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This was my final project for 2D Animation at the UW-Madison. It features a mellow soundtrack and simple plot line. Because it lacked dialog, I wanted the aesthetics to tell the story. Using Adobe After Effects, I pieced together stills I painted in photoshop, and added in sound effects from multiple libraries and online sources. Enjoy!
Our class was assigned the task of documenting food being prepared, and to do it however we wanted. I persuaded my roommate, Clayton, to let me to film him preparing and baking a cake from scratch. Throughout the video, which was capped by the professor to be one minute long, I got in close and framed every texture as specifically as I could. I wanted the viewer to feel the ooze of the raw batter and experience the landing pile of chocolate chips.
The day before we shot this short, my friends and I scripted up a two and a half minute narrative to test out our comedic abilities. Apart from the steaming fresh script, my interests in shooting this video lay in the acquisition of a HD Panasonic camera and fluid head tripod. Using myself and my fellow screenwriters as actors, it took over 40 takes to complete this project.
I created this video to bring to light the need for volunteers for our church's setup crew. Our Sunday meeting is located in a school, so it is necessary for us to reconstruct the entire stage, sound setup, concessions, and overflow area every week. I myself have served with the crew, and was then made aware of their constant need for additional help. The song used for the soundtrack was composed by Hans Zimmer for the show The Contender and is available for free download at the official site.
For my Documentary Course we were required to shoot a one minute "quickie doc" portraying a stranger. We could choose anyone for this project. For my subject I went to Madison's famous State Street. I found Bok Choy playing her accordian, the Dream Machine. If you have not done so yet, watch the documentary and then continue reading below.
I chose to showcase this young woman's innocence and sweetness; she has expressiveness and desires to be loved and accepted. This is contrasted by the environment around her and the necesity for her to deal with disrespectful drunks and artistic apathy.
After 4 months of tutorials, modeling, animating, four hour classes, and three days of rendering Sub Rosa was ready to turn in as my semester project. I modeled the soldier from scratch, shaping it in 3D, textured it and applying a skeleton to it. The environment was a collection of my own work and downloaded structures, such as the gun and the pickup truck. I designed the scene and setup the cinematography and lighting based on experience from my set design class as well as my personal asthetic experience. Read on to see more 3D design work created over the semester, as well as stills from my process and animations.
These short animations come to you direct from my 2D Animation syllabus. While these aren't the first frame-by-frame animations that I have done, they posed their own unique challenges. I had never used Flash or After Effects before this semester, but in addition to that learning curve, I had never drawn frame by frame animations before. In the short depicting the alien goo launching the rocket, I hand drew every unique frame. I cut corners where it was allowed, but still put in many hours on this simple character. 'Le Tiger' took more time in prep, finding and organizing cutouts, than it took to animate. However, it was shot on 16mm color stock, harkening back to the days before 'contorl-z' or 'file->save'. It brought me back to the nostalgia of my first Lego films. Ah yes... I spent hours and hours making those little men move.
...oh, and in case you don't understand 'Director Showdown', remember that George Lucas might be famous for 'Star Wars' but Steven Spielberg has won more oscars that George... who hasn't won any.
A warmly remembered relic of my senior year of college, this video feature several of my class mates as we attept to explain the origin of rocks. Lightly based on the wacky character of the beloved Bill Nye the Science Guy, Dr. Eccentric and his child friend use riveting visuals and dramatic examples to divulge the origins of the univers, and even Earth itself. There were very low expectations set on this project by the teachers, but our small team greatly enjoyed reaching for the stars as we set aside time out of our busy schedules to make this a memorable short.
MadCity Church came to a cross roads in joining together with another church, creating City Church. In light of the change and the significance of the move, I put together a short video highlighting some of the more poiniant emotions rippling through the church body. Expectancy, hope, exhaustion, and resilience were mixed into a veritable whirlpool of emotion as this, my old church, joined with another.
I created this documentary for my 2nd semester film class my freshman year of college. For this particular project we were able to choose our own topics of interest to explore as long as the final cuts were not longer than 10 minutes. I did actually break this barrier by 31 seconds, but was forgiven by the class and teacher. The idea for this video was given to me by my parents who suggested I interview some of the members of the Maurice S. Surlow Senior Residences, dedicated to serving Russian Jews. It was conveniently located right across the street from my apartment and made for some interesting, and moving, conversation.
I’ve wanted to make films since early adolescence. In sixth grade I purchased Steven Spielberg’s Lego Movie Maker Set. It turned out to be one of the best investments I’d ever make. My friends and I used the Lego webcam to create dozens of stop-motion and live-action short films - some good, some strange.
Since then, I’ve gained extensive experience behind the camera in television production, wedding shoots, black and white film, and production assistance for other production companies such as Apple Inc.’s Educational Division. In addition, I have developed my skills in graphic art, website design, and 3d modelling.
Thank you for visiting, and please contact me with any questions or comments
Email Address:mail@timcollinsmedia.comBased out of Madison, WI.Phone Number: (608) 352-0TIM