willameikle-grad603-s1

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Final Animation

[willameikle-grad603-s1]

Selecting Music

Finding a backing track of either ambient noise of music was rather challenging as I had a rough idea of what I wanted, but not any solid way on where to get such.

I scoured many royalty free sites, including - freesound, epidemicsound, soundstripe, and youtube.

I knew that I wanted some sort of acoustic guitar to play in the background - nodding to how Hunt was often described as looking like a musician when he would perform his poems. As well as having a slight country/folk feel to the music, as this emulates the story of the poem itself - which is about two friends, with many nature elements being brought in to elaborate the tale.

Eventually, after searching for a very long time. I settled on an instrumental track by Hyde Free Instrumentals on Youtube.

I converted this royalty-free track into a MP3 and implemented it into the composition.l Adjusting the sound levels so it was more faded into the background and the voice of Sam Hunt was able to ring through loud and clear

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Linear Transition

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Animating Graphics

With the seals, I simply adjusted their axis, and rotated them ever so slightly every 4-5 frames, so it gave them a little bit of life.

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Animation Techniques

I wanted to avoid using too many soft fades within my composition, as I feel like this juxtaposed the way in which Sam Hunt performs his poem. He speaks with a rather staccato cadence for the majority of the performance - although he does draw out some of the words where it suits.

So i wanted to emulate this within the way the words appear on the screen. But it was a matter of keeping a visual balance so that it didn't come off as startling to read. If I did happen to use a change in opacity, or a wipe, or other form of transition - it was often a much faster one, also in an attempt to keep any appearing graphics in-time with his voice.

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Transitions

One of my favourite techniques I have learned throughout this process is that of the transition panell. There are so many different possibilities, and ways to manipulate the multiple options to your whim.

One, in particular, I made plenty of use of, was the linear wipe - so versatile in its use. I used it to slowly reveal things from left to right, cause text to disappear, or even create the look of a straight version of the 'jaws' effect.

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Animation Tecniques

One technique we learnt in class was that of utilising photoshop when it came to arranging text in a particular way. Then import a composition file of this into AE and animate each of the layers separately

I found this to be a particularly useful tool, as it allowed me to adjust and alter the sizing and arrangement of the text much easier - as I have become rather accustomed to navigating the Photoshop workspace - so it cut out much of the struggle I may have gone through to produce the same thing in After Effects (something I hope to work towards being better at in the future).

Many of the more 'stacked' type I produced throughout the duration of this assignment were created using this process

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Animating Graphics

After some reviewing of the graphic I had created for this, I felt as though they came off rather flat sometimes, not moving, and a little uninteresting.

This is were I made the decision to add slight movement to some of the more stationary ones - particularly the river, and the seals.

In terms of the river graphic, I simply altered the positioning slightly throughout their duration of screen time, keeping this not too large as that may take away from the words, but just enough to make it seem almost like paper fluttering - or even a paper puppet.

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Animating Graphics

One of the most challenging this I found to animate was the clock graphic I include - as I wanted to make the hands move rather fast around the face, and then much slower. This was to emphasise the phrase '...time goes so fast, so slow'.

I struggles to get the hands to rotate around the correct axis initially, and then it was a question of how fast. But the most frustrating bit was to get a decrease in speed - because when I first tried to do this, the hands would spin anticlockwise instead.

I did straighten this issue out eventually with much trial and error

in terms of the actual words in this part - I took inspiration from a watch face. One which also displays the date as well as the time. I felt this was a nice way to tie in the type elements to the graphics in this section, having them rotate around as if they too were a part of the clock.

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Animation Techniques

There were many things I wanted to include in my animation - one, in particular, being a 'handwritten' reveal. Although I was using a serif/sans serif typeface and not a script, I still decided to experiment to see if I still liked this effect - as it was a nod to how Hunt often hand-wrote most of his ideas and compositions.

although I initially found the process of this quite tedious - I began to find it rather easier the more I experimented. I was rather happy with the results and decided to implement this effect multiple times throughout.

Even though it does not look as 'handwritten' as a script typeface might using the same technique, I still very much enjoy the way it looks.

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Creating Graphics

I then took these images and manipulated them in photoshop to create other graphics, such as a river, a clock, seals, a road etc.

[willameikle-grad603-s1]

Creating graphics

following along from my 'old printed' idea, I wanted to add in some visual graphics to accompany some of the words within the poem - to further illustrate portions to the viewer. With these being made out of images I had taken / created with old books, ticket stubs, and paper I have collected over the years both myself, and from older family members

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Colour Choice

after comprising all of the found images and doing some more research into Hunt himself, I decided to settle on an off-white colour for the background of my composition - rather than just flat white. As I feel this, along with the distressed typeface, gives the feeling of aged paper - an older publication, perhaps even a saved newspaper clipping.

I found that Sam Hunt often talked about his appreciation for analog work. Handwriting ideas in physical notebooks - and how he preferred real paper books to any online version. Something I wanted to emulate in my final composition.

I also took into account the possibility of me wanting to add any other colour through my composition - and ultimately decided. that if that were to happen I would use a more muted version - as seen in the magazine above. To emulate the older printing in books before they became over glossy, and saturated.

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Typeface Decision

My final typeface choice was that of the 'Kiln' family, created by Yellow Design Studio.

This family contains both a serif and sans serif variation of the typeface, each accompanied by an italic font.

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Font choice

When selecting the typeface(s) and font(s) I wanted to utilise within my animation - I mainly wanted to focus on how Hunt's voice sounded to a listener. Using this as a guide towards a typeface that will connect the viewer even more to the words.

It is a widely stated opinion that Sam Hunt has a particularly gruff, and gravely voice. Rough around the edges when he speaks, whilst still eloquently spouting beautiful collections of words.

Taking this into account I decided to search for a typeface that appeared a little distressed or worn, much like how his voice is described - whilst still having a clear letterform.

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Visual inspiration

I found that the orime of Hunt's poetic tours and much of his popular work took place within the era of the 1980's

So i took this and decided to do a little visual exploration into what New Zealand looked like at this particular time - fashion, important happening, colours in general, book publishings.

I happened to come across a particular facebook group, solely dedicated to publishing photos taken within this decade in NZ - mostly as a form of nostalgia collecting for those who grew up in this time.

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Intro To After Effects

Today in class we went through a basic introductory tutorial on how to use the adobe software - after effects. I found it quite interesting as it is much simpler to create wanted outcomes than using the timeline software in photoshop, like we did last year. We started off with a simple walkthough of hte basic layout of the tools and simple uses of each of them, with a graphic that was made in illustrator. Then moved onto our first trial of manipulating type within the timeline software of the application. A very basic start, but extremely helpful - I am already enjoying the usage of suc. Below is the small animation we made in class.