Capstone Project Proposal Draft

Name of student: Isabelle Stewart Block: B

Teacher: Ms. Bowne

The Capstone strand I have chosen is… Project (film + visual arts)

Proposed title for my Project Proposal: (write the proposed title for your Capstone Project in one clear

sentence):

Short 2D animation film.

What is your inquiry question that interests you for further research? It should be a question that
connects with a purpose, passion or personalized area of interest for you. This is a question that you
cannot just google an answer for. Please see examples from your Capstone booklet.
My inquiry question is:

How does creating a 2D animation, connect to an audience?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are
choosing to investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry connect to
your passion(s), purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

I have dabbled in stop motion animation and had a decent amount of experience with film in
general, however creating a full animation start to finish has always been out of my range. The idea
has always been there in the back of my mind just taunting me to take it on. When I first heard of
the capstone project in grade 10, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

Like most kids I grew up watching Disney, Pixar and Dream Works films, it wasn’t until I was older,
did I know I could be the one to artistically spread those stories. These stories and these worlds
created have always fascinated me, I’m even more intrigued to know I could be the one of the
people helping carry out these films. I’ve grown up with a connection to the magic of animation and
I hope to see myself become apart of it in some form.

I knew I wanted to create an animation, but I didn’t know what kind of animation. I knew I wanted it
to be one with hidden details like Alex Hirsch’s tv show ‘Gravity Falls’ but beyond that didn’t know
what it should be about or what genre it should fall under. That was until I watch Netflix’s award
winning short film ‘If Anything Happens I Love You’ released it’s 12 minutes of certain tears. I don’t
know a single person who could watch this silent film about a school shooting and not cry. I’ve
always believed that art is not meant to please us but rather invoke feelings within us. I knew I
wanted my film to emotional to some extent.

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Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this area of
inquiry?

Art: Anyone that knows me knows I art is my life. I grew up in an art school and after moving to BC
to an Mountain I did not realize how much I would miss it. I’m now in grade 12 taking all the arts
courses I can. I have too many sketchbooks to count and my bedroom walls are lined with
inspiration. Photographs I draw inspiration from. Other artist I can learn from and skills I hope to
obtain. Old artwork I can learn from past mistakes. Although animation will stretch my artistic
abilities it is an intimidating medium I wish to try.
Film: I’ve never personally taken a film class at our school however my friend Maya has. She’s
going off to film school next year. You could not ask for a better duo than a drama student and film
student. I attended the Zoom festival this year with her helping her with a film that won best
screenplay.
In grade 7 we had a big name from the film industry in to help us with a social studies project (no I
don’t remember his name). Often my old school would hire artists off all kinds to come in and teach
kids of different grades different skills to help with their current class project (fashion shows, films,
needle felt, the circus etc.). This artist in particular stuck with me as he relived his experiences on
different film sets. I remember him telling us how the lightsaber noise was created through a
mixture of noises most notably a powerline snapping.
Animation: Although I don’t have too much animation experience part of the capstone project is to
learn. I know how to stop motion animate. Which includes Claymation and really old Disney movies
that only include the original characters. I learnt through a verity of YouTube videos when I was
younger. The method of computer animation I’m going to use will have to be taught.
In grade 10 I did an online workshop through Emily Carr developing characters. Because of this I
have background in developing character sketches and characters intended for animation.

Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What connections
does this inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

My current intended career is just seeing where art school takes me. If I enjoy creating this project,
I see myself spending a lot time animating in the future and possibly transferring to a more
specified animation school to then go on and work for a larger corporation like DreamWorks or
Disney. As I’ve said before though I right now I just wanna ride the waves of life and see where
current takes me.
As stated before a project like this has always been in the back of mind and I’m just now seizing the
opportunity to take it up. Films from Disney and Dream Works will always carry a personal
connection with me and my childhood. Academically this project will help me develop some skills I
need to take on my intended area career, but not necessarily get me through high school.
I’ve always believed that art exists not for the pleasure of others but to invoke feelings within us. If
my art can put a smile on someone’s face, make them cry or spark conversations of anger then I
know I did my job. For this project I hope an audience will respond with some form of emotional
reaction. That’s my overall goal for every artwork this one included.

