Sound Clips

I have been looking for hip hop tracks or soundclips on creative commons and it has been somewhat difficult to find works you can modify. I wonder if I’m not just navigating the site as well as I could or if I might have to try to make my own sound clips on Garage Band. I tried making my own hip hop rhythms but I found them to be kind of bad. There were some clips on Garage Band with cool hip hop rhythms but I couldn’t find a way to record them. I think they are just background music clips to help you out. I do have some gunshot noises that were free to modify. I might think about some dialogue or funny screams from the characters that could be added too.

One hip hop song in French that I was allowed to download.

Flash Lesson

I learned earlier that I need to have an interface for people to navigate the content of my website. I chose the image of the Yakuza Koala candy character as the interface. You can click on the stick or gun, etc, and get different content such as the story, etc.

There are certain ratios that I had to consider when the web content is on the web. I have to be mindful of different video compressions, that if I use Flash I must scale down my images and save it as a PNG-24 file, and should be mindful of the normal bandwidth most people have.

I also need to find some hip-hop music on Creative Commons that is not commercialized and licensed. I should use these as the sound effects and also have the gunshot noises added in.

In addition I need to try and learn how to use Flash for animations. I got a sense that I can make composite works with the different layers on it. The layers also help to organize the different codes, images, and other functions on Flash. I can also rely on the actionscript help for some of the code.

Stop Motion

For a portion of my Final Cut Pro or Flash piece, I am making a small stop motion animation of the actual Gummi Bears fighting the Koala candies. I have the candy city background printed off and then I am using a camera and the intervalometer program on my Mac to make this. My hand kept on getting in the front of the camera but I think it makes it more interesting to have that in the way. I do need to slow this down a bit and add some more frames but here is a rough clip of what I did. I do need to export it on Quicktime player as individual frames and then I can tweak it even more so on Flash or Final Cut Pro.

A portion of the clip that I am working on.

Project Ideas

Here is the storyboard for the animation I want to make with the Gummi Bear Gangstas versus the Chocolate Yakuza Koalas. I want to make like a comic style version for the introduction and then I thought it would be an interesting blend to make a stop motion animation with the real pieces of candy in battle. This could also be a first work out of a series of other episodes or storylines.

I want to use Photoshop and Comic Life for the comic part of the story and I want to use the camera/stop motion technique that was shown in class last Thursday after we watched all of those animations. I think what is also possible for content is having some video clips like what happens when Gummi Bears are microwaved or when Koala March Candies are run over for some interesting sound and visual effects.

Maybe some clips like this can be possible content to branch off this initial concept of candy, gangsters, and animation.

Clip of a chemical mixed with Gummi Bear candy and its reaction.

Energy Of Candy Gummi Bears Vs. M&M’s – Watch more funny videos here

I think this audience might appeal to older adolescents and young adults with the violence and involvement with gangs in this animation. If this was on the web I think it could possibly promote candy in a twisted way and also makes fun of gangster culture.

For the content purpose – I think I want to give some information on the origins of the Koala March candy and Gummi Bears. I think it would also be interesting to put some information on gangsters and what I based some of the design aspects of the story on.

I also want to give an open forum or blog part about animation and comics. I think on the web it would be interesting to have people watch the animation clips and comics and could possibly add their own webcomics and animation clips onto the site. They could also critique and comment on some amateur work.

Here is the storyboard for the comic/animation part.

Here are some ideas for the design of the comic style parts of the story in color.

Gumbo Bear Gangsta who is the leader of the Gummi Bear Gangstas.

Leader of the Chocolate Yakuza Koalas Chizo

The characters live in Candy City.

For the stop motion animation segment I think it would be interesting to use the real candy pieces and have a battle between them.

Gummi Bears

Koala March Chocolate Candies

For sound effects, I thought it would be cool to have it especially during the battle with the stop motion animation of the real Gummi Bear candies versus the Chocolate Yakuza Koalas. I could also possibly use Garage Band and record my own sound effects – like clips of narration that I make or some other distorted sounds to make it less commercialized with the sound effects.

Maybe add some hip-hop music such as this song to the fight scene song for humorous purposes.

Damn it feels Good to be a Gangsta: By Geto Boys

Perhaps there can be some gunshot sounds from this website.

Links for some other possible content for the website.

Lotte website that makes the Koala March candies.

Website on the history of Gummi Bear Candy.

Some content on Yakuza gang or Japanese mafia history.

I also think it would be good to have content about animation and comics on my website. I can include the Gumbo Bear Gangsta blog content into my website.

