Top 10 Things... Idents on After Effects... Music

Here are some screenshots and notes from when I have been creating my idents of after effects, this will be useful for if I do something which I want to do again later in another ident. I've included the story boards which each ident is based on to make my ideas clearer. 

Music Choices

I'm going to play a different part of the song in each ident to keep them interesting. I have chosen interesting ten second clips from the songs, and faded them in and out.

1. Purely music (piano and trumpet)

2. "If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, how'd ya do, how'd ya do, how'd ya do" + music

3. "If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, hired a van, for goodness sake, if I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, how'd ya do, how'd ya do..."

4. Purely music (piano)

5. Music and then... "If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake, baked a cake, baked a cake..."

Top 10 Things... Idents & Intro Test Pieces

After creating some rough frames and storyboards, I have done some test pieces of my designs on illustrator and photoshop based on my initial drawings and storyboards.

The use of grids ensures that I am aware when my actions are going outside of the title safe zone. This idea is very simple bringing in ideas from my design direction boards.

It is good to quickly test out ideas to see if they work before I spend ages making them move in after effects and then discover that they don't. I think my illustrated cupcakes work better than edited photographs.

I have been experimenting with the different effects on illustrator, such as in the example, where I want to rotate my text as inspired by the text in the hustle tv intro. 

After doing a few intros, I think that I am now ready to start making my moving image in after effects, making any other assets in illustrator or photoshops, such as backgrounds, as I discover I need them. 

After Effects Tutorials

I am trying to create my sequences for the silent movie brief, but I am struggling with the software, so I have decided to look at some tutorials to try and help me. Here are the videos I have looked at for future reference:

-My work isn't going to be kinetic typography based, but I thought this was an interesting tutorial to look at anyway, and one day I might try some kinetic typography. It has shown me that I should look at 3d type presets such as typewriter.

http://layersmagazine.com/animated-handwriting-in-after-effects.html

I found this tutorial on our forum board on moodle, and although this wasn't an effect I was planning on doing I thought it seemed interesting so I chose to do it anyway. 

I downloaded this font called 'I'm fashionista', and then activated the stroke effect, and used the pen tool to draw around the text in the way it would be when it is hand written,.

On stroke options click all masks and change brush size so all of word is covered by this white stroke.

Change paint style to reveal original image.

I'm so pleased about how good this looks and how easy it was to make that I think I will try it in one of my idents of my intro. My video:

http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/tutorials/07.3d/

Again, this tutorial wasn't really something I was looking for, but I decided to give it a go, after seeing other peoples work and feeling as if their after effects skills were much stronger than mine. In this tutorial I learnt about camera angles, 3d and adding light.

I have imported a few of my cupcakes to experiment with, and applied the camera to my composition.

Make the shapes 3d by clicking in the box with the cube on it.

Here I can change the objects so that they are on an angle, as I had planned to do in my storyboards, as inspired by the intro of Hustle tv show.

Use the track z tool to each 3d shape, change size/ position etc, then use the orbit tool to make 3d. With track z, you can make the objects zoom in and fly past you. Again, this is something I wanted to do in my storyboards but wasn't sure how to.

This is my video showing this effect:

Also this tutorial taught about using lights. Go layer - new - light and experiment with the positioning and options of the light.

Hit aa on the keyboard to alter 3d layer options.

The focus distance on camera options makes you choose whats in focus by altering aperture and focus distance. (Buttercream butterfly is blurred in this example)

http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/tutorials/02.Effects/

This tutorial is very basic and is about effects.

Here I have experimented with the blur effect ( I could start with a blur then make the image get clearer).

Search for effects in this box and drag and drop to apply to footage.

http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/tutorials/08.Titles/

This tutorial is about making titles. I have already covered a lot of this in the previous workshops.

I could start with letters with positive kerning and eventually get to negative kerning.

Effects and presets - animation presets - text - choose an effect and drag on to composition:

Here I have used fade out slow as an example

Effect - generate - ramp : to make a gradient background

Top 10 Things... TV Intro... Storyboard

My final storyboard for my 60 second intro is a collection of my favourite parts of my ident storyboards, where I spent a lot of time thinking of how my different aspects could be arranged, inspired by the film and tv intros that I researched. I have planned this storyboard out how I planned out my storyboards for the five silent movies, including the time and colour to get this as accurate as possible, to make it easy to work from.

Whole Board

Close Ups

Top 10 Things... DVD Case Packaging... Ideas

Initial Ideas

I want this DVD case to visually represent what my tv show is about, bringing in the assets that will be used in the intro. I will be including the patterns, cupcakes, fonts and colour choices used in my intro. The packaging should be quite an easy task for me, as I have spent so long already thinking about and creating these assets, right from the beginning with my design direction boards.

Here are some really basic design ideas. I thought about creating this packaging in the shape of a cupcake, but then I decided to make it as professional looking as possible, so decided on using the scale for an actual DVD case. I also thought the case as a cupcake would look too childish, and this wouldn't appeal to my target audience.

Here is a snapshot of a quick first attempt. I will perfect and finish my packaging when I have finished making my intro, in case I make any important changes to the design.

Here I have added a bit more information to fill up the empty space. I think the use of patterns and colours relates to my theme well, but I need to be careful not to overload the packaging with too much information.

Changes after crit

[See crit blog post]

I have taken on board what was said in the crit and made a few re-arrangements to my packaging. I think I could go on forever re arrange different parts!

I spent quite a while experimenting with the positioning of the different elements, and in the end this is what I have decided on. To make sure my packaging is the best quality, I will print it out on glossy paper in the digital print room, to make it look realistic.

I'm reasonably happy with the overall design, as it shows off my illustrations and my patterns, and works well as part of a set with my intro and idents. If this had been more of a packaging based brief, I would have spent longer trying out different sizes and considering different stocks to make a really unique dvd case. However, with the time limits, I decided to stick to creating a real life sized dvd case packaging, as I knew this would work.

Image... Scale/Frame/Format... Final Piece

This is my final arrangement of pears for the eye chart brief. Hand-drawn, scanned in, and printed onto white card, a2 portrait format.

Crit Feedback

- It is clear what it is supposed to be from 20ft away, and each layer is clear

- Good organisation of items

- Good that it has been hand drawn as not everything needs to be vectored

- Try different colour background or pen

- Consider stock

- Could screen print final piece - possibly white ink on green paper

- Overall works well

Image... Scale/Frame/Format... Ideas

Brief

Using the object that you have randomly selected you must create an eye chart replacing the congenital series of letters with your object. Explore scale and format. The object must be legible and clearly identifiable from 20 feet away.

How many ways can this object be re-created? How much detail must you maintain for it to communicate? Line quality will become an important factor, as the change in scale will affect the detail of the image.

This is a drawing based brief that can either be hand crafted or computer based. No letters can be used.

The final image must be presented on an A2 portrait format and use only two colours (including stock).

Rationale

Brief: What is the problem you intend to solve?

I must create an eye chart replacing the expected letters with images of my random word: pear.

Who needs to know? 

People in need of an eye test, but it may also be of interest to those interested in fruit or design in general.

What do they need to know? 

They need to be able to see what is going on in the eye chart from 20 feet away, so it needs to be legible.

Why do they need to know?

They need to test their eye sight to check it is okay, and being able to tell what is happening in every single image on this chart should prove this.

What will they respond to?

They will see image only with no other clue to communicate.

What research is required?

Primary 

- I need to talk to someone who has had an eye test and ask them about their experience

- I should buy a pear to photograph and cut up to see inside

Secondary

- I will research different types of pears as it is a fruit I don't know much about

- I will look at how pears have been used creatively in the design industry

- I will research standard eye tests to see what I am initially working with

- I will research creative eye tests to see how people have made their own tests before

- I will research pictograms and signage to get an idea of images that still effectively communicate from a distance away

Ideas

- Cute pears with faces like the paper chase prints

- Different types of pear, hand drawn with fine writer

- Halftones of pear, computer based

- A pear being eaten, starting off whole and ending up just the pips

- Screen printed different shaped pears

- Vector created pears from different angles

Development

I started by doing quite a bit of research [see blog post], as I initially didn't really feel very inspired by the object pear. However, through my research I found lots of creative takes on drawing and creating artwork of pears. I decided to test out my ideas by drawing many little pears to see which style I liked best.

The sketchy style drawing of the pear in the bottom left was my favourite style of pear. My design decisions have been effected by the fact that I can only use one colour and stock. With pears, the use of colour would have been a good way to show change. Instead, I decided to draw out different types of pears, based on photographs I found in my research. I enjoyed this rough style of drawing, adding detail but making sure that it was still obvious what I was drawing. I looked at a standard eye chart and worked out I would need to draw 21 different pears, so I did this with fine writer. Drawing straight on to the paper without first drawing plans in pencil was unusual for me but I enjoyed this, and I decided to use all of the pear drawings rather than keep drawing lots out like I would normally do.

I scanned in my pears, and thought that there was something missing, as they had lost the sharpness of the fine writer when being scanned, so I live traced the pears on illustrator and tried to arrange them like an eye chart.

After asking for feedback from a friend to make sure that it was obvious what I had made - as after all the chart being understandable was a key point in my rationale - she suggest making more of a jump between each different size as they are all quite different. I spent a while playing around with this and eventually came to my finished arrangement. [see blog post]. I then experimented with different shades of green for the background, but decided against it, as the pears stood out the most just black against white. This also makes it look more like a real eye chart, as they are just black and white, as the use of colours could cause confusion. I have thought about screen printing this design, as screen print is something I want to try again as I haven't done it in a while. Through screen printing, I would get a texture on my images that relates to the rough sketchy feel. I am aware that screen printing is quite a time consuming process so it will depend on how much time I have left, but if I don't screen print this design I will make sure I do get to screen print another design.

Tech Issues: Organisation

Notes from tech issues lecture with Lorraine:

- Group and name layers to make them easier to find and organise in files

- Colour code layers in after effects (click square left of file name)

- Make layers shy to hide (switch next to file name then switch on top bar) Can lock layers to stop them from being accidentally edited

- Drop the resolution to 72dpi to put in after effects to stop the file sizes from becoming to large to put on vimeo

- If you only want to render certain parts of the video, use the bottom grey bar on the timeline to shrink it to the amount you want, go to best settings then change time span to work area only

- Hold down shift to snap bar with accuracy