Week 8 - After Effects

I am finding After Effects terribly confusing! I have never used a special effects program before, and I have always used video editing software just to put together films (my films never need special effects!!!).

I find the tutorials we have done a little confusing, regarding the ones with the flying ghost and putting together the images to make an animation. It sounds simple but its confusing when you actually begin using the program.

I'm very new to it, so all the layering and animation points confuse me even more. I am unsure of what I am going to do for my assignment but I have a few ideas.

One idea is to take a crapload of pictures of my dad walking, then me walking, and then a child walking, and animating these pictures going backwards in time; showing the history of a man's life. The men/child would be walking backwards in the same background and it would show the man as an older individual, then an adult, then a teen, then a child.

Another idea I had was to do something with maybe a basketball bouncing around the screen with an explosion at the end. That would be cool!

My last idea is to have some type of writing going across an old paper and then being scrunched up into a ball at the end. I was inspired by the MTV graphic assignments shown in the lecture where a paper was scrunched!

For now, I am lost. And I am unsure of what the hell I am going to do for this assignment.

Week 7 - Different types of typography

Hendrix Poster from collthings.co.uk

The minute I saw this poster it struck me visually. It is so effective because the entire portrait of Jimmy Hendrix is created in words and letters. I believe the words are his lyrics or song titles and this resonates a powerful image. I'm unsure of the font but the words create the picture... literally.

Drake So Far Gone Album cover - www.octobersveryown.blogspot.com

This album cover for Drake's So Far Gone is a very strong image because of its typography. The letters seem to be tumbling down into a pile at the bottom of the album cover and shrinking in size. I like how the words aren't together in one line, but rather separated by the letters in a tumbling pyramid. It seems like the D, R, and A are balancing at the very top and about to tumble down as well. The contrast of the bold white letters on the black background is very well done along with the white silhouette blowing what looks to be small red hearts into the air is a very powerful visual tool (red is the only colour in the cover). The cover is very powerful and striking almost only because of the placement and style of the words.

Mock Soviet Propaganda M&Ms Ad - smashingmagazine.com

This is an M&Ms advertisement that mocks old WW2 Soviet propaganda. There are many soviet propaganda posters just like this but I chose this ad to show that advertisements are propaganda as well; whether they are mocking something or not. The target audience that M&Ms is targeting most likely barely knows anything about soviet propaganda (North American market) but the company uses a powerful mock version of USSR-style posters seen back in the day all over Russia. The reason this poster is visually striking is because of its "Communist Red" and its Russian style font that resonates power and never-ending triumph. When these two are mixed you have your classic propaganda poster, and without the typography of the bronze soviet letter styles the poster would have no message or image of power. This poster really struck my eye, I thought soviet propaganda before I even noticed the giant red M&M.

Week 6 - Water... A scarce and diminishing resource.

            The concept behind my poster is the resource that is most important to not only humankind but also life in general; and that is water. Water is known as the “resource of the future” as it is running out because of human abuse and pollution to the environment. Clean fresh water will be a huge asset and resource in the coming decades that will be looked at in a similar light as oil today. Many experts predict wars and conflicts being fought over water as a resource in the future.

            The idea behind my poster is that water is running out. Many of us take it for granted as we are living great lives of abundance in a developed country. This is demonstrated by the water streaming out of the faucet into a pair of cupped hands. My message is that it is running out as it is running into the hands of the privileged person. My target audience is around 18-30, mainly university-aged students that are the future leaders of our planet. I demonstrated this by using a pair of young female hands cupping the water. To put emphasis on the water, I made it bright blue as it bubbles to capture the viewer’s attention, along with making everything else black and white, focusing on the hands and water, and making the background blurry.

            In Photoshop I created 3 layers, one blurry background black and white (Gaussian blur), one black and white sharp cut of the hands and the water, and one of just the water in a bright blue colour to capture attention. Along the way I had problems with the lasso tool to select the hands and water, so I used the pen tool which proved very useful. One problem I did not figure out was how to blur the edges of the bright blue water in the hands as much as I wanted. No matter how much I smoothed and feathered the edges it still didn’t work out so I did the best I could, playing with the edge refining options and feathering. After everything was complete I picked a font I liked and used the eye dropper tool to select the same colour of the water as the font.

            In the end the font made the poster look complete, simple, eye-catching, and concise. I was satisfied with it considering the fact that a few weeks ago I barely even knew what Photoshop was! I believe my poster does address my target audience based on its simple and concise message in text and the use of young female hands grasping some bright, colourful, flowing water.

Week 5 - Motion!

Since we now have to do a 5 second motion graphic assignment, I searched for some well-done, simple, and short ones myself.

This one commercial for Original Black Entertainment struck me because of its simplicity yet sophistication. I liked the way the words are animated and moved in and out as if they are in a "zero-gravity" environment. The zooming of the words while they are transitioning through animation is an effective visual tool as well. I also liked how the grey blotches are animated over the screen as well which gives a 3D feel, along with how the background looks like old parchment paper that is deep in the background (also 3D feel). 

This commercial is short, simple, and effective. There are no animations besides the words over the old parchment paper. Another effective tool is used in the old camera simulation (with the vertical lines moving side to side, and cracks in film). This will help me get a grasp of a simple 5 second animation that I need to do!