So You Want To Be An Animator?

So...You want to be an Animator?  " Why yes! Yes I do.

What was the driving force for your decision?

"Well let's see if I can pinpoint the exact moment. Oh! now I remember. I've always been fascinated with animation but rather than creating it I was more consumed with watching it. My father was a graphic designer and was amazed at the animation of the Smurfs cartoon. My son created stop-motion which blew my mind. My daughter is now involved with creating DIY videos. Each of them are a true inspiration for me.

Recently, I applied for a position to create closed caption for videos. The application process required me to caption three different videos. Each more complex than the last. Needless to say, I didn't pass the application process. Their words "Please do not apply again". OUCH!

The next morning, still stinging from their response, I had coffee in hand and thought about what I had learned. What could I do with this information. "Use it". So I did. I began looking for open source animation programs. I came upon Synfig.

I see you have some videos posted. Could you tell us a little about them?

I would be happy to.

The First animation, "Happy Frog" using Synfig was created after viewing a few tutorials and just playing with some basic shapes. I was getting the feel of the software and it's capabilities, while not really having any sort of story in mind.

With this first animation I was practicing with the layering, text, and sound tools in conjunction with animating the "frog" character. When  I had finished making the frame I noticed that the sound layer did not follow into the rendered file. Fortunately, Synfig has a detailed manual available online which serves as a wonderful resource which answers many questions along with their community board.

The second animation, "Flower" using Synfig was created directly while viewing the Flower tutorial on Youtube with John Lee. I needed to learn how to connect the position point of the petals with the bud so that the petals moved with the bud throughout the animation. This is really a great tutorial.

The last animation, "A Snail's Trail", is a compilation of using what I had learned while creating the first two animations. The first thing is to create the characters first and animating each character separately. Saving each character as a working Synfig file. Once the characters are created I could copy the characters onto a background layer. I could hide the character file if I was not using it in the frame I was creating. From this point I could move the characters through the frame creating the movement of each character.

I'm using Windows7 and found that saving each frame to a windows media video (.wmv) file works best for me to render a working frame. From there I use Windows Movie Maker to insert music and finalize the completed animation.

What advice would you offer to anyone who may want to try animation?

It may seem a little intimidating at first. I had no prior experience with this either. View the Synfig tutorials on Youtube.  Be patient with yourself and keep practicing.  It's a lot of fun. Keep creating.