Brian’s Blog

Calculation Sheets

Data sheet #1

Data sheet #2

Data sheet #3

Data sheet #4

 

Comparison

The total size of my ecological footprint was 9.40 hectares. When comparing my score to some of my peers, I believe my score is on the higher end of the spectrum.

 

Anya = 8.85 hectares

Devon = 6.75 hectares

Tyson = 11.16 hectares

Ben = 10.07 hectares

 

The Plan

Ten actions which increase my ecological footprint

The main contributors of my large ecological footprint were taking unnecessarily long showers, spending too much time using technology, owning a four-door vehicle, consuming non-organic + dairy/milk products, having some first-hand clothing, producing too much waste, eating farmed and wild fish, spending too much time in vehicles, taking public transit, and needing some equipment for my activities. There are many changes that I can make to reduce my ecological footprint, but here are the five actions that I chose to change.

 

Five actions to reduce my ecological footprint

 

1. Reducing my time spent showering from over ten minutes to under two minutes.                 Taking long showers waste a lot of water, which I understand is very impactful on the environment. I wanted to make this change because I often take my access to water for granted, and the water that I waste can be used for much better purposes. In order to my time spent showering, I plan on timing myself and reducing the amount of water dispensed from my shower head. I believe these changes will be fairly easy to implement, while still greatly reducing the impact I have on our environment.

 

2. Refrain from including fish in my diet.                                                                                         I think that eating organic foods is out of the question for my family because my parents believe it’s too expensive of an investment, so I decided to try and eliminate fish from my diet. When we eat as a family, the dishes are set on the table and there are many different options to pick from. If possible I will ask my grandparents to cook with other proteins, if this isn’t possible I will move the fish to the farthest end of the table, to avoid temptation.

 

3. Remove milk products from my diet.                                                                                           I drink quite a lot of milk with my meals, but sometimes I don’t drink enough water. I think that switching over to water is a very beneficial and simple change for my lifestyle. According to the newly created Canadian Food Guide, milk is not a necessary component of a healthy diet anymore, and water is strongly encouraged as the drink of choice. Removing milk products from my diet will reduce my ecological footprint. As well, water is a great choice to stay hydrated. I believe this change will be fairly easy to make, I just need to set reminders for myself to drink more water.

 

4. Reducing the amount of waste I produce.                                                                                                                           I produce quite a lot of waste in a week, which isn’t very good for the environment. I believe reducing my waste will be a difficult journey, but definitely one that’s worthwhile. I think the problem is that I use products which are pretty heavy in terms of packaging and end up producing quite a lot of waste. Since I’m also reducing the amount of yogurt and other dairy products I eat, I’ll be able to decrease waste because of less food product packaging.

 

5. Spending less time in vehicles.                                                                                                  In a typical school week, I would usually take public transit to get to Gleneagle. Most of my time is spent on buses and typically not in cars. I believe that spending less time taking public transit will be made fairly easy because of social isolation during the current pandemic, but I’d still like to cut down on the amount of time I spend riding in a car. If I plan on going anywhere, I’d like to instead use a bike or just walk/run to my destination. Biking is always very refreshing and doesn’t take too much energy, as well, I probably won’t need to bike over long distances. I think COVID-19 is the perfect opportunity for me to reduce my time in cars and buses and take time to travel slowly and enjoy the nature around me. 

 

What was easy to change? What was difficult to change?

Two weeks have gone by, and it’s been a pretty long journey. One of the easiest changes to make was removing farmed and wild fish from my diet. Almost every few days, my grandparents would make a dish which included fish in some way. Sitting at the opposite end of the table from the fish ended up working very well and made reaching over the table too awkward and decreased temptation. Another pretty simple transition was spending less time in vehicles. I ended up biking a lot with my dad around our neighborhood, and I didn’t really need to go anywhere. With the pandemic, this change was made pretty easy, but I’m afraid I’ll have to continue taking public transit when the pandemic is over, and I have to return to school. Reducing my shower time to two minutes was also an easy change to make. All I had to do was set a timer and step out when the timer ran out. I also reduced the amount of water my showerhead dispensed to conserve more water. I happened to have a few mishaps when removing milk products from my diet over these past two weeks. I found my action of removing milk products challenging because a lot of the milk products I consume on a weekly basis such as yogurt or cheese have become a routine, and sometimes I forgot that my action included all milk products. I found changing from milk to water very simple yet beneficial, but I found it difficult keeping up a conscious guard of milk products which I had familiarized myself with. I think reducing my waste was by far the most difficult action to make. I found regularly keeping track of the waste I produced fairly strenuous. Removing milk products from my diet turned out to be beneficial towards this action, as since I removed yogurt and milk, there was much less waste in terms of packaging.