Motion Graphics

Today in class we watched a bunch of clips relating to animation. I really liked how we saw a wide variety of different types of graphics. We looked at some of the music videos that Michel Gondry made to some of the works from the movies “The Fountain” and “The Silence of Sleep.” I also was fascinated by some of the works by Jan Spankmeyer. He had some strong political content in his stop motion animations.

I am actually thinking of mixing stop motion graphics with some illustrated still images for my project. It might be cool to have some stop motion animation with real Gummi Bears and Chocolate Koala Bears and then have some crazy still images in between. I’m still thinking of how I will deliver more content with this narrative story. Perhaps I can include information about gangs from Japan and America. Either that or provide information on candy. Or maybe both. Haha.

Here is a cool European Sony Website that someone in class showed me. The ones with paint and the colored balls are very colorful and cool.

TED

After watching the TED presentation about how the computer scientist made a computer program that would scan blogs and would present random ways in which you can see quotes that show human emotions. You could see the quote in regards to where that quote came from, the weather at that place, etc. The quotes would stream out like an array of constellation points. I found this very interesting as it has a particular mapping or layout that was visually appealing too.

link to the TED website

More brainstorming for Project 2

I need to try and make a story between the Gummi Bear Gangstas and the Yakuza Chocolate Koalas. I could make Gumbo Bear the lead gangster for the Gummi Bear Gangstas. The setting can be in Candy City. I feel like the concept of this is somewhat like Grand Theft Auto with Candy Characters. I think it would be fun to have these two groups fighting over sugar which could be like a drug reference. I could also put as content on the interactive video with information on drugs with the industry, effects, and/or communities that have been affected by drugs.

Rough Draft of narrative:

Gumbo Bear was walking down Licorice Lane after making a hit with the Mexican Baby Lucas Gangsters for some sugar shrooms. As he was walking with his Gummi Bear girl Galinga back to his fellow Gummi Bear brother gangsters, he ran into some trouble. Gumbo Bear was suddenly attacked by the Yakuza Chocolate Koalas who had Pocky (chocolate biscuit) katanas. After a valiant struggle, his sugar shrooms and his girl – were gone.

It was time for war!

Gumbo Bear assembled his brothers for a strategic strike upon the Yakuza Chocolate Koala penthouse.

http://www.candywarehouse.com/babylucascandy.html

Article about Yakuza that can be some possible future content for this interactive animation

Candy links

Candy links for possible future reference.

Project 2 ideas

After my presentation on my blog during the last class I think that I want to stick with my Gumbo Bear Gangsta identity and voice. Now I need to try and make an interactive narrative. I could possibly make an animation with the Gummi Bears. Perhaps I can make up a story of some Gummi Bear Gangstas at war with some other candy group such as the Yakuza Chocolate Koalas.

Maybe it would be kind of interesting to do some stop motion animation with Gummi Bears and the rival candy group but in certain parts of the story you could have some drawings like of Gumbo Bear Gangsta vs. the Chocolate Koalas in some dramatic still images. Maybe I could make the Yakuza Koalas wield some Pocky katanas. (swords) Pocky is a Japanese biscuit stick covered with chocolate or other flavorings like strawberry, vanilla, etc.

Maybe for the content – I could have some information about the Japanese Pocky and Gummi Bear candy on how it is made, where they originate, the history of it, flavors, cultural fads, etc. I could also possibly find some content related to gangs in Japan and America. Maybe I could put information about the NRA, some communities affected by gangs, and the hip-hop culture and how it is related to gangs, etc.

For the sound – I think it might be interesting to put in some hip hop clips mixed with some Japanese hip hop or something. Maybe I could put in some Japanese music into it. I’m thinking of possibly using Garage Band to maybe even record some dialogue. I’ve used it before and maybe I could put it into my animation.

I’m trying to figure out what kind of software I want to use – I could use Comic Life if I want to add some dialogue from the Gummi Bear and Chocolate Koala characters without sound. I could use Flash to make an animation or maybe I could use Final Cut Pro and make an animation from a lot of still images.

Japanese Candy types

Second blog

For my second blog for my net art class I decided to make it an animation blog. Initially I made a drawing of a Gummi Bear Gangster and named him Gumbo Bear and didn’t know what to do with him. The idea came from an old Flash project I did in my First-Year Seminar class.

Afterwards I thought about making a blog for animation so I started looking up articles related to that topic. I ventured into upcoming animation/CGI works to some comedic clips to historical clips about animation as blog material. Here the voice is different from my first blog as it is in third person and not first. It is also branded with the Gumbo Bear Gangsta as an animated looking icon. Even the name for the wordpress account is Gumbobear which is different from my first blog. My first blog is a personal blog of notes and ideas from my net art class.