New Theme

Whilst I was sketching out my ideas I started listening to a song, which then gave me another idea. However this time I felt that it would have been better then the other ideas, I then explained my idea to my tutor, and he then suggested why didn't I do all 3 animations on the same theme, except use different types of music.
Therefore I decided to then change the whole theme of my project, even though I had extensively looked into my other ideas, I felt that this idea would give me more oppotunities to be more creative, in both the design and animation.
Now my new theme is having simple shapes moving to make them look like they are creating the sounds and music that the audience will be able to hear.

The first song that I listened to, which made me change my mind, Played Alive (The Bongo Song) by Safri Duo. This song gave me the inspiration to do something different, and that can answer the brief better.

One of the tutors gave me the name of someone who did something similar, they made music with an aray of different instruments (not the conventional ones), the name of this person is Edgar Varese. I then looked him up on You Tube to see what kind of music he did. I then found there were a few of his pieces that I liked, one was called Ionisation and another one was Hyperprism. I listened to both of them to decide which one would be better for this project, I then decided that I would use Hyperprism.

I then had to choose a third piece of music that was different from the first two. I then remembered a group of people that created music using random everyday objects, for example plungers, bins, chairs etc. This group was called Stomp. I then had to decide which one of their many songs I was going to use. I listened to quite a few of their songs, for example Bins, Plungers and Brooms. After listening extensively to each one I then decided on using Bins for my final animation, mainly because I was able to use the beats that were created.

There will be a common link between these 3 animations, and that will be a build up of sounds in the beginning and then a fade out of sounds at the end.

research for themes

After creating a mind map to allow my ideas to follow I found that I had come up with some interesting ideas for my themes.

Machinery: I thought about doing this topic since the beginning, mainly because I found a piece of music that would fit perfectly with it, also I could used the different parts to create an abstract piece of animation, that I feel would coincide with what the brief says.

Here are a few images at which I could use to help me create my abstract machinery animation. I feel that using images like these would help because they could give me an insight into what I would need to think about when designing my animation.

My next idea I came up with was called Life of a Family. This is where I would use simple shapes to demonstrate either a normal day of a standard family, or to demonstrate a special occasion that the family would go through, for example a family get together, birthdays, wedding anniversaries etc.

Here are 2 images at which I had found to help me portray the image of a family that I would have liked.

However, after attempting to storyboard this idea I found it wasn't as good as I first thought, mainly because I thought that I would end up copying the bupa advert, therefore I decided not to pursue this idea.

The next idea was something the is a bit darker in theme, it is called Bullying. With this idea I wanted to demonstrate how bullying can affect a person, whether they are a child or and adult. To do this I thought about a balloon and maybe something that would come along and pop it.

I did think about the fact that normally, bullying happens in schools, mainly to children however I wanted to keep the place open to interpretation, therefore I do not want to use a stage or background that would be recognisable.

Another theme, following on from the Bullying theme, is Abuse. Even though abuse has many forms, for example child abuse, sexual abuse or physical/mental abuse, I still don't want to use a specific theme, and by doing this means it would reach out to more people, because I have again left it up to the audience to interpreate how they want.

The way I would demonstrate this theme, is by using one object to be something easily breakable, for example a sheet of glass, and another object to be something like a ball, which throughout the animation would slowly break the glass until we are left with a shattered piece of glass in the middle of the screen. This would symbolise the soul of the victim being broken, after being abused.

The next theme that I cam up with was Love Triangle. I came up with this idea from my own mini experience, and therefore I would be able to use that as a basis to create my animation.

The reason why I decided to pursue this idea is because I thought about what I could use, I could use the primary shapes, square, triangle, circle etc, to create the people who are involved, and again use different shapes to then set the scenes at which to explain what is happening.

Here is an image basically explaining how a love triangle works, where either 2 men are after 1 woman, or 2 women are afetr 1 man.

After again attempting to storyboard this idea I found it difficult to demonstrate my theme, especially as a love triangle is very emotional, and I couldn't show emotions without showing faces very easily.

Another idea that I came up with was Boxing. The reasoning for this is because I started to listen to the song Eye of the Tigar, and the got a few ideas about how I could create a boxing animation, for example running up stairs, training, as like from the Rocky films.

These 2 images I would use for my animation to demonstrate the boxing theme. To create my character I would have just had the 2 gloves and triangles for the shoes. And with this image on the right I would have used that to come up with an idea for the ending of the animation.

Research on videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubMoADfd3BM&feature=related This is the website at which I found this video.

After watching this video I found that it had quite a few of the motion graphic design principles. These are:

• Speed of change
• Squash and Stretch
• Aniticpation
• Follow Through
• Overlapping Action
• Staging/Exaggeration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOKKtkKR2A8&feature=related This is where is got this video from

After watching this video I have established that it has quite a few of the motion graphic design principles that had been listed earlier.

• Squash and Stretch
• Anitcipation
• Overlapping Action
• Staging/Exaggeration

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vksgbsPxXLo This is where I found this video, however I first saw this video on television, and therefore I found it relevant for this project.

Again after looking at this video I have found that there a number of the different motion graphic design principles that would apply to this, they are:

• Speed of change
• Arcs
• Squash and Stretch
• Overlapping Action
• Staging/Exaggeration

Each of these videos are helpful for my project, because each of them demonstrate that you can use simple shapes and colours to convey an idea.