 

Obstacles

One of my obstacles was getting used to starting to shower with cold water. Typically, I would wait for the water to get warmer before I showered, so the change took a bit of time to get used to. At first, I had some trouble getting used to the cold water, but the water gradually got warmer, and with time I ended up getting used to the process. Another obstacle as I had mentioned before was consciously keeping a guard against the milk products which I had already implemented into my daily routine. Sometimes I would forget my action and slip up by eating a cup of yogurt. Another obstacle I had

 

The future

I’ve always wanted to try visiting a thrift store, because there are really cool and unique items that can be reused for environmentally friendly purposes. Shopping at a thrift store would definitely be something I would like to move towards in the future. I think this action would be a great step for me towards a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. For the future, I would also like to purchase more organic food products and buy consumption products which are BC grown.

 

This is my TALON Talk on how different levels of chlorophyll and other plant pigments affect the coloration of leaves throughout the changes of fall.

TALON Talk – How do different levels of chlorophyll and other plant pigments affect the coloration of leaves throughout the changes of fall?

 

Thank you for listening, and I hope you learned something new. Please leave any comments or questions below.

Welcome to Brian’s In-Depth Night Blog Post!

Good evening! My name is Brian, and this is the concluding post for my first In-Depth on flip book animation.

Before we get into my In-Depth project, I would really like to thank my mentor, Simon Piniel. Simon was always an incredibly supportive mentor who recommended very helpful resources and provided constructive advice to both Ben and I (we had the same mentor). Without his guidance, this project would not have been possible.

I hope that you’ve had or will have an enjoyable experience this evening. Thank you for taking the time to join me today. As my concluding and final project for this year’s In-Depth project, I’ve prepared a short flip book animation of one of my favourite scenes from the animated TV series, Steven Universe.

Animation (I apologize for the lighting): Steven Universe and Lapis Lazuli

For reference, this is the scene I was trying to create (3:53 – 3:59). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to animate as much of the scene as I wanted to accomplish. I originally planned to include the scene of Lapis’ gem healing (3:59 – 4:09), but I realized this was much too ambitious for the time I had to work with. I’m still very proud of the work I’ve accomplished, considering I’ve never attempted animation before this year. The animations aren’t as fluid as the original, and some minor details can be fixed, but I’m happy with the progress I made throughout my journey this year.

Some of my previous studies 

Article A)                                                      

Article B)

Article C)

Article A: Study of different walk cycles. In this study, I observed the poses that compose walks which display different moods and atmospheres.

Article B: This page is from the notes I created on the 12 principles of animation, which was shown to Ben and I by our mentor, Simon.

Article C: A study of the facial expressions and poses of different cartoon characters.

 

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comment section. I will be answering any questions that you have. I hope you have an enjoyable evening looking at the In-Depth pursuits of my peers, and thank you for joining me this evening!

1. An update on your progress since the last post #5 as well as an reflection on your mentor meetings online or over the phone.

Since my last post, I have started to create my final project. I plan to animate a scene from the cartoon series Steven Universe. Steven Universe was one of my inspirations when choosing flip book animation for my In-Depth project, and I always admired the series’ seamless animations and transitions.

These are some of the frames I have created so far.

I believe there are many challenging aspects of this animation, but I think it’ll be a great summarization of my learning throughout this year’s In-Depth. I’m disappointed in myself as I haven’t been keeping in contact with Simon, especially since he’s been a very supportive and active mentor. As I continue to make process on my final project, I will be updating Simon with details on my animation, and I’m very thankful for his guidance and cooperation throughout the whole process.

2. Describe how you are going to present and share your final post to our guests during our online In-depth Night on May 25th.

Since it’s impossible for me to upload every single page of my flip book animation, I’m planning on uploading a video of my finalized flip book animation. I will also be posting some of my previous works and highlights of the year so our guests can view my progress and provide short pieces of writing to offer further explanation to some of my uploaded photos and videos. I hope that the projects I display will be able brighten someone’s day, and I hope that our guests will have an enjoyable and immersive experience.

Due the recent COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve been trying to adjust and adapt my work schedule in order to keep track of all my assignments with little to no success. Lately I’ve been preoccupied with other tasks and haven’t be able to find the time or energy to work on In-Depth other than looking at useful resources online. Over the past few weeks I have been studying resources specifically tailored to flip book animation and not animation as a general category. I mainly looked at videos because I prefer having a visual aid, and the commentary specifically in Youtube videos provide room for explanation and reasoning behind certain techniques and steps. I thought that many of the tips were very helpful and made a lot of sense to me. Such as numbering pages and creating key poses as reference. I think the one that I will use most will probably be taking videos of myself performing actions in order to make my animations seem more realistic.

