After Effects 3 / Process and production / Sarah Nasteruk

Today we learnt a new process to use with after effects. The theme of the day was applying hand drawn methodology into after effects to make unique hand crafted animations. This was a process of scanning and manipulating digitally to bring our still drawings to life. A good example of what can be done is shown below in an amazing music video Sarah showed me in the tutorial.

Forest: Just One Day from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

We hand drew what ever we desired and drew this three times to scan in to Photoshop. I drew a football, keeping it simple, but exciting for me to develop. With our three scans of the same subject in Photoshop, we positioned the scans accordingly to create an image sequence that moved. Then I imported my images as an image sequence in to after effects, sequencing them to move in a time frame. This is a process called boiling in after effects, it is a way of using still images to make it look like they are moving in video. To create my scanned images to play as a smooth sequence for the duration of my video, I interpreted the footage. Changing the frame rate to match my composition frame rate at 25 frames per second and I looped this 50 times to last around 6 seconds of my 10 second video. to make the image sequence flow slower and smoother, I stretched the video to last the full duration of the composition.

Boiling Experiment / After Effects from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

Now I have the basic template of the main body of footage I now was taught an amazing process to animate the drawing, as if it was being drawn on screen. I did this by creating linear masks over my drawing and by generating the stroke effect to move along my hand sketches of a football. I then applied different paint strokes to reveal the drawing of the football, either revealing the original image of painting over a transparent image. I then applied a paper effect to create the impression of the ball being traditionally drawn on paper.

Boiling After Effects / Further Exploration / (chams utd) from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

Boiling / After Effects / Further Exploration / (chams united) from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

Next I applied text to my animation, alongside the boiling effect and the stroke hand drawn effect. I constructed the text in illustrator and copy and pasted the text and a solid. The text had to be a solid shape in order to apply a wiggle path. So, using effects and presets, I added the wiggle path effect and experimented with the different variations of wiggles the preset offered to get the best result. I used a smooth wiggle pattern instead of the sharp to provide a more organic design and match the overall visual display of the animation. Also, applied a matching wiggle speed to the boiling motion of the football image sequence.

All in all, I have learnt new processes that I can take with me into future design work. The hand drawn application to transfer into after effects is a fascinating and unique process that allows the capacity to produce endless design possibilities, through a simple yet significantly effective process. I will defiantly develop this further in my own time to progress my skills and to enhance my portfolio.

Adidas - Argentina vs Holland from Andy Baker on Vimeo.

I have referenced a video of interest that I would like to use as inspiration and develop a short animation using techniques In have learnt in this tutorial. I would not do a video as long as this and would create a short slow, around 10 second video, using techniques similar to the start of the first video in this blog post. Making it football related, as a fun task to learn and enjoy.

Extra Work / Physical To Digital

'ME' from Charlie Hamnett on Vimeo.

In the tutorial with sarah, I really enjoyed the technique of drawing a design physically, then scanning and animating it digitally using the generate stroke tool and pen to draw the animation path. So, in response I drew myself and animated the sketch digitally create a little video about myself. This would be good to create a draw my life video, maybe of my first year at University and the experience that came with it.