VCD302 – WORDS BY THE SEA

VCD302 Blog 6

I believe my VCD302 project successfully met the criteria in creating an animation that showed my technical fluency in After Effects and my design aesthetic.

I am proud of my technical development, which includes (but is not limited to) learning how to animate text, incorporate and edit videos in After Effects, and creating seamless transition between sequences. By spending hours on YouTube following tutorials and experimenting on After Effects, this self-learning led to a deep technical understanding of kinetic type.

My aesthetic goal for this project was to make an animation that portrayed happy, surfy and peaceful vibes, as I believe these characteristics best encapsulate the northern suburbs of Wollongong. I achieved this through using bold typefaces and bright colours to accompany the videos.

My project also utilises primary and secondary motion to achieve its aesthetic purpose. Videos of the northern suburbs of Wollongong are used as the secondary motion, with the aim of making the animation engaging, captivating, and to visually correlate with the articles content. The videos are mostly still and peaceful snippets of nature, so it does not take away from the primary motion of kinetic type.

Although I believe my project meets the criteria, there were three key design decisions that altered my design process along the way. Ambrose and Harris in ‘Design Thinking’ suggest that throughout the design process, it is crucial to constantly take stock of where you are, where you are heading, what’s working and what’s not (Ambrose & Harris, 2009). Thus, these three key moments I have identified were recognition of components that were not working and needed to be fixed before moving further along in the project.

The first decision was to not incorporate extravagant kinetic type in every single sequence as I had initially proposed. There are two key reasons for this. The first was purely due to kinetic type being time consuming to learn then put into practice. I learnt that detailed kinetic type for each sequence would significantly set back my production timeline. The second reason was that I found if the more extraordinary kinetic type was used more sporadically in the animation, it was easier to watch and follow along.

An example of detailed, extravagent kinetic type

An example of more simplistic, easy-to-follow kinetic type.

The second significant design decision was based around the usage of videos. Up until a week before the project was due, I had decided to use solids instead of videos as the animations background, as I didn’t have enough footage to cover the entire video. However, I decided that by not having video as the primary background, it defeated the purpose of visually marketing the region. So, I visited different locations of the northern beaches of Wollongong to get more footage. Although time consuming, I’m glad I did this, as it helps the animation clearly retell the article visually. Solid backgrounds are still used occasionally to help break up the text.

The final design decision that was crucial to my animation was choosing colour and typefaces. Originally, I had my whole text in white with the same font. However, I decided that this was plain and boring. Changing the typeface and colour took much longer than what I anticipated as each video had different colours, so I had to match the typeface colour to what best suited the video. I believe the diverse typefaces and colours were key components in achieving my intended aesthetic outcome.

“The feedback generated at the end of the process becomes a learning opportunity for future projects” (Ambrose & Harris, 2009). The biggest feedback I would give to myself is to plan in more detail and spend more time storyboarding before designing. My style of editing reminds me of David Barringer who refers to himself as ‘the legislator and philosopher’ when it comes to editing. He changes his editing trajectory along the way of working, and while he sees this as liberating and empowering, the indecisiveness and lack of planning is equally painful (Lupton, 2011). He recognises that he must be discipline and constrain his editing and does so by first recognising the limits of his concept- something perhaps I should have considered before diving deep into a project that I knew little about (Lupton, 2011).

Overall, I am so glad I took a leap in the dark and investigated kinetic type for this project. I am excited to use kinetic type in the future within my field of design and marketing for the purposes of social media, marketing videos and design collateral.

References:

Ambrose, G, & Harris, P 2009, ‘Design Thinking’, AVA Publishing, accessed on the 3rd of June 2022.

Lupton, E 2011 ‘Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming’, Princeton Architectural Press, accessed on the 1^st of June 2022.

VCD302 Blog 5

I plan to follow Lupton’s design process to carry out my animation. Lupton has identified 3 key processes in designing- defining the problem, researching ideas, and bringing the concept into fruition.

The first step of the process is to define the problem. The problem for this assessment was to choose and learn an animation technique, with the aim to create a video with an underlying concept and to display out After Effects skills. For me, this looks like creating an animation with fun, bright, surfy vibes to promote the Northern Suburbs of Wollongong.

At the beginning of the design process, ideas are unlimited and thrown around until further refinement (Lupton, 2011). It’s important for designers to have a large pool of ideas to choose from through brainstorming over a period (Lupton, 2011). For my project, this looked like figuring out what kind of After Effects technique I wanted to focus on, so this involved researching motion designs on Pinterest and LinkedIn Learning. Once I decided that I wanted to focus on kinetic type, I took a few days to figure out how I can incorporate it into an animation that would be fun for me to create and relevant to my field of study.

A problem I anticipated included that learning kinetic type from scratch would be a time-consuming and frustrating problem. Another problem I anticipated was that my animation would not be seamless and aesthetic, and therefore failing its purpose to attract people to the Northern Suburbs of Wollongong.