1. How to make a flip book
2. How to make a flip book – using reference and weight
3. Flip book examples
4. Flip book examples – Andymation

I really enjoy the videos on flip book animation created by Andymation because his animations are always filled to the brim with personality and humour. I hope to emulate this quality in the works that I create in the future. I believe the concept that I’ll struggle most with is weight and proportions, as I’ve never been to great at maintaining any of them. Since I currently don’t possess a flip book kit, I’ll most likely improvise a flip book kit using elastics paper strips and a screen.

1. What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?

As Simon has a lot of experience in the field of animation, he’s been great help in finding great books and videos on animation principles and concepts. Simon understands the process of being a beginner in animation, and he’s been able to guide us through the process by equipping us with as many concepts and techniques he can in order to aid our learning. As well, he’s been able to share some of his experiences with Ben and I, and has helped me learn more about the industry of animation.

2. What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?

At the moment, not many learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning, since I have been keeping in contact as much with my mentor, but I’ll be updating him soon on my progress through email. From then on, I’ll try getting into contact with ben and arrange a video call meeting with Simon.

3. What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?

I firmly believe that the only way to accelerate learning is through practice, which I have not gotten enough of over the past few weeks. I think that the best way to learn is to use studies in practice by implementing the techniques and concepts that I’ve learned so far. Practicing as much as I can allows me to look back and reflect on my previous and current work to see areas that I’ve improved on and areas that I still need to work on.

4. When you get together what do you talk about?

When we meet with Simon, we usually review previously learned concepts and move on to learn something new. Our meetings have mainly served as a time for us to ask questions and clarify details about the concepts of animation that we learn or have learned. Simon provides me with ways that I can improve my technique, as well, he suggests studies for me to practice next. When we met in person, Simon was able to pull out books from his collection to show us. We would also spend some of our time getting to know each other better and ask about each others’ days.

5. What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?

Something that has been going particularly well is that Simon has been a very constant figure to refer and ask questions to. Simon has been providing many helpful online resources as well as being very supportive during these times of social distancing.

6. What are you learning about one another?

Through this mentorship experience, I’ve learned a lot about Simon’s mentorship background and his experiences within the animation industry. As well, I’ve had the chance to briefly meet his wife and son. I hope that I’ll be able to learn more about his experiences through our future interactions.

More to come – Brian Cheng.

Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, I have not yet had a meeting with my mentor since my previous post, but I have been studying online resources on tips and principles in the world of animation. Since I am not particularly experienced with animation, I have been spending the past few weeks mainly reviewing the twelve principles of animation and different walk cycles. Right now, I’m trying to create a note package for a Youtube video which discusses the 12 principles of animation.

I have currently completed notes for 5/12 of the principles of animation

For the past few weeks I’ve worked on studying different character walk cycles as well. I began by drawing the steps of a standard walk cycle. From there I wanted to draw walk cycles that conveyed a story and expressed emotion, and at that point I found a page from Preston Blair’s Cartoon Animation Book titled the “Movements of two legged figures.” This specific page of the book provided many different walk cycles, each of which made use of posture and body language to convey a message to the reader; the material on the page was exactly what I had been looking for, so I studied many of the walk cycles the page had displayed.I decided to study some of the walk cycles that were shown on the page by attempting to replicate the form and posture as well as I could. I found it fairly difficult to create forms that flow well into each other, this process was a really good learning experience, as it helped me grasp a better understanding of key poses and Inbetweening. After this post I plan to begin actually creating flip book animations and make use of the time I have because of this prolonged break from school.

1. What has been the most difficult mentoring challenge so far? Why?

The most difficult mentoring challenge so far has been meeting with my mentor during the recent COVID-19 outbreak. Because of the virus, meeting with my mentor in person is out of the question, so our only solutions are to stay in contact through email and hold online meetings with each other. I’m planning on emailing Ben and Simon soon to organize an online meeting on a platform such as Zoom.

2. What is working well? Why?

Something that is working well currently is going back to the basics of animation. After the studying and research that I had completed over the past few weeks I’ve started to realize that there are many concepts in animation that I am not remotely familiar with, so the notes that I took are a really good summarization of the learning I have done so far, and they’ve provided me with a sturdier foundation for the concepts that I’ll learn in the near future. I hope to begin animating after this post, and I hope to make good use of the time I have because of our prolonged “break.”

3. What could be working better? How can you make sure this happens?

Right now I am struggling with motivating myself to work on my In-depth project. Since our break has been prolonged I have more than enough time every day to work on my In-depth, I don’t have to worry about the time I spend on public transportation between my home and Gleneagle. I’m currently worried that I’ll push off my project because of how much time I now have, so, in order to counteract this issue I’m going to schedule a block of time each day specifically to work on my In-depth project over the break.

More to come – Brian Cheng