Actual Tea? (Not Class Related Whatsoever)

Now for the Totally Tangential moment you might've been waiting for since you read the introduction, the TEA! (TW; Transphobia)

Now, I know, Cancel Culture sucks and leads to more than enough toxic behavior, but in cases such as these where the person in question has such a big influence on hundreds of millions of people, we need to let it be known that this behavior is unacceptable. As you may know, Markus Persson, the sacred creator of Minecraft, better known by his in-game alias, Notch, has a twitter. When people have access to such glorious social networking, they tend to use it, whether it be for bad or for good. In this case, it was such a huge flop that it had everyone covering it. There's no denying that Markus Persson is a huge transphobe.
He replied to a meme an artist made in the format of Twilight Sparkle opening a book entitled "Facts" which stated inside that "Trans women are women" (which they very clearly are) by saying that supporting delusions isn't great and compared transgender individuals to those of anorexic or bulimic tendencies; something that needs attention to deal with adequately, something to cure. Earlier in the year he pressed hard for a "heterosexual pride day/parade" and encouraged those against it to formally get shot. "by the cameraman. with a [firearm]." he added, before deleting both tweets altogether.
Surprisingly enough, there is no cure for being trans. We're born as we are, same as anyone else. Notch and many others with similar mindsets seem to forget that nobody actually wants to be Transgender; it's not a choice whatsoever. The dysphoria (which is what determines Trans-ness) is debilitating enough and the social stress only adds to it, which is why the Trans suicide rate seemingly doesn't drop that much post-transition; people aren't accepting their new identities and these people likely don't have any family to fall back on due to coming out.
 The stigma around this topic and the reason so many people still appear to be against it can be how Tumblr culture took this and perverted it into the ideology we know today as MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations, Gender identities And Intersex). The movement was a good idea at first, but it soon became a mess of tucutes that generated aesthetic based "genders", unnecessary orientations and millions of repeats, giving birth to the mainstream view of SJW ideology. Things like "stargender" and "omnisexual" were perpetrated by such ideologies and have morphed themselves into the false light that the mainstream society views the LGBTQ community as. We need to do our best to erase that stigma. Call out transphobia, racism, homophobia, misogyny, misandry, and ableism when you see it. Ask your LGBTQ friends about how you can help. Together we can make the world a better place, even if on a small scale.

[[PS, Licata; If content like this doesn't belong here, please tell me so, I'll find somewhere else to put it. I just felt this was something that needed to be said, as it's a pivotal part of our society to talk about topics like this. Conversation and exchange drives action.]]

Composition, Depth and Power, the Triforce of Shooting Film!

This time around on Blogscape Smackdown, we analyze V Renee's take on camera movements and rules, focusing in on the rule of thirds.
 They open strong, suggesting that by utilizing the rule efficiently, it can establish dominance on screen. Renee links to a video by John Tindell, which delves more into how power can be established by roles and camera and character placement alongside the rule of thirds in both the second and third dimensions, including the background, foreground, and midground. They explain how by putting a character in the foreground, they become a focal point of a scene- more prominent and therefore more important, whether it be to the scene itself or the overall story, while framing something in the center of the frame draws our attention directly to it, providing a sense of authority that may have been otherwise lacking in the scene.
Both the video by Tindell and the blog in question by Renee explain how the rule of thirds is used in a film by splitting the screen into 9 different parts, with the intersections being the important "focal points" that indicate power or relevance to the scene. Renee indicates that being on the top row provides a heightened sense of power.
Multiple references are used, such as a scene in The Avengers in which an argument erupts over Thor's staff and the Tesseract. During the scene, each character gets a spot in one of the camera's power-points as they deliver dialogue, the scene ending with the staff holding the Tesseract stone falling on the top horizontal line, the stone falling on the top-right point of interest, making for a powerful scene that openly conveys the emotions held by the characters and displaying that Thor alone has the most power in this situation and his actions brought about the argument, to begin with.
Renee goes on to explain how not just size or staging matters here, color plays a huge part in this, as well.
The element of Contrast in a film is used to juxtapose two or more opposing ideals, and one of the ways this is done is through the use of color; Red V Blue, Monochrome V Colorful, Dark V Light, so on.
The effects of composition on a film's emotional impact are certainly there, and it's arguably one of the most crucial parts of filmmaking since an odd angle, weird colors or bad delivery can ruin a scene for someone. This is useful in animation too, of course, since camera angles combined with perspective and creativity can amount to crazy-good scenes. As usual, however, we only can get better at framing shots with practice, so go out there and knock 'em out! Even if you fowl, you still hit the ball, right?
[LOI]
Related to this topic, I found a really cool music video (half•alive - still feel.)
 that was shot entirely with only 7 cuts (there was a wardrobe change halfway through one), it was really interesting to watch the ebbs and flows of the camera, dancers and the music; I think anyone can find at least some enjoyment from this song. The song's lyrics deal with a mental illness called depersonalization- the composition of the MV along with the enchanting choreography make for a magical viewing experience. This band came out of nowhere with this song and it's become a hit, I'm excited to see what's coming next for them. Enjoy!

Time is an illusion anyway, right? (Tea Time w/ Ari #10)

What's brackin, gamers??

W-w-w-welcome back to week 10 of Ari Rambles, in which we will be discussing my weekly comments as well as some actual tea on people we've never met before! (find this in my "off topic" label)

This last week in animation, we were given a fine tech-tour of both the sound booth, green room and the recording equipment available to us through the BOCES program. It's all hecka-sweet and honestly, I can't wait to begin my final project-- so much so that I forgot to begin my independent study which is due in 10 school days. No worries, I say, chugging more tea and getting into bed for a power-nap. You see, I have a chronic case of "This'll definitely be done later, so let's do this now!" and it came this week hard in the form of euphoria, Perler beads, and Kingdom Hearts. For those who don't know, Perler beads are plastic beads which can fit onto a pegboard, creating designs. Once said design is complete, you iron the beads, fusing them together permanently. This caught my attention recently and I fell hard, hard enough that I tripped and metaphorically hit my face on the mistake of buying an assorted bucket full of 22,000 of these things. No, they are NOT sorted, and NO, I didn't even think of the disaster and time-wasting this may cause. The guy in the instructional video warned me of this, too, but do I ever listen? I'm currently working on a huge bead project of my fursona and then I plan on replicating the Kingdom Key from Kingdom Hearts. Speaking of KH, I picked up KHII again after finding it in my cold side room and threw about 14 hours into it over the time we had off. This process of just having fun, tossing beads in pegs and smashing buttons was fun, but reality crashed down upon me at around 3PM today, but I was so close to finishing the audiobook of Ready Player One (amazing book, btw) and I thought I was near-finished with my beading, but apparently I work at 1/100th the pace when listening to something. The story was especially interesting since it was sci-fi and Wil Wheaton was reading off the climax of the story, so I was far too invested to cut off now. Once the book ended, I had gotten no farther in my bead process, but I was so in the zone and yearning for another audiovisual distraction that I dove straight to Netflix and dug about 10 episodes deep into Love, Death, and Robots (also an amazing show) and barely made any progress after I realized about 200 beads I set were the wrong colors. W h o o p s ? 
Tangent aside, I did have fun. I'd enjoy learning more about cameras, recording software, and sound management, but I know already that all that's next year's deal. I'd love to try making my own music, but Garageband isn't readily available to [Annabelle's] 4GB RAM Windows laptop, so I'm effectively blinded until I decide to research more into music-making myself, which might be a while.
The problems that frustrated me as of recent are more personal than anything, but This Is A Blog, so who cares. My dysphoria is acting more than weird lately, and with warmer seasons on the horizon, I have quite a few run-cold showers to look forward to. I'm beginning to tackle my eating problems more head-on by logging what I eat and drink over the course of the day to try and pick off what I really don't need in my system, incorporating more natural things into my diet, etc. This routine I have of pulling void-all-nighters doesn't really help my habits, however, as they often lead to unhappy awakenings due to late nights. You see, I want to get up early on Saturday and Sunday so I can go for a jog when the sun's still rising, or get my stuff in order like any functioning adult, but I get too caught up in everything past 10 PM every night and suffer the consequences such as waking up at 10 AM, 11 AM, or sometimes 1 PM with a dissatisfied groan and more than a few half-hearted yawns. It also messes with my diet as sometimes I forget and try to compensate by eating a bigger Brunch when all I really need is just a 2-egg omelet. 

It's a process, I'm working on it.

Tea Time w/ Ari #9

 Heyy'all! This is Ari, and it's been a while. Exactly a month, to be precise. How're you doing?

