As I was looking at some of Kandinsky’s paintings while listening to music from the instrumental and electronica genre (artists such as BT, Faultline and Orbital), some of the shapes in his artwork stood out as very industrial-looking, modern, loud and sometimes, even alien. Music really does a lot to a person's perception of a piece of art! So I suppose I could use electronica if I can't find a classical track that I'm happy with.
I think Insomnia is a great example of audio-driven motion graphics. It's shapes, lines and flow of the camera suits the music so well. Everything looks so neat and pretty too.
This animation has similar design to Insomnia's style. But I think the editing sets them both apart because there are way more disjointed cuts in this compared to Insomnia's fluid camera. And even though it's fast-cutting disorientates the audience a little, I think it goes well with the audio because it's cutting is based on audio cues. For some reason this animation is fairly hypnotic, though it's short.
I really liked the flowing ink. What I'm interested in is how he/she did it. This stuff is way beyond my level of understanding though, so it may take awhile... Lots of research needs to be done.
A friend of mine who's really into post-production VFX pointed me in the direction of Pierre Michel's work and when I saw this video, I fell in love with his work too! Eventually I hope to gain some understanding in "trapcode" and how these fire effects are generated. They are so beautiful, everything about this video is elegant, graceful and tasteful. I was so impressed. And the music here is close to the style of music I'm looking to use in my 3rd assessment piece. Hope I find something soon!
This is what I want to understand, I must know how it's done, how intricate the process is... It will help me be a better Director of Photography in general, and also would be useful if in future I work on films that require a lot of post-production VFX and will therefore be required to do a lot of green screen shooting. I've always wondered how some effects in Sin City were done and have seen some tutorials on videocopilot about how they made it possible. All extremely interesting stuff.
All the videos in this post have really awed and inspired me to have a passion for learning as much as possible about motion graphics and AE, but at the same time, they make me feel small. My level of knowledge about animation and VFX is nowhere near their level! And I really respect people that can do these things, make something out of thin air, or fix something that was a mistake.
Since the beginning of this semester, I've avoided looking at other motion graphics examples, because I know that it'll show me what I can't do (which really gets you down), as opposed to what is achievable for someone with limited knowledge about AE like myself. Also, I don't like watching something and thinking, "oh, I want to make something like that!"; I'd rather think of a concept and try to figure out how I would be able to achieve that with the skills I have in AE, as oppposed to attempting to copy how something was done in some animation I saw that would be too hard for me to grasp in such a short period of time.
But because I've had to reference some videos in this second assessment. I've gone and watched tons of animation videos on youtube, motionographer and vimeo; and I've decided that I should be more open to these things. Anything that has a downside usually has an upside as well, and the upside in this situation is how inspiring and rewarding this experience has been. So once again, I eat my words.
I want some of my brush strokes to reveal themselves like how the first few branches in this animation appear to be painted. I think it is done with something called "write on" in AE. I'll have to research more and see if it does what I think it does, if it does, it'll be tremendously useful when I animate my final assessment piece.
Same goes for this animation, the first 15 seconds of it is what I hope some segments of my animation will look like. There was definitely some 3D stuff going on because the paint looks 3D and I won't be able to do that. Maybe it was photographed instead of scanned? Still trying to break it down and analyse how he did it. It looks really cool.
In the comments down the bottom in youtube, the animator said she separated the lines into their own layers in Photoshop and then in AE, used the "write on" tool to make it appear the way it does. Like what I said about the Living Canvas video above, I'll have to assess if this feature would be of use to me and make the concept for my final project achievable.
This was definitely stop motion painting and has nothing to do with AE, but I've posted it here just as a reference to what I meant when I said in my synopsis that I want my brush strokes to look real. I want it to be obvious that the brush strokes were not created in a computer program, it was created the traditional way... with tangible tools.
The only reason I posted this video is because I liked the effect from 0.06-0.07 (how the lines "melt" into paint and then become a hand with a spray can). It may be something I can use in my final assessment, once I do some research and figure out how it was done.
This keyframes from audio thing could be very useful for my final assessment. I did this in the tutorial and therefore it's really rough and uncreative, but just knowing that there's such a feature in AE and being able to add an expression to something that has two variables with the little pick whip thing, is good enough for now. So please don't judge my creativity based on this animation cause it's just for practice!
I think the dancing old man animation that was created in class by one of the students is way cooler!
I didn't do this either because it takes too long and as long as I know how to mask stuff, that's good enough for me. And I feel that I already understand the basics of rotoscoping because I had to do it the "traditional" way two semesters ago for a unit called 2D Media and Processes. I painstakingly traced every single frame on a fresh sheet of paper over a light board. Here's the final product as proof. I eventually got tired and "cheated", but I'm still happy with how it turned out, cause it blends into the narrative of it all. Music is by Marilyn Manson, composed for Resident Evil. Copyright infringement... Aaah!!
In my opinion, here's a good example of rotoscoping and creating the posterized look of blocks of colour, assuming that IS how the ad was made. When this first came out on tv, I thought it was cool (and still do) because it was done in a minimalist style, had a great concept and marketed the iPod perfectly! It would've killed whoever had to mask the dancing people though... frame by frame... so many dancers... scary.
I simply couldn't bring myself to finish this tutorial exercise after playing around with it in class. It's way too tedious for my liking. And it was way too much effort for such a short clip. Don't get me wrong, I do respect those who can do it though! I just can't sit there for ages, cycling through frame by frame to adjust keyframes. It would drive me mad, cause I can't sit still for too long... which is probably why I prefer being on set as opposed to in the editing labs when it comes to filmmaking. I get to think on my feet more.
