Category: Movement

Tuesday 27th November – Hand In Day

This project has challenged me in many different way – to use brand new software, to be creative and just to pull all the different aspects together.

I am really thankful about the creative thinking workshop as it turned up my imagination and I came up with some weird ideas. I really liked the concept of the 6 hats and the metaphorical thinking which all made me look at this project from a different perspective from the beginning. Through using this I was able to understand the brief a little bit more and draft my first story board.

My favourite part was designing the story board and making ruff, quick sketches of my ideas because I had creative freedom. With my final story board ready to be presented I was unsure how to go forward but with the help from my tutors I was able to improve my work. I made it more metaphorical and using the balloons as the people, ready to create the animation.

I have learnt a lot over the past month especially with the After Effects software. This was a new program to me and I had to quickly dive right into. I have learnt how to animate a simple image, how to blend background, how to add audio and many other simple tricks. I will continue to improve the more I use After Effects and will work on my knowledge about a wider variety of effects and presets.

Week of the 19th November – Independent work

I wanted to keep my animation without actual words spoken out loud. So for the audio I was unsure whether I needed to use music or just sound effects.

To start with I wanted to add in happy party music or loud children running around and having an over all great time. I listened to many different child-like party music but they didn’t truly fit what I wanted. So I went with children outside playing in a school playground. This is paired with girls giggling so that the mood is overall very joyful.

Next is the balloons popping which was very easy to add. After this it is the sound of adults cheering, which is meant to illustrate the parents being happy that their children are going to be cured from the virus. This is followed the children laughing. Over all the sounds add to the chaotic nature.

I added all my audio from http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/ and http://soundbible.com/free-sound-effects-1.html which were both easy to use.

 

Monday 19th November – Discussion over outcomes

I wanted to keep the animation simple with very few add on but had a continuous feel. So I decided to redo the animation as it was static and I wanted to follow previous critiques. I did this through out the week.

To begin I took away all of the characters. The removal of the child characters meant that the balloons can now be a visual representation of the children at the chickenpox party. At first I just had the 3 red balloons that would be the children but then with showing my group I added 5 different coloured balloons in so that it could be more of a party scene. These new balloons would the move away ready for the 3 main ones to explode.

Continuing on the balloons exploding is well illustrated and everyone was very happy with this effect. The only aspect that I changed was the speed so that it was a more realistic pop.

I the added the text this included the title “Poxism” and the words “A party for happy children and caring parents.” With the title I wanted to make that different through using a text preset. Going though the different effects I can across a magnifying style. This gave the illusion that a glass is going over the top making each letter stand out in turn. However this effect does not allow me to remove the base layer as each letter increases, thus giving the illusion of having 2 of the same letters at the same time.

The second set of letters are show so that the slide up from the bottom and appear after you have read the previous word. This should allow a viewer of all ages to read the text.

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Over all the colour tones are bright and clashing to illustrate the vibrancy of a child’s party. I added a background colour of a gender neutral turquoise, so that all can be included. When looking through and showing my animation to the group one single colour was not enough so I added colour changing at the beginning ti set the tone. This emphasises the chaotic nature of a party scene.

Wednesday 7th – After Effects Introduction

I had never used after effects before the workshop and was very unsure of how things worked but I was certain that I would figure the overall aspects of the software.

By the end of the workshop I had created a few little animations that look half decent. These small moving aspects taught me that the first over whelming software is similar to most adobe programs.

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Wednesday 14th to Sunday 18th – creating first animation

Through using the online videos created and my memory of the workshop I was able to recreate the simple spinets of my storyboard. I developed my techniques and by the end of the week I was able to use around 5 different techniques to create a basic full animation.

One aspect that I was unsure about was the explosion of the balloons. To create this effect I had to mess around and find the spilt effect. This meant that I could break the balloons into many pieces. Continuing on my concept where the balloons release the disease I wanted to use a confetti style breakout. Using YouTube tutorials on how to create a particle world effect I managed to make 3 different eruptions.

