Tester Video
As shown above even though two exact animations are completely identical when saved as a movie the settings chosen and quality effect the size of the file and the quality and crispness of the image. The film below has been done using the draft settings as it is only a tester but the poor quality is noticeable and although a smaller file then the full quality one it would not be good enough to use to produce my final piece or a bit of professional work.
The video itself has been made to test out moving images around on After Effects, getting the timing right and seeing if i can make them follow a select path. I found out even from this short experiment i can make objects speed up or slow down and follow routes. I also found out that when made with a transparent background in Photoshop this also carries over to After Effects. These are i believe the only criteria i need for creating my final piece.
After Effects Stop Motion
In an earlier post i ran into some complications with After Effects however now with University finally being back open and it working for me now i am able to put mien and Adams image sequence into After Effects to come up with a final and professional finished short video as seen below.
I shouldn't have to even really talk about the quality difference as it is plain to see and this is using bad quality or draft settings rather than the full lossless ones.
Mood Board
Although i have had some ideas and have been able to relate my initial idea to other animations they do not all fit in with the three words i have chosen. They all link into the word "Trippy" and most link with the theme of music in "Dancing" however not all relate to both, and most do not relate to the word "Tribal" at all. Above is a mood board that wrongly or rightly depicts how i view the word tribal, incorporating into it the word dancing. The trippy aspect of my idea will be portrayed through images from these categories.
The first thing i notice when looking at it as a whole is all the warm bright colours that are included although they are often made clearer or more defined with black silhouettes or outlines. People and animals are a major part and so are the things they are interacting with or wearing. Pattern is also something that is used as an image or within the image on other items such as instruments.
Pink Elephants
When i was a kid i hated this part of Dumbo but now i cant get enough of it. Not only that but it also incorporates alot of the ideas i was having about my chosen three words and concepts that i am thinking about doing for my final piece.
Scribble Of Ideas
Goal!
Got bored and decided to try out a simple post it note flicker animation, kept it simple and short to see if it would actually work. Surprisingly its not to bad although i am sure that for a larger and longer one i would need to find a way of flicking the pages at a constant rate and a better way of recording it.
3 Pointer
In one of the workshop sessions Adam Wooley and myself made a quick 36 frame animation, this was just a quick excersise to familiarise ourselves with how to create a stop motion drawn clip. We therefore decided on a simple idea that would not take much time to create but would still let us practice and use the tools required.
These are scaled down versions of all of the scans put together into a sequence going from left to right. This shows how much drawing has to be done even for a simple 3 second clip and the difference in the gaps between the ball when we wanted to make the movement faster or slower.
Unfortunately apparently computers hate me and when we went to the MAC suite to put them onto After Effects another error occurred when saving the animation. We had to leave and therefore i have no video of the animation. The one below is a recording off my phone whilst clicking through the separate images really quickly on the computer. At least when we do it properly we have an amateur version to compare with the professional After Effects one. You still get the general idea though.
Songs That Make Me Want To Dance
In reality there is to many to post and above are just a selection from my recently played list on my ipod. I have a very broad range of music interests and everyone is different but anything with a good beat and rhythm will get me bopping or hopping away quite happily.
Three Chosen Words
Words and items i immediately think off when listening to my piece of music are and include;
- Lively
- Clapping
- Drums
- Africa
- Fire
- Tribal
- Sunset
- Orange
- Dancing
- Trippy
- Animals
If i were to pick 3 adjectives then i would choose
- Dancing
- Trippy
- Tribal
After Effects
After effects is a program used in the Adobe suite that lets you put together animation, sequences and film. In the workshop we explored the basic concepts of it and how to do simple animation and also how to put together a sequence of stop motion images to form an animation.
At the bottom of the screen it is split up into two parts. The left hand part shows each of the separate files that have been placed into the animation, in this instance the song and 3 images. They each have a bar that they are in and carried onto, on the right hand side of the screen with each bar showing the various forms that the file comes under, for instance with an image only the effects you place on it and when it is visible within the time line are shown. The right side itself is a time line and a slider bar (red line) shows what time is being shown at the present point. To add effects or change the files imported click on the drop down arrow on the left hand side and select which options you would like to ply about with, ie for the music file i have selected audio levels and waveforms. This shows within the time line the waveform of the music which is helpful when trying to place the rest of the animation around it.
When choosing a background colour it is best to pick a bright noticeable one and also one that you are not going to be using within your animation. This is because the working area withing After Effects is bigger than the area that will appear in the final piece. This area is highlighted in the colour and like in the image above it shows up where nothing at that point in the time line is placed on it. It acts as a guide and also shows you if you have placed an image over the bounding area.
The line shown in the image is a piece of animation. After Effects allows you to pick up any type of image file including film and move it around the screen. The large squares at the start and end of the line are the 2 key frames and the circular ones on the line are the other frames. They key frames are where the image starts and ends and the frames are what After Effects adds in to create movement. They appear on the timeline as diamonds as shown below.
When bringing in images into After Effects you may want to bring in a few and use them as stop motion. However importing all these and then sorting out when they appear would be extremely time consuming and alot of effort. There is also a chance for human error. Therefore you can select the first image of the sequence (so long as the images are in the right order in a file) and when importing it click the sequence button you have turned off normally.
Rayograms
One of our workhops was Rayograms. At first i found grasping the different machines and lens' quite challenging and doubted whether i would continue using it. However with some perseverance and exploration using testers i have managed to come to a limited understanding of the subject and have begun playing around with different technigues and objects. Here are my first attempts at Rayograms and the work from my original workshop work. I have not included my mistakes and failed attempts as all they come out as, is pure white or black sheets of paper.
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