kieranparkhousefmp

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Evaluation

Overall this assignment was super fun once I got into it but really hard to start. Struggling to come up with ideas is something I am going to have to overcome in the next two years otherwise my life is going to be super difficult. 

If I were to do this assignment again I would start way earlier, I was happy with how my render turned out however there were multiple things I would have liked to change if I had the chance.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Final Render

After adding all the feedback here is the final render!

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Extra Sound

I also went back through the animation and added extra sound ! Thanks to clip converter this was super easy :)

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Creating the battery Animation

To create the battery It was surprisingly simple. I used 3 Rounded rectangle shapes

Moved the anchor point of the centre rectangle to the bottom of the rectangle and increased the scale. And super eased it as Geraint Says! This is done by easing the end frame and then increasing the incoming velocity to 100%

This super easing method is what I used with all of the mini animations throughout.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

I tried to create mini animations of everything. Sleep Steps Texts however this didn't work out after looking at the timeline some of these were only in frame for 5 frames. So your eyes were distracted by the animation rather than the message on screen. However I did render out what some of them looked like so you could see.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Adding the echo

Geraint told me to clip the end click and place it ontop of the beat before the heartbeat, by doing this it made the heart beats sound even louder and more focussed. He also told me to remove the subtle music in the background to make us focus on the sound of the heart.

I added this echo click twice. By doing this it drastically changed the feel of that section of the project.

I also added a click at the very end because it ended too sudden. When doing this I added just the fitbit logo at the end to remind the viewers of the company that is selling the watch. While the click fades out this created a cool atmosphere while staring at the logo. To fade the audio out you tap “L” on your keyboard once and this brings up the levels. and its a simple keyframe from when you want the audio to start fading and when you want it to completely fade out by using a slider.

The fitbit logo was just a simple mask job to get rid of the text and just be left with the logo

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Feedback

So I asked for feedback because I felt stuff was missing! After talking to Geraint about the video he said there was animations missing to bring the piece together. He compared it to the Apple don't blink advert and showed they used animations to break up the text. He also said that my transition between fast pace music and the heartbeat was too drastic and needed to use a prolonged echo at the end beat to make it sound better.

Here is the feedback from Geraint

Time to act upon it!

[kieranparkhousefmp]

First Render

All the rest of the animation was created using simple key framing so there is no point in talking about that. It was just the same old position/scale/opacity etc.

So here is my first render

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Creating The Heartbeat

While most of the animation was done through simple key framing by using Position / Scale / Opacity the heartbeat was done using a different method. I started off by adding a ruler to the centre of the screen. This was to assure that my line was kept straight and when to add the dips so i knew where i had to go back too. Once I had the ruler I used a pen tool and drew the path I wanted.

This is what I was left with.

I then went down the effects and changed the shape of the line to a round cap for extra style :)

Then went to Add / Trimpaths, this gives you a new effect layer to use.

By using the start and end tool you can create the line to any length across the path you have drawn with the pen tool. The bigger the gap the longer the line.

I simply kept the line at the same distance and synced the peaks and dips to the sound using the wave form of the audio the same as i did with text.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Creation

Now that I have figured out what style I am going for It was time to create. I started off by putting each word to a beat. Once that was finished it was time to add a little more colour but not too much. To do this I used an adjustment layer and inverted the colours to swap black to white and white to black. By doing this simple colour change added a lot more to the animation and also gave me another thing to add to beats within the soundtrack.

To invert the colour is simple, go to effects on the adjustment layer / Channel / Invert. This was a quick easy way to swap the colours around. When I wanted the invert to happen I would turn the opacity Up and when I wanted it gone I would turn it down. This meant I only had to have one invert layer throughout the project.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Here is the uneased

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Here is the eased version

[kieranparkhousefmp]

To Ease Or Not

Before Creating all of my animation I decided to render out two different Versions. An eased one and un eased. This was to decide on what sort of impact I wanted in my project wether I wanted Slick or Bold. After asking feedback the popular opinion was the uneased.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Creating A Script

From all of the adverts and their website I wrote out all the words I kept seeing pop up. This was because I wanted to draw attention to things Fitbit focus on. After having this selection of words I attempted to write a script. By doing this it meant I didn't have make one up on the go.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Aligning Text

Within my project I had to make sure the text was constantly inline and central to video being as it was the main piece. There were only a few times where I wanted the text to be off centre as if you were reading each word.

To make sure the text didn't stray slightly up or down I used rulers, but also used an alignment tool.

I also used the Title/Action Safe setting. This allowed me to see boundaries to keep away from the edge of the screen. I did this due to feedback from my title sequence project where Geraint gave me feedback saying I strayed too close to the edge which was annoying for the eyes too look at. 

[kieranparkhousefmp]

Animating the Text

When thinking of this idea I was also thinking about the nightmare I was going to have when worrying about all these different text layers and when they would need to come on and change. Then I stumbled upon a new feature I haven’t seen in after effects.

When creating a text layer if you go through the options you will see an option called source text with a stopwatch next to it. 

To use this tool its as simple as any other, you keyframe when you want something to change you hold the keyframe for “x” amount of time then you change it again. And this is how I did all of my text throughout my project. I simply keyframed every beat and formed sentences.

[kieranparkhousefmp]

How I Synced My Text

To easily see the beats on which I wanted to sync my text I double tapped L on my keyboard. This is the shortcut to see the wave form of the audio within after effects. By doing this I had a clear indication on when beats were about to hit so I knew when to change my text.