Top 10 things; IDENT TWO.

This was an initial idea I had for the spiderman ident. Due to the fact his main trait is swinging on webs I thought I would use this to my advantage and make it look as though he was doing this in my sequence. I wanted to make it look as though he was swinging in from the top of the frame (far away) and down to the bottom off the screen. The elements such as the logo swinging on from the left hand side and the text fading in work really well but I feel as though instead of spiderman looking as though he is swinging in, it looks like he is falling. This is however not a bad thing because it can all be part of the development of ideas.

(At this point I had ran out of upload usage on vimeo so uploaded my videos straight to blogger instead) I then came up with the idea that spiderman could swing from side to side based on a workshop we had recently had with Mike. In the workshop we learnt a 'pendulum' technique and this was how to make something look as though its swinging from side to side. I applied this technique to my own imagery and the result I got is as seen above. I feel this works a lot better than the previous idea because it fits in better with the timescale and means the imagery can be on screen longer so the audience get a better look at it. I've also changed the way in which the E4 logo appears within the sequence and again feel that this is more successful because it adds differentiation to the sequence instead of having two elements doing the same thing - it adds more interest. As with the superman ident I have decided to have the text fading in and out, I think I will make this uniform across all of my idents so it can be a feature that links them all together. 

I've also included an example above with the soundtrack in to see how the movement works with the soundtrack and i'm quite happy that they go together well with the beat. 

Due to the fact I had a very basic black and red colour scheme I felt that although its a small detail, the white web didn't really fit in so I changed this to black. The black works a lot better because it fits in more with the rest of the imagery. 

Image; scale/format/frame.

Breakdown of what i'm going to do for this brief. 

With this brief I didn't really produce any sketches before hand. I decided I wanted to make the final piece by hand because I enjoy drawing and illustrating things and because the subject I was given (screwdrivers) being so bland I didn't find there was a lot to explore before making any decisions. I researched different types of screwdrivers to give my poster variety but then just drew straight away and stuck these down. A screwdriver is quite a rough tool so instead of drawing my designs straight onto card I drew them onto paper first and ripped this out, I feel it created quite a nice effect and meant I had explored something new, collage. I chose red as the colour for my illustrations because screwdrivers seem to have a danger element to them and red best represents danger, I also felt this was a little more exciting than just using black. 

Overall, although I like my poster I feel that it maybe looks a bit too cluttered because I tried to keep it too close to an actual opticians eye chart by having the same number of screwdrivers on each line as there would be letters. 

Top 10 things; interim evaluation.

This interim evaluation gave me the chance to reflect on the work I had done so far and see exactly how much progress I was making. The fact it had categories was really useful because it meant you could consider all aspects of your work rather than just thinking about certain elements such as sequence progress as this seemed quite high on the list of priorities at the time. It made me think about the things I could improve on throughout the rest of the duration of this project but also things I could improve on in the long term because a lot of the weaknesses are things that tend to come through in other projects too sometimes. It wasn't all bad because I could also see my current strengths within this project and could think about how I could maximise these. After reflecting on my progress I wrote an action plan so I knew exactly what there was left to do before the module submission. Straight away the fact I have quite a few things on there means that I could start building on my weaknesses if they were relevent to these things. The action plan was a good way of organising my time because it made me think about if there was anything I had forgotten about and also how I should prioritise these things. 

Top 10 things; 60 SECOND SEQUENCE.

This was what I managed to get done in a two and half hour software workshop in which were given the chance to just get on with our sequences. I hadn't really considered the time it had taken me to create things whilst doing my idents so this gave me a rough idea of exactly how much time I would need to put aside to complete this 60 second sequence. Once you got into the software things seemed to come easily but its just the intial starting.

