READING & WRITING
Summary OF Chapter Eleven, Show and Tell from Animated Storytelling by Liz Blazer
Chapter 11 of Liz Blazer’s animation book, the final chapter, appropriately focuses on getting your getting your work “out there”.
Most valuable to this reader, she delves into how to get your work out there and her admonishments to “package it in a way that exudes professionalism”, to have a synopsis with a hook, to tease out your work, and to leave them intrigued, resonated the most with this reader.
Also of particular interest was Ms. Blazer’s suggestion to consider skipping the festival route (which, as a beginner focusing on shorter works I hadn’t seriously considered anyway) and directly release on platforms like Vimeo.
In that vein I’m thinking also about more deliberately and strategically leveraging You Tube as well. You Tube, especially if this aspiring “director” is able to more consistently comfortable with Adobe Cloud and other such tools and concepts of the animation trade.
Some other key topics of this short chapter include connecting and networking within the motion graphics industry. Can you spell potential collaborations? That sort of intrigues me!
This seasoned filmmaker, art director, educator, and author appropriately rounds out the last chapter of her book by offering some signature sage advice regarding what employers are looking for. This includes being dependable and articulate.
A few more things valuable things Liz Blazer tells us in her closing
“Never stop”.
Sketch, storyboard, write, animate, dream, and experiment your way to new, amazing stories.
‘Nuff said!
RESEARCH TO INFORM
This final week we were challenged to do some searching and find 3 or more examples of advanced motion, animation, or effects that we find interesting.
As a starting point, I decided to systematically go down the list of some optional advanced topics/techniques and check them out!
Further, I decided to document these advance techniques via “how to” links as a learning exercise for myself, to supplement related class links for future reference, and for consideration regarding potential incorporation into my final project as follows:
- Ken Burns effect — Ken Burns Effect Link For Reference
- Chroma Keying — Chroma Keying Link For Reference
- 3D in After Effects — 3D in After Effects For Reference
- Motion Tracking — Motion Tracking For Reference
- Puppet Pin tool — Puppet Pin Tool Link For Reference
- Visual effects to make something amazing happen — Amazing Visual Effects For Reference
- VideoCopilot.net tutorial/technique — Video Copilot Techniques For Reference
For good measure and, again, for further learning augmentation, I decided to also search for advanced motion, animation, or effects for something not listed above, that I found to be interesting.
Most importantly, I looked at several advanced motion techniques for something appropriate that I might have *some chance of actually implementing within my different, crazy safety PSA — which is my final animation project for this course.
At the point of this typing right now, I’m thinking that I may try the pretty well known Ken Burns effect, but —— stay tuned —— we will see!
Examples of advanced motion, animation, or effects that I find interesting – ITEM 1 – *** Ken Burns Effect ***
I had previously heard of the Ken Burns Effect and I’m pretty sure it’s old hat to even some new animators, but I wanted to find out exactly what it is for my own enlightenment.
It seems to be a pretty straightforward technique where you basically add digital movement into your photos that are a part of your video to add dynamic interest.
And yes that is precisely why I like this advanced technique: It’s simplicity!
Sometimes I just don’t care for animated techniques that I consider to be “over-the-top”…… Cool yes, ok, but I don’t like what I perceive to be pretentious.
I don’t think that most of animated projects that I might like to pursue will call for that.
Examples of advanced motion, animation, or effects that I find interesting – ITEM 2 – *** Chroma Keying ***
After seeing the Chroma Keying technique demoed, I think I may have been a little more familiar with it than I had realized. As I understand it, Chroma Keying involves using color information to create a mat or cutout that will allow you to remove part of an image or video.
For example an actor being filmed on green or blue screen while jogging then the animator using “chroma” to take all of the background green and making it transparent. This background removal, in turn, enables the animator to put the actor onto a different background while the actor is running ,
Pretty cool for my relatively “virgin-how-it’s-actually-done-animation eyes” to watch the above video unfold!
Pretty interesting and useful — even borderline exciting!
There are some graphics, animations, and animation techniques/lessons that, even if I view them 3 or 4 times in a row I would still get a kick out them.
This is one of those! …… lol.
Examples of advanced motion, animation, or effects that I find interesting – ITEM 3 – *** Motion Array Site ***
In my research this week I found a few sites that I thought surely qualified to be cited here because of the myriad of exciting stock motion graphics, templates, effects, transitions, 3D snippets, and background loops, and such, that they offer!
I was almost tempted to feature *another* such stimulating site, like the motion array site above, that I came across. I lost track off that second stimulating site – but erred in favor of not featuring the second site anyway due to the limitations of time and only a slim hope of finding it.
Interesting enough I would be researching say the more “fundamental-yet-still advanced “Chroma Keying” or the Ken Burns Effect techniques and these animation-related *ad sites * — like the motion array site above – would of course pop up, interrupt and *totally* distract me!
Interrupt and distract me to the point where I *had* to watch such ad sites for creatives, then trail them, puppy like, to explore their full website!
Creativity overload! ……….. endless possibilities for future projects and I was lovin’ it!
We shall meet again!
CREATE
It was fitting that this non-traditional, edgy employee-facing safety-related Public Safety Announcement (PSA) animation was my last one for this motion across media course because in some ways it was my favorite!.