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Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core
competencies will be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

Personal Awareness and Responsibility

Throughout my capstone process I will need to carry personal aweless and responsibility by self-
regulating and ‘setting goals, regulating my emotions and persevering in difficult times &
understanding learning takes patience and time.’ I will need to take care of myself through this
process. My goal is to not procrastinate this project and rather stager the work through time. It is a
simple achievable goal for myself. I know in the past I have procrastinated projects and been burnt
out in a short period of time because of the amount of work I had to do in so little time. I cannot
afford to do that with this project.
Social Responsibility
My capstone project is something I am going to share and collaborate with others because ‘I am
aware of my community and environment and can work independently and collaboratively’. I
believe creativity is fed off other people. I hope to talk and work with others through various stages
of my capstone. Everyone carries a fresh set of eyes and I value diverse creative thoughts coming
from a different people with different cultural and creative backgrounds.
Critical Thinking
The capstone project takes a lot of time and the right headspace, that is why it is important to
‘assess my progress.’ So, I can understand how much I have left and allow room for errors and
growth. This is a project I truly want to be proud of and for that to happen I must ‘analyze and
critique my work.’ I need to understand what not every image drawn is going to be perfect on the
first try. I need to be willing to completely start over certain scenes and take a different approach.
Creative Thinking
My creative thinking skills may be the most important through this process. There will be times that
I mess up and a frame is not drawn correctly or forgot to click save but I understand that I will need
to ‘persevere and understand that failure can be productive.’ I’m going to try and take every fail as
win. Every time I fail, I’m learning something new and growing my skills.
Communication
My communication skills are not the best however I hope I gather value in communication through
this. Because the video content may be heavy and emotionally touching to others I must ‘listen,
learn and contribute to meaningful discussion.’ Because I hope to share my experiences along the
way with friends and family who may offer meaningful feedback/ insight I must ‘reflect on the
process of learning to share what I have learned.’ I hope to earn better communicating skills with
others when I walk out of my capstone.
Personal and Cultural Identity.
‘I understand culture is a broad concept that includes things like my geographic region, nationality,
sex/ gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, language and religion.’
I want to understand how animation can connect to an audience to a more personal/ cultural level.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel confident in my abilities to truly capture the essence of another culture
different from mine. Because it is someone else’s culture I would not want any inaccurate
representation. Throughout the years animators have utilized the art in racist derogatory ways
which is not something I support in any way. I can learn from what they did, by not doing it.
However, I made the relationships more diverse. Very rarely do we see a single dad and daughter
relationship on screen or in movies. That is the exact relationship I have set up in my short film.

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Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to present
your project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once completed. You
may use a combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or o Website
PPT o imovie presentation
o Physical portfolio o YouTube channel

A: Physical portfolio outlining my story, characters (story boards and character sketches)
B: A singular video uploaded to YouTube.
All of this will be captured under and included in a PowerPoint presentation.

Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what will
you research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced at the end
of this project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your proposal.
Firstly I will need to find a platform to this through (Krita) then I will need to learn how to use it. This
will be taught to me through tutorials and a handbook. Then I will need to learn how to use the
animation portion of the platform. Krita also allows artists to just draw singular images instead of
frame by frame animation. It is what it is most known for however, they also offer animation
software. No matter what animation browser you’re using (Clip Studio, Adobe, TV Paint etc.) the
structure will look different and may be difficult to navigate.

Second step is developing my idea for my animation. My current idea has developed immensely
over time and is currently nothing close to the original. When developing this I will need to consider
actors character and scenery. Because I am just learning I will need to consider that too many
characters is going to be out my abilities. The more bodies I must animate, the more reference
shots and character sketches I need. As well as the more frames I will need to develop each of
those characters. So I’ve set a maximum of two characters for myself + background.
When learning to animate, schools will often dedicate an entire year to just learning scenery. The
best animations have good scenery as well as a good story. So for this I’ve decided to focus most
my energy on the background and pictures that come out of it. In total my two characters see 7
different locations throughout the duration of the film.

