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Kiwi!

So sad.

The Star Wars Prequels Reviews

I'm not a fan of the prequel trilogy for Star Wars. So when I stumbled on these reviews almost two years ago, I laughed so hard I woke up my dad sleeping in another room who made me go to bed...anyway.

If you're looking to kill some time this weekend, watch them. The first one is 70 minutes long, the second is 90 minutes long, and the third is 100. They're not animated, but Star Wars is one of the most popular sagas ever created, so it's definitely digital media.

A small viewer discretion. They don't swear profusely, and the worse words are censored, but I wouldn't play it around small children. The reviewer plays the part of a psychopath trying to review movies. It adds to the review a little bit (though it begins to get old in the second and third episodes), but...yeah. It's not too bad though. We're all 16/17.

Weekly Comments

I'm doing these a little early this week. My other two posts will be put up tomorrow.

• What I learned this week: Sound. Finally. But it was a little hard to get through those notes, when you've used Audacity since 7th grade. But oh well. At least I know how now.
• What I want to learn in the future: Nothing that I can think of. But I'm starting to get sick of Flash.
• Something that frustrated you this week: Not too much, actually. The typography project a little, but that's it.
• Something that made you happy: I saw The Lion King at Sheas Tuesday night, with my school's band and chorus, and it was really, really good, and as a percussionist, holy crap were the drummers awesome. Also, I'm almost done with the script for my animated short. I'm just worried it won't come off as funny (the humor is really off-beat, and is based on a conversation I had with my friend Andy on Monday. The working (and probably real) title of it right now is "Story Time with Will and Andy", and I just hope it goes over well.

Friday tomorrow!

Weekly Comments

Yesssss, it's Friday!

• What I learned this week: I reviewed how to create masks in Flash. 
• What I want to learn in the future: Soooooouuuuuuuund...
• Something that frustrated you this week: Substitute on Thursday equaled a boring 2.5 hours of doing nothing. Also, (in the Khan style) APUSH!!!!!!!!!
• Something that made you happy: We shortly regained our big bus, only to lose it again. Now our school is giving the morning BOCES kids the big bus and the afternoon kids the little bus. NEWFANE!!!!!!!!!

Also, good news for all you Reader users out there: It's getting a redesign next week!

Flash help

So, I promised a few weeks ago I'd post some kind of tutorial for Flash. I've got...something like that.

Whenever I need help doing something in Flash, I go to Adobe's help site, where they actually have some pretty good directions for whatever you need to do. For instance, I had forgotten how to add a mask. I would've looked in my binder at the Flash tutorials we did a while ago, but it was being graded. So I found this:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/WS9388626D-B940-43f3-87BB-7C3159F5EDE4.html

I used the instructions there and it helped me out quite a bit.

Anyway, look for my Weekly Comments on Friday.

Crappy CG Animation

I know I normally try to post stuff that is actually well done on this blog, but...this...this is just really bad CG animation. I'd actually think it was really, really good (amazing, even) if it was done by someone in this class (no offense, but we're all amateurs right now, I'm sure someday we'll be capable of this), but this was produced by MTV, and it's Spider-Man. Ohh well. Take a look:

I'm sorry, I just think that's...awful.

Weekly Comments

Here were are again, eh?

• What I learned this week: Uhhhhmmm... This week was mostly a work week, I'm not sure how much I learned. I definitely feel my Flash abilities are stronger.
• What I want to learn in the future: Nothing, really. I'm going to maintain my stance of focusing only on 2D right now. (Edit: This edit's on Saturday (the rest of the post was on Friday afternoon) but I remembered that I really want to learn how to use sound in my animations. I doubt it'll be too hard.)
• Something that frustrated you this week: This Principles project. I'm trying my best to get through it though.
• Something that made you happy: Podcasts: Helping keep my sanity since 2009. Bus rides would be awful without them.

A slow week? A little bit. Next week: My animation logo project. Happy Friday.

Legend of Miyamoto/The Avengers

I feel like this has already posted by someone else. I've definitely seen it, recently too, but I came across it again. So, I'm sorry if someone else posted this. But it's pretty awesome:

Ok, secondly. Not animation, but I had to post this. The Avengers trailer is out. Directed by Joss Whedon (aka, the creator of Buffy, Angel, Firefly (one of my favorite shows and also the show my brown dinosaur t-shirt references, if you've seen that), Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and Dollhouse), I just have the strangest feeling it's going to be awesome. Take a look:

A Typical Conversation with my Mom

Well, not MY mom. There's a series of cartoons on YouTube that I tend to randomly discover and then forget (I think it has happened about three times now) called "Tales of Mere Existence". It has an odd way of animating in which, the audio is more or less set to just drawings, but the drawings are only 95 percent completed, and are completed as the narrator talks. Here's a sample video from the series called " A Typical Conversation with my Mom". I think we can all relate to this in some way or other.

Have a good Wednesday.

Weekly Comments

• What I learned this week: Um. I missed one of the lessons because I was out sick. It was on animation techniques. The other lesson was on typography.
• What I want to learn in the future: Again, just keeping my focus on flash for now. 3D'll be cool and all, but I need to get my flash projects done first!
• Something that frustrated you this week: SIIIIIICK. *cough* and I've basically lost my voice at this point. Sigh. Hopefully a long weekend full of nothing will allow me to return healthy on Tuesday. Also, it turns out it's my school's fault for the little bus, not the bus garage's. I made sure I didn't pin blame on the school, and of course, it ends up being their fault. Way to go Newfane. You wonder why I don't have spirit for you.
• Something that made you happy: Sleep. Sleep and cough drops. No, wait, sleep, cough drops, and Life Water. And I still have an 85 in AP US History. Which, I'm completely fine with. It's a solid B in an AP class that I'll probably get an extra 3-4 points for anyway.

See you all Tuesday. Hopefully my voice is back to normal.

Side note: RIP Steve Jobs. I was shocked when you resigned back in August, and I was even more shocked when you passed away. You were a great man, as much as you were assertive, you really had to be. I've heard too many touching stories in the past few days in articles and podcasts not to say that you were obviously a kind-hearted but strict man. Apple's keynotes (and Apple in general) will never be the same without you.

Pendleton Ward draws Pokemon, but not in the way you'd think

Pendleton Ward (creator of Adventure Time) drew this short cartoon about Pokemon and...farting... It's funnier than it sounds, I SWEAR.

So I guess that makes the theme of this week people drawing other people's cartoons.

John K draws The Simpsons

I know what you're thinking. Two Simpson posts in two weeks?! But this is different. John K (creator of Ren and Stimpy) stepped in and drew the couch gag for The Simpsons opening this week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5RflXVhaCQ

Yeah, pretty odd right? Anyway, I promise this will be my last Simpsons related post for a while. Or possibly ever. I don't know.

The actual clip starts at 0:49 seconds.