Assignment 1

goals

• use technology to support collabouration and interaction with others.
• access, use, and communicate information from a variety of technologies.

task

Your first assignment is to "use technology to support collabouration and interaction with others" as the Ministry of Education put it in 1995. In current terms, that means you will need to install Skype, which can be found here:

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/get-skype/

Once you have it, or if you already had it, you will need to register an account, and then go to the drop down list labelled 

Assignment 2

goals

• describe a variety of digital-imaging tools and formats used by industry professionals.
• use the tools available to set basic colour and graphic design characteristics of a file or document to aid viewing and clarify meaning.
• select graphic file formats appropriate for use in print, video, or web.

task

For this assignment you need to use the image editing software of your choice (ask your tech support for suggestions if you need help finding a good one) to create a main character for a short animation. Keep it simple (remember that you will be using this character in an actual animation) and draw at least two different poses from different perspectives. Artistic talent isn't quite as important here as making sure that you are familiar with your character and have a solid idea of what they should look like from all angles.

Make sure that the image you turn in is a jpeg smaller than 100kb.

Assignment 3

goals

• acknowledge ideas and material taken from other sources.
• assess the legal and ethical issues of using source material from movies or television.
• demonstrate a moral, ethical, legal, and courteous approach to the use of technology.
• acknowledge ideas and material taken from other sources.
• consider the ethical issues relevant to misrepresenting the work of others by digital manipulation.

task

So far you have only dealt with original content, which keeps you in the clear as far as copyrights go. However if you decide that you need to use content from outside sources you may run into trouble. Most images and sounds are illegal to copy from the web into your own projects. The remaining content is released under several different licenses, each of which allows for a different degree of usage.

Your task for this assignment is to go to Wikimedia Commons and find three pictures of clouds released under different licenses. Send me a link to each each image, along with a short description of what you might be allowed to use that image for and the conditions for using that image.

Quick link to the clouds category: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Clouds

Assignment 4

goals

• design a storyboard for a digital video production.
• define the stages of digital video production (e.g., pre-production, production, and post-production).
• plan digital content before producing it.

task

Stage two of the animation project is to complete a storyboard for an animation of about two minutes long. Use the character you created in the first animation related assignment. Once again, artistic quality is not required. You just need to have a general idea about how you want your animation to flow, the pacing of scene changes, etc. Remember to properly compress the images you turn in.

Assignment 5

goals

• define terms associated with digital animation such as layering, channels, paths, and transitions.
• identify and use a variety of tools and resources for creating digital animation content.
• use digital animation terminology.
• design and create original animation content using a variety of animation tools and media elements.
• use appropriate layering, transitions, and filters in the production of digital video.
• use a variety of existing media elements to create desktop digital video productions with defined structures.
• explain the advantages and disadvantages of specific output formats for delivering digital content.

task

Here's the big one. Animating one scene from your storyboard using Flash, or about 30 seconds worth of it. Use tweening, layers, masks, and the flash timeline to create your masterpiece. I will need both an exported .swf file and the original .fla turned in to mark the assignment.

At this point, you'll probably realize that the character you started with isn't as fun to animate as you thought, or you would rather do a different script. That's why we are only doing one scene from this initial planned animation and you are going to to start over from scratch for the final project. Also, I'd highly recommend that you continue to mess around in Flash in your free time, more can be learned this way than by any amount of teaching.

assignment 6

goals

• create a plan for the development of web documents and web sites.
• describe the limitations of HTML. (Note: A whole lot less limited than it was in 1995.)
• construct a complex document using a variety of page layout and graphic design concepts and tools.
• select and use appropriate textures, templates, and filters in 2D media.

task

Draw a mockup for a single page website, include a heading bar, menu, and content window in your design. Pay attention to colour scheme and aesthetics. Simplicity is key, having too many features on a single page leads to confusion and frustration on the part of visitors to your site.

Remember to properly compress turned in images.

Assignment 7

goals

• use conventions for naming files and folder hierarchy.
• design interactive web media that balance the use of large graphic files with the need to provide efficient downloads.
• design interactive web media using a variety of digital tools and web editors.
• insert hyperlinks in original content.
• understand and apply World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards.
• use web site program validators.
• describe and use a variety of tools to edit Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
• use FTP protocol to update a web site.

task

Follow your website plan in the construction of a single webpage. Use both HTML and CSS to style your website. Marks will be given on cleaness of code and adherence to the W3C standards, which you can check your code against using the following validators:

Html:

http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_input

CSS:

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/#validate_by_input

Final Project

Create a full length (two minutes) animation using Flash. You are free to use whatever style you wish. It does not have to be simply a story either. You are welcome to create a fake movie trailer, an advertisement, or whatever else you might consider to be a fair test of your skills as an animator. Don't forget general presentation: a starting menu and a replay button will be required for a full grade.

Once again, both .fla and .swf files will be required for marking.