My struggles with After Effects have been actually doing it, and figuring out how to make my animation look interesting. I think changing the exposure levels and making the face flash and twitch definitely solved it. However I still needed to make it more animated, without being too complex.
Adding more texture and using the colour I have used in my publication made my animation more interesting. I also figured out how to make the eyes move. At this point my problem is that I don’t have enough to fill the 15 seconds, I’ve looked back at my storyboard and decided to add in more aspects from there.
Using the brushes I have in Photoshop made the ‘consuming darkness’ look a lot more animated and added to the uncomfortable effect I want to achieve. It was an issue for me actually adding most of my frames into After Effects because I’m still not 100% sure about the software.
I struggled using After Effects as I had changed my mind during the process and strayed away from my original storyboard. Going back to it proved to be the right move because it was a simple idea and allowed me to add extra prints into it.
Adding in the older version of Huxley meant my sting had more of a storyline and ran alongside my publication much better than it would have if I hadn’t. I also added the purple hand drawn type I used in my publication for the same reason. I think the type is successful as a spot colour and links both my publication and sting together.
A problem I thought I was going to run into was the text not being visible enough, however my background frames get lighter to show the change in Huxley’s lifestyle, therefore allowing the text to become clearer.