Assignment 4: Creation Art Effects: animated video essay


CREATION EFFECTS: DIGITAL SIMULATION OF ANALOGUE PROCESSES

This essay is an animated exploration of Creation Effects templates for After Effects produced by Noel Powell. It follows my work on Project 4.2 ‘Teeto Times 2’ and the moving image experimentation for my SYP project ‘Quick Time Tales’.

I started by editing a series of further short iPhone clips of ‘Teeto’ the cat next door in Adobe Premiere, linked to some Creative Writing about Teeto’s adventurous explorations. In Pemiere, I also add sound effects from the garden and a set of Blues music loops in Adobe Audition.

Please see ‘The Cat Next Door’ SMUGMUG Gallery for preliminary sources and clips that will be further developed for VisCom SYP with a longer and more worked through video narrative based on the creative writing piece.

My aim in this Assignment was to experiment further with Creative Art Effects templates applied to video footage as part of the module’s exploration of comparisons between analogue and digital styles and techniques. As well as the ways in which I could use Adobe Premiere for this type of video essay.

I found the Creation Art Effects templates very interesting in the types of style that they could produce. Although I conclude that they do not replace analogue or Frame by Frame animation techniques, some very distinctive new art styles can be produced that are effective in their own right. Although so far I have only scratched the surface of what is possible.

Applying Creation Art effects to video also enable me to extract action stills and illustrations from the video that would be much more difficult for me to do through sketching from life. For the text animation though After Effects would be better than Adobe Premiere – skills I plan to develop in future.

TASK:
Produce an animated video essay based on one of the broad themes you have explored within tricks and fakes or animation and visual culture in Part Four. This is a chance to demonstrate your knowledge and ability both in communicating using animated and video content as well as a chance to develop your own particular visual and stylistic approach. For example, compositing, morphing, image quality, absence and digital representation, erasure, re-focusing, social media, video games, corporate video, uncontrollable elements.

  • As a starting point, revisit the research you have produced in this part of the course unit by reading your learning log. Identify a theme you would like to develop further, or identify new ideas that might fit within these themes.
  • Like a written essay, an animated essay should present a point of view or argument, persuading your audience one way or the other. This can be done through the use of audio with supporting images, animations and videos.
  • You may want to record a voiceover sound for this project, use subtitles, or find another way of presenting information in an engaging way.
  • Research your topic by developing a file of source footage and images, and writing a short text to help structure your essay.
  • Build up your sequences from source imagery, your own animation, and by laying down any audio in your editing software. If applicable you can build on videos that you have made earlier in this part. You can use any sources you can find as long as you credit them and password protect your final video if necessary.
  • Edit a final version of your video and upload onto your learning log. Post a link to your blogpost (and password if used) on the OCA discuss forums for other animation students to view. Write a short reflection on your final piece and the process of making it, drawing on any feedback from other students as well.

For more action stills from the video effects see SMUGMUG Action Stills Gallery

Summary Overview

I experimented with different presets and settings of the templates, particularly for line styles, colour cartoon effects, watercolour and oil painting styles. For examples of the vector illustration examples please see the pdf of the Excel sheet on the right. Details of experiments with the other styles are still to be written up, but the settings I chose are shown in the animated video.

Research overview padlets

 

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