Showcase

Hello! My name is Loren Elise Chun, and I am an Animation student at Freestyle. I was introduced to drawing at a young age and have loved it ever since. Since joining Freestyle, I have learned that there is more to drawing than just a pencil and paper. I have grown to love digital art and have gained a passion for it as I’ve entered the world of animation. In addition to drawing, I also love to explore different places, such as Chinatown, where I like to take photos and learn about the diverse cultures.

For my Senior Showcase, I am ecstatic to share a reel of my animation projects as well as my Junior year animated poem. The reel demonstrates the best parts of my animations over the past two years. It shows my improvement over time as well as the different animation techniques that I have been exposed to. My Junior year animated poem is special for me as it was one of my first animations. It is the project I am most proud of because I was able to animate using nontraditional materials such as sand and acrylic paint. In contrast to what I would do digitally, animating in sand required me to animate using straight ahead rather than pose-to-pose animation. This technique, while difficult, appealed to me because it required more planning and effort, which made me proud of the final result.

Some feedback I would be grateful to receive from you would be comments about my imagery. In my art, I work more conceptually than realistically. Because of this, I would like to know if my imagery is fitting for the story. Is it too vague or cliche? What are stronger metaphors I could possibly use? Do my character’s actions exhibit emotion? How can I work to include more into my visuals to better tell the story? In short, how can I better send a message to my audience?

Next year, I plan on continuing down the path of animation at Loyola Marymount University. I look forward to improving in both my animation and storytelling skills. However, I am most excited about experiencing the rich culture which Los Angeles has to offer. I am hoping to gain inspiration from the diverse city and combine it with the skills I have developed from Freestyle and my college studies in order to create animations that will inspire others to pursue art as well.

Thank you so much for taking the time to review my work. You can reach me at Loren.elise1219@gmail.com

Animation Reel

Throughout my two years here at Freestyle, I have explored a variety of animation styles ranging from the traditional flip-book to the 3D space of Autodesk’s Maya. For my first project, I chose to create a compilation of some of the best parts of my animations where you will be able to see the different styles I have experimented with. I would love feedback on whether or not you are able to get a sense of a story from the clips. Did they leave you wanting to know more about the story? And in what ways can I incorporate more information about the story or the background of a character in a single clip?

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During the creation of this reel, I was able to look back at my creations and see my progress. Through this project, I am able to look at how much I have improved as both an artist and storyteller over the past two years. This video shows my experimentation with phenakistoscopes, flip books, sand, Adobe Animate, Adobe Photoshop, and Maya. While the projects featured above are not ordered consecutively, I hope you are still able to see some progression in my artistic style. I ordered the reel in a way where one would hopefully be able to notice a progression from my more serious and negative focus to a more hopeful light. In essence, this reel is meant to portray how both my personality and perspective on life has changed.

Animated Poem

For my second project, I would like to present one of my first projects ever at Freestyle Academy. This project was my first time combining both my English and Animation class. In English we were each given a concept statement that would become the inspiration for our poems. My concept statement was “I am exploring the feeling of overwhelmed through the experience of flying.” I had decided to take a less literal approach to this statement by comparing the idea of flying to the idea of succeeding. I wanted to describe how succeeding can often build higher expectations which can become more pressuring. Hence why one might feel an overwhelming amount of fear as they “fly” because they are afraid of failing and falling. Feedback which I would like to receive about this project would be about how clearly the visuals are able to reflect the poem being told. Did I take too literal of an approach? Does my imagery portray the correct mood of the poem? Are there parts where more metaphors or objects are needed? Overall, do the visuals and the audio create a unified and complete project?

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To create this animation, I chose to explore animating with black sand and acrylic paint. I used Dragon Frame to take pictures of my frames and a light board to create contrast between the paint, sand, and negative space. Animating with the sand was difficult as it required me to switch my brain from associating white with negative space. In addition to that, because I could not copy and paste my drawings, each frame required much more thinking and consideration about where certain my objects were before and would be after. Despite these difficulties, I thoroughly enjoyed this project because of its unique style. This project is particularly special to me because of all of my hard work which I had put into it. I am most proud of the final result of the project because I was able to create motion and tell a story with a nontraditional medium. In some ways, I believe that this project is what truly sparked my passion for animation.

Reflection

By looking at my reel and once again admiring my animated poem, I am able to see how much I have grown as both an artist and a person. Before joining Freestyle I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in animation. I had always loved to draw and thought that animation would allow me to do what I love while also producing art that would be seen throughout the world. However, it was not until I began my lessons at Freestyle where I began to truly appreciate all of the work that is put into the animations I grew up with. I learned not only how much thought goes into making movements both unique and realistic, but also how important each aspect of a scene in an animated film is. When I first began Freestyle, animation seemed like something that was unreachable. I thought, “how would I be able to create an engaging story and turn my drawings into a video?” However, I believe that my reel and my animated poem prove to myself that I have the capabilities to create a film like the ones I have always admired. Looking at my projects, I know that I have a lot to improve on. Even then, I am still proud of what I have been able to accomplish. Knowing that I have taken risks by trying out different styles and taking a more conceptual approach to my animations, I can not help but to be proud of the artist I am becoming. As I went through these past two years creating a variety of projects, I found myself slowly falling in love with story telling. While my interest in animation and drawing still remains, I have found that the projects I enjoy most, such as my animated poem, are the ones which send the strongest message. A new dream of mine that has derived from my time here at Freestyle is to tell stories and lessons using animation. A big question that we are always asked is “why animation?” I believe that animation gives the artist the power to create anything they want. To turn their imagination into a reality. Animation allows you to turn words into visuals. I believe that my animated poem is where I found my passion in being able to turn my imagination into a reality. Where I found my new dream to share stories with my audience. My reel has showed me that I am on the right path to accomplish this dream. I have much to improve on, but through my reel, I can see that I have the capability to create anything I want to create. I have the freedom to tell stories in anyway I choose to. Thanks to Freestyle, I have been able to find purpose in my art other than to simply draw and now I have the ability to share both my stories and my art with others.