Third I will need to create my physical portfolio. I will need to have story boards complete of all the
frame by frame shots I wish to capture as well as character sketches for each characters. I have
yet to decide if color will make it into the animation or if I have the skills for that but I will create the
character sketches intended for color. Meaning each character will carry a different color pallet. I
would like to make a rough draft of all the major scenery locations as well. If there’s any details
within my film that you might not otherwise catch, then they will be included in my portfolio as well.

Fourth I will need to create reference shots for all the frames in total I have about 48 shots to
recreate. I know some of the shots I have intended are out of skill range without a reference. Many
professional animators use reference shots. Reference shots will help me visually and accurately
depict how to move the human body. A reference shot is an image used to help guide an artist. In
this case it is not just an image but a video.
[A video is just a bunch of images placed in a rapid sequence that when sped up create a video.
One second of any given video is 24 frames per second. 24 images per second. If I aim for my

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 video to be 10 minutes that’s 600 seconds, following 24fps will give me a total of 14,400 frames/
pictures.]

The fifth step will be to turn my videos into broken up images to actually capture my individual
reference frames. Every video will be turned into a series of images that will help me animate. This
may involve me downloading extra software to allow me to do this. This will be time consuming and
tedious but required to move onto the next step.

The next step will be drawing the images. This may require layers to do so. Digitally artists can
separate parts of their images. I will have a rough sketch layer, a background/ scenery rough
sketch layer a final outline layer, a final background/ scenery outline layer, a shadow and highlight
layer and lastly a possible color layer. In total I will have 6 layers (trust me a singular drawing can
easily exceed 50 layers I just decided to break it into the major layers). This may be the longest
part of this process as I will have around 14,400 images to draw.

The next step will then be to edit all the videos the make a short film. This step I will need help with
and will most likely download all my videos onto a stick and bring it into school to get extra help in
the video room.

The last step would be adding sound. I do not want to voice record anyone and would rather this
stay a silent film. However music will be added and some faint sound effects will be added. I have
reached out to one of our school’s artists Mr. Grey and asked for his help. I believe a piano will fit
my film the best and so we will need to compose and record bits and pieces of music to string
together for the film. Once we have that we just add it on top of the existing videos it will have come
to an end. Well then there’s uploading it to YouTube and everything that follows.

Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and skills you
will need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to access/learn all of the
resources necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail your plans.

Physical materials
For this process I will need a surprising amount of technology. I will be using my computer, tablet
and pen. All of which has been by me for quite some time and I will have no issue accessing my
own technology. I will also need a stick to upload all my videos to transport them to be edited. I
have a few old memory sticks lying around my house somewhere, its just a matter of finding them.
Once I have the stick to move the videos, I will need to bring them to school where I will get help
editing and stitching everything together. For that I will need a school computer which will be
accessed in the video room. Once that is complete, I will wipe the memory stick of any unstitched
videos and upload the new video. I will also need access to the music rooms and a piano to record
the sound. Mr. Grey has access to the music rooms and we have already agreed that before school
may be the best time to record. I will borrow a sound stick from the video room to record the sound.
For all the video equipment I will email the video teacher (Mr. Cawdell) and see if we can arrange
something. Although I have never taken a video class Mr. Cawdell is familiar with me and all the
projects I have helped my friends in.
Apps and software

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 Not only will I need a verity of materials but I will need a variety of apps as well. I will my main
drawing/ animating app Krita, which is already downloaded on my computer. I will then need to
download a video editing app called Kaden Live which will turn my video into a series of photos. I
will need my phone to capture the original reference shots. After that I will need to use whatever
video editing software the school uses to edit my videos and stitch them together.

Mentors/Community Connections: What types of mentor(s)/community connections will you

need to help you complete your capstone project? How will your mentor(s) help you? What is your
plan to access the mentorship/community connections necessary for this project?

