Stop Motion Animation

After doing a stop motion video for my final project, I have found a whole new appreciation for it. My 1 minute and a half took forever, and to imagine even making an entire movie is just unfathomable. These are just some of the great stop-motion films that have been made, and now watching them I can't even imagine the process and patients that went into making them. With that being said though I really enjoyed making my stop motion video, the end result being able to make anything come to life, to be animated, is such an interesting concept and I am so happy I got to mess around with it. Seriously though next time you watch an animation like this, I hope you realize just how much blood sweat and tears went into because it's quite the process.

Change in Animation & Alice in Wonderland Behind The Scenes

What's really interesting to me is just how far we've gotten in animation. The technology and the process compared to the beginning of the whole idea of animation is just so wild to think about compared to the amount of software's and such that we use today. However when looking back on it, you can still see the core of the animation, especially for classic Disney films like Alice in Wonderland. It all comes back to a paper and pencil and from there what happens next is anybody's guess. I thought it was just fascinating watching this video, to see how much hand work went into the animation compared to the programs we use today.

Boom! Explosions!

This is an informative after effects tutorial about how to make realistic explosions in after effects. I can't see there being a ton of use for this tutorial but it a cliched thing to make it silly videos. I think it is a cool and fun tutorial.

Typography & Motion Graphics After Effects Tutorial

This is a basic tutorial on typography that I thought is really easy to follow along. Typography is such a fascinating use of animation, you can create and do just about anything with it. The way it all flows together is almost like creating its own story, its so interesting! There is so many examples of it on YouTube that I definitely recommend checking out.

Stop Motion Animation

For my final project, I was weighing on what exactly to do and then I saw this video and was instantly inspired. I think stop motion is so fascinating and doesn't nearly get enough credit on just how difficult it is to create this type of animation. This particular video was so unique and I loved the sound effects, it's definitely worth checking out!

Tutorial on City Fly-Through

For my original idea of remaking an opening credit sequence, I was going to go through a city for the opening, however, I had no idea how to do that. After searching for a couple of tutorials I came across this one and I thought it did an incredible job of teaching you. It was extremely easy to follow along and for that I was grateful. I went on to watch a couple more of his videos and I thought they were really interesting and I learned a lot. I would definitely recommend watching some of his tutorials to help you out. He covers a lot, from basic techniques to more complex, but he does it in a really easy to follow sort of way.

This is a cool animation that I've seen in commercials before. Since they use the Nike Logo to make it, its easy to spot where this is  been used before. It can be useful in my projects in the forward

Harry Potter Magic Wand Lightning Effect Tutorial

This tutorial is a bit old but most of the instructions still made sense. I was looking through youtube the other day and came across this video under tutorials in after effects. First off I don't know anyone that can say they don't like Harry Potter and beyond that I can't imagine that I was the only one that always wondered how they did the wand effects when dueling out in the forest or wherever potter would duel out. The directions are pretty simple and I wouldn't be surprised if some kids in our class already have an idea on how to create these effects in AE. Hope you guys enjoy

How To Make a Cartoon | For Beginners - After Effects Tutorial

For my name project and main project I needed to make characters for my plot and I wasn't exactly sure how to go about it, and this tutorial really helped me understand how to do it! This YouTuber has a lot of great tutorials on after effects that you guys should check out if need any help with certain aspects of After Effects! 

Amateur at After Effects.

This past week I have been experiencing Adobe After Effects and I have to say it isn’t as scary as I had originally though it would be. Although I have had friends and classmates who have utilized After Effects within their projects, I never though I would one day attempt to tackle this program myself.

After my first official week of After Effects, I can say for myself that it is one hell of a program that where you can do almost anything you set your mind to. Granted, watching Video CoPilot tutorials has been a huge service to me and has personally made After Effects more manageable to comprehend. Although I still need the aid of tutorials I do honestly feel as if I am learning something that will hopefully help me in the future of me career.

