1,000 Step Idea

1,

step idea

by Tiffany Fry

music: Reverend Gary Davis - Improvi process work narrator: Joshua McCormack VDES 11322 - Mark Shufflebottom

ideation I was stumped about what to do and fresh out of ideas. Lacking ideas got me thinking about ideas, and thinking about ideas got me thinking about light bulbs.

They’re the archetypical icon for ideas, and for good reason; Edison (though definitely NOT deserving the sole credit for its invention) went through many, many prototypes before reaching success. As the man credited with saying “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration,� he is the poster boy for the notion of good ideas coming from hard work and not a flash-lightning stroke of genius. I was needing a bit of a reminder that good things come from hard work regardless what the process is like, that things can always be improved on, and that failure is not a final stop, but rather a waypoint.

script I needed my script to relate the tribulations of Edison’s inventive process many years ago to being a creative person today. There ended up being two parts to it; Edison’s journey to attaining his contract to light the Columbia, followed by the frustrations of feeling like nothing you make is good enough. It ends with a message I needed to hear “if it took Edison 1,000 steps, its probably gonna take a few for you too. Don’t panic! Don’t give up!”

artboards

Doing the kinetic type project last year, I knew how to make assets in Illustrator and import them into After Effects, so I opted to do it that way again. I laid out my storyboard with all my objects in different layers and it became apparent where I needed to change and simplify things, or where there were gaps in my narrative.

animation

There were lots of individual elements to place; tonnes of tiny sound bits, hundreds of little individual lightbulbs, and things moving separately and together. This is just little segment of them. Animation Composer by Mister Horse was a lifesaver for taking out a lot of the gruntwork. The function for cascading layers and their ins was especially useful for the frames I had with lots of independently moving objects, and for creating more believable effects for the lights turning on.