The 60 second sequence was the very last one I did so because i'd pretty much got to grips with how the software worked I didn't really face too many issues. The techniques used in this sequence are all ones that have come out previoously in my idents and silent movie sequences mainly. One of the new techniques I learnt however, really benefitted me when it came to creating the background transistion from left to right, this was call the parent child relationship. It meant that if I place the backgrounds two at a time in the right position I could select the one on screen as the parent to the other one so that when I moved the parent background to the left the other background would follow therefor coming into the frame. So that this became a transisition I had to include keyframes for the position of the parent background. The idea of these backgrounds going off to the left is another element that comes from the comic book asthetic that you read a comic book from left to right so it makes sense for there to be one continuous direction. The parent child relationship technique caused a problem a few times because there was a few ocassions that when I watched the sequence back, part of another background could be seen on the screen. Although I don't have an example of this, I worked out that this was because sometimes the backgrounds were oversized or undersized so when they were brough to one side they were taking an extra bit with them so I just altered the scale. The pace of the sequence works well with the music but its quite quick but not so quick that you can't understand what is happening. I have two examples of a 'final' sequence above and I definitely prefer the one that includes the light superman at the end because it just makes the ending a little bit more interesting instead of just stopping on text. The sequence closely reflects my storyboards so i'm overall quite pleased with it. 

Top 10 things; IDENT ONE.

As an inital idea for this ident I wanted to have superman pushing the E4 logo up into the frame and then flying off behind this (as seen in the screen shots on the first and second page). Although I near enough achieved this there always seemed to be a gap between supermans hand and the E4 logo or the logo covered his face so instead of getting hung up on this I began to experiment with different ideas so this could be part of my development. Whilst I was developing this idea someone suggested to me that I could try and see what it woud look like if superman flew over the front of the logo instead so the audience would get a better view of him. On the second page of screen shots you can see where I have experimented with this across the large logo. I decided I wasn't too keen on this logo because it just looked a little too big and generally in the E4 idents is seen a bit smaller. I then made the logo smaller and it looks much better and compliments the imagery of superman a lot better. I was happy with this movement at this stage so I decided I would start looking at bringing the text in that would include the name of the programme, the day it's on and the time it's on. I experimented with it coming in from the right hand side and having the E4 logo fade out as it does but I felt that it looked a bit randomly placed because it's not really central and doesn't balance out with anything else. 

An example of the logo being too big. 

As I was going through creating this animation I began to realise that 10 seconds isn't really a lot of time for something to happen so if the text came in, in the most basic way possible, not only would this suit the timescale but it would also probably be more effective. Having the text fade in and then out again works really well because it adds another technique to the sequence making it a bit more interesting and its also quite subtle so gives you enough time to read it before it vanishes again. Having the logo left on screen could be seen as a final reminder of what channel you can catch the programme on. The soundtrack I chose was taken from a superhero film movie soundtrack album, I thought this was the most suitable place to source it because the type of music would be exactly what I was looking for with the correct beat and the movement that could be syncronised with it. I feel as though this sequences works well within the 10 seconds because its not too fast nor too slow, it has a steady pace all the way through. 

Top 10 things; prepared imagery for sequences.

This is all the imagery and also the font I will use within both my 60 second sequence and also my idents. I created my imagery within photoshop based on the images I collected off google. The reason I decided to go for this cartoon asthetic is because not only has it been a suggestion numerous times within crits but it also suits the fact that superheroes actually began life as cartoon-like characters within comic books so the bright colours and general style link back to this idea. I have no worry over the fact it may look as though it suits a younger generation because the older generation are likely to remember both the comic books and the cartoons so can make this connection. The backgrounds for each of the superheroes are these blocks of colour with a scrunched paper texture, the reason I went for this texture again links back to the idea that comic books were illustrated so it could be as though these illustrations have come to life and are moving throughout a comic book, this texture was one of the best ways to illustrate and communicate paper. The font choice also comes down to the idea of a comic book asthetic because it looks over emphasised and exaggerated just like comic books tend to be. Although it has this over exaggerated style I feel becuase its somewhat simplistic at the same time it connects well with my target audience because there is still a level of sophistication because its one straight forward font. 

Top 10 things; storyboards of ideas.

