Animating with AE
Reading
Brainstorming a story and coming up with a cohesive narrative can seem like an overwhelming task. In chapters two, three and four of "Animated Storytelling," Liz Blazer explains the different ways stories can be told. The easiest and most straight-forward storytelling technique is the three act structure. This consists of three acts where a character and conflict are set up, then the story works toward the solution and then finally there is a big solve to the story. Through the three act structure, the writer can find the theme of the story. Other forms of storytelling include a nonlinear story structure, where there is no clear character or plot, the story is meant to evoke more emotion.
In chapter three, Blazer goes over storyboarding to create a visual script. You start with a thumbnail, which is the first rough sketches of the board. From there, the storyboard is built with the ideas of frames, composition and staging. It's also important to observe transitions and continuity, such as spacial, temporal and directional continuity. Spacial continuity focuses on the consistency of the shot, temporal continuity focuses on the consistency of logic in the story and directional continuity maintains the directions of any action for an object or character in the sequence from shot to shot. Brainstorming these concepts and ideas are important in storytelling
As I was writing my script, I was thinking of how to give the story a beginning, middle and end, especially since it's only 45 seconds. I also took images from my phone, airdropped them on my laptop and looked at which images go in the best order. The planning process made editing go much smoother and faster.
Research
To acquire some inspiration for my project, I did research on animation projects and looked at a few examples.
LegalShield
This LegalShield commercial is a really impressive animation. There are seamless transitions, good cohesiveness and graphics that are really impressive. The animation takes you through the story visually really well.
Burger King
Not only did this commercial have fun graphics, but it also had really fun typography effects. Some of them were simple, yet eye catching and effective. The tone and aesthetic of the commercial is light and fun. The first half definitely inspired me a lot with my animation.
Make it Funky Now Video
This video I thought was also a fun example! The graphics and transitions are creative as well as the effects. The fast cadence of the video also makes it entertaining, which left me wondering what would happen next. This is definitely a great animation example that inspired my creativity.
Create!
This is my first animation project I created using After Effects! When creating this project, it was tricky coming up with creating something visually interesting from images. I also wanted to keep a bright colored and fun theme! The more I used After Effects, the more comfortable I was with trying different templates to add visually interesting elements.
For this project, I created an introduction video on myself, highlighting my hobbies and career goals. To start, I wrote a script and recorded myself reading it in Adobe Audition. I exported the file into an MP3 to eventually place in my AE project. Then, I took images from my camera roll and uploaded them onto my laptop and from there decided how to lay them out in AE. I also took royalty free graphics and video clips from Pixabay that would enhance my project. Using templates with Adobe Bridge also allowed me to play with different effects and visuals.
Overall, this project taught me a lot on animation and allowed me to explore another software! I will use these new skills in production, social media and marketing projects. By taking my time and familiarizing myself with AE I was able to really enjoy the animation process. Here is the video!