2018 UCLA Summer traditional Summer Animation Program

Summer of 2018 I enrolled in the Summer Animation Program at my university, UCLA. I have always been an ardent fan of animation, having grown up watching the classics such as Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and more. I am captivated by Cartoons and Anime, my favourite animation of all time is Avatar the Last Airbender.

The Summer Animation Program was inspiring, particularly as we worked at old desks that Disney animators had used, which was totally awesome. I studied traditional animation and learned key techniques; the process of Storyboarding, adding sound to animations and the history of the industry.

I began by exploring basic animation techniques and produced a bouncing ball animation so that it cycled through in a way that each frame was captured once, twice and then three times. Gradually I expanded my animation know-how to include a facial expression animation and adding sound, subsequently, I was able to portray a simple yet comedic story. For my walk cycle animation task, I had fun and enjoyed making the sound and character rather goofy. My final project, ‘Kids don’t press random buttons’, is a story of someone pressing a random button while being ignorant of its miraculous effects,  here I further enhanced my skills by animating the back layers over the front layers. At the end of the program, I had extra time and utilised a Pan to animate my newly created character, Space Cow, flying through space.

Space Cow Adventures

The year following my Animation Course, I had to create a video as a final project for my Hindi-Urdu class. I decided this was an excellent opportunity to refresh my animation abilities and resurrect Space Cow, while also showcasing my heavily accented Hindi-Urdu proficiency.