But enough about me! I want to talk about one of my favorite animated shorts. Remember that short about the older gentlemen that is in a very heated game of chess with what seem to be his arch nemesis? Yeah Pixar’s “Geri’s Game” (yes, I had to Google the title.) has been and is still one of my most favorite animated shorts of all time. It’s just so comical and the twist at the end was just astounding. So yeah, refresh your memory and take another look.

Help with Expressions

So while I've been becoming more comfortable with After Effects, one aspect that just doesn't seem to come easy to me is the adding of expressions and their outcomes. Maybe because I have no experience with coding or I'm just not familiar with them yet setting a "wiggle" expression is about all I can do. So after watching some youtube videos and searching out links, the adobe site helped me the most. I will definitely be bookmarking that site for later use.

Adobe has many other pages that will not doubt help as our projects become more and more complex, including pages about techniques and new features, just to name a few.

One video I enjoyed watching is about the wiggle expression and a lot of fine details about what it can do.

Drawn to Animation

I, like many, have grown up watching some form of animation, from classic Disney and Pixar films to Spongebob. I’ve always thought about the difference in production time between two-dimensional animation and stop motion animation. The two offer completely different feels, especially two dimensional because of the vast amount of artist styles that can be employed. Well I guess the same can be said about stop motion and and three dimensional and just about any type of animation. The fact that animation can range in not only content but style as well is very interesting to me and a reason I chose to at least learn a a little about it.  

I’ve always felt more connected to stop motion animation, only because my skills with a pen and pad aren’t as great as skills with a camera and figure. Growing up the animation in Henry Selick’s “Coraline” or Tim Burton and Michael McDowell’s “A Nightmare Before Christmas" has always mesmerized me and on many occasions I have thought about making them myself. (I’ve realized I might not have the patients for it, although now I’m in an animation course that will be equally time demanding.) Watching these films now I think about the movement and precision and the dedication each person these sets must have. Recently I watch the film, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s “Anomalisa" and was completely astounded. When I first viewed the trailer I was amazed to realize that it was stop motion animation and not a live action film. (The trailer also lead me to believe the film would be taking a completely different turn than it actually did, but that’s a topic for another time.) Clearly during the film you knew the character weren’t live action humans from the line that splits the face as well as the the way the characters walk. It was a stunning film as strange as it was.

All in all, even though I seem to be stuck on stop motion, I do enjoy many different animation styles and I am excited to be learning new skills throughout the next couple months that I will hopefully develop beyond this course. 

This is a cool tutorial that I found online. Easy to follow and a very cool effect to do if you want to work on After Effects. It is making your text look like light. The narrator is easy to follow and goes slow enough to follow along. With our name project coming up it might be something to play with. It also has some features that I hadn't heard about that might be useful for us to use in other projects.

Movie Scenes Before And After Special Effects

I found this really cool blog showing before and after movie scenes that used CGI.  Back in the day, filmmakers used matte paintings, trick photography, etc. to achieve impossible looking cinematic effects. Today filmmakers have almost perfected the art and application of CGI in films.
Click on this link to look at it: http://digitalsynopsis.com/design/movies-before-after-green-screen-cgi/
Enjoy!

Sky Star Wars Promo

So I was surfing the net, as I am to do from time to time, and I stumbled upon this promo the UK cable service SKY put together to advertise their upcoming star wars marathon.

Besides being the coolest thing I've ever seen, this promo incorporated a lot of the techniques and skills we've learned over the semester, albeit with gorgeous execution.

Aside from the double exposure effects, there are a lot of cool 3D space camera moves, rotoscoping, and even some very slight puppet animation. It's rare to see a piece of content made independently from it's creators that really captures the feel of the original content, butt I believe this promo does an absolutely stunning job. I've watched it about 8 times now and each time I've noticed something new. I really don't have anything else to say regarding this piece. I just thought it did a really awesome of capturing the feel of the Star Wars Franchise! Hope you guys enjoy!

