I had to do something along these lines when I was at Luxurious Animals, and it was a love/hate sort thing. I loved getting to learn a new tool and loved the results that were possible, but the actual process of recreating an environment in 3D is a bitch sometimes.
„Irgendwann vor einiger Zeit ist das Königreich der friedlichen Pilzmenschen von den Kupas erobert worden, einem Schildkrötenvolk, das wegen seiner schwarzen Magie berüchtigt ist. Die gemütlichen, ruheliebenden Pilzmenschen wurden in Steine, Ziegel, ja sogar Unkräuter verwandelt, und ihr Königreich verfiel. Die einzige, die den Zauber wieder rückgängig machen und den Pilzmenschen ihre Gestalten zurückgeben könnte, ist Prinzessin Fliegenpilz , die Tochter des Pilzmenschenkönigs. Aber Sie befindet sich leider in der Gewalt des mächtigen Kupaschildkröten-Königs. Mario, (vielleicht) der Held der Geschichte, hört von der Not der Pilzmenschen und macht sich auf, die Prinzessin aus den Händen der bösen Kupas zu befreien und das zerfallene Pilzmenschenreich zu erlösen. Du kannst Mario sein! Es liegt jetzt an dir, die Pilzmenschen von der schwarzen Magie zu befreien!“
Last night I worked on adding a few more lines to this self-assigned kinetic type project. There is still a long way to go, but I am happy that progress is being made at a steady pace.
One of the projects I am working on this quarter is a quasi self-portrait. The fictionalized story is told through animatic still images. I was working on storyboards tonight, and I had an idea… Since I was planning on shooting/processing all of the photos to have a high contrast, Film Noir feel, why not try to recreate a silent movie feel?!
After some processing of the images and some tweaks in After Effects, this is the concept piece I will have to show to my professor:
[media id=6]
Timing is still getting tweaked to allow enough time for information to be understood, but not enough time to have the images get boring. Also, I am sorry for the small size. I am currently looking for a new video player, as WordTube is not giving me the features I am looking for.
During the summer quarter of my Sophomore year in DAAP, we were given a kinetic type project. This method of animation has become very popular as of late, especially on NBC and in recent Ford commercials. I was never happy with the final results of my first foray in to kinetic type, and seeing it over and over again while watching television has lit the necessary fire underneath me to take another stab at combining sound, motion, and typography.
If you have not seen my original kinetic type piece, here it is:
While it is nice, it was never something that I felt represented my vision. One of the biggest problems was that since this was a school assignment, I felt that I needed to make this something that my professors would look favorably upon. I chose to ignore my gut feelings and went in a direction that I thought my professors would like. Yes, professors… plural. There were two different professors that were both grading this project, and at times their feedback would be in direct opposition of each other. I felt stuck in the middle, and after a sting of communication breakdowns, I simply threw up my hands in frustration.
The last third of the piece is my favorite, and it was almost done completely out of spite. In stead of trying to continue working in a visual language that I did not agree with, I decided to just have fun and let them give me whatever grade they wanted. It was when I finally stopped worrying about making my teachers happy and started making myself happy that I found satisfaction.
Instead of going back and redoing the same piece, I thought it would be beneficial to move on, learn from my mistakes, and make the next piece better than the last. I chose to use the song “No Sunshine” by Rhymefest. It is a remix of Michael Jackson singing the popular Bill Withers song. (Confused? You won’t be, after this video example…)
I will post updates on the process work, and as you can see this still has a long way to go. Not only does the rest of the song need to be roughed together, but I also have to add color, finer animations, extra details, and then overall tweaking. It will take a while to get this to a finished stage, but I am looking forward to seeing where it all takes me.
I really fell in love with After Effects during the last quarter of my sophomore year at DAAP. I wanted to continue working with the program and pushing myself to learn new techniques. I knew that if I did not set goals for myself during this Co-op quarter, I would get distracted and put my endeavors on the back burner, so I decided to create a new video project every week. Each week, I will try to learn a new technique, be it recreating an effect from television or film, or re-imagining effects from a tutorial.
For my first assignment, I chose to recreate the “title cards” seen at the end of commercials on A&E. I really enjoy the way they arrange the information they present. Color is used to highlight specific pieces of information, be it a title of a show or a time it airs. The motions are concise, but hierarchy is displayed throughout. It is a simple animation, but there is beauty and elegance in the simplicity.
Please refer to this video if you are not familiar with the way these A&E title cards look.
Here is my attempt to recreate that look. [media id=1]
