I want to use the knowledge I learned this term as much as possible in this task, but it’s a little hard to start. So firstly I watched some performance animation videos on Youtube. What I mainly watch is the showcase of animation mentor, their works can show a storyline in a few seconds, with or without dialogue.

After watching some other people’s works, I was more interested in the works without dialogue, because they can express somethings or some emotions only through actions and expressions. This makes the animation more interesting.

After thinking about it in my room for a week, I realized, why don’t I just animate my own life? Because of the epidemic, I stayed in my room for a long time, and boredom became my main emotion every day. But it is also very interesting to find some fun in the boredom. Combining the knowledge of body mechanics, I decided to make an animation to tell an embarrassment about a person turning a swivel chair when he is bored.

I watched some animations of swivel chairs, although they were not too many, I still found some good works.

This will be a short animation, so I want to determine the rhythm of the entire animation first. Because it is from boring to finding the fun of the swivel chair, this should be an animation from static to dynamic, from slow to fast. I wrote a simple script from this thought.

Then I drew a simple storyboard in PS to ensure some shots and positions. The process of turning text into images was also a process of conception,, which allows me to have a more accurate imagination of the final picture.

Shooting reference is a bit difficult for me now, because I don’t have a gimbal or tripod to hold the phone, and I haven’t found a very suitable place to shoot. So I first took a video in my kitchen with the laptop camera. The picture was ok, but my acting skill was too awkward. I think this can only be used as a reference for motion. My expressions and actions may need to be shot separately later. And I haven’t thought about the ending action, so I haven’t shot it yet.

This is the reference video I took: