Analysis
My final motion graphics project, a 30 second animation for the Papillion Translation Ltd Company stationed in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was an exciting opportunity to assess my won skills in a mock-production of how creating motion graphics in the world of business would go. Alongside using the skills learn and explored in classes and personal time, the project gave me an opportunity to receive feedback from classmates and to explore how far my own creative and technical abilities could take me.
My main focus for this project was the give the project a ‘motion graphics’ feel to it, inspired from the smoother graphics often seen in small adverts, where everything melts into its movements and feels smooth, as well as being lineless in its style. To achieve this I mainly created my assets in Adobe’s Photoshop and transported them into Adobe’s After Effects, this created some issues with transparency and at times was somewhat problematic as I was starting out, however as I began to explore and become more comfortable with After Effects, these problems became null.
One of the main issues I see in the final product is the moving icons sequence, this was the most complex part for me to work out how to do and to get the timing right, while the finished piece is not inherently awful, I can see sections which could be improved from both more time spent on the piece, and also from simply becoming more familiar with the workings of the program. This sequence could also be improved by the few seconds the letter is the sole icon on the screen being sped up to give the animation a more smooth feel over all, but also by having the icon more centred during its transition, and moving off screen quickly towards the end of the sequence. This would have helped the overall timing of the animation, as I fear the ending may be viewed as a bit rushed, and shall therefore look out for this in future projects. Another issue I had with the sequence mentioned above, was having the icons move onto the screen, it was suggested that I have the icons move from the butterfly across the screen using a mask, however upon trying this I felt the final product look unpleasing and transitioned harsher than by simply having the icons move across the screen behind the butterfly icon.
I am also concerned with the colours I chose, while the colours for the country images were all intended to be appropriately bright/saturated in palette, I fear that they are too different from each other, I also fear that due to sizing issues and positioning, that some of the images are difficult to discern where the landmark is, or even what the landmark is, and shall have to be more careful with this in future projects. I am also concerned that the general background colour, a grey, is too dull to the eyes and throws the colour balance off, something I shall have to experiment with more as I grow more comfortable with more varied colour palettes in my work.
My final negativity with my work would be the music, although this is largely down to my own personal inexperience with finding music to connect with my work, as opposed to having music inspire my work, I fear my music choice is too ‘out-of-place’ and distracts from the animation. Again, this is something that should be tempered out in future projects as I grow more comfortable with this methodology of working.
All in all I am pleased with the work produced compared to the work I was producing at the start of the academic year, and look forward to expanding my skills further.