This last month in animation, we learned about more physics when it comes to objects flexing, weight in motion, and jumping/running animation. For me, specifically, I had another firsthand experience with irresponsibility, as I fell behind on both my diving board and storyboard for the independent study, but I caught up with a few dents in it. Nothing I can't handle, but they're definitely worth paying attention to for next time.
If anything, I want to learn how to successfully manage my time. I know this is routine by now, but I don't want to continuously be swept up in the storm-- I want to try taking initiative. This probably means cutting my ideas down to a sizeable portion, and that's okay. Not everything turns out the way you want it to. This ties into what frustrated me as of recent, I took about 5 or so full nights this month alone to catch up. Not great for any part of my body, but when you screw it this badly, sacrifices have to be made sometimes. I did it like an adult though, responsibly. I learned the ins-and-outs of an all-nighter, when to caffeinate, how long to rest, what to listen to and how to work. Needless to say, I've mastered the caffeine nap by now. Not sure if that's something I should be happy about.
Speaking of happiness, it came in the form of therapy. last week I saw my gender therapist for the first time in months and I'm glad. I also cleaned my room today and I set up a huge corkboard in which I organized all of my character art, including all 3 of my characters, backtracking to the first drawings I made of each of them. I'm glad I kept that drawing I made of Blitz (my pegasus guy) I drew in 5th grade. I plan on redrawing it in my free time. You can definitely go far with 5 years worth of practice, honestly. I always hear people saying stuff like "I wish I could draw!" when all they need to do is pick up a pencil and do it. You won't get anywhere without practicing first, that goes for anything. I wasn't born an artist, no matter what anyone thinks, but I just had a lot of time to be creative growing up. I kept at it and here I am now.

For the link of interest this time, here is a drawing guide for "Adventure Time", illustrated by Pendleton Ward. I chose this because I found it helpful in simplifying my art style due to how this show allows for a wide range of rule-breaking fun and expression. Ward's art has inspired many, and hopefully, this can help you in your journey for an ever-evolving art style.

Appealing back the layers!

     Hey everyone! This time, we're reviewing the final principle of animation provided by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas; Appeal! This is a combination of all the previous principles and a bit more sprinkled throughout.
     Appeal is essentially what makes or breaks a character, idea, situation or story, and therefore is incredibly important in any animation. Ethan Hurd, a Disney Toon Studios animator, explains that both a bunch of bunnies and the Joker are appealing although they're on opposing sides of "subject matter." Hurd states that appeal has nothing to do with subject matter; you can make anything work if executed in an enjoyable and cohesive manner. Hurd continues, comparing a real-life shot of a bouncing ball to a 2d animated one, showing how making believable animation is appealing, even if it means reaching a bit further with making it such; employing squash and stretch along with other distortion-type principles to give the illusion of life.
      Two more examples come in the form of exaggeration, in which Hulk uses a whole 3 frames to punch someone out of the shot, and when Thumper stops mid-motion to reconsider an action he's taking. Sometimes, breaking the rules of "believable animation" is wholly necessary to create appeal, as shown with these two examples. He then goes on to explain how Appeal is broken into two parts; Order and Interest. The prior being the pattern or logic applied to your movement, with the latter being a creative decision used to keep the audience invested in your work. Hurd uses an example of two different drawings of Iron Man doing the same action, just in a different pose, to illustrate this. The flatter, less polished one beat out the first due to how the pose is clear and supports the main action, regardless of proportionate dismay.
     The final examples given are a comparison of what simplicity can do for an animation; comparing two shots from "Duck Dodgers", one remade later, and comparing a dynamic scene from "All Dogs Go to Heaven" to one from "Cinderella" in which the same action is taking place. These help to show us what appeal means and how it can be manipulated to our design.
    In my honest opinion, I love this one. It gives us a set of rules to utilize or break to create what our minds have wished for a long time. Character creation is one of my favorite things, even though I can only make up main characters as of now, and creating an appealing character is challenging as heck. The trouble I fall into during ideation sprouts mainly from how tough it is for me to string events together into a coherent story, but it's just another thing I'll get better at with time.
     In conclusion, the final principle of animation, Appeal, proves to be the most crucial to any animation as it's a "culmination of all the other principles above it, plus something extra" (Ethan Hurd). It gives us a steady platform for creation and allows us to give our best shot at ideation and imaginative thinking.