The first and second videos are about Bupa, which are a health insurance company, these are just 2 of their many television adverts. I chose these 2 because they were able to show an arrange of different shapes and colours all working together to create a storyline for which the audience would engage with and maybe even connect with. I think the point of these adverts are to portray the fact that if people had bupe health insurance it would be simple and easy to understand.

The last video was from a television advertisement that I had seen on the television, whilst I was doing my work. It is for a child help center, this is to help them with their maths and english. The way that the put this idea to the country is by using a typical childrens song, however changing some of the wording to make it about the product, and getting children to sing it, this would make the viewer more inclined to use the product. The reason why I chose this video is because they use simple drawings, as if a child had done them, to demonstrate their point. For example the fish jumping across the words as and when they are being said/sung.

After closely studying each of these videos and determining what motion graphic design principles relate to them, I have noticed a few similarities between each of the videos, to begin with they each seem to be staged, this is because they each are telling a story to get the audience involved and interested, also they each have the squash and stretch principle within them, I would suspect that this is because each of the producers would want to make their characters or objects seem real, even though they are animations.

Explaining Motion Graphic Principles

There are 6 basic motion graphic design principles, they are:

• Squash and Stretch - is when an object, within an animated action is distorted to convey the physical properties and to make the object more realistic, for example a ball bouncing up and down.


• Anticipation/Motivation - is when an object is preparing for the action, for example a rocket shaking for before it takes off.


• Timing - is when different object move at different times to then create a sense of weight and size of the objects.


• Exaggeration/Staging - is where the action at which the object is doing is exaggerated to the point when the idea is unmistakably clear.


• Pause - Look in Motion graphic design book for explanation.


• Acceleration/deceleration - is where it 'helps establish natural movement' (Motion Graphic Design and Fine Art Animation, Jon. S. Krasner, pg 145), especially in real life things spead up and slow down.

These I found using Google Books, the book is called Motion Graphic Design & Fine Art Animation: Principles and Practice, by Jon. S. Krasner.

However, I have noticed that in the brief there has been mentioned other principles that would be helpful towards creating a better animation. Those other principle are:

• Speed of Change - is spacing of the in-between keyframes to achieve natural movement.


• Arcs - is the visual path of action for natural movement, for example when a ball is thrown into the air it doesn't fall straight down, there is a curve/arc.


• Motion Blur - is used to enhance the movement of an object, for example as an object flies throw the air, there is a motion blur to make it more realistic.


• Follow Through - is when the action of an object is finished, for example a golfer swinging to hit a ball, his/her swing carries on even after he/she has hit the ball, he/she doesn't stop as soon as they have hit the ball.


• Overlapping Action - is when a second action starts before the first action ends, meaning there is always for the audience to look at.
  

Research on Motion Design Principle

Demo - Principles of Motion Design from vanmmoocow on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/2528517 This is the website at which I got this video from.

I chose this video to demonstrate the different principles of motion graphic design, in a way that was simple and easy to understand. I feel that this particular video is helpful to demonstrate and explain each of the key principles of motion graphic design, and using simple white shapes and a black background to demonstrate means that the focus is on what the video is explaining instead of anything else, which consequently means there is nothing to distract the viewers attention.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In1tNdTFat8 This is where I found this video.

This video I feel helps me with ideas on what I could do for my project, mainly because this video uses simple coloured shapes, which have been put together to then create a figure of a person or character. And there is also a very simple and plain background, which allows all of the viewers focus to be on what is happening. I have noticed that this video contains different motion graphic principles, at which I will have to use as well. One of these principles is Motivation/Anticipation (Preparation for an action), this is where the person is simulating walking, making the audience notice what is happening, another principle that I have noticed is Overlapping Action (Establishing its relationship to the next action), this is where the bullet penetrates the person and then shatters the pieces apart, another one is Follow Through (Termination of an action), this is where after the bullet has hit the person, and the pieces have shattered apart they land is particular places, which could be personal to the artist, and finally Staging/Exaggeration (Presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear), this is basically where the person is placed in the video (in the middle in this case). Many times each of these principles are used together, because they can relate to each other.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaLESWaRMjU This is where I found this video

This video is an interesting example of how to make a ball look normal, when thrown and bounced. This video is demonstrating another motion graphic principle, which is Squash and Stretch (Defining the rigidity and weight of an object by distorting its shape during an action). This video also visually allows the viewer to understand how the ball moves and distorts as it bounces, which then allows a designer to make their ball design look realistic.

Brief - Three Easy Pieces

In this assignment, I will be exploring the key principles of motion design, and I will produce three pieces of animation which will illustrate and demonstrate a range of these animation principles.

I will design, storyboard and make 3 pieces of animation which use shapes rather than complex drawings or recognizable objects. Given that the graphic objects are relatively simple drawings, the choice of colour palette is an important design concern. These animations will be between 15 and 20 seconds in length each, and you will vary the number of elements you are animating from one to many across the animation. Each animation must have a music or sound track of your choice.

Analysis

I feel that I have been able to meet the brief and get everything done on time, however I did find this assignment difficult due to the fact that I did not have a Mac at home, and therefore had to make sure that I had finished my film before the half term.
I feel that if we did not have half term then I would not have had to rush, even though I still feel that I like my video and I am proud of what I have achieved.