Week 5A- Feb. 17

Today in class, we critiqued each others' storyboards and began working on our projects in After Effects. In the beginning of class, two people were asked to volunteer to show their storyboards up front to be critiqued by the whole class, and I was the first one to volunteer. Before presenting the storyboards, I showed them my quote, and the class took guesses on how exactly I would convey it in After Effects. Some of the comments were very similar to how I wish to present my video in After Effects, so I feel that I have successfully completed this idea.

Some suggestions were to have a more simplistic bee than the original one I illustrated, a thinner line for "bee" in the last frame, and colors that represent nature better since the ones I have are too unnatural. The yellow was said to be hurtful to the eyes, and it was suggested to perhaps add an off-white background, which brings me to the background suggestions, since I had difficulty in figuring out what I wanted to use as my background, if anything. Another background suggestion was to have a lighter texture that fades halfway across the screen with the words as they appear.

Week 4 Outside of Class

This week outside of class, I worked on my storyboard pencil sketches, as well as the full color illustrations of the story board on Illustrator, which you will see below.


Here, my foreshadow is the bee buzzing across the screen in the second frame, which will be seen at the very end in the last frame.

As you will see throughout the sketches, I will try to keep the animations consistent between each pair of "You'll" and "I'll," and change them slightly from pair-to-pair.

 The recall is the "You'll" coming in from the right and moving left, and the "I'll" sort of answering it by coming from the left and moving right. I will keep the animations of "You'll" and "I'll" consistent throughout the video.

 I would like to animate the indicated words in a way to look like they are being handwritten, but I will have to watch some videos on Lynda.com to learn how to do this.

I haven't decided on a background yet for the video, but I hope to gather some suggestions from my classmates.

 As I went along on Illustrator working on my storyboard, I thought of some different ways to present different words, such as "wine" and "whiskey," as you see to the left.

 Again, consistent animations between each pair of "You'll and "I'll."

The bee you see here and in the first storyboard was completely illustrated by myself. I hope to learn how to make it spell out the word "bee" because I feel that it would add a cute finish to the video, and complete the foreshadow from the second frame.

Week 4B- Feb. 12

Today was basically a work day to work on the part of the Message in Motion assignment that is due Monday, which are the storyboard sketches and full color illustrations of the storyboards on Illustrator.

Week 4A- Feb. 10

Today in class, we reviewed and critiqued our classmates' Dreamscape and Rhythm videos. I was the first to show mine, and I was surprised when I was told that I did an excellent job on them, especially the Rhythm video. Next, we went over our next project entitled Message in Motion. For this project we have to take a short phrase or saying, and use time and space to give it a visual voice. The size and Frames Per Second are the same as before (W:720xH:486, 24 FPS), and is to be created on After Effects, and as long as needed to convey the message. The message I chose was from one of my favorite country songs, Honey Bee by Blake Shelton:
"You'll be my soft and sweet, I'll be your strong and steady. You'll be my glass of wine, I'll be your shot of whiskey. You'll be my sunny day, I'll be your shade tree. You'll be my honeysuckle, I'll be your honey bee"

We must use foreshadow and recall to enhance the communication, which we learned the proper definitions for. We were given hints like giving the video a second or two at the beginning before starting the animation, treat the type characters like actors you are directing. Too many in one scene is overwhelming. Be consistent, too many voices (movements) creates confusion. Make it readable, either through visual rest or repetition. We were also instructed to watch the following videos on Lynda.com which will aid us in creating the video :

After Effects CC Essential Training

3. Understanding Compositions
• Exploring compositions and project settings 6m
• Importing illustrator files as compositions 7m
• Understanding Pre-compose 4m

4. Building Compositions with Layers
• Creating layer solids and shapes with masks 9m
• Layer compositing: Masks, switches, and blend modes 7m
• Using track mattes 4m
• Working smarter by swapping layers 7m

5. Creating animation
• The power of parenting 5m
• Creating and adjusting motion paths 9m
• Using null objects 6m

The following PDF entitled "Symbolic Scoring" was posted on the server to show what is expected of us to do for the first part of the project, which is to do a storyboard of our overall idea of the video. This is basically a form of brainstorming before I go on to create the video in After Effects.

Homework:
1. Watch "03 After Effects Videos" text file on server
2. Storyboard (Symbolic Scoring PDF)
    - pencil sketch
    - full color in illustrator...as many pages as         needed. Label appropriately
3. choose message (done in class)

Week 3- Outside of Class

This week we did not have class due to the harsh winter weather, so we were assigned to still watch the After Effects videos, and also create our own video using the word "Rhythm" and communicate it meaning through the movement of its parts. First, I watched the assigned videos on Lynda.com, which really aided in creating my video in terms of learning different animating features. The following list of videos helped me with this short project:

4. Building Compositions with Layers

• Defining layers 5m

• Creating type layers 7m

• Precise typesetting techniques 5m

5. Creating Animation

• Understanding animation 6m  

• Adding and adjusting keyframes 9m

• Understanding keyframe interpolation 6m

I then went on to create my video, which I will admit I was confused at first even after watching the videos, but after watching them a second time and going along with it on my computer I began to understand it a lot better. I do have to say that I had some fun animating this video, and becoming even more familiar with the many features of After Effects. My method of conveying the meaning of Rhythm through the animation of its letters was to take each letter and animate it in a way that I felt the beat of different genres such as rock, electro, country, and hip hop. They seem random at first, so I tied them all together at the end by making them follow the same "beat."

Week 2: Outside of Class

This week outside of class, I worked on and finished my Sequential Dreamscape video on After Effects. Below you will see the video and photos I used for the video. Just like with Flash, as I kept using the program, I learned more and more tricks to using it. I actually had fun creating this video, and am fascinated by the many features of this program. I also watched the assigned After Effects videos. I felt that by using the same typeface throughout the video and only changing the color, I still managed to convey my emotions during the dream. I used the period at the end of each word to make them seem "to the point" and blunt. My photos I feel also convey the emotions I was feeling throughout the dream, such as the calm colors for the peaceful and calm parts, and foggy photos for the fog part.

Week 2B- Jan. 29

Today in class, we previewed a few classmates' name animations that we did in the previous class. We were then shown how to use photobooth in order to take a picture of the description of us by our partners. I just took a picture with my phone, as you will see below. We were then given a walkthrough of Youtube on how to upload a video and make sure that it does not play ads when you present your video, as well as how to get the embedding code to embed it into your blog.

Next was a demo of AfterEffects. We were shown how to start a new project, new composition, adjusting composition settings such as frame rate and video size, import files, and creating layers within the document. Then, we were shown how to render our creation by adding to render queue, editing the format, and outputting it to a file.

We had in class work time to start our next project, which is called Sequential Dreamscape. The instructions were:
Through the sequencing of words and backgrounds, give the impression of a dream you had or heard of. Use 5-7 words, colors, backgrounds, and background textures. It must be still frames only, one background and one word in each frame at a time, and the words must be at the center of the layout. The words cannot create a sentence with meaning, just like a dream. The color and texture background must be the full width of the screen.
Program: After Effects; Size: W720xH486; Length: At least 15 seconds @ 24fps; Publish: .mov

Homework:
- finish Sequential Dreamscape project, then upload to youtube and embed into the blog
- watch After Effects videos