I created storyboards of all my ideas which I could then develop further and take into after effects to make up my sequences, these storyboards consist of ones for my main 60 second sequence and also ones  for the four idents I have to create too.


The intial storyboards are the ones seen on the first and second page of the issuu document. The storyboards that include colour are those that I began experimenting with for ideas for my 60 second sequence. Some of these storyboards only include key parts of the composition rather than gradual movement and how this would work. The reason I decided to use black, blue and red was because whilst i'd been researching film trailers and title sequences i'd seen that a lot of sequences that related to superhero films used quite dark colours to create mystery and danger because generally where a superhero is, danger is too. I began trying the idea that was suggested in a crit where a search light looks for each superhero until it has found it and how the colours could work around this wether they be within the search light or they be the background. Due to the fact this idea was quite simple and plain to storyboard it began to make me wonder how this would work in after effects and wether it would keep an audience interested. I also began looking at the sort of movement I could have happening within the idents and the idea that i'd select certain superheroes which I felt would create the most interesting sequence. I hadn't however, started to consider colour within this.


On the second and third page of the issue document I then started looking at the colours that are present with the superheroes costumes and logos after more advice given in the second crit about experimenting more with colour. I prefer the second set of colour scheme experimentation because it has a greater range of colour and best represents each superhero. I feel using the colour schemes from the logos and costumes of each superhero is a positive choice because it looks a lot more visually interesting than my intial storyboards and if the silohette isn't so distinguishable it can help the audience make a decision about the superhero present on screen. Having a greater range of colour will make my overall sequence be a lot more interesting visually.


On the fourth and fifth page of the issuu document is a further storyboard for the 60 second sequence. This storyboard is incomplete because I began creating it quite detailed showing all significant changes and how things would move along and then this slipped away and I was just showing how the superheroes and logos would come into the frame. I though that instead of making a linear storyboard and then having to go back and make a detailed one, I would start again and just make a detailed one because then I knew exactly how I wanted things to look/move. I also hadn't really coloured this because I thought people could refer to the imagery I created earlier but then realised that storyboards are most effective when they completely communicate in every way possible and colour is a massive part of this. If I added the colour properly it means I would have no confusion when I was looking over the storyboards whilst creating my sequences. 


When it came to storyboarding my idents I noticed that depending on how much movement was occuring and how complicated they were, some had more frames than others. There was however an equal balance because I had two with more and two with less so I was quite happy with this. The storyboards clearly communicate what I would like to occur in them because I have included arrows that show direction and annotation to explain what is happening at certain points. I decided to choose the superheroes present in these storyboards because they are well known and I knew I could create some interesting sequences based on the abilities they have such as flying. In each storyboard I have changed the E4 logo to suit the colours of the superheroes logo because this makes a direction link between the two but because this logo is so distinguished it can still be linked to its channel. I thought the purple E4 logo might be too much for some of the colours i've chosen as backgrounds and wouldn't really work.  Although my ideas on paper here are quite clear, I feel as though they may change ever so slightly once they are taken into after effects because when your actually working with the software you get a greater understanding of speed and how fast you want things to happen so certain elements may be added or taken away. Theres also the idea that just because it looks like it will work here, will it actually work in after effects when I begin experimenting and will the ideas be too complicated to be completed in the time frame ive been given because they may mean learning a new skill. All these ident storyboards will be taken into after effects to be made into sequences. 


The 60 second sequence storyboard has similar characteristics to that of the idents in terms of colour and the fact i'm still using these superhero sillohettes. The only significant difference is the fact i'm using the logo for each superhero as they come into the frame. The reason i've decided to use all the superheroes in the final sequence is so that the audience have some idea of what the programme includes as title sequences tend to hint at what the content of a programme or film is. I've made it so that the imagery counts down from 10 to 2 but misses out 1 so that you have to watch the show to find out who number 1 is hense the frame 'who came out on top?' because I feel this would encourage people to watch the show.  Compared to the other 60 second storyboards, I feel that these communicate a lot better because you know exactly what is happening from start to finish with the help of arrows and annotation, you know exactly what colours are going to be used and the general direction of things. Having detailed storyboards will definitely be a lot easier when it comes to enterpretating these ideas into after effects. As with the idents, the ideas may change slightly as there is still room for development with after effects itself because things might not work as well as i'd have pictured. 