Due to my planning miscalculations, unanticipated problems I encountered along the way include no longer having the time to do illustrations as I initially proposed for my project. I soon realised that illustrations are too time consuming for an element that is not crucial to my animation. I ditched the illustrations to focus on mastering kinetic type. Following Lupton’s process, the next step after identifying the problem is to find solutions that will develop the concept (Lupton, 2011). This typically entails communicating ideas to the client (or in my case, proposing my concept in class), deciding on one concept and generating multiple ideas around it. Personally, this looked like researching kinetic type animations on Pinterest and YouTube for aesthetic and conceptual inspiration. Currently, I have found two YouTube videos that guided me so far in the project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN2GQ5tTKI0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6k3MlNP4b0

Although the videos are relatively short, each kinetic type took hours to do, which has given me greater understanding of what a realistic production timeline will entail moving forward.

Production timeline goal:

Week 8/9: research/ start learning kinetic type/ get footage (first 25 seconds)

Week 10/11: continue with kinetic type (up to 40 seconds)

Week 12/3: Continue kinetic type and integrate colour and animation (up to 60 seconds)

Week 13/14: finalising

The final step of Lupton’s process is to create the concept form. After defining the problem and researching ideas, this part of the process brings the concept into fruition. This entailed to continue watching tutorials on kinetic type and inserting it into After Effects, filming videos for the background, adding colour and interesting typefaces that best suited the article. The goal of the final result has been consistent the whole time of my planning process- to create an animation that uses kinetic type and videography to attract audiences of the Australian Traveller Magazine to the region.

References:

Lupton, E 2011 ‘Graphic Design Thinking: Beyond Brainstorming’, Princeton Architectural Press, accessed on the 1^st of June 2022.

VCD302 Blog 4

The concept for my animation is visual tourism marketing. I currently do an internship with Australian Traveller Magazine, and I plan to create a promotional video for an article that has been written on the Northern Suburbs of Wollongong, which is where I live. I will use kinetic type and videography to retell the article in a visually appealing form with the aim for the magazine to use it promotionally.

The area of investigation I am focusing on for my animation is kinetic type. I plan to use kinetic type to retell the article in a visual way. I also will utilise the solid shape function in After Effects to create transitions between sequences, in aim to keep the animation engaging and seamless. Additionally, videos will be used in the background of the kinetic type sequences, and therefore secondary motion will be explored in my project.

The overall theme for my animation is visual tourism marketing, branded with Australian Traveller Magazine.

Visual tourism marketing is marketing that intends to captivate and persuade the audience to visit a particular place. This is often achieved through videography, photography and graphic design. I plan to make my video animation to audiences by using interesting kinetic type, bright colours, and videos that reflect the beauty of the Northern Suburbs of Wollongong.

Therefore, the production techniques being used will include my personal photography and videography and researching kinetic type techniques. As I have never done kinetic type before, I plan to spend lots of my time on YouTube and LinkedIn learning to follow tutorials for each technique. I also plan to implement illustrations to add an extra level of visual storytelling.

The main source of inspiration for my project has come from Pinterest. When researching ‘travel marketing animation’, these are videos that appeared and inspired my aesthetic and technique:

Below is a rough concept of my plan for the animation. The aim is that for every sentence of the article a different kinetic type technique is used, coinciding with a different background and typeface.

I will have to be careful to ensure the sequences seamlessly blend, as there is a risk that bad design could lead to the video feeling clunky.

The aspired outcome is to create a video that visually recreates the article. I hope to capture the beauty of the northern suburbs through video in the background and use motion design as the focus to create an exciting and engaging animation that entices people to the northern suburbs.

VCD302 Blog 2

The motion design fundamentals I am employing in my work are drawn from Krasner, Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation and Lupton/ Philips, with the Double Diamond framework guiding me through my creative process.

The Double Diamond creative process clearly outlines the two major stages of my ideation for this project- research and design. During the first weeks of this subject, majority of my time was spent researching how to become competent in After Effects and what skills I need to achieve the project. The later weeks were spent practicing and prototyping in After Effects and refining my design until I was satisfied with my final sequence.

The Double Diamond has 4 distinct stages- discover, define, develop and deliver. The discover stages raised the questions of ‘how can I upskill in After Effects?’ and ‘what kind of design do I want?’. I found my answers through getting inspired by LinkedIn learning, YouTube videos, Pinterest and reflecting on tutorial and lecture notes. After drawing upon research to find inspiration, I defined my project- to make a 20 second slip on After Effects that showed my competency using shape layers, all while maintaining an aesthetically pleasing look. The develop phase was the longest and entailed prototyping different sequences and drafts. In week 6, I decided to change my animation idea, but didn’t put me behind as I felt comfortable using the software and had a clear understanding of how to achieve the final project. So, after months of researching, defining, and developing, I finally delivered a sequence that is not perfect, but shows my understanding in how to use After Effects.

My project only uses primary motion, as the black background remains the same for the entirety of the sequence. Primary motion techniques I utilised include pause, overlapping and motion paths.

Disney’s 12 Principles of Animation covers the foundation of all animation work. Although mostly applied to character-based animation, it is still relevant for shape-based animations. The 3 main principles I identified in my work are ‘slow in and out’, ‘secondary action’ and ‘pose to pose’. Slow In and Out is seen by the shapes slowly easing in and out of the frame, which was achieved through the positioning tool. The Secondary Action is seen in the last few seconds of my sequence when the lines outline the main object of the triangular shape. Pose to pose is implemented when the polygons shift into triangles. The main design fundamentals at play in my animation include opacity, rotation, animating lines, scale, positioning and colour.