Not only was I generally pretty pleased with the end result visually, but it also gave me a chance to show off my vocal “rap” writing and singing chops on my way to my budding song writing and musical career LOL!
I do have something to look forward to as I plan to re-do all of my animations for this course largely based on Professor Golden’s and other student feedback This safety-related PSA is no exception as far as my plans to re-do it!
Having sung the music script over a dozen times I know that I can do better, and I have a good idea of how I want to improve the visuals, music, and narration.
Part of that improvement involves finding my more professional Samson Technologies Q2 USB mike (as opposed to the lower-quality PC mike). Also recording down in my quieter basement office that has more of a studio set up, complete with an overhanging scissor mike arm stand and holder, pop filter, and so forth.
Never-the-less my creation process included:
- Actually creating a storyboard (*see below*)
- Gathering assets to use in After Effects
- Creating a white solid to use as the background
- Adding in each colorful character monster and animating them
using After Effect’s position, rotation, opacity, and scale keyframes - Adding text to go along with the lyrics of the PSA
- Using opacity keyframes at certain times to bring up text while at other times bringing up text by using a preset in After Effects called “Fade Up Words”
- Including some background images for example the equipment fire-related phenomenon called “arc flash”. I also included an explosion background image to further convey and graphically emphasize certain points.
These background images were brought in using opacity keyframes from 0% to 26% so that the images appeared in a desired faded look.
My Electric Substations “Dumb Ways to Die” Public Service Announcement (PSA) STORYBOARD
Now see the PDF storyboard come to life!! by just having a look below at my *Final Animation* .
*Don’t Stop There*! —– After taking in my *Final Animation* below THEN scan my *Course Reflections* where I tie a bow on everything!
Enjoy, reflect on it all!
Kevin Pointer Sr.
COURSE REFLECTIONS
In significant ways Professor Kent Golden’s Motion Across Media class has been one of the most challenging classes that I have ever taken from an application/tool standpoint. Truth be told, however, I signed up in large part to force myself to get more exposure to whatever Adobe Cloud applications that were required.
At the same time this animation class has easily been the most rewarding class that I have ever taken! From a “find animation examples”, from an animation conceptual, from an animation resources and from an animation historical standpoint — (I really appreciated getting visually grounded in the Walt Disney-related 12 principles of animation) —
As a *natural extension* of my love of visuals and graphics combined with my love of thoughtful storytelling , *this animation class was me*!
Yes! — even from a simply visual, sound, and musicality level, this storyteller loved eachand every animation topic or assignment!
From the animated gifs to (especially) the cinemographs, to the animated logos, to the User Interface (UI), to the final advanced motion deliverable — there was *not one* task or concept did I not like! . . .
. . . This, *until* it came to the love/hate process of me actually creating my own animations LOL! This love/hate dynamic was especially true regarding the first 4 or 5 of the 7 total assignments until I got a little more comfortable with Adobe Premier Pro, After Affects, and Stop Motion Pro, and Audition.
Yeah — I think it was a great class ….. Are you starting to get that picture?
Although the class book was geared for larger animation projects and had some involved examples that I could not relate to, I also did like Liz Blazer’s Animated Storytelling!
The book provided a good educational framework that was at once a sufficiently deep technical learning tool but also a practical, quick reference guide that I shall be returning to!
I strategically chose to do class animation deliverables that would further my brand and usage at work, and I am happy to report that *this strategy is working beyond what I could have imagined*!
Very Importantly, I appreciated the judicious, steady, competent, and accessible hand of Professor Golden without whose guidance and kindness I might have been frustrated and unhappy . . . How many times can you see the same kinds of submissions — over and over and over — and still show a good measure of enthusiasm for each person’s artifact or stage of progress?
What became clearer to me because of this class is that while I do want to continue to become more proficient with the tools of the trade such as the Adobe Cloud products, my passion seems to be more geared towards leveraging my tool and app knowledge to direct others in executing my creative visions.
I think one reason competent Adobe Cloud creatives are probably pretty well-compensated is because the strength and the weakness of such tools are two sides of the same coin —– Such tools are powerful because they are complicated, and they are also weak because they are complicated!
Allow me to digress a little more: The value of sound graphic, animation, and creative principles not-with-standing, I think the creative world is increasingly seeing a concerted attempt at the democratization and commoditization of design and creativity . . . more of a frictionless world as one industry expert put it.
In this new order and with the consistent stream of tools like Canva, Visme, Design Pickle and others — along with AI and a bevy of “helper” sites like Fiverr and Upwork — the average consumer has more of an opportunity of personal and business creative expressiveness.
Never-the-less, I enjoyed being inspired by my classmates and this class.
As a professional I think I will stick with the tool agnostic merits of a good design media education such as that offered by Quininiapiac University.
I think I will also stick with the promise of time-tested methodologies such as design thinking, and the commitment and discipline required of professionals to learn industry de facto standard tools like Adobe Cloud for now!
Hopefully, however, professional tools like Adobe Cloud will continue become more user-friendly and intuitive such that creatives can focus more on creation rather than the tool itself. The market may more and more demand it!