After effects; workshop five.

- Animation > keyframe assistant > ease out. If your leaving a keyframe then you ease out. This makes the movement a bit smoother. 

- The shape indicates the keyframe has an effect applied. 

- The closer the dots on the line, the slower the movement. The further away, the faster. If your going to a keyframe you ease in. 

- If you select both keyframes and easy ease the keyframe symbol changes again, this eases the solid both in and out. 

- If you click on the red solid and the graph, the graph represents the speed, its showing a constant speed. 

- This shows how the speed for the blue solid is constant and gradually comes to a stop. 

- Both ease in and ease out. 

- By clicking on the sqaures and either end of the line on the graph you can drag the yellow bars to change the curve thus, changing the speed. 

- The acceleration can be applied directly in the graph editor. 

- To apply a mask, select the solid layer and double click on the shape you'd like it to be. 

- Make the pendulum swing, we move the anchor point above the solid and then use rotation key frames to make it swing across the work space. 

- This graph means that at the bottom it picks up more speed and makes it look like a realistic pendulum. To edit the speed click on 'edit speed graph' and this gives you handles to move. 

- To apply something to solids so they all move at the same time, use the parent tool so that the first solid does something and the others follow and do the same thing. The layers that follow are the 'child' layers.

- With the car if you set the body as the parent, it makes this one layer. 

Nesting; 

- Select layer > pre compose, with all layers selected. Create a new composition with just one layer. If you double click on the layer you can edit the car imagery and it updates within the nested composition. 

- To make the car go over the hill move its anchor point. 

Sound; 

Check audio output settings.

File > Import > Drop on to timeline. 

Quicktime player 7 > Export > Sound to WAV. 

CTRL > 8: everytime there is a significant beat in a song this will drop a marker on the timeline. 

Theres a bar on the top right in AE, don't let the song go into the red area because it's too loud. Try and stay in the green. 

Audio levels can be changed for fade in and fade out. 

Image; type as image.

Breakdown of what i'm going to do for this brief. 

I had idea for each of these posters straight away so drew them by hand first so I could then scan them in and work with them to create them digitally. Although these ideas could have maybe been taken further I feel that because this was another week brief I worked well within that time to create the ideas below. 

'From the earth to the moon' is probably the most substantial quote that I chose. Although this idea is quite basic I feel that sometimes the more simple ideas communicate best. The idea of having a black background is that it is up in space. I tried to use typefaces that best represent the earth and the moon, a rounded typeface for the earth because obviously its round and then and rockier typeface for the moon because I imagine it has this rocky surface to it. The layout of the poster wasn't too considered but ultilises the space given with the poster needing to be A1. This is my faveourite idea out of all the posters I created because it seems to communicate best and looks the most considered. 

For this poster I chose quite a strong typeface because I knew I wanted to play on this and create little characters out of some of the letters. I didn't go for just a plain typeface because I wanted this poster to have a quirky characteristic. I decided to keep the characters in white so that they stood out from the rest of the text but because they are spread out throughout the quote this still links the whole thing together. Although this is another really obvious idea I feel that it works because its simplistic and has this quirky characteristic. The fact each character is doing something different also makes it quite interesting. 

This idea didn't stray too much from the original drawing I did because I included colour when I created that. Its another really simple idea but works well within the time we were given for this brief. Personally when I think of emotion, I think of it as being deep and sad hense the use of red and black becaue these are both quite conceptually dark colours. The scratchy text also represents this negativity quite well and adds to the impact the poster should have overall. I positioned this quite small and in the corner because when someone is emotional they tend to want to be left alone and put themselves in a corner. Although this idea is quite visually plain, it is more conceptually interesting. 

