Digital Video 2 – Week 04

Research

I missed (read: skipped) this week’s lecture, so seeing as it was a presentation week in the tutorial, there was no classwork for me to speak of. I did, however, spend a ridiculous amount of time in After Effects, finishing off the first assignment for this subject.

I still think that After Effects has the most enjoyable learning curve of any graphic software package I’ve come across. Not to say that it was an easy experience – I spent a good while shouting at the co-ordinates for not behaving as I believed that they should. Yet, unlike programs like Maya or Flash, After Effects gives you a good amount of instant gratification when things do go according to plan.

Whilst the final outcome did differ from my storyboard and plan, they really did go a long way to helping me structure my kinetic type. I broke passages down into 5 second groups and in the end, only went around 10 seconds or so over time. What I did try to achieve in this piece was a heavily graphic focus. I believe that when working with type, the negative space is as important as the type itself, so in fitting with Bukowski’s poem, this piece was all about opposing forces – both male and female and the positive and negative visual space…

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Of course, there are many things I would change if asked to start this project again. However, I did get to spend a lot of time with After Effects and learnt a great deal. For my very first After Effects project, I’m fairly happy with the result and actually looking forward to spending more time with the software. Considering how hard I am to please, that’s a pretty big wrap.