Video: Second Place, Most Creative

Cari Merryman
Minneapolis College of Art and Design

I’ve Learned

Artist's Statement: I’ve Learned is a light-hearted animated short, detailing bits of wisdom from people of all ages. The idea behind I’ve Learned is a compilation of a few different things. I have always been intrigued by animation that takes real human experiences or stories and brings them to life through animated drawings or clay characters. I also liked the idea of having a candid interview setting with different people giving answers to the same question. After receiving one of those novelty quotable quotes books, I came up with the idea for this project. I would go around and ask people what they had learned. Some of the answers I scripted to pull the piece together and some of the answers were from events and lessons life had taught the subjects I interviewed. I think that often in today’s society, everyone is moving at such a fast pace that they often forget the simple pleasures and pains in life. My intention with this piece is to make people stop, if only for a few minutes, and think about the things they have learned.

I’ve Learned" is a clay animation created in Adobe® Premiere 5.1®. First, I built all the characters and sets, then I shot the entire animation scene by scene using the stop- motion capture function. Lastly, I edited the scenes together in the timeline and added effects. I also used Photoshop® to create my opening title sequence.