howdy folks, got another one for ya. this particular project was for my Intermediate Motion Graphics Mid-Term. for my project, i decided to go dark. i normally like to keep my subject matter on the lighter side, but i really wanted to see if i could pull off a much darker look. i also wanted to flex my storytelling muscles because i rarely excirsize them! for the stylization of the piece, i decided to do something that i was giving alot of thought, but never really gave myself the time to do. a while ago i was thinking about designing a 3d set in After Effects and animate some camera's through it to tell a story, kinda like a pre vizualization for a story.
Storyboards:
here are my storyboards for my idea.
Previz:
here's a pre vizualization i did for timing and for overall feel.
Set Design:
basically i scoured and collected photos from google of buildings in new york. then i imported them into Photoshop, turned on the legacy of the brightness and contrast and brought up the contrast after, giving me a "cutout" look. after that, i scaled and skewed each building into a one point perspective. i decided to go black & white because i really didn't want to spend a lot of time color correcting all of my images. After all of the "imagework" was done, i imported the images into After Effects and began designing a 3d set। i took a while to get each image in the right position, but it was worth the while.
Characters:
the character's that i used were actually fonts from Dafont.com (a site i highly recommend!) i decided to go with the font based characters only because they went so well with the set stylization. selections of the the fonts wernt very giving, but i managed to cut and paste what i needed together. i laid all of the characters out in Photoshop, added a stroke, cropped em, then it was off to be positioned within the set in After Effects!
Camera Work:
after the set and the characters were positioned, i added 10 camera's with different animated movements for each shot. i had the initial idea of what direction each camera was going to be moving in, so the entire thing came together pretty well. my idea was to pace the camera's movements together with the soundtrack to pull it all together. it was kind of a challenge getting the timing down but i manged to work it out.
Compositing:
after the characters were set in the scene and the all the camera's animated, i rendered out 9 different shots into mov.'s, then imported them into After Effects and began laying them out onto the timeline. i also imported and added the soundtrack. (AK1200 - Use of Weapons, fitting track) by this time i was starting to get the overall flow of my piece, each shot positioned and on cue with the music. this is also about the time i began cleaning things up, adding garbage mattes and overlays, tweaking the brightness & contrast, and adding my fade ins & outs. after my first pass, i decided that it was time to start incorporating some additional elements into the project. if you notice, i added steam clouds rising off the buildings, as well as a moving cloud clip for the sky. for the fog effect, i just blended and keyed the position of some stock footage of a wind tunnel over the individual clips on the timeline.
Final Render:
here is my final render. i felt pretty good after completing it. i felt like i really expressed and executed a well thought out plan. i did come across some unexpected issues along the way, but my decisions were on a time frame. my original idea was timed out for 30 seconds, but my final render came out to 40 seconds. i was aware of being deducted points for going over the 30 seconds limit, but i did not want to compromise the story. each shot was integral in telling the story so losing 5 points for that didn't really bother me.
Last Thoughts:
i had a real fun time actually designing the set and animating the camera's while developing the project. i think pre visualization work might be a good avenue to pursue when i get out of school, but who knows?! i really liked coming up with a short story then using the camera's to tell the story, rather than having a dialogue track because it is more challenging to tell a story without words. don't believe me,? try it!
