Senior Thesis 2011

It's been like...5 months since my last post. Life happened. Thesis happened. My addiction to Tumblr happened. Anyway, I finally finished my thesis with flying colors, and here it is! Enjoy!

The password to view it is: roth
(Film festivals have an exclusivity clause, and so I have to keep the film on the down low for a while, hence the password)

Reversal of the Heart - Senior Thesis 2011 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

I don't really know what to do with myself now. I've been playing Pokemon Black and doodling aimlessly. I graduate on Friday, and after that... I'll go home for a while. I'm not sure about future work -- I don't think I want to work for a studio for a while, since you have to give up your creative rights to do so. My teachers recommended that I apply for grants to work on future projects, which looks like a promising idea. Or I might collaborate with some of my class to form a little short-making studio of our own somewhere here in LA. I dunno. I just don't know, man.

I wish I had the balls to write this...

Dear Professor-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named,

Having you freak out at me every time I present my thesis to the class, regardless of my progress, is not helpful. It is the opposite of helpful. I am doing fine. I am animating. I am making progress. Don't tell me what I can and can't do in terms of my own abilities. Don't tell me that you're worried -- you're ALWAYS worried. You've been worried since I first met you. It's like a disease that all the animation professors carry, one whose symptoms include the incessant repetition of the phrase "I'm worried."

This film will be completed on time. It's what I do. But even then, I don't think you'll stop worrying.

Best,
Me

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My reaction to today's thesis review:

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I'm 60% done with the animation! (minus the backgrounds)

Megamind and Harry Potter 7 Part 1

Saw Megamind. It rocked. I knew it was going to be funny, but I didn't think I would enjoy it so much. But it was CUTE, ADORABLE, and any other similar synonym, and it was well-written. I was initially a little put-off by the fact that Brad Pitt and other famous actors were doing the voices -- it's all shameless advertisement, and the voice acting is never that good in the end. The writing was good, making a potentially flat and uninteresting cast quite entertaining. My roommate and I were quoting lines from it as we left the theater.

The character animation was also superb and very expressive. I was laughing at Megamind's antics throughout the film.

My favorite character by far is Minion. He's just so adorable, and I love the character design for him. He leaves for a small part of the movie, and I was missing him the whole time. XD

I gotta hand it to the character designers on this one -- it's hard to make a lantern-fish type alien look cute, but they did!

Then we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1. I wasn't intending to do the opening night thing, but we got some tickets from a friend who couldn't go, and I guess the heavens were shining down on me because we got at the front of the line right after we got out of Megamind, and got the best seats in the theater. XD The HP movie was good, although there were some completely uncalled for random sexy moments -- you'll know which ones I'm talking about when you see the movie. The whole theater roared in outrage and amusement when they happened. It's like the director is shipping HarryxHermoine, which I don't think was in the final book. WAT.

I remember the good old days when the Harry Potter movies used a warm color palette. The last few movies have been using the Beowulf color pallet--subdued grays, blues, turquoises, browns and white and gold as highlights. Case and point:

Red and orange embers against a dark and cool background seem to be popular these days. Hmm.

Overall, a great birthday that I wasn't expecting to have. (I was going to work all night, because I'm a square, haha)

Let the shenanigans begin!

I'm 22 years old today, so this might be a good place to start.

This blog is going to serve as a general life-update thing mirroring my LJ, since most people I know don't use LJ. Not cool, guys. Also, I'm too lazy/inexperienced/busy to build a website of my own to abuse. Aside from being horribly self-indulgent and crammed to the gunnels with useless spam and fangirling, it'll also serve as a place where I post updates on animated films I'm working on and other creative things in my life. Hopefully it won't bore the snot out of people.

Oh, and I like to spam gifs that I find around the internet, so expect things like this to show up at random intervals:

(Reflecting my latest obsession, right now almost all of my gifs are Doctor Who related, or related to the actors in some way. You'll just have to deal with it.)