Overall I feel this brief could have been pushed a lot further in terms of the outcomes because I went with the first idea I had each time instead of exploring more through design sheets. I'm satisfied with the outcomes. 

Top 10 things; second crit.

This crit was another very useful one because I was at a stage where I had started to storyboard my ideas  and because there was still time to change these ideas, any useful feedback that included change was much welcomed because it may help me develop better ideas. At this point I had only created storyboards in which I used red, black and white and I hadn't really considered using anything other colour. There were a lot of key things mentioned in areas for improvement that i'd either forgotten about or just generally hadn't really thought about yet. The fact I haven't begun to use after effects at this stage for these sequences is really hindering me because my storyboards have no understanding of what capabilties there is and are therefor quite simplistic and boring. Some of the really important points made in this crit that I feel will help me move on is to look at the comic book asthetic and see how I can work with this, use colour that relates to each film because this automatically will help the storyboards look a lot more exciting and begin experimenting with textures as this may make simple ideas come to life a bit more. 

I then wrote myself an action plan again that I could use to go away and explore some of these things brought to light at the crit. This would again help me move on from the stage that i'm at and hopefully develop my ideas into something better. I feel that because this was the first time the people in my crit group had seen my ideas/work that I got very genuine feedback as because I wasn't talking about the work it was just a case of how they interpreted my ideas. It was clear that the ideas were communicating how i'd like them to, there is just area for improvement which I will take forward. 

After effects workshop four.

- The anchor point for a text layer is in the bottom left corner. 

- The 'pan behind' tool allows you to select the anchor point and move it. 

- You can change what the text says throughout time by using 'source text', this puts a sqaure on the timeline, you select areas of text and delete or type something else and move along the timeline. This same tehchnique can used for colour and the size of the text. 

- When you select something from the 'animate' menu it appears as part of the text properties.

- Choose a position by changing the value and then change the 'start' value, this changes the position of so much of the text or single letters. 

- There are also the advanced options which give further scope for animating the text. 

- When selecting 'based on' you can change wether it animates the whole word or the letter etc. 

- If you change the smoothness of the transition it staggers the movement rather than having flow. 

- When working with scale, each letter scales around its own anchor point.

- If you select 'anchor grouping' and 'word' it scales the whole word or each word seperately if you have more than one. 

- Change the start, finish and offset. Then add a keyframe, move the bar and add another keyframe. 

- If you change the units to index you can be more precise about the movement of the text. 

- You can add colour to the letters being scaled. Add > property > fill colour. 

- Create a path using the pen tool. (Make sure the layer is selected) Select the 'mask one' and it attaches type to it. Under path options add a keyframe for first margain, move the bar, change the value and add another keyframe. 

Image; editorial image.

My rationale gives a break down of what I plan to do for this brief and what my intial ideas are. 

These are the two articles we were given that we had to create imagery for. I decided to look at key areas of the text to focus my ideas for the imagery because it didn't have to relevent to the whole article, as long as it linked to some of it. 

For the article on the left I decided to make the imagery quite humorous because with the 'doctor doctor'  sections in magazines and newspapers this tends to be how it is. This suits the article as a whole because when people imagine illness sometimes they link it to being 'green' and miserable. The imagery being a person also suits well because it could be as though this person is talking to the doctor and telling them what they have wrong with them. Although the guardian is quite a serious newspaper I feel that this still works well because of the nature of the article. 

The article on the right was a lot to do with numbers and the fact we don't tend to understand them that much so I thought i'd go for a really obvious idea. I then had to decide how I was going to make this obvious idea unique. I hand crafted the numbers for this image and stuck them onto a pale background, once I edited the image it no longer looked like it was hand crafted and therefor linked more to the first image I had created for the other article. This is good because I want the two to link as they are from the same newspaper. I wanted to use a range of colours and a variety of numbers to show the confusion that is portrayed in the article and the question mark also adds to this. Then there was the imagery for the facebook relationship section, I also kept this quite simplistic and made the imagery really obvious. As i'd already used numbers with the other image on the page I knew i'd have to take a different approach. I however kept the same style in using the paper cut outs so that the two images still linked together. 

