Group Work

We got into our groups and decided on the music. We all had the music and arranged to meet later to think about the music and how we felt about it. Basically we decided it was Japanese and journey-like. Therefore we decide to do a journey through life, divided into sections. We chose a domino as it was a simple character and easy to model and animate. The number of dots changed as the domino got older (more spots with age). We were all given a season to add to the feeling of time passing. We decided on a rough story arc. We could then develop our own brief storyline.

Working in a group has advantages and disadvantages. It is good to get ideas and enthusiasm from other people and develop ideas that you may well not have considered on your own. As a group we are creating a longer piece and it will be interesting to see the final product with different peoples versions of a theme that we have all developed.  When working in a group there is more compromises but it is more how professionals would work. 

These are the members of my group in order of their place in the animation

1. Nathan
2. Josh
3. Rob (me)
4. David
5. Jeremy
6. Kamil
7. Juwad
8. Ahmed
9. Elise

1

  How I made my Music Video

Software learning experience

For this project I used four pieces of software. First of all I created a short animatic for this I used 3Ds Max. It was the first time I had made an animatic in 3Dsa Max. I found it OK and was originally going to make my whole animation in 3Ds Max but realised at this point it would take too much time.

I decided to create my music animation in Adobe After-effects. I have used After Effects before but not for animation. I thought this would be suitable software as I was trying to achieve a cut-out effect.

I had to prepare all my set pieces in Photoshop. With some of my group members we decided the best way to do the cut out pieces would be to find pictures and use the filters on Photoshop. This would save time rather than draw them by hand and produce a similar effect much more easily.

This is a photo I used the cut out filter on Photoshop, this is the actual mountain I used in my animation.

 Now that I had all my bits ready for animating in After Effects. I imported all the sourced files and put it together. To create my animation I used the 3D option. From my images I created what looked like a set with a mountain in the background and clouds at different distances to produce a 3D effect. To create my balloon I made a pre-comp which I did all my animation onto.

I had a go at using the lights and cameras in After Effects, for example I changed the depth of field.

For my animation I put some sound effects in. The programme I used to edit the audio was called Premier Pro. I found that it was very good for this and to edit the audio was really good quick and easy.

I have learnt quite a lot from this mainly on the use of After Effects as I have never used it for animation or tried the 3D option and I have developed my skills in Photoshop.

Sketches and Storyboards previous  balloon

Here are some sketches and storyboards to help me visualise my project.