One night i was looking outside my window and the moon was looking very beautiful as it shone across the sky. I decided to take my camera and try get a good shot of it. Surprise surprise, in the photo it looked like a yellow dot in the sky. After a few shots i noticed that there’s a technique that i do not know about to capture this, therefore i took the photo and decided to enlarge it and make it look like ow i saw it in the sky
In my spare time, i help my brother with his charity ‘Draw a Smile’ and by helping, I have joined the Digital Media team and moved up to running it. As i have a passion for Media, charities and of course helping my brother, i put in a lot of my free time away from university to help grow the charity and get it recognised in order to help the unfortunate. One of the events we were organising recently was an 02 Indigo event for a music concert. I decided to create the logo for this event in Illustrator not only to support the charity but to help me practice and push my limits with features in Illustrator.
Here I have created a sort of mock-up for a new extension to the Channel 4 team. After viewing the Film4, 40D, E4 logos, i decided to invent my own design. I took the same style of the Number 4 … Continue reading
A Brief History of Motion Graphics
I didn’t think that an introduction to the history of motion graphics would teach me anything, however i learnt a lot from this first chapter as it takes you through how the Production of film evolved since the 80s.
The “thaumatrope” was the first device used to create the illusion of motion by merging to disks that were attcahed to the string on the device. When spun, the device would give the illusion of a motion image.
The first home movie device was known as a “Kinora” which was developed by Augustine Lumiere and it was a 14cm wheel that help several pictures and when rotated it gave the illusion of motion. Only in 1894 did films begin to be projected on a large screen now known as “The Cinema”.
J Stuart Blackton released an animated short “Humorous phases of funny faces” in 1906. It was teh idea of a hand drawing the characters on a blackboard. Single-frame exposures was used to show a new facial expression everytime it changed.
As time passed, filmmakers began to embrace film through animation as a form of art rather than commercial gain. This I believe allowed for a unique variation in styles of film that are shown till this day.
Angie Taylors book was a motivational aspect in building up my confidence to draw. Since I was young, my drawings were somewhat, terrible. One quote that caught my attention was, “you don’t need to be really good at drawing, but you do need to be prepared to give it a go”[Angie Taylor, 2011]. Yes, I cannot draw but all drawing is, is a different way to communicate feelings and emotions and an alternative way for one to express themselves. The beauty of drawing is that you can put your own touch to anything you like. For example, taking a simple tree but drawing its roots into ice, expressing that sometimes things dont start out very good and make much sense, but as time goes by, it could grow into something quite beautiful.
In todays society, sketching has become vitally essential as throught several attempts, drawings begin to become more expressive of the emotion one is trying to convey thorough the drawing. Like anything in life, the more practice, the more perfect you become. For most softwares used now, sketching is useful as the first step, for example in 3D Max. Also throught sketching, Angie Taylor makes it clear that light interacts with its surroundings and thsi should still be conveyed through drawings not only photographs. I believe there are no boundries with drawing as every individual can leave their mind to set out the path of the drawing.
Motivation is a factor that seems quite important in the process of drawing. My motivation would be that I need to learn to draw in order to pass this assignment as most modules require a form of ability to draw. I belive that through continuing to draw for my uni work, I will eventually enjoy drawing as a hobby as it has always been something I have wanted to do. Malcolm Gadwell’s book states that “it takes 10,000 hours to study to become a genius”[Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point].
Here i was creating a foam effect in After effects. After several problems which occurred, this way was the successful one
The foam effect is created by inserting an image by dragging it into After effects. The next step is to create a new solid and click “make comp size”. We then go to the effect menu and click on “Simulation” and then the “Foam effect” which we are trying to create. On the image we have inserted, we will see a red circle in the centre. We then click on the eyeball and turn off the layer with the image so that the focus could be on the effect itself. The red circle is where the effect is simulated from. If we move the time indicator at the bottom, we will see the foam effect in place. In order to edit and customise the size of the foam and its randomness for example, we need to scroll down a bit in time so we could see the effect. On the left hand side of the page, there is a “view option” which allows us to to change it to “rendered” view so we could see what it would like in the end. Under the “view” option, there is a “producer” option which allows us to control the red circle in the centre. The various options we have are “Producer orientation”, “Producer point” etc. The next option is “Bubbles” which allows us to change the size of the bubble itself, the “size variance” so we have a combination of sizes and the “strength” in which it develops. Also, under “rendering” we could chose the texture of the bubble. The various options to chose from are “Water beads”, “Soda water” and “bubble wrap”. after we chose the texture, we then click “user define” which allows us to chose a picture which the effect will take place over. To do this, we click the bubble texture layer and click the image we inserted at the start and when we scroll through the timeline, we will see the effect taking place using the image.
“A work of art is a composition of tensions and resolutions, balance and unbalance, rhythmic coherence, a precarious yet continuous unity. Life is a natural process of such tensions, balances rhythm; it is these that we feel, in quietness of emotion, as the pulse of our own living.”- Susan Langer- The Dynamic Image
Motion Graphics is created by using raw footage or text to create an illusion of movement in either 2D or 3D space. In reality, the footage has no rotation or sense of motion, however, with the use of Motion Graphics, it can be added to it in Post-Production.
Advanced Motion Graphics Level 3 