Project 3: Daydream Video

This blog post also includes a WIP after the final version below.

---

Final Video:

Artist Statement:

This piece is based off of the game, "Animal Crossing: New Horizons." I chose to do an ACNL themed video because it happens to be one of my favorite Nintendo Switch games and I knew I needed to choose a theme I liked in order to complete this project. I knew that if I didn't choose something I liked, it would be hard to want to finish the animation when times got tough. Not only that, but I find the art style to be really cute and easy for me to replicate (which makes drawing easier!) It started with the idea of being transported into the game to complete specific game-related tasks like chopping trees, shaking trees for fruit, using the shovel on the ground, using a watering can for flowers, etc.. I also envisioned my favorite villager, Stitches, to be featured in the video. I ended up having to simplify the idea a lot because I ran out of time toward the end and was feeling really unmotivated to finish because of how behind I was. Once I had that idea finalized, I went ahead and started to work on some backgrounds for my animation. I knew that I wanted to pick two places in the actual game, so I picked a grassland spot and a beach spot that include the trees located in both places. The beach spot also includes coconuts that the characters eat as a tasty snack! I collected a series of images of Stitches from Google and a series of images of my ACTUAL ACNL character, which I had to transfer from my Switch, to my phone, to the computer.

Stitches the stuffed bear. He has the catchphrase: "Stuffin'," which was also included in my video to add some charm to his character.

I used Adobe Photoshop to draw the backgrounds by hand, but I also used the program to remove the background of the many images of my character and Stitches in order to piece them together for animation. I then used Adobe After Effects to animate all the Photoshopped images. Finally, I took the After Effects clips, some sounds I found on freesound.org, and some homemade voice clips that simulate the villager speak that I made using a Python code "Animalese" generator and put everything together in Adobe Premiere. The overall theme of the video is about learning to take a break when you need it, even if you seem really busy at the moment (which is a topic I have been resonating a lot with lately). I have never been very good at learning to take a break, which leads to exhaustion and burn-out. This happens especially fast if you have other things going on in your life at the same time, which for me was/is health issues. Ultimately, I feel like taking a small break might just give you the strength to finish things you feel like you can't. It wasn't until this year, when I was forced to slow down my efforts in school and work that I learned the importance of taking breaks. I even had to take a small mental break halfway through the making of this video during Spring Break! It ended up putting me behind, but I was much happier to work on the project and turn it in late instead just because the break gave me the strength to finish! In ACNL, the villagers will remind you to take a break if you've been playing a long time. They actually say a series of specific voice lines, and I decided to include one of the voice lines as the second to last chat bubble. I always thought of that as special, since it makes the villagers seem like they care a lot about how you are doing (and I think that is sweet of them). Overall, this project was difficult for me to finish for a variety of reasons, but I feel like I was able to combine my Adobe skills in order to make something fun and something that I am also proud of.

---

WIP:

The premise is that I get transported into the game that I was playing, Animal Crossing. In the game, I then meet one of my favorite villagers, Stitches, and do a variety of activities with him! This was when I still wanted to do the video with hand drawn animation and includes a really short clip of the animation style I wanted to attempt. Unfortunately, the finalized video uses a series of simple images... but I found that style to be way easier to work with due to the circumstances of time.

Programs used were Adobe Photoshop for backgrounds, Adobe Animate for animation, Adobe Premiere for video exporting and sound. The backgrounds can be viewed in detail here: