Final Animation

To view my final animation, including sound, go to my vimeo account-
http://vimeo.com/tesststrip/videos

Evaluation

Evaluation

The initial research process and being on the look out for inspiration all went quite smoothly and I had a mind full of ideas, the hard part was trying to narrow them down. I was mostly inspired by Twinings because I’m a massive fan of their creative advertising, the adverts are always so peculiar but also very fascinating. As well as this my idea came on very easily and felt creative as though it could actually be a promotion for Twinings and it seemed to be realistic enough to reproduce my ideas.

The actual making of my motion graphic proved more difficult, I haven’t had an awful lot of experience in After Effects and so when it came to piecing each scene together I was pretty lost. I turned to my notes in order to import all my photographs for the stop motion but the real footage proved to be a complete pain! It began as a three second short film ready to be situated onto the end of my other two scenes but some how lengthened by around twenty seconds…

While playing the animation through in Flash I noticed the right hand side, where the library appears it did have an error sign announcing there was something wrong with the frames per second. Due to my lack of knowledge I was unsure how to fix this, I broke the scenes down and restarted but each time it reread the same statement.

Another issue was the adding the sound to my motion graphic, I downloaded my music file as a wma, mp3, wav but After Effects disliked it so returning to flash I imported it the same way as I had during a lesson and it refused to play. At this point I was at a dead end, right on hand in morning i have managed to add the sound clip! i took both the mp3 file and my Quicktime movie into Adobe Premier Pro and edited it on there then re exported my file.

My favourite part of the whole process was the making of the real footage; it was quite fun to play with and make sure it was perfect. I think the quality of the real footage is also of a high, degree level standard and am pleased it turned out so well on its own but extremely disappointed how it has been prolonged in a way I don’t understand.

In general I am very pleased with my animation because with little or practically no knowledge of either Flash or After Effects only a few hours in lesson being taught and then an attempt at self teaching in any spare time I had, I have created an animation which matches the brief. I explored various techniques and attempted to use everything I was taught and put it into my animation to show off my newly developed skills.On deadline day i was able to cut some of the final scene, real footage, from my movie and make it shorter and add sound! so all round now i am very pleased with the outcome!

Sound?

Twinings tends to use very mellow sound in the backgrounds of each advert, iv managed to pick two; one with lyrics one without. I don't want the music to draw attention away from the motion graphic but if i take the sound clip into After Effects i think i could mellow any lyrics anyway.
Here are my choices;


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ4Pm0N8s78
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgItIP9dlxM&feature=youtube_gdata_player


I like the Skinny love song, i think it goes well with my animation i just need to arrange it slightly to fit better with the timing. My second choice is too much at one level, my motion graphic needs more levels of sound for each scene. 

My Process

• Research into various film directors and influential animations of which I do and do not like; to ensure I get a better insight of what is capable of After Effects and what people like.
• Exploration of ideas with influence from animations or source noted quite clearly. Try to push boundaries and think of unique ideas, getting inspiration from more than one source if possible.
• By this point have a clear understanding of most of what is involved in making a motion graphic; CGI and green screening (if necessary), storyboarding, stop motion, relevant artists to each topic along with any tips and hints, and a brief history on them, the history of animation like zoopraxiscopes.
• Begin to clarify idea and how the time will be managed to ensure the animation flows smoothly and without jerks. EG camera angles, where After Effects will be used and what will happen in each scene.
• Final Storyboard
• Practise shots if necessary and have a strong insight into programmes ready to use.
• Perfect through a brief evaluation
• Production of final outcome- keeping around a week spare for any hiccups. Going between Photoshop, Flash and After Effects.
• Output into see able format- Quicktime.
• Hand in; Monday 21st on Disc

Final Development Scene 3

Scene 3 was made using real footage and so can be viewed on my Vimeo account along with all my attempts at getting it right! This is the stage where the pond in scene 2 has changed colour and fades out into the top of the tea cup where the leaf is bobbing on top of the cup of Twinings. The way I managed to finally get it right was to attach the leaf to a small piece of cork and balance it somewhere; where the cork was hidden I then prodded it with the end of a spoon and pushed record. It is only three seconds long but still need the slogan ‘Gets you back to you’ put on it but in a still image capture perhaps… I captured this footage using a three chip camera, the correct lighting and a tripod.

Final Development Scene 2

So far scene 2 of my animation is eight seconds long, it can be viewed on my Vimeo account. It runs a little bit fast and is slightly jumpy at first but by taking it into After Effects I can cover it up with some effects like fading the scene in for instance. This is probably my favourite scene, it’s a lot more creative than the rest because I got to draw the entire set and manipulate every photo in Photoshop and so far there are 96 photos! I aim for this scene to be around thirty – thirty five seconds long because after the leaves fall they still have to turn the colour of the pond water.

Final Development Scene 1

Scene one, these are just three out of thirty images taken for my final motion graphic. Not yet even half way through I have already taken thirty images, at twelve frames per second this would last not quite three seconds when put as sequential images and exported as a movie. Up to now its going well I am using a high quality camera for the stills and intend on a three chip for the real footage, my set up consists of a small pup light above the scene and one to the right to brighten the set. The camera in used has been set at a certain level on a tripod after many attempts at accuracy. Id like for this scene to cover at least twenty-five seconds.

Vimeo

http://vimeo.com/tesststrip/videos
This account allows me to upload any videos I have created throughout, using any programme.... failure or success I have uploaded them all!

Final Motion Graphic Practise

Four of the still images from my practise attempt at my final animation. I chose the pictures at different stages as examples but your mind can fill in the blanks considering this is being created through stop motion. I think the henna works great I like that you can see it is raised from the mugs surface, it give a more three dimensional, realistic feel for the tree. I used a Cannon Power Shot SX20 IS to take the photos for these practise shots, at 12mega pixels the camera is high quality but I need better lighting and need to consider background for the stop motion.

Final Storyboard- Scene 2 Leaves

Iv done this to give a greater insight into scene 2, where the leaves change colour a few times to promote Twinings flavours before falling into the pond and changing the colour of that too. The colours will flow smoothly through different shades and palettes like a mood light before the pond discolouration takes place, and moves onto scene 3.

Final Storyboard- Scene 1 & 2

Scene 1 & 2

This is my final, hand drawn storyboard. I chose to go ahead with the Twinings  stop motion reason being I initially did more research into Twinings without realizing and the ideas came to me smoothly and fell into place, my idea advertises so many of Twinings biggest aspects and a ready made quote fits perfectly in rhythm with the animation I plan to produce. My actual animation will be broken down again into smoother scenes to ensure the tree flows perfectly onto the mug. One thing which did slightly change when drawing this stage was the full tree scene, I added colour, id like to try the scene with full colour and see how t turns out because I think with minimal colour and vibrant leaves falling into the pond it will add contrast and effect to the scene. I want to get the leaf, after hitting the pond, to fade straight from that shot into the worms eye view of the mug and for the leaf to remain in the mug and bob slightly in the tea cup before the slogan appears; ‘Gets you back to you’.

After Effects

 ttp://www.videocopilot.net/

Video co-pilot is a website with high quality After Effects video tutorials for motion graphics and visual effects.
In my lesson today I built up a series of sequential images using a programme called Istop, I put it on a time lapse of a new imager per every 2 seconds. After I had taken all my images; for this experiment I used myself as an example because it was easier, I exported them and saved the dimensions as 640X480 so I could open them in Flash.
In Flash I imported all the images to stage as part of an image sequence then began to edit. I changed the colour and put it in a series like a mood light. In order to add sound I had to create a new layer and import the sound to my library. Once I imported the sound clip from my library to my new layer in Flash I was able to edit the sound clip by using effects and adding nodes to the sound waves and moving them up and down.
So that I could view the clip as a whole I exported it as a movie to Quicktime and OKed it.
*Available to view on vimeo account*
http://vimeo.com/tesststrip/videos
other useful sites;
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/
http://blogs.adobe.com/keyframes/

Storyboard- Idea 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poSNvWXkIKY&feature=related

My third idea revolves around time but has no real storyline except building a clock and messing with the numbers to the maximum. The link above was my influence for this idea, I like how simple but effective it is. Just the numbers falling to the floor takes 21seconds and my animation only has to be up to a minute long, with this and my storyboard here showing some of the things I could do with the numbers, making a stop motion up to 60seconds seems highly possible.

Storyboard- Idea 2

My next storyboard advertises condoms. I imagined it to begin as simple illustration and the further into the process the stop motion goes the more colour gets added to the images. The initial condom itself would get drawn on screen so possibly by use of stop motion and my own illustrations, then maybe becomes more three dimensional along the way allowing me to stretch to my full potential in after effects. I thought about also making it very comic book like, so it could be very cartoonish and have minimal, if any, sound just speech bubbles.

Storyboard- Idea 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYhrqWml8vY&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Inspired by Twinings; this is my first idea… it promotes the natural extracts of Twinings tea by use of henna ink, made from a flowering plant used to dye, growing a tree onto a mug also staging nature in general, id like to attempt to make it grow slowly and as smoothly as this after effects example of a growing tree. The camera will be made to zoom gradually into the image forcing the tree to be a full scene image where leaves begin to fall into a pond below and the leaves change through neutral to autumn colours. As a single leaf falls and touches the ponds surface the colour of the water will change. I’ve chose to use the leaf as a representation of a tea bag and the water as hot water ready for a mug of tea. The scene of the pond becomes a bird’s eye view image which gradually reforms into a worm’s eye view of the actual cup of Twinings tea, where a slogan will appear.

It will be a combination of real footage, stop motion and my illustration. Some of the slogans I’ve seen so far by Twinings are; ‘Gets You Back To You’, ‘If you are cold. Tea will warm you. If you are cold. Tea will cool you. If you are depressed. It will cheer you. If you are excited. It will calm you.’

I am quite fond of the ‘Gets you back to you’ quote because the original image goes through the scenario of going through the image into the pond and coming back out into the tea cup, therefore all relating in a large circular motion of how tea is ‘made’.

Romain Loubersane- Too Late

http://vimeo.com/9028769

Promoting Twinings

Twinings tea is packed full of antioxidants, specifically flavonoids which are broken down into vitamin P and citrin. Vitamin P ensures our bodies properly absorb vitamin C, it helps reduce clumps in our blood cells and platelets, aids our capillaries and heels week blood vessels in the gums in your mouth. In general it strengthens the body’s natural defences and boosts our immune systems! Citrin works in a similar way it maintains the resistance of cell and capillary walls and determines what vapours, liquids and gas` go through.
http://www.twinings.co.uk/about-our-tea/benefits-of-tea

Some of the ingredients in Twinings tea includes vitamin C & A and chlorophyll; which is found in plants to help obtain energy from sunlight. Together they help rid bad build up in your body.

Twinings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rstzS8VkKI4
I like the creative aspects in Twinings adverts; I previously researched their lady grey advert which consisted of tea leaves being arranged to create pictures whilst promoting the most idolised aspects of Twinings tea, like the many flavours. This advert is also majorly creative and very self explanatory, it was obviously time consuming to set up and shoot with the help of stop motion. As an illustrator I think Twinings creative side would be appropriate for me to try out. This second advert (below) also by Twinings, is short, simple but so effective. I like the dissolving of tea flavouring into type back into tea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWD5Y5Oc0Gc&NR=1

Motion Graphic Adverts I Don't Like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh1SfL1CwV0&feature=related
It is far too easy to pick on a motion graphic for the idea rather than talking about why it is in general a bad animation, stop motion is the easiest motion graphic to criticise. Like this Size? Advert; it is very jumpy and proves more to be a bad example by the unfaithful link of the designers ideas and the viewers understanding. The materials used and how they are arranged, moved and photographed are jumpy and unclear, the idea and what the advert is actually promoting is also not understandable. Quality also lacks in this case…. It is a difficult debate considering it could be purposely jumpy and made in poor quality but as a viewer it doesn’t look good for the makers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z9c5UZqT3Y
My criticism for this animation is mostly about the bad, unnecessary cuts between scenes. Obviously it makes the animation more appealing to have different scenes, cutting in and creating different time locations is a good idea but this animation seems to have the timing wrong. The only other thing I am not fond of it the abstract road which tends to lift off the floor, so many different styles appear to creep in and don’t work as a whole.

Motion Graphic Adverts I Like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UsZMEep-Hk
This is an advert for Twinings, it appears to be edited, actual footage. The idea connects with the narrating; ‘delicate scent of oranges and lemons’ quoted from the animation as oranges and lemons are being illustrated in tea leaves. ‘Little lift’ is another quote which is said whilst the birds are on screen. The advert is all round very clever and visually appealing, it is straight to the point and all the small connections increase the advertisement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUAbkRUvVQ
This Sony Bravia advert was filmed in New York City, it consists of a lot of modelling clay and stop motion to create and move vibrant, bouncing rabbits to advertise the colour in their products. The largest rabbit was made in sections, it was escorted through the streets and assembled at midnight before shooting from dawn the next morning, the rabbit it 30ft tall! In an entire week’s practise, to ensure the stop motion would run smoothly and fit with the time frames for the lighting and shadows, it took around 40 animators and 6 cameras. Every two minutes a new picture had to be taken, so that the shadows would move in a certain way so the animators had to be quick! Sony were not aloud to close the street off to the public so had to grin and bear small children and dogs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz4DF1PpJ1o&feature=related < shows the preparations and making

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwCn-D5xFdc
Coca cola are known for having boundary pushing adverts this one shows an unrealistic CGI world within the vending machine. The tiny three dimensional CGI animated cartoon characters are working in a factory to create the ‘perfect’ bottle of coca cola every time and apparently show the process of making the perfect bottle. It is a very well thought of advert, a lot of attention to detail aspects.