Intro to animation - Sound animation
For my intro to animation module I had to create a 30 second animation in response to a piece of music provided to me. I was given the song Contradiction’s Maze (instrumental) which was very simple sounding due to the repetition of the same sounds that were slowly added to as the song progressed. When thinking of how I would make an animation for the song I ended up liking the idea of each sound being linked to a shape of some kind, so I began researching more on that idea.
During my research process I found some work that I ended up using as my main inspirations they were, the monsters inc intro animation due to its use of many different shapes that moved in interesting ways, the second inspiration was Saul Bass’s work that used a paper cut out style that I tried to replicate in my final animation. I also researched what kind of shapes I would use, in my original plan I wanted to use some very on the nose shapes for each sound so a trumpet noise would actually show a trumpet but that changed once I had some feedback pointing out how dull and simple it would make my work. I ended up deciding to use more abstract and simple shapes for each sound, I tried to make each shape look good together which was a lot easier due to the simple designs I went for.
Once my plan was all set up I went into creating the final shapes. I made some hand drawn sketches to experiment with the different looks I could give the shapes and I would then create the best looking sketches on Illustrator. During the designing parts for the shapes I would make test animations from the shapes I had at the time and then use any feedback I received from those to improve my next set of developments. I also ended up adding a paper texture to add more depth and further link my work to the Saul Bass inspiration.
While making my project the part that ended up taking the longest was deciding on the colours. At the start I was only going to use a black background with various coloured shapes but that changed once I decided to add a colour change to my animation that would happen at various points. At first the only part I changed was the background but I changed that to include the shapes as well so that they would still look appealing on the background, I ended up creating 5 different colour schemes for each change. The colour change helped to keep my background from looking dull and made it more interesting to watch.
In order to make sure my storyboards showed everything they needed to I went through a long process starting at, making a list of everything that would happen at certain times such as colour changes and movements, I then made a simple sketched storyboard showing where all the shapes would be placed and then I scanned it onto Photoshop where I could make the final storyboard which using the scan as a reference. I think that my storyboard was good as it clearly shows what will happen in each part of my animation.
The final animation was made in After Effects and used my edited music from Premiere Pro as a reference for when things should happen as I added markers saying when certain sounds would start and end. The animation contained a lot of repeated movements which made it much easier to make things move the further in the animation I got. Once I finished the animation I moved it into Premiere Pro where I was able to make sure that the fades in the video and the song matched and that there were no other noticeable mistakes in my animation.
Overall I would say that my project has been successful as I was able to create the idea I made during the start of the project with the only slight changes being done to improve it. I also found that my final animation was greatly influenced by everything that I learned during my tests and research. If I had to improve anything I would possibly change some of the colours used in the grey coloured parts of the animation to make them blend in with the rest of the colours used.
