Week 9 Tutorial Exercise

A quick note, i wanted to take a different approach to the usual seriousness of the sin city visual style, initailly i researched cute baby animals such as rabbits, cats and dogs to use for this exercise, however i found that the fur would cause many problems when translating it into the black and white image. I later found this image of a gun-toting house wife, and decided to do it as a comic book style image complete with cropped windows and machine-gun fire font.
ttstam. 2008. Big Guns Susan. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ttstam/2211800182/sizes/o/. (accessed September 27, 2008)

QUT REFERNCING: HAVARD http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/cite/harvard/examples/other.jsp#artwork

My process involved translating vectors that I had created as well as acquired from the internet into label-like digital manipulations in photoshop. I decided to use the label approach to graffiti as i wanted to highlight the growing trend of labels and stickers being used for graffiti instead of direct painting on surface, this is prominent especially around the Brisbane city area and Fortitude valley. I achieved this by importing the vectors into photoshop and creating a white under layer, I also softened the vectors slightly and overlayed them on the original vector to give it a 'stencilled' look. I used vectors because when creating a stencil it is impractical to use a direct image without manipulating and defining areas. In after effects I experimented with masks and the 'page peel' effect to achieve the effect of the grafiti stickers being 'stuck on'. The stage itself uses a 3D camera and lighting on a stock backdrop from flickr.

Zach. 2006. Graffiti Wall with Green Pannel. http://www.flickr.com/photos/zkorb/230024585/sizes/o/. (Accessed September 27, 2008)
ysr1. 2007. Free Vector Stock. http://ysr1.deviantart.com/art/Free-Vector-Stock-53905342. (Accessed September 27, 2008)

QUT REFERNCING: HAVARD http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/cite/harvard/examples/other.jsp#artwork

ASSIGNMENT 1 - Composition.mov

Creative Commons Acknowledgments:
ForsterFoto. 2008. Sunset in aberdeen. http://flickr.com/photos/forsterfoto/2410240212/sizes/o/. (accessed September 10, 2008)
MidnightGlory. 2008. High-rises dominate yaletown. http://flickr.com/photos/midnightglory/2384103235/sizes/o/. (accessed September 10, 2008)
Rc. 2008. High density. http://flickr.com/photos/eyesofrc/2176843749/sizes/o/. (accessed September 10, 2008)
TallCJ, 2008. Downtown High Rise Sawing Through the Clouds. http://flickr.com/photos/tallcj/2169683785/. (accessed September 10, 2008)
Zen. 2006. Dark white room. http://flickr.com/photos/zen/326499472/sizes/o/. (accessed September 10, 2008)

All other works (eg logo, camera frame, composition etc) have been created by the designer

QUT REFERNCING: HAVARD http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/cite/harvard/examples/other.jsp#artwork

Assignment 1 - Reflection

STEVEN SANSHWE: N6325998

ASSIGNMENT 1: Temporal Identity

KIB 105: ANIMATION AND MOTION GRAPHICS

LECTURER: LAZAROS KASTANIS

TUTOR: VERONICA WAIN

The location used to construct the temporal identity for this assignment was a digital SLR camera, specifically the lens component of the camera. To highlight the link between the camera, the lens and the user, the motion graphic video is viewed through the camera’s viewfinder, which the user would use to frame shots before taking them. To emphasize the identity of the lens, camera based motions such as zooms, depth of field, lens blur and camera shake are used to resemble real-world movements associated with using digital SLR camera.

The motion graphic video uses two compositions all which are viewed through the viewfinder diamond. The first composition is a ‘sensor cleaning’ video which reflects the sensor cleaning function of most digital SLR cameras. The graphic uses a particle effect in a 3d environment to replicate dust which can show up within the camera body and lens connection of most cameras. Lighting is used on a 3D backdrop to give a greater depth to the camera shakes and movements. This composition is used to introduce the identity, and helps the target audience to immediately familiarize themselves with the setting of the motion graphic. The second composition is a conceptual composition which relates directly to the tagline. Although the animation still resembles real camera movement the subject is a montage of buildings arranged using an unrealistic abstract perspective within 3D, hence the tagline ‘shoot different’

The target audience for this piece would be photography enthusiasts. The reasoning being that photographers would instantly recognize the viewfinder frame and create the relation between the motion graphic and SLR cameras without needing a physical camera graphic in the composition.