Both images created for the articles work really well because they are minimal and simplistic so you don't have to think too much to understand them. 

Top 10 things; imagery for sequences.

WWW.GOOGLE.CO.UK

Based on the feedback I got in my first crit I decided that I was going to use both silohettes and the logos from the superheroes. The logos especially seemed like a good idea because each superhero has a unique logo so this could distinguish them if the sillohette wasn't as obvious as to who the character was. I collected the imagery above so that I can then work from it to create cartoon versions of in illustrator and photoshop which will form the basis of my sequences and these will be the main things seen in them. Collecting these images also helped me understand the sort of colours I would be using within my sequences because I am going to take colours from the logos and the costumes of the superheroes.  

Top 10 things; revised concept boards.

After crits and feedback i'd been given my ideas began to change quite significantly so I thought it was also necessary that I updated my concept boards to fit with this so that someone who was viewing these for the first time could tell exactly what I was thinking without me having to explain these ideas were now incorrect on my previous set of concept boards. The main changes I made to these boards were the 'top 10' after advice that having a greater range of characters would make my work more interesting, adding quotes from the films instead of reviews because the way I want to interpret this top 10 is that its about each of the films and not really public opinion, updating the visuals because i'd made a decision to use sillohettes and also changing my colour pallet because I'd made the decision to use colours from each of the films. I'd also decided to use just Grobold font for my sequences so I didn't need to include all the other fonts as seen on previous boards. Even though these changes seem pretty minor it makes sense to update the boards as they are a vital part of the project because the evaluate my ideas. 

Top 10 things; further film research.

When it came to designing my concept boards, I realised there was a lot of information I hadn't really thought about that I could have collected about my films i'd chosen based on my surveys. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to use text within my 60 second sequence because I felt this would take away the 'mysterious' idea I had in mind so maybe this was why I hadn't really considered it. I managed to find out how much each film made at the box office and also if it had won anyway awards but thought these facts maybe weren't actually that interesting. For the purpose of the concept boards I decided to look at other peoples opinions of the films, this was quite fitting really because the reason they are a 'top 10' is based on other peoples opinions. I also found the star rating for each of the films but then realised that this wasn't fitting with my top ten because some of the films I had in my list had been rated lower than what my survey had told me. If I was to use these quotes they would appear as each of the image from a film did, in a way hinting at the film. In these notes i've also included my ideal target audience, the channel my programme would be shown on and the time it would be shown. 

WWW.GOOGLE.CO.UK

Top 10 things; first crit.

For the first crit we had to prepare our concept boards so we could present the ideas to a small group of people to see if we were going in the correct direction and if anyone could give us any guidance. This crit was particularly useful because I didn't really have any ideas in mind at this point and people began to suggest things to me that I could experiment with and it really got me thinking about how my sequences could begin to work. One of the main useful pieces of advice was to go back and revisit my top ten because i'd used sequals for some of the superhero films and it was pointed out that this might not be very interesting when it comes to creating my sequences as the imagery would be similar. To solve this problem I would go back to the survey I did and choose some of the next popular films so there is a greater range. This crit also gave me some idea of what imagery I could begin to experiment with because I was quite stuck on which direction to take wether it be a cartoony looking style or a more realistic one. Another good piece of advice was to extend my target audience to 30 years old, this was another thing I was unsure about because superhero films are so popular that you are always likely to miss someone out of the age range, but it needed to be defined to a certain point and the choice of channel helped with this. 

After this crit I came to the conclusion that I needed to go away and really defined what it is that i'm trying to do and what direction I want to take because as it stood, I had no solid ideas. I wrote a list of things on my action plan that I had to away and look at in the next week or so in time for the next crit and also wrote a little reason why I would do this to show how it would help me move on. I also decided that I would take a cartoon-like approach to my illustration which will later become clear why. 

