decided to edit them together to see how it would look.

Connect: My First Animation!

Hey everyone! I have finished my very first animation! It's an object animation project for my Animation 1 class. It's mainly stop motion, with a couple animated backgrounds that I did. It was only supposed to be fifteen seconds long, but I had the idea before the project was assigned and I wanted to complete the story. Enjoy!

Pancaked

This project needs it's own post because it was quite the insane adventure to get it completed. I think just about everything went wrong with this film, from camera problems to lighting issues to reshoots, freezing temperatures, and hours and hours of cutting and splices tiny bits of film. But despite all that, we finished!

My good friend Jordon Hoeft plays Brian, a middle-aged man with no time who finds an empty slot in his busy week and decides to treat himself to a plate of tasty pancakes. Unfortunately, a simple goal proves unattainable as his day of relaxation turns against him.

click here to watch the HD version of Pancaked at youtube.

Previous Work

So I mentioned in my last post that my previous concentration was directing. I took a class for that major last semester called Production 1 where we used an antique camera called a Bolex. From this class I created two short films and DP'd on one. They are all shot on 16mm black and white reversal film. Since I don't have a huge amount of animated work to show you at this point, I thought I would share these!

This is my first film, called Gifted, shot in Grant Park.


I was the Director of Photography on The Date, directed by Jamie Gallant.

The Story.

I have recently began an exciting journey through the world of animation, and I thought I would take you all on the ride with me. I'm currently a sophomore at Columbia College in Chicago and I used to be a film major with a concentration in directing. Unfortunately that really didn't work out so well, as I found myself becomming very frustrated, annoyed, and unhappy with the direction I was going. I blame it on the pretentious Columbia film students. And the film cage. Man that place made you want to end your life. Or one of theirs. Anyways!

I did some soul searching you could say and through a break in the clouds my life's mission was revealed to me through a fantastic animated film by Pixar called WALL-E. I won't go into how amazing I thought this movie was or what specifically blew my mind, but I will summarize my feelings. I never really thought about the possibilities of animation as a film medium, but after I saw Wall-E it's like a blanket was lifted off my head and someone then slapped me saying "Look at this! You could do this!" And I replied back, "Hey, I could do that!" And you know what, I'm going to!". I still love film, but what I love most about it is story telling. I could always be a writer, but there's no color in writing, no shapes, no images! Of course you could argue that all these things are present in the words, which they are, but I need something more concrete! Pixar has really nailed storytelling through images. Every single film is a masterpiece and one day I hope to become a part of that team.

But first, I must learn. I literally JUST started my first semester of animation classes and thought that I'd start up a blog and post my work, and when I graduate I will hopefully have a really nice timeline that I can look back on!

So, won't you join me?
-Chris