Assessment 2: Part A

"A Thousand Mile Wish"
Audio: Prince Estaris - "A Thousand Mile Wish"

Much of the assessment and tutorial work from this semester up until this point has been largely objective, primarily focusing on technique and recreation rather than content. As such, my work for the final assessment will be something personal, focusing on my own thoughts and experiences.

As the main point of this assessment is to create an audio driven piece, choosing appropriate audio was my first priority. Fortunately one of my close friends is a promising musician and, over the course of our friendship, has produced many songs that have inspired and touched me. "A Thousand Mile Wish" is one of these such songs. The song, composed of piano and male vocals, has a slow tempo with lyrics that tell the story of a person who has had love lost. It is a powerful and emotional melody that not only evokes a strong sense of 'hope in dark times' but also holds much personal significance as the song was a gift from Estaris to myself.

Just as the song was gifted to myself, this video will, in return, be gifted to him in hopes of raising awareness of his musical ability. Thus, the target audience will be current and potential fans of the musician, generally young adults between the ages of 15 and 25. Similarly, to effectively target this audience, distribution through Estaris's Myspace Music or YouTube profile page would prove the most appropriate as these are the most accessible to the public. Much like the title, the content shall also stay faithful to Estaris's thematic style.

Inspired by Japanese customs and the artistic style of paper dolls or puppets, I aim to link the concept of unrequited love to the Japanese belief that two souls destined for one another are joined by a single red string. To accomplish this, I will use a compilation of my own artwork (predominantly rough sketches) and images and textures under a creative commons license. With Estaris's permission to use the audio track, my own art and images under a creative commons license, there should be no issues with copyright laws. As in the following three motion graphics videos, I intend to utilise the artistic style of incorporating paper or scrapbook impression.

The moon princess
http://www.vimeo.com/374473

I yarn for paper
http://www.vimeo.com/3405151

Higashi no Eden ED
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28XXAjHSu2o

Each of these videos present a well-crafted composition incorporating paper doll or puppet movement in their characters. As my temporal composition will rely heavily on my characters to illustrate the intended story, I felt it necessary to research other motion graphics animations with strong characterisation. I also searched for animations with similar artistic styles, such as the use of paper. Unlike these animations, my project will not require as much photographic imagery and will instead rely on my own artwork and masking of textures or images to demonstrate movement.

With the effective use of these elements and the skills required over the entire semester, I aspire to create a meaningful and emotional temporal composition to accompany the chosen audio, "A Thousand Mile Wish".

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Mood Board

Inspiration...

Katarzyna Kijek

Oi Va Voi - "Everytime"
http://www.vimeo.com/4211147

The Myself Collective - "SEE"
http://www.vimeo.com/2182503

These two videos by Katarzyna Kijek are prime examples of how creative and original motion graphics animations can be.

The first video, made by Kijek with Przemysław Adamski, is the offical music clip for Oi Va Voi's "Everytime". What sets this music video apart from others is the fact that the entire clip was constructed with the use of a shredding machine. According to Kijek, every third frame of the footage was 'printed, shredded and shot three times blended with adjacent frames by different stripes configuration'. As time consuming and tricky as this sounds, it allows for a unique and captivating blend of imagery, giving the illusion that the images are sequential and continuous, like in a video recording, yet still separated and individual as still images.

This technique also causes the viewer to pay attention to each individual strip's movement and graphic elements, drawing attention to particular parts by keeping a singular strip stationary or constantly changing in contrast to the others. This works well as it guides the viewer inadvertedly where to look while still keeping an even flow and balance of imagery.

The second video, however, demonstrates a very different approach to motion graphics relying on the movement of shapes, lines and flora images to illustrate the mood and rhythm of the song. Created as a music video for The Myself Collective's song "SEE", this video captivates the viewer by creating unpredictable transitions and a unique blend of sharp (predominantly hot pink) lines and shapes against the soft texture of the flowers and leaves.

The diversity and uniqueness presented in both of Kijek's videos are a great inspiration to me as they demonstrate how diverse the field of motion graphics truly is. The first video illustrates what can be achieved when combining 2D and 3D graphic imagery while the second video focuses on 2D imagery in a 3D composition. Both contain elements I wish to utilise in my own work and are, in my opinion, exceptionally artistic and professional samples of motion graphics.

Week 8 Tutorial

Exercise 01: Motion Tracking

Exercise: Augment the source video by tracking Graphic elements within the video source file.
I completed the following elements of the task:

• Watched the motion tracking Video tutorial, and experimented with Motion Tracking on the supplied source clip.
• Placed a piece of text onto the CI building in the distance.
• Experimented with 3D rotation on the element to try and make the text ‘fit’ into the scene.
• Applied motion blue to the element

Exercise 02: Corner Pinning

Exercise: Augment the source video by corner pinning the supplied image within the video source file.
I completed the following elements of the task:

• Watched the Corner Pinning Video tutorial and attempted to ‘pin’ the image onto the computer monitor
• Experimented with blend modes - settled upon 'lighten'.
• Applied motion blur and a feathered mask to the image.
  

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Both of these exercises were simpler to complete than expected. For erratic movement in videos such as those provided, motion tracking proves to be a very effective tool in creating connections between text (or graphic elements) and dynamic imagery. While neither of the two exercises are perfect (particularly the corner pinning which clearly requires some refining), I now understand the use of motion tracking and would be able to use this in future animations if required.

Week 6 Tutorial

Exercise 1: Sin City Style

Following the tutorial supplied on the task brief, I created a Sin City style image from flickr member Orangeacid's image and Photoshop. This exercise proved to be very helpful in understanding the effects of filters and adjustments. While I have had previous experience with these tools, I was not aware I could achieve this look so easily. While I do like the overall outcome, there are elements that could be improved.

To best obtain the comic book ink look, I had to sacrifice almost all detail on the nose and lips, drawing emphasis to the eyes. This is effective for dramatising the mood of the image, however, if I were to comply with the style of Sin City comics, darker lines would be required to illustrate parts of the face, such as the nose. In addition, I would place more emphasis on the gun by moving it to a higher angle, showing the mouth of the weapon. Creating the rain was an interesting task. Although it does serve it's purpose, the number of black lines over her face are excessive and the lines are not random or broken enough to be completely believable. If I had time, I would experiment with different levels and filter effects but that will have to wait til another time.

Exercise 2: Graffiti

Graffiti images supplied from blackboard. Background texture supplied by ground*floor.

The purpose of this task was to create a temporal composition that reveals 3 pieces of graffiti through an animating mask. We were also instructed to use 3D camera views in After Effects.

This task was, by far, the most enjoyable and valuable task to date. Creating stencils from photos of graffiti and applying 3D camera angles to a 2D composition not only created dynamism, but also the interest that my previous animations were lacking. The notion of 'layering' and peering over 'layers' is something I wish to utilise in my final assessment as, in my opinion, is a fundamental process that truly separates 'animation' from moving images. With the use of the hue/saturation and curves tools, I believe I have effectively achieved the cut-out stencil style demonstrated in the video tutorial. This effect will be very useful in my final assessment as I plan to add a similar style to the characters in my animation.