Animation Portfolio
Bellow I will present you the projects I have made over the years that I believe prove my animated visual and technical excellence.
Visual skills
In this section of my portfolio, I will showcase my visual skills through my live action filmmaking, animations and 3D modeling projects. All project showcased were directed, animated, modeled, filmed and edited by me with little to no involvement from other people. Feel free to look at more of my films by clicking the hyperlink at the end of this section.
The Snowman's Carrot
This animation follows the story of two brothers playing fighting in the snow. After being thrown face first in the snow, the middle brother discovers a new world underneath the ground. A combination of stop-motion and 3D animation, this film deals with themes of brotherhood and breaking the generational cycle. Length: 2:33
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NOMINATED for BEST ANIMATION at Student World Impact Film Festival | May 2023
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SELECTED at Chicago International Film Festival’s CineYouth 18th edition | Mar 2023
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SELECTED at Golden Snail film festival 8th edition | Aug 2023
The Avenorian Experience
Avenor is an International bilingual school providing education from nursery, primary school, middle school, to high school. I created this animation to illustrate the 16 years of development an Avenor Student undergoes. Versions of this animation has been used in several promotional and communication materials.
Turn a Dream into Reality
The "Inima de Copil" charity association helps poor children from Romania get clothes, food and school supplies - and I wanted to help by creating a short 2D After Effects animated advertisement as part of their campaign. After many hours gathering, creating and animating the assets, the video was uploaded and reached over 50K views across platforms. Length 1:49
The Red Bowtie
This animated short tells the story of a shy teddy bear that arrives into a new town but struggles to find his place at school. By utilizing a mixture of stop-motion and 2D animation, the film is an homage to the works of Wes Anderson and Tim Burton. Length: 1:32
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SELECTED Boston International Kids Film Festival | Sept 2020
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SELECTED Short to the point 11th edition | Apr 2020
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SELECTED KINOdiseea International Children Film Festival | Oct 2020
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SELECTED Mice film festival 8th edition | Mar 2020
3D Stage Environment and Microphone
For my Blender training, I was assigned to recreate a real life object and an environment. In the video on the top, I rendered a couple camera movements through the environment I built in Blender from scratch. The 3D modeling of the auditorium and elements within was done by myself and textured using several different royalty-free textures that I found online. As The Shure SM58 microphone was the main focus of this project, as I was hoping to recreate an object in blender with high fidelity and make it look photorealistic. I also attached a couple separate image renders of the microphone so it can be seen in more detail. After adding textures, lighting and some other finishing touches, the microphone looks believable.
Technical skills
In this section of my portfolio, I will showcase my 3D modeling and technical skills through this project.
Fabrication project: the remote-controlled camera slider
This prototype was done as part of a Harvard engineering and fabrication class I took. For the project, I wanted to combine the precise movements of a motorized camera slider with the artistic character of handheld movement through this machine. To do so, I was hoping to create a camera slider that could be moved from a distance by a specialized controller. The prototype I managed to build is split up in two sections: the controller and the camera slider that are communicating through radio signals. While some external resources were used only for guidance, the code for the sliders was written entirely by myself.
The controller
Built similarly to the slider, the controller is a Joystick that you are able to rotate and move around on one axis. The controller aims to capture two rotational values: the z axis rotation and the y axis rotation of the joystick. The joystick is placed on a moving platform that can only move two ways: left or right. This movement is also recorded by the controller. On the right, you can observe the 3D models that I eventually 3D printed (except the aluminium extrusions). The only things that are missing from the 3D model are the platform where the joystick is placed and the motion sensor (see image bellow for further clarification).
As you can see, that is the final prototype for the controller. The rotational axes are captured by two potentiometers that are strategically placed, while the position of the platform is detected by an ultrasonic sensor. The Joystick is held up by two strategically-placed springs. These three values are detected every 10th of a second and sent to the slider via radio signals (the implementation is more apparent in the Arduino Code). The platform has wheels that allow it to freely move in one axis along the aluminum extrusion.
On the right you can observe the code of the controller. There are just a couple things worth mentioning, as most of the code is dedicated to the data transmission. Nonetheless, when I looked at the data I received from the potentiometers (which detects the rotational movement), it is very unstable - as the are essentially variable resistors. Therefore, to get more stable data, increased the sample rate (per second) and the averages turned out to be a lot smoother and consistent. This implementation can be observed in the smooth() function.
The camera slider
For the camera slider, I wanted to create a motor-controlled sliding platform on which two other actuators would control the Z and Y axis rotation of the camera. The first 3D model showed on the right is the full sliding platform on which I wanted the camera to be placed. I initially 3D printed all those components, but only a couple of them ended up being used in the final prototype because 3D printed materials are not sturdy. Instead, I opted to use aluminium extrusions as they are more malleable and sturdy (see more clarifications in the image of the final prototype bellow). The second 3D model you can see is of the aluminium extrusion where the platform (which was depicted in the previous 3D model) will be moved with a belt. A motor will placed at one end of the slider and will drag and pull the platform as programmed.
As you can see on the left, the prototype slider is controlled by 3 stepper motors - two for rotation and one for linear movement. I also added a sensor that detects what is the farthest left position on the slider the platform can reach. As part of the startup process, the platform is moved to the left until it reaches the switch - this way, the slider always knows its origin point .
The code for the slider turned out to be a little more complex. While I will not go in full detail, I will give a brief overview of the way it works. For starters, the slider goes through the initiation process, which - as mentioned earlier - helps him understand where the origin point of the slider (farthest platform position to the left) by moving the platform until it reaches the switch. This is useful, as now you may allow the stepper motor only a very specific amount of rotations until the platform reaches the farthest possible point to the right. After the initiation process, the slider can start to receive data from the controller. Using that data, the three stepper motors can be rotated accordingly.
Unfortunately, because of some mechanical issues, the slider did not end up working. However, as you can see in the video of my friend playing with the controller, the radio transmission does work and data for the three motors is received by the slider from the controller. Due to lack of time, I was unable to refine this prototype and get it to work, but the software works really well. I believe that the implementation of all these technical software and 3D elements are sufficient proof of technical profficency.
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