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Monday 12th November – Group Initial Critique Discussions 

Today I had a small group conversation showing my work in front of two of my tutors and the group.

This is my first idea for my story board, which I showed today. The concept is simple as it illustrates the happiness of a party but with an underlining meaning that the children will ultimately become sick and diseased. This is visually represented through the balloons popping and releasing the chickenpox, thus making it a chickenpox party.

When talking to the tutors it was apparent that the balloons were the key aspect of the design, which could be taken further into the narrative. This could be where the balloons were the actual children with the emotions. I could take this further so that the strings could animate as well. Their could be one single infected balloon with many other balloons around that seem to be playing and having a good time. Then the single ill balloon slowly infects the others around it. This could be shown in many different ways through popping, deflating air onto other balloons or just as simple as a touch.

Another element we talked about was the sound. This could be as simple as party music playing in the background as there would have no need to have a narrator talking because the story line should be well presented. A different way to go would be to have children giggling and have children making weird noises.

To go further and make this come to life I will use the software after effects. This should help with the cartoon style and overall emotions that are being portrayed.

Tuesday 6th to Sunday 11th November- Movement Idea Creation and Visuals

To begin with I brainstormed and made a ruff list of many random ideas I thought.

Then I picked my favourites that I thought I could develop into good ideologies.

From there I decided to mind map what sort of animation or creative path to take. After a short while I realised that the illness idea could have great potential. This idea came from my life experience of my parents holding a chickenpox party when my siblings caught the illness.

I was still unsure on the name of my new movement but through talking to one of my tutors we decided that illness-ism could include too much of a wide variety of diseases. So by using my experiences we decided on Pox-ism, which is a lot more catchy.

From deciding on the main focus of the movement I wanted to do some research into the disease and why would parents want to make their children go through this pain. When talking to another tutor he said that one of the best advice he got to raise his children was to make them know that the real world is harsh from a young age. This should mean that the children should be more resilient and better prepared for the future.

I began to draw some initial ideas for the movement. At first I though it needed memorable characters, but then that could seem childish and could ruin the over all nature of the piece. Then I though about the party style and what elements of a party can have great meaning.  This lead me to the balloon concepts.

After a messy sketch of ruff ideas I made a digital story board of the design. 

Monday 5th November – Experimental Typography Workshop

After our weekly meeting where I finally grasped what our brief truly meant, I had a small work shop where I listened to a few different voices on repeat. We illustrated their moods and accents through the words they said.

This made me think about the style of language used, such as slang, American or the queens English in relation to who would be the target audience. I kept on rearranging the scale of the letters in relation to the volume; the spacing with the layout of the words can be used for the pace of the person talking.

This concept can be used in the movement project because I plan to have some text within the animation but have nobody talking. This can be used to show the emotion and tone of the piece.

Monday 29th October – Introduction to Movement

I turned up eager to learn what are new brief would be. I knew the name and that was it- Movement. To start with we had a lecture on the styles and meanings of moments. This was a great lecture with mini clips and extremely eye opening information. The tutor spoke about the different elements that you need to know in order to create the best movement possible.

Informative – not to over load the piece, giving the right information

Focus – drawing attention to one part through movement, being careful not to take away focus from something important

Expressive – create a mood or energy, making the viewer feel a certain way

The tutor also picked up on the other aspects of a movement piece, such as the musicality of the work. This can be seen as a harmony of sound and animations, thus increasing the 3 main aspects of the movement. Another aspect is the vitality, meaning that the animation brings life to objects. Much like the well-known animated lamp by Pixar that is capable of human emotions; through using an exaggerated motions and shifts the creators were able to bring life to an inanimate every day object. In addition to all of this she continued to talk about the spacial elements, time and gravity of the features.

Moving onto the brief our task is to invent a new ideological movement or an “-ism.” Our piece must move, this can either be a YouTube style advert, a click bate on the side of a website or something new. The topic to design has to be completely new and can be as offensive as we dare to go.