Summer Collaboration Announcement

Its official - summer has started for me and I'm ready to get to work on my summer projects!   

I've got a handful of things to do this summer already, starting off with balancing two jobs: my job working as a summer mentor and office assistant for CCS's youth summer program and my freelance position as a motion graphics artist at The Park (Team Detroit). 

In addition to those two day jobs, I am the main initiator of a group of animators/ illustrators at CCS to create a 3-5 minute short experimental film over the summer that we hope to submit to many film festivals in the area. So far I have 3 very talented, dedicated, and successful students that are part of the team: 

• Grace Millard
• Sarah Visel
• Patricia Lentini

If anyone else would like to help out with our production, feel free to add me on facebook and  talk to me about what you would like to help with! The most difficult part about this entire voyage will be getting together in person to discuss ideas. With people living all across lower Michigan, we will be doing most of our idea brainstorming via facebook and dropbox.

So far it looks like May is going to be our set-up month - to collect ideas, to storyboard, to build a solid team and gain insight from each team member, and to come up with a defined and sturdy idea by the end of the month. June and July will be huge work months, where we will all be hard at work on animating and coming up with a proof of concept by the end of June. As August rolls around, I hope to have a very good direction with where we are heading, perhaps a 1-3 minutes of animation we are happy with. August into early September will be the wrap-up months, since I don't want this project to leak too far into the start of our school semester.

I'm confident we can make this work and that in a matter of 4 months or so we will have something new to add to our portfolios! We have a lot of support from our friends and faculty members here at CCS, and I'm really happy to be working with the people I am working with.

Keep the good vibes coming ~ its going to be a successful summer!

May 6, 2013: Short Logo Animation

Created a short animation of my
logo for my site and updated reel

May 1, 2013: Animation Finished!

After my big hard drive crash this past weekend, I worked for 72 hours day and night on catching up on creating a new motion graphics piece by today. Thankfully, last night at about 5:30 a.m. I finished everything, with stereo sound design and all.

I'm hoping to submit this to a few Michigan websites, such as the National Parks Association and the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Lakeshore in hopes that they will display it commercially.

Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Lakeshore | 2013 Infographic from Melissa Oakley on Vimeo.

April 29, 2013: Hard Drive Crashed but I'm Still Doing Great

It is unfortunate to say that this past Friday my external hard drive crashed. Although I back my stuff up at the end of each month, I had done a lot of work that had not been backed up in a handful of weeks and I lost everything except a few Photoshop files for my National Parks Infographic.

The only place with any recollection of what I had started on my infographic was this site, and unfortunately everything on here is rendered at draft quality.

However, with only a week of school left to get everything done, I am determined to end my sophomore year at CCS with a solid motion graphics piece for my demo reel. So I've been working non-stop since Friday on a new infographic! Only aiming for 1-minute long, I decided to narrow my idea and focus on one specific national park.  I've got a lot to go, but I'm super determined to get this done, polished up, and ready for finals.

April 19, 2013: Progress Prt 2

I'm starting to run into some problems in the animation, which is normal. A few odd skips and jumps in places, and a few design problems; but I've made it to 1:25 worth of animation. Monday I will be syncing all the kinetic type and transitions up to the voice-over. But for now, here is my progress:

April 17, 2013: Progress Prt 1

The outline I wrote up for this infographic is divided into 9 different parts, and as of now with 40 solid seconds of animation I am on section #3. Not even a week into animation, I feel pretty confident with the time I have remaining. My next step is to write up a polished script and record the voice-over for syncing up kinetic type in the animation. Here is where I have gotten since the last update this past weekend:

April 13, 2013: Animation Started

 

Been making progress on my final motion graphics piece. Getting the concept solid and fine-tuned is by far the most difficult part.  I want to make this piece smooth and I want it to tell a persuasive, yet informational story from beginning to end. After gathering all the illustrative elements for the composition this past week, I am finally moving onto the actual animation portion. I've tried studying other infographics I've seen on the internet for transitional elements and have taken notes while doing so (as shown above).

Here is a quick sample of the start of my animation. Still working with different type and color choices, but the basic idea is here.

*Updated version with sound:

**Updated version April 14, 5:00 a.m.