For this project I will predominantly be accessing help within the community. One of our schools
support teachers Mr. Grey plays music professionally and has agreed to create music for this
piece. The recording, composing and trial and error will be a process he helps guide me along. My
knowledge of music sits at a zero right now. Beyond enjoying it and listening to it every day I carry
know knowledge of creating music. Mr. Grey will help me understand this process and give me a
better understanding of music and the musical community.
My friends Nate and Melody are a couple who are now graduated high school. Nate is currently in
music school and Melody is graduated film school. Nate takes courses and learns about
incorporating music within films, he has agreed to help me create the sound for my film.

Project limitations: What are some project limitations and potential obstacles that you foresee that
might affect progress with your Capstone Project?

That this may be out of my grasp. This is a huge project and when I set it in mind I didn’t take into
consideration my own busy schedule. I saw an idea and seized it without thinking of the fallback.
Anyone that I’ve talked to with prior experience or a basic understanding of what I’m trying to
achieve has told me it goes beyond my limitations, and I should think smaller. I think this motivates
me more to do it. However, as an experienced procrastinator I’m extremely worried about crashing
and burning.
There is always that tiny fear in the back of my mind telling me I will forget to click save. I have
completed a whole digital drawing only for it all to be lost because I did not click save. I realize it is
a silly fear but I would rather not spend hours on work for it to go down the drain by me forgetting to
save the document.

Other considerations: List and detail any other related information/ considerations about your
project that you feel should be included in your project proposal.

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 I value peer opinion and a verity of ideas. Throughout this process I will be getting feedback from
friends, family and whomever close to me shows creative interest. Many of my friends are also
looking to pressure artistic careers such as mine and we hold great interest in each other’s work.
Many of my film friends know far more than I ever will and seeing what I have to offer through
different eyes can offer me new ideas and advancements. I believe everyone views art differently, if
I can understand how different people see my animation throughout the process before it is created
I may find myself truly enjoying the end result. So often I finish art projects and find myself in the
‘what if’ spot. What if I added this shape, what if I chose this color instead, what if this tree was
little, bigger, what if I didn’t add that bush. I nitpick my work until I no longer enjoy it. I want to be
able to enjoy this and be proud of what I make. I believe if I have peer feedback through the
process, I’ll catch those details earlier. I also believe a fresh scope and these conversations will
generate ideas that bounce off one another. Its sometimes helpful to just say your creative thoughts
out loud than keep them to yourself. Often times when things are said aloud you realize they
sounded much different in your head.
I do realize I do not directly contact any professional animators. That is because at the time that I
started my capstone project I did not realize a mentorship would play a huge role in this. I was
wrong. Currently I am too far into the process to turn back and try and contact someone for
guidance. However I am very interested in the animation industry and how animators got started. I
would like to contact an animator even if it is just to have a conversation about their job and current
life. This would benefit me when deciding if animation is a career path I should consider. I do
realize this does not directly correspond with my animation and they will not be offering me any
guidance though the process however it offers me insight into animation as a whole. It would also
offer me more insight into inquiry question: how does creating a 2D animation, connect to an
audience? I did not include this in the rest of my draft as up until this point its just been a thought
and not talked about being apart of my capstone.

References: Provide a literature review of 5-10 PEER REVIEWED ACADEMIC references:

research, videos, etc. that offer some preliminary research you have done for your project that
shows you are able to access the key information that you will need to be able to complete this
project/work. Your list should be written using correct APA formatting.

Danijela Kulezic-Wilson. (2009). The Music of Film Silence. Music and the Moving Image, 2(3), 1–
10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/musimoviimag.2.3.0001.
DAVENPORT, M. G., & GUNN, K. (2009). Collaboration in Animation: Working Together to
Empower Indigenous Youth. Art Education, 62(5), 6–12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20694785.
EMERSON, D. L. (2019). Mythology in Children’s Animation. Mythlore, 38(1 (135)), 259–266.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26809403.
Kelty, C., & Landecker, H. (2004). A Theory of Animation: Cells, L-Systems, and Film. Grey Room,
17, 30–63. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20442660.
Shannon, S. (1997). Computer Animations. Leonardo, 30(5), 434–447.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1576502.
O’Neill, R. (2007). Emerging Congruence between Animation and Anatomy. Leonardo, 40(2), 168–

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153. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20206379.