On top of this we were told what stage we needed to be at in time for the next crit and in a way this should help me organise my time so that I manage to do all of these things. 

Top 10 things; concept boards.

Based on the fact my chosen subject is 'the top ten superhero films' I created concept boards to suit for my intial ideas so when it comes to things like the crit people can see what i'm beginning to think i'll do in terms of my sequences, what inspires me and certain elements i've started to consider that will exsist within my sequences. A lot of the elements I have put together for these concept boards have come together quite easily because they are based on research I have done or decisions I have already made. I found it quite difficult to come up with specific content (in this case reviews) because at this stage I pictured my sequences to be mostly image based in a sense that they would leave the audience guessing. Visual concept came about as a quick decision because I hadn't really thought about backgrounds, textures and colour or how I wanted it to look specifically because I knew these decisions would change as I began designing. I placed colours that I knew were linked to superheroes and particular fonts I may consider using as a starting point. This board in particular will have to be revisited at some point to suit my idea better once I have thought more about the specifics. I feel as though these boards communicate a general idea but it needs to be more focused once I am given feedback on this. 

Silent Movie; FINAL SEQUENCES & STORYBOARDS .

& I decided to use the word 'spin' for all my final sequences instead of 'spin' and 'float'. This is because I feel as though I came up with better ideas for spin that would test my after effects skills more so than the other word. It also meant that I could challenge myself more because I had to come up with five different sequences for the same word and wanted to make each stand out from the other. 

Probably the most simplistic of all my sequences as this was the stage in which I was just getting to grips with the after effects software. It shows a simple spin sequence using the rotation tool as though it is sat on a central axis. There is no particular relevence to the inner of the 'P' being a different colour, I just feel as though it makes the sequence look a bit more interesting with this added hint of colour. Using a lightweight font suits the word because lighter objects tend to spin easier so I imagined the same would work for light fonts if there were actually able to spin. The font was also chosen because it has quite a rounded look to it and when I personally think about things spinning I automatically picture an image of circle. Spin is usually connected to quite a fast movement but I also feel that it could be slow too so I wanted to represent this within my sequence. I think this works so well because its very simple and no confusion can be caused as to whats occuring in this sequence. 

I used the same font and style imagery as the sequence above to create my second sequence because I came with a less literal idea I felt it could work for. This sequence has the idea that the text looks as though it is going round in a circle, linking back to the point I made previously that spinning reminds me of circles, the text looks as though it is following a path and when it stops it will have spun round in a circle in terms of position but not actual rotation. This idea could maybe be a little more successful if I was to speed the sequence up a bit seeing as it only hints at the idea of spinning and isn't very self explanitory but it was a step in the direction of looking at less literal ideas. 

This idea began as quite a simplistic one with just a normal letter 's' going across the page when I decided I was happy with the sequence. To make it look a bit more exciting I altered the artwork in photoshop so that the letter 's' had a wave to it and then I added in the black lines. Once I played this back in the sequence it made me realise that the 's' looked like a boomerang. The fact that the 's' stops at the end of the frame and does not completely go off is intentional because its as though someone has caught the boomerang. This sequence is quite successful overall because it meant I could experiment in after effects with the idea of rotation at the same time as movement and see how the two techniques worked together. 

This sequence was another which was less literal with the concept. I used the scale tool in after effects to make the letterform look as though it was rotating around a central axis. As I scaled the letter down and brought the size back up again it looks almost as though the letter is flipping, therefor spinning round but in a way thats almost as though its playing tricks on your eyes. Although this could probably be improved I feel that the concept is quite good because it came from just experimenting and playing around with different aspects of the letterform within after effects. It was a slower process than most of the other sequences because to make it look as though it was actually spinning the scale had to be slowly altered down and back otherwise it didn't have the same effect and sometimes i'd get so far and then a little bit woud go wrong so i'd have to start again. The black dot in the middle was a personal visual because when I watch this sequence I imagine there to be an invisible suspended path where this is that the letterform follows. 