Techniques drawn from Lupton/Phillips Graphic Design: The New Basics include the grid structure of my frames. This matches my style of minimalistic and clean graphic design. Lupton and Phillips also emphasise the importance of rhythm and balance in animation. My grid structure and symmetrical sequences achieve balance, and rhythm is achieved through the same shapes being used for the whole sequence, making it easy to follow along and watch.

The iconic The Innovation of Loneliness animation is a much more complex animation than mine, but when comparing my work against it, I recognised some similarities. These similarities include the little shapes transitioning into a whole shape, the use of bold colour in contrast to the black background, scaling to fit the whole screen, and rotating shapes into new posit ions.

Overall, this task has been extremely helpful in gaining confidence and understanding the basics of After Effects, and I am ready to further up-skill before the next assessment.

References

Ball, J. 2022 ‘The Double Diamond: A universally accepted depiction of the design process’, Design Council UK, accessed 4.04.2021 at https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/news-opinion/double-diamond-universally-accepted-depiction-design-process

Coron, T. 2021 ‘Understand Disney’s 12 principles of animation’, Creative Bloq, accessed 4.04.2021 at https://www.creativebloq.com/advice/understand-the-12-principles-of-animation

Lupton, E. & and Phillips, J. 2008 ‘Graphic Design : The New Basics’, Princeton Architectural Press, pp. 215-226

VCD302 Blog 1

The motion design used in the trailer for ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘ (2018) draws upon the 1998 trailer ‘Night of the Demons’. The techniques used in both trailers effectively convey the respective movies are spooky, mysterious and will leave audiences feeling uneasy yet enticed.

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina mostly uses secondary motion to create suspension. Secondary motion can be described as “The perceived motion of the viewer that dictates how the content is framed over time. It can have an effect on the audiences mood and perception of space” (Krasner, 2013). The trailer achieves this through using very slow panning on each frame which adds eeriness. However, whip panning is utilised between each frames suggests the movie is frightful and will keep audiences on their toes.

The primary techniques used in this trailer go hand-in-hand with the secondary techniques to make the trailer feel scary and on-edge. The timing of the primary objects is slow which adds an element of mystery. There is no anticipation with the primary objects- they all come about suddenly and unexpectedly. The creators also implemented the ‘follow through’ technique, as the details in the primary object continue to subtly move even past its termination point (for example, from 0.28-0.29 the woman’s hair continues to move even though the frames main shot has passed). Additionally, the pause used for each frame allows the viewer to catch their breath, yet also leaves them anxiously waiting for the next spooky motion.

The Night of The Demons trailer has a similar feel but uses more primary motion than The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The secondary motion differs as it uses a black background for the entirety of the trailer, creating the primary objects to be more prominent and is what moves frame-to-frame rather than camera shots. However, from 2:40-2:50, panning is used along the haunted house scene to allow the viewer to feel as if they are in there themselves. Zooming in and out motions are used, along with tilting to keep audiences unsettled.

As for the primary techniques, the ‘birth, life and death’ of each primary object is abrupt. A mix of fading in and out and growing in and out of frame is used. The overlapping used over each objects adds a level of fright and unexpectedness to each frame. The motion path is effective, particular from 1:00-1:15 as the flying creatures go from the bottom left corner to the top right, drawing the viewers eye to the text in the top right.

The contemporary piece draws on the aesthetics of the earlier piece in multiple ways. Firstly, the pausing on each frame and quick transitions to the next is what makes both trailers mysterious and unsettling. Furthermore, the graphics style of the modern trailer is inspired from the older trailer. Graphic style can be described as ““choosing the appropriate graphic style is critical to supporting your concept, message or mood” (Krasner, 2013). This is demonstrated in the dark colours used, scary kinetic images and the eery typeface amongst both sequences. This style helps portray the horror genre of both.

However, a key difference in both trailers is the era they were created in. As Kathy Zielinski, the creator of ‘Night of the Demons’ says, “A lot of the choices were made because of budget. That’s why there isn’t a lot of what we call ‘full animation.’ Most of it — especially the ghosts coming out of the graves going up the hill to the house – was cut-outs. Kutchaver would take my drawings and figure out how to put it together. A lot was shot under-camera, combining different camera moves. The hill coming into view with the ghosts running up, that was pretty difficult to figure out” (Lang, 2019). Thus, despite the creators of The Chilling Adventure of Sabrina having access to modern technology that could make the animation more complex, they draw off the style Zielinski used to best convey the motion design for a horror film.

References

Lang, A 2019 ‘Night of the Demons’, Art of the Title, accessed 25.03.22 at https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/night-of-the-demons/

Art of the Title 2018 ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’, accessed 25.03.22 at https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/chilling-adventures-of-sabrina/

Krasner, J 2013 ‘Motion Graphic Design’, Taylor and Francis, vol. 1, no.3, pp 162-204