Silent movie; FINAL SEQUENCES & STORYBOARDS.

I decided to use the word 'spin' for all my final sequences instead of 'spin' and 'float'. This is because I feel as though I came up with better ideas for spin that would test my after effects skills more so than the other word. It also meant that I could challenge myself more because I had to come up with five different sequences for the same word and wanted to make each stand out from the other. 

Probably the most simplistic of all my sequences as this was the stage in which I was just getting to grips with the after effects software. It shows a simple spin sequence using the rotation tool as though it is sat on a central axis. There is no particular relevence to the inner of the 'P' being a different colour, I just feel as though it makes the sequence look a bit more interesting with this added hint of colour. Using a lightweight font suits the word because lighter objects tend to spin easier so I imagined the same would work for light fonts if there were actually able to spin. The font was also chosen because it has quite a rounded look to it and when I personally think about things spinning I automatically picture an image of circle. Spin is usually connected to quite a fast movement but I also feel that it could be slow too so I wanted to represent this within my sequence. I think this works so well because its very simple and no confusion can be caused as to whats occuring in this sequence. 

I used the same font and style imagery as the sequence above to create my second sequence because I came with a less literal idea I felt it could work for. This sequence has the idea that the text looks as though it is going round in a circle, linking back to the point I made previously that spinning reminds me of circles, the text looks as though it is following a path and when it stops it will have spun round in a circle in terms of position but not actual rotation. This idea could maybe be a little more successful if I was to speed the sequence up a bit seeing as it only hints at the idea of spinning and isn't very self explanitory but it was a step in the direction of looking at less literal ideas. 

This idea began as quite a simplistic one with just a normal letter 's' going across the page when I decided I was happy with the sequence. To make it look a bit more exciting I altered the artwork in photoshop so that the letter 's' had a wave to it and then I added in the black lines. Once I played this back in the sequence it made me realise that the 's' looked like a boomerang. The fact that the 's' stops at the end of the frame and does not completely go off is intentional because its as though someone has caught the boomerang. This sequence is quite successful overall because it meant I could experiment in after effects with the idea of rotation at the same time as movement and see how the two techniques worked together. 

This sequence was another which was less literal with the concept. I used the scale tool in after effects to make the letterform look as though it was rotating around a central axis. As I scaled the letter down and brought the size back up again it looks almost as though the letter is flipping, therefor spinning round but in a way thats almost as though its playing tricks on your eyes. Although this could probably be improved I feel that the concept is quite good because it came from just experimenting and playing around with different aspects of the letterform within after effects. It was a slower process than most of the other sequences because to make it look as though it was actually spinning the scale had to be slowly altered down and back otherwise it didn't have the same effect and sometimes i'd get so far and then a little bit woud go wrong so i'd have to start again. The black dot in the middle was a personal visual because when I watch this sequence I imagine there to be an invisible suspended path where this is that the letterform follows. 

The font used within this sequence was another one I chose because it was quite rounded and again the idea that to me spinning links to circles when I picture it in my mind. It's quite a good font to work with because although its quite thick it seems to be subtle at the same time. For this reason I decided to take more advantage of the white space within the frame and make the word a little bigger. Due to the dot being in a different colour and quite a bright one, the eye is automatically drawn to this which is a positive thing as this is the section of the sequence that moves. Having a capital letter at the beginning of the word was deliberate because as the dot is spinning round the rest of the word, this letter being heavier brings balance to the whole sequence. 

Part of the requirements for this brief stated that we needed to have a 15 frame post production storyboard for each of the sequences. This has really helped me understand my sequences better because when you are watching them through vimeo or MOV file you never see them in slow motion so although you are processing what is happening on the screen, are you really understanding the movement? It has also brought to my attention that within some of my sequence storyboards you can't really tell that the letter or word is spinning round, this tends to be with the more complex sequences so does this mean that the sequence is not as effective as I initially thought. The whole concept of creating these storyboards seems like an evaluation point in a sense because it is making me question wether or not there could be room for improvement on a lot of these sequences where the storyboards are harder to interpret. 

Although this may be the case I feel as though I have learnt a lot from the brief because I learnt how to use software that i've never been faced with before and I'd also never created moving image sequences before. Although my sequences are really simplistic, I feel as though I have really achieved something because i've learnt a lot throughout creating them about speed, timing and storyboarding. These are all things I wasn't really familiar with before in terms of my own work. One thing i've found most significant throughout this brief is the fact that storyboarding really helps a lot because without this I would have just been faced with a blank canvas on after effects and no idea what to put on it. Storyboading also helps get a range of ideas down so you can consider which are your best. I feel that everything i've learnt within the brief will definitely benefit me when it comes to creating sequences in the next brief. This has been a good starting point and learning curve.