Design Hero Animation
Landscape Analysis
First, I looked at all the videos and interviews that were online with Jessica Walsh. I thought that it was super important to get a better understanding of what makes Walsh design. In my previous projects I knew about her through her biography but it was extremely surface level. By analyzing her interviews and videos, it was much easier to understand her design decisions and made a deeper connection of what kind of person she is. There were so many interesting videos about Walsh because she covers so many ranges of topics and themes. I had a hard time to decide what I wanted to portray. While working on the beginning of my process, I completely blanked on Medium some of them are on Google Docs.
Transcribing
After watching so many videos, I choose 6 videos that really stuck with me and transcribed them myself. I do understand that there are apps and platforms that do that for you, but I wanted to really understand what she was saying and pay attention so I did it myself. I think that was really helpful because I was able to really connect with what she was saying. It was definitely tedious and took a while, but in the long run, I think it was helpful and beneficial.
Then, I analyzed all the transcriptions and tried to see if I could mix them together based on concepts. There were some audios that overlapped with concepts which was interesting and cool to see when putting them together. In the end, I was able to compose 3 different concepts that touch upon Walsh in different ways. The first concept was about Jessica Walsh’s definition of play. This theme is supposed to be fun and express her works. “All fun and just play and not having rules.” This quote perfectly depicts what I was envisioning with this script. Then, this concept is all about what made her become the designer she is. It will go over a sad past of her childhood. I was concerned about covering this theme because I do not know if I will do her story justice with my animation. Also, this is very different to the previous projects that I did before. As I was listening to the audio, I felt really touched and it really stuck with me. Then, I wanted to express Walsh’s sophistication so it talks about her New York City life and what it is like to be a designer to her. Compared to the previous concept, this one is brighter and more playful as well. It was hard for me to decide so I created three different storyboards to get some perspective. In the beginning of my process, I did not make as many visuals because I was analyzing more and scripting a lot.
The first storyboard goes with the “Play” concept. It is very simple which was just for me. I wanted to get feedback from my classmates and professor about which concept they thought fit well. With this storyline, it first shows her when she is giving her speech to the audience then typography will come up as she is talking. Then, as she starts to talk about her work, I want her pieces to “come to life” by animating them moving. Afterwards, I want the animation to end with a close up of her face and text coming out of her face.
Next is the storyboard that touches upon her traumatic childhood past. This storyboard is still in the works because I was unsure of how I wanted to portray her works. I wanted to start the animation with Walsh watching old childhood videos of herself. Then, the camera would go into the tv and animate text with her childhood videos. Throughout this whole animation, I wanted to keep the & hidden like a “easter egg hunt.” As the childhood clips and text are animated, I want the ending to have her logo come out of the water which I was able to find on her website.
The last storyboard that I made was to depict Jessica Walsh’s experience as a designer in New York City. I want the animation to be of clips of her while text is animated in the videos. The clips will be of her walking throughout New York and as she talks there will be text that is animated with the clips. As it gets to the end of the animation, I want her past works to come to life and be apart of her walk in the city. I will animated her works like the models that she worked with and other projects. In the end, the animation will stop at her studio house and she will enter and end by sitting on her desk. This animation should depict sophistication while still being fun.
Critique Feedback
For our first class back, I explained my process and then showed the storyboards that I had. I was able to get different perspectives about what would work best for the time restraint and the other projects that I have created. There were many opinions from my peers. Thankfully, I was able to conclude that I wanted to reiterate on the first two storyboards and then get feedback again to decide which path to go to. The reason I was unable to decide was because that the storyboards are so different it was hard to know what direction I really wanted to try.
Drafting
Here are the iterations that I had. I plan on working on it more because there are parts that I would like to do but just do not have the technical skills to do so. In the end, it was interesting to be able to ask my peers remotely for help and also watching tutorials. I wish that I had more knowledge and ability to complete what I wanted to achieve but I plan to use the summer to continue on the video!
Final
For my final video, there are still many things that I need to figure out especially for the end. I realized that the beginning was tight and very planned out but at the end I ran out of ideas and time. I decided to shorten the audio for the final version because it was too long and there seemed to be points where I was just filling random animations because of the audio.
In the end, I was able to really exercise my animation skills and learn how to think differently. In the future, I would like to continue to make my video flow better together but overall was a really good time to develop my process and working skills.