The composition would not be suited to people who have not had experience with older camera types that use viewfinders, or higher-end digital cameras that use viewfinders to adjust autofocus, shutter speed, aperture, ISO etc.

The composition can also be defined using the techniques of morphology; space, form and time. Firstly, the composition structures space using mostly three points as seen in camera movements which utilize the x, y and z axis. Graphic elements exist in a 3d environment within After Effects and is framed using an aspect ratio of 16:9. Further framing is applied via the viewfinder diamond that overlays the entire graphic.

Secondly, form is created through images which exist in an empty environment (eg. Particle effect used to create sensor dust). This helps create focus on the subject and evokes a conceptual style to the graphic. A monochromatic colour scheme is used to also emphasize the conceptual style. Text is minimally used, the featured font is ‘terminal’, a windows font which resembles MS-DOS text as well as the font used in the LCD of digital cameras.

Assignment 1 - After Effects Techniques

For the assignment I utilised several techniques to achieve the look and feel of using a digital SLR Camera.

I used a 3D camera to position and move around the scene. The camera had depth of field turned on, with blurring set to 97% and a higher apperture. This was particularly important for the second animation where the camera zooms and pans through the buildings as it gives the buildings depth and layering as there is a progressive lens blur which is effected by the positioning of each building in the Z-space. A wiggle motion was also applied in some areas to give the impression that the camera was being held by a human hand, this was most noticeable in the first scene. The problems associated with using this effect at such a high setting was that rendering the video took close approximately 40 minutes, also the render was error prone due to After Effects requesting up to 1gb of ram for the render. Although my computer system has 4gbs of ram, the program was peaking and may not have been able to use more than an allocated amount, thus causing the program to crash numerous times. The solution for this was to close unnecessary programs and to delete unnecessary elements in the composition, this allowed for a problem free render. Other minor problems included setting the values for the depth of field and also positioning shots to make them look effective within the context of the assignment.

The first animation used a particle effect which was set to a low opacity. The particles were set to low gravity with a 2-3 second life time. This was used to help achieve the effect of dust and noise within the lens of the camera. It was used to create a distorted and dirty view in the viewfinder.

The view finder was created in illustrator using a canon 450D viewfinder to position elements such as rectangles and circles.The viewfinder was imported into After effects as a vector and was overload on many of the shots. The viewfinder has a related shutter closing and opening effect which is used to transition between Scenes. This transition was created using two black shakes which moved towards the centre of the screen. I found it difficult to animate moving objects within After Effects as the interface was completely different to using a program such as Adobe Flash, which uses tweens and motion paths to animate objects between keyframes. The short term solution was to use linear horizontal/vertical/diagonal motions until I can succesfully make the transition to After Effects.

Shadows and lighting was also created within after effects. The light tool was used to create a point light onto 3d objects within the animation, it was also used to cast shadows of the buildings. One of the main issues with this was that it caused After Effects to slow down during ram preview. The short-term solution was to decrease the resolution to either a half or a third however this mostly made the video unwatchable.

I also used text preset animations such as the type writer effect. I also found this to be difficult to use in AE as i felt limited by the types of preset animations as well as my lack of knowledge in creating the dynamic look and feel that envisioned in my story boarding. The solution was to use simple presets such as the type writer effect as it was a subtle effect that relatively matched the style of the animation.

Week 6 Tutorial Exercise

For this piece I used camera transitions and hyper-coloured edits of the original images of the hairdryer, blender and toaster to achieve the tacky style usually associated with this type of discount advertising. However I also tried to incorporate some design aesthetics such as form; in that all the objects have a specific form and are presented as groups either in a row or a symmetrical shape. I also attempted to create a colour scheme amongst the products using photoshop to edit the original images. I believe i could have made the advertisement more tacky by adding spinning labels and other paraphenalia to the prices.

hair. http://img.diytrade.com/cdimg/509818/3215801/0/1169506106/HAIR_ (accessed September 3, 2008)
Salton Personal Blender. http://www.woot.com/Images/Sale/Salton_Personal_BlenderRK5-detail.jpg (accessed September 3, 2008)
Taoster. http://www.stylishcookware.co.uk/images/prestige%20deco%20pink%20toaster.web.jpg (accessed September 3, 2008)

QUT REFERNCING: HAVARD http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/cite/harvard/examples/other.jsp#artwork