Animated Life Lessons

Hey there! It's time for another G.T. project! This project will consist of animation, and using the tool that I talked about in the last blog post. That tool is the Puppet Warp tool. My teammates for this project are my classmates Maddie Hoesel and Kyler Arruda-Sukehira. One of the most important parts of this animation projects is exaggerating the character traits of each of our teammates. Maddie and I are very soft-spoken people who have never really been able to completely grasp the skills we need to socialize. I mean we can do the basics like talking and responding, but we're just not very good at it. While Kyler, my other teammate, is almost the complete opposite. He's sassy, not afraid to say what he's thinking, and he's just....Kyler.

One of the biggest factors in this animation is humor. We, of course, want to send a message with a good life lesson to the audience, but in a way that will be funny and more relatable. The message that my team wants to send is to be more empathetic and considerate. Also, we want to show that even people who are completely different can help each other somehow. Like how sassy, outgoing Kyler helped Maddie and I improve our social skills, and vice versa.

This project was one of the most difficult and frustrating projects this year. Our teacher made us team up with people that we've never been on a team with before, which wasn't at all the problem. I was already familiar with my teammates, and they were easy to work with. There were just other problems such as deadlines and animating. The deadline was a lot sooner than most students were prepared for. Luckily, our teacher had a talk with the class and let us explain what we felt and we got a few more days to work on it. Making the animation was another problem, at least for me it was. Considering I had just learned how to work the Puppet Warp tool, I wasn't exactly fast or good. Fortunately, I eventually got the hang of it and sped up just a little. Animation was also hard for me because of how quick I had to go. At least my teammates were easier to work with. This project was definitely stressful, but I got through it and also learned a little.