But sure enough, after watching stuff on motion graphics sites and youtube, I came across this video which made me eat my words about corner pinning and tracking. I don't know a whole lot about this stuff, but after this tutorial even I could tell while watching this that the animator, Tim Smit, has insane AE skills. He does some pretty difficult tracking and corner pinning and truly amazing visual effects that you would think that this was an expensive production. But he's a physics student and self-taught himself AE and filmmaking! I'm so sure no one in my course can do this! He puts us film students to shame. And best of all, he only spent 150 Euros on this short film. I only know this because I went on to watch his interview. He's like the modern day Timur Bekmambetov when he did Nightwatch, even though Mr. Bekmambetov is still fairly "modern". Anyway, I recommend going into youtube and watching it in High Quality instead of here, if you haven't seen it already. It was featured on motionographer yesterday, which is how i came across it.
Week seven's tutorial exercise was concerned with the theme of "space" with the use of the Camera in AE. I didn't do it because at the time I was working on my first assessment; and because I used so much of the Camera, I felt like I didn't need to go back and do the tutorial exercise. So I've uploaded my first assessment as proof that I do know how to use the camera and place 3D layers in space. I'll admit I'm not very happy with some of the camera movements, they come across as robotic, got to make it smoother. I will experiment more when I work on my final assessment as the Camera will play an integral part in it.
Here is a link to a credit sequence for a short film that Motion Graphics practitioner Brian Alvarez created. I love how fluid the camera is. That is what I aim to achieve for my final creative piece.
This was my favourite tutorial because I learnt the most--blend modes, curves, hue and saturation, levels--and got to apply that to my tutorial exercise, which by the way, is my favourite of all the tutorial exercises I've created... just cause it's silly and a bit gory.
I found an animation on youtube that uses blend modes really well and altered the colours so they looked less saturated. I also like how it's a mix of video and animation, because that is the field that really interests me. I like seeing what can be done in post-production when it comes to editing a film and adding effects.
This was a fun exercise, simply because we had a chance to create stuff we normally see on tv, especially those cheesy ads! And having a client brief made it more realistic too. Besides, I've found that constraints help boost creativity. I made it a point to create the cheesiest retail ident ever. Enjoy!
All the images were Creative Commons images. I used The Wiggler tool for some parts of the animation; did quite a bit of masking; played with drop shadow and making the ink splats 3D so they could drop down into frame. All in all learnt a few more things to add to my AE skills.
In my opinion, ads like this are far more effective than some of the horrible cheesy ones we see on tv. I liked how this ad started off with animation and then allowed the animated stroke to lead into its product at the end of it. The style of animation also suited its product. I'd buy that box.
My group came up with the tagline "Mount Tamborine - Nature's music" in class. The images I used are Creative Commons images. Through this exercise I learnt the importance of masking, which is something I've had to do in all my animations ever since, it's a great tool!
I also learnt how to go into the graphs and play with the little "handles" on the keyframes to make things look (in some ways) more "organic".
Overall, I'd say I'm pretty happy with this, except for the part where the camera zooms into the piano and musical notes come out. Looking back on it, I realised that you barely see the notes! I travels off screen way too fast! But at least the next frame's got an entire manuscript in it so I suppose it's still ok? Well... too late now, can't change it because I don't have AE on my computer.
This video was nice and short and also had a short message at the end of it. And when I saw it, I thought it was a good example of masking, and therefore linked it to this tutorial exercise. My animation also has images popping up out of nowhere, like in this video, and it's obvious the animator tweaked the scale graphs like I did in mine.
I thought this animation was fairly simple to do and flowed well with the audio. It also shows how creative you can get with masking and replacing the masked out bits with other images. The camera movement and the 3D layers worked in its favour too.
This was my first time ever animating an entire project in After Effects. It was interesting because I had to familiarise myself with the program while animating this tutorial exercise. And to be honest, I think it's pretty crap, probably one of the worst things I've ever created. If I had to pick which parts of this animation I'm actually happy with, I would say the last 10 seconds. But other than that it's pretty disgraceful.
Using the animation present of "raining characters" was probably a bad idea. But I couldn't help myself, I'm a huge fan of The Matrix (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999). In fact, that's the film that inspired me to get a degree in film and television. So I had to use it, just a homage, even though it doesn't really suit the audio all that well. Although in some ways the raining letters depict the shower of words that rain down on the viewer... Like a never-ending drone until he changes pace a little, which is why the last 10 seconds are animated differently.
The most exciting part of animating this was probably when I used the "light" function in AE on the word "faith" at the end. I get excited about little things like that.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. After completing this tutorial exercise on typography, i went on youtube and found three very cool (in my opinion), but very different examples of typography animation, they are my favourites out of all that I've come across.
I thought this was a bit disturbing (probably because of the audio), but very creative nonetheless. I'd never thought of taking this approach to typography before.
This is at the top of my list for typography animation. It's very impressive and the animator's use of common symbols and letters we use in Word to create a world and deliver an important message about pollution is absolutely terrific!
I'm not particularly a fan of Citizen Cope's music, but this animation could've been their music video! It really puts my tutorial exercise to shame. But the good thing is that it showed me what I could do with the Camera in AE which i later on used in my first assessment.