The font used within this sequence was another one I chose because it was quite rounded and again the idea that to me spinning links to circles when I picture it in my mind. It's quite a good font to work with because although its quite thick it seems to be subtle at the same time. For this reason I decided to take more advantage of the white space within the frame and make the word a little bigger. Due to the dot being in a different colour and quite a bright one, the eye is automatically drawn to this which is a positive thing as this is the section of the sequence that moves. Having a capital letter at the beginning of the word was deliberate because as the dot is spinning round the rest of the word, this letter being heavier brings balance to the whole sequence. 

Part of the requirements for this brief stated that we needed to have a 15 frame post production storyboard for each of the sequences. This has really helped me understand my sequences better because when you are watching them through vimeo or MOV file you never see them in slow motion so although you are processing what is happening on the screen, are you really understanding the movement? It has also brought to my attention that within some of my sequence storyboards you can't really tell that the letter or word is spinning round, this tends to be with the more complex sequences so does this mean that the sequence is not as effective as I initially thought. The whole concept of creating these storyboards seems like an evaluation point in a sense because it is making me question wether or not there could be room for improvement on a lot of these sequences where the storyboards are harder to interpret. 


Although this may be the case I feel as though I have learnt a lot from the brief because I learnt how to use software that i've never been faced with before and I'd also never created moving image sequences before. Although my sequences are really simplistic, I feel as though I have really achieved something because i've learnt a lot throughout creating them about speed, timing and storyboarding. These are all things I wasn't really familiar with before in terms of my own work. One thing i've found most significant throughout this brief is the fact that storyboarding really helps a lot because without this I would have just been faced with a blank canvas on after effects and no idea what to put on it. Storyboading also helps get a range of ideas down so you can consider which are your best. I feel that everything i've learnt within the brief will definitely benefit me when it comes to creating sequences in the next brief. This has been a good starting point and learning curve. 

Silent movie; spin sequence five.

This sequence took the simplest part of a word and made it move because in all my previous sequences I was working with the whole word or a letter form. I also decided to make this full stop a different colour so that it stood out as it span around the rest of the word. The idea that it span and span again after it completed a full circle was down to the fact that one circle didn't really take up a lot of space on the timeline so there would have been a lot of time where nothing was happening. To make this full stop follow the exact same path as the first rotation round the word, I copied and pasted the keyframes. Although this is a simple technique it's one I've not really used within any other sequences and saves a lot of time. I however, realised that this sequence doesn't really answer the brief properly because the brief states that you are supposed to use a single word or letterform, nothing else and a full stop either doesn't really come into this or could be seen as a circle shape therefor not JUST a word/letterform. I will have to rework my sequence and have the idea that I could take the dot from the letter 'i' because this is part of the word. The sequence above could be therefor seen as development. 

I then came up with this sequence which follows a similar idea to the first but uses the dot from the letter 'i' to spin around the word. I've still kept this dot as being a different colour so that it stands out as it is going through the sequence. I decided to have the dot spinning three times within this sequence because it fills the whole five seconds and makes it more interesting that something is constantly happening throughout. When I think of spinning it seems like a continuous movement for a long period of time until something slowly comes to a standstill so this is more justification for having the dot spin around three times. Due to the fact this sequence happens so quickly it almost gives a blurred image so this is another characteristic I think of when I think spinning. When it came to watching all of my silent movies back I realised there was something different about this particular sequence, the shape of the sequence frame, it was sqaure rather than rectangular. When I went back into after effects I realised I had forgot to change the composition setting to PAL/DV WIDESCREEN which gives the frame this rectangular shape and is the British video format. This can be easily solved by coping and pasting my keyframes into the correct composition setting. 

This is the sequence in the correct composition settings and you can see that it has returned to this rectangular shape I have become familiar with. This sequence seems to go slightly faster and this is because I altered the path ever so slightly that the dot travels along. I neated this up so it was more of a rectangular shape and it seems to have made the dot travel a lot smoother. I feel that overall this sequence works a lot better because of the speed it has and the general path the dot follows.