The purpose of this project was to create an animation that visually communicates a period of personal growth or evolution. I decided to portray my journey at Bradley University as a freshman, evaluating different clubs and organizations until I found the one that I belonged to. The animation is broken down into three stages. In the first stage I am alone at the activities fair, looking around unsure of what I want. The second stage shows a few tables belonging to different organizations I considered and finally arriving at the one of my choice, HEAT. The final stage shows me alone again, but with a look of confidence and wearing a HEAT shirt. Then one by one other members of HEAT, also wearing the shirt I have on, appear around me with the organization’s logo.

     I feel like the basic idea of my journey is communicated well, mainly because of the images of myself from the first and last stages. There is a clear difference in my mood, emphasized by my facial expressions and body language. Also, the images in the first stage are traced, giving them a somewhat “broken” appearance due to loss of detail. On the other hand, the images in the last stage are raster images that are clear and still have much detail, with the exception of a slight blur added for anonymity purposes. So again the transition from the first to last stage shows me more defined in detail and in what I want.

     When I was starting the project, I was concerned with how I was going to maintain proportions and scale since I had to trace images in both Adobe Illustrator and Flash. However after playing around with the placement of figures on the background I was able to creat believable space and keep things in proportion. I also decided to keep the backgound very simple and keep the figures placed in the center so the overall design would remain balanced.

     A major requirement for this project was the cohesive use of shape tweens. I choose to use these mainly in the second stage. I started off by creating a simple male figure in Illustrator and importing it into Flash as multiple objects on individual Flash layers, though I did keep a few parts grouped such as the eyes and nose. From there changed the figure several times to show a different representative of a different organization. I added shape tweens to between each change so it would appear that the previous figure morphed into the next. Maintaining proportions between the figures and the environment proved to be very difficult for me, but I think most of them turn out well. I am pleased with my results, however I feel that my second stage, being made of very basic vector shapes, disrupts the unity of the entire animation because of the lack of detail.

BY NADIA LABOSTRIE