Vanishing Point in Photoshop & AE

Premiumbeat.com is an awesome blog about filmmaking and video work alike. They post a lot of tutorials about using After Effects and similar software. I stumbled across this tutorial on their Facebook page about adding depth from a still photo using vanishing points.

This is probably one of the coolest effects that I have ever come across! Essentially you are taking a photo in photoshop, making it 3D, and then importing that data into After Effects and then can move it around using a camera.

Of course there are limits to this, like the fact that it will only be able to show whats in the still, nothing much beyond that. But still, this is an amazing effect, and will definitely try it out in the future!

For more info about this effect check out the blog post here: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/simulating-depth-using-vanishing-points-in-after-effects/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=Simulating-Depth-Using-Vanishing-Points-in-After-Effects&utm_campaign=10-2015-facebook-posts

or watch the tutorial right here:

How To Animate a 2D Photo in 3D Space

I wanted to share this video on how to animate a photo in 3D, exactly like what we did in class.   I really like this concept of bringing a 2D photo to life using photoshop and after effects to create a 3D movement. It's very quick and effective and can be used for so many things.

Kinetic Typography

The Perfect Cup of Tea by George Orwell from Luís Sá on Vimeo.

I was playing around with a number of basic After Affects tutorials the other day when I came across one for kinetic typography. Kinetic typography is when animation is used to express ideas and emotion via text. Above is an outstanding example. It's eye-catching and entertaining.

Adding movable text to something that's usually static is a great way of capturing attention--especially when the message or topic it might be somewhat boring or standard otherwise. It's a fun way to potentially introduce something... Or someone. All of a sudden I've got this great idea for a "welcome to my personal website" type video. How impressive would that "hello" be?

Here is basic tutorial I think a lot can be learned from:

Blending Modes: Broken Down

Blending modes are the way that layers can be combined. Usually used when they are overlapping each other, blending modes change the way layers interact with each other. Each blending mode is a different mathematical equation for how colors are combined.
There are 27 blending modes organized into 7 groups:

• Normal
• Normal
• Dissolve
• Darken
• Darken
• Multiply
• Color Burn
• Linear Burn
• Darken Color
• Lighten
• Lighten
• Screen
• Color Dodge
• Linear Dodge (add)
• Lighten Color
• Contrast
• Overlay
• Soft Light
• Hard Light
• Vivid Light
• Linear Light
• Pin Light
• Hard Mix
• Inversion
• Difference
• Exclusion
• Cancelation
• Subtract
• Divide
• Component
• Hue
• Saturation
• Color
• Luminosity

Basically, blend modes in the same group do similar things to the way pixels are blended together. 

Interesting to note, the Lighten and Darken blend mode groups do the exact opposite option of the other:

I've found a couple of images that help demonstrate different blend modes:

Unfortunately, it's always a challenge to really know how two colors will interact, so my suggestion is to always just keep guessing till it looks right ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For more information see:photoblogstop.com

Walt Disney Pictures Animation

The start to every adventure began with a blue sparkling tower with a shimmering shooting star. I'm not talking about bedtime dreaming. Some times the adventures would begin at the crack of dawn (5:30AM), but that would never stop me. Whether it were Toy Story, Tarzan, Atlantis, or The Lion King, the Walt Disney Logo led the way. It's amazing to think that while the logo has changed so much in the last 20 years (with advancements in motion graphics and animation), the stories have continued to excite individuals of all age groups. It's also interesting to note that while recreating the current logo is almost impossible for a college student to complete, the iconic original Walt Disney logo is definitely an achievable task. However, today we have millions of tools in After Effects, Maya, etc. Back in the 1940's, when the original logo was produced, none of these programs existed. While it may be a pretty long video, the evolution of the Walt Disney logo, shortening of the on-screen textual elements, and the specifically tailored movie opens are not only inventive but accurate set the mood of the story before the film's very first scene. I hope you enjoy the magic of Walt Disney.