Thursday, September 11, 2008

Assignment One, After Effects Techniques

When creating my animation, various different techniques were used. These techniques involved the use of multiple layers, compound blur effects, image opacity, positioning and scaling, and audio placement. Placement and ordering of layer was a delicate procedure as one layer out of place had the potential to throw off the entire animation. Some problems that occurred when dealing with this process were layers being visible in areas in which they were supposed to be hidden. This was difficult to deal with as some of these occurrences were difficult to spot. However, once found, this problem was a simple one to fix, by just moving the layer over to where it should be on the timeline.


Compound Blur, Opacity, Position and Scale effects, as well as audio, all consisted of similar problems. The first problem was not to do with each of these effects and techniques in particular, but the choice of which of them to use (from each of their respective areas). Deciding on the right effects and techniques to fit my animation’s style and to capture the right feel was a very difficult process. To overcome this problem, I experimented with different effects and techniques to make a final decision on which of them I thought matched the look and feel I wanted.

It was a difficult process to ensure that each of these effects began and completed in time with their parallel, preceding and/or ensuing sequences within the animation. The only way to overcome this problem was to look over the timeline and watch the animation in detail to ensure everything was in the correct place.

There was also a second problem that occasionally rose when animating the movement of some different objects with the use of Position. In some particular areas, when I wanted the movement to pause and then commence again further on in the timeline, the movement continued. This was a large problem as it ruined the aesthetics of the composition and wasn’t supposed to happen. Fixing this problem proved as a challenge to me, but some improvisation gave me some decent results. Because I couldn’t get the movement to pause exactly, between two intervals of movement I placed an extremely minuscule movement, hardly visible to the average viewer, to make it seem as though movement had ceased.

Reference list for Assignment One

All of these sources were gathered from www.creativecommons.org under Google settings.

Nancy Basile. 2008. About.Com. Peter Griffin And Family. http://animatedtv.about.com/od/fgmultimedia/ig/-Family-Guy--Pictures---Charac/FamilyGuyParty.htm viewed 8th September, 2008.

Unknown Author. 2008. New Geek On The Block. Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs Soon To Be Released. http://newgeekontheblock.com/2008/05/20/futurama-the-beast-with-a-billion-backs-soon-to-be-released/ cited 8th September, 2008.

Brahkowski, C. 2008. Brahsome. Venezuela Hates Homer, Prefers Taters. http://brahsome.com/2008/04/09/venezuela-hates-homer-prefers-taters/

New Wave Creative. 1999. IMP Awards. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Poster. http://www.impawards.com/1999/south_park_bigger_longer_and_uncut.html cited 8th September, 2008.

Prof. Eileen Joy. 2007. SIUE. The Post/human Middle Ages. http://www.siue.edu/~ejoy/eng505syllabusSP07.htm cited 8th September, 2008.

Unknown author .2008. Wordpress. Persistent Illusion. http://persistentillusion.wordpress.com/2008/06/ cited 8th September, 2008.

Unknown author. 2007. Gadget Review. Death of Analog Television. http://www.gadgetreview.com/2007/05/death-of-analog-television.html cited 8th September, 2008.

PsychoDuck. 2007. Blogspot. There Aren’t Enough Game Ads On TV!
http://one-ducks-opinion.blogspot.com/2007/12/there-arent-enough-game-ads-on-tv.html cited 8th September, 2008.

Doug. 2008. Wordpress. Get Off The Couch This Summer! http://life2gether.wordpress.com/2008/05/30/get-off-the-couch-this-summer/ cited 8th September, 2008.

Unknown author. 2007. Natural Distraction. Denver. http://www.naturaldistraction.com/slides/Sunrise%20Landscape.html cited 8th September, 2008.

Serdar3500. 2004. Fxhome. TV Static. http://fxhome.com/alamdv2/plugins/view/1440/tv-static cited 8th September, 2008.

N8. 2007. Blogspot. The Drinking Bird. http://thedrinkingbird.blogspot.com/2007/11/i-and-bird-61-as-seen-on-tv.html cited 8th September, 2008.

Rini. 2008. Blogspot. So Anyway.
http://rinila.blogspot.com/2008/04/action-sequence-catnip.html cited 8th September, 2008.

Tera Media. 2008. Soundsnap. Comic & Film FX. http://www.soundsnap.com/taxonomy/term/72 cited 9th September, 2008.

Tera Media. 2008. Soundsnap. Animals. http://www.soundsnap.com/taxonomy/term/69 cited 9th September, 2008.

Tera Media. 2008. Soundsnap. Human. http://www.soundsnap.com/taxonomy/term/68 cited 9th September, 2008.

Assignment One, Reflection

As the identity portrayed in my animation was related to cartoons on television and how they have influenced my life, the animation itself involves cartoony motions. In cartoons, objects tend to move quite radically and so I portrayed this in all of the scenes within the animation. An example of this is where the televisions fly from the sky and fill up the classroom. The way they fall and pile up is completely unlike the way physics works in the real world, an attribute highly connected to cartoons. I also paid homage to ‘South Park’ by using simple mouth cut outs to make it look like the characters in the animation look as though they are speaking.

This entire composition is a temporal montage showing the connection between myself and television, or more specifically, cartoons. I have spent the majority of my life fascinated by cartoons and used up a lot of my free time (and time when I should have been paying attention in classes) drawing and brainstorming ideas for my own cartoons. My somewhat ignorance of reality is captured by the symbols shown in the animation. The tagline, ‘To hell with depth’, relates to this as it professes a sort of hate for the third Dimension and my favour of the two dimensional structure of cartoon animations. The nature and classrooms scenes of the animation relate to the two places I have been likely to become side tracked and resort to my interest in cartoons.

The target audience I have set for my animation is the same in which the cartoons I watch on television and have paid homage to within the animation. It involves similar elements as to what these cartoons have and so I believe my composition will have better chance of success if I target the same audience. This target audience involved anyone from their teenage years through to their forties. But, I wish for anyone who is interested to view it, regardless of whether or not they are belong within the target audience.

My animation goes for approximately 37 seconds. Within this time, there are three scenes. These three scenes include the opening scene, in which a couch and television fall from the sky into a serene sunrise landscape, the second scene, in which a teacher and the classroom wall are pelted with balls of paper (some including sketches I had made in notebooks back at high school), and the final scene, in which the animation ends with static on the screen (accompanied by white noise).