PROCESS
Static & Form Rolling, Leska
Emma Thompson CAP 1 Form + Function Communication Design Sam Fox School Washington University in St. Louis Fall 2017
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RESEARCH Initially I was a little intimidated by this project. I have never used Aftereffects before and I was scared. I thought long and hard about choosing a song that resonated with me in some way. I frequently picture images when I listen to music. and I wanted to have very appealing visuals in my animation. I am not an avid listener of instrumental music so I asked friends to give me some suggestions. One gave me a playlist of great songs that all created different images in my mind. I finally deceided on using the song Rolling by Leska. I listened to the song constantly and created a long word map of phrases, ideas, adjectives and feelings that I either saw or felt while listening to the song. Eventually I was able to narrow down and chose my three words; relaxing, disappearing + appearing, and expansive. These words would help me create my 72 images.
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DISCOVERY Letting my three words guide me I dove into the making of the 72 images. I knew that I wanted to experiment with ink so I worked to create and use the ink in unexpected ways. I placed water down on the paper before I added ink in order for the ink to react in an interesting way with the water. I also went exploring outside to find objects that I could use in order to print images with ink. I found a circular rivet type object that created a great printed image. For the photos I worked hard to create unexpected relationships between each image in order to add a sense of engagement. I knew that since in the end the images would be animated they needed to engage a viewer.
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Relaxing Hand
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Photographic Means
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Expansive Hand
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Photographic Means
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Disappearing & Appearing Hand
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Photographic Means
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Hybrids Once I had completed my initial 72 images, I moved on to creating my hybrids. I wanted to incorporate my distinctive initial images togther to create a new innovative image. I really liked mixing my handmade ink images with the hard edged photographic images. I also worked to add elements together that in the future could be animated. I didn’t necessarily know all the possible capabilities of Aftereffects so I was pretty general in my possible approaches to animating the different parts found in each of my animations.
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Hybrids
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REFINEMENT Once I had created my hybrids, I moved into creating a storyboard for how I wanted to move between images and what images I wanted to use. In my chosen song I believed that there were two very distinct musical parts and I needed to find a way to separate them but at the same time have them connect together in a seamless fashion. As I started bringing things into Aftereffects I started seeing what was possible and what was not. I also began to find different ways to create transitions that would be more appealing then just fading away or moving off the screen. I was reaching a point where placing my type in was becoming difficult. I initially tried having it rolling onto the screen but since I had so many other things moving behind it, the animation was getting too chaotic. In the end I choose to have some aspects of it show up toward the beginning and the rest come in at the end. I was very proud that I was able to time the circles appearing on screen at the same time as the beats to the music.
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Beginning StoryBoard
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Digital StoryBoard
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Images of work from the Video Digital Images
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Type Explorations
ROLLING ROLLING LESKA
LESKA
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ROLLING LESKA
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Final Images of the Video
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CRITICISM I definitely wished I had started on trying out Aftereffects earlier. I was quite fearful of it, so I tried to avoid using it until I really needed to. Since this was an animation project I should have been experimenting with it from the start but my fears got the best of me. I got some feedback on the fact that I animated the whole screen mostly then choosing small parts on the screen to animate. I think this goes back to my lack of experimentation using Aftereffects. I could have worked more and found different ways to animate. I needed to work more on my type. I definitely struggled with it in this project. I tried animating it a lot, then just letting it move in and out and even bringing in hand made type, but none of these really panned out. I wish I hadn’t thought of the type as full words but possibly as characters that could have come together and come apart. I thought I was able to create a story that was weaved through the whole animation , but I guess it did not necessarily come out that way. The two distinctive musical parts did not come together as cohesively on screen as I would have wanted them to. Next time I maybe should have chosen one direction rather then trying to bridge two different ones together. Also this could have helped in having an ending that did not feel unfinished. I have been learning through these last two projects that I need to work better on communicating my ideas. There are lots of ideas in my head but I can’t necessarily get them out in ways where my peers can understand them. This is definitely something I continue to struggle with and need to constantly work on.
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