Evaluation...

I am really happy with what I have produced for Latest- I really enjoyed making the world and experimenting with retro inspired styling. I also rediscovered my love of Photoshop- I really loved using it in conjunction with illustrator. I think vector artwork can be very flat and harsh, Photoshop really allows you to soften and texturise and I really really enjoyed seeing how my artwork changed once I placed it within Photoshop. Using Photoshop also enabled me to explore the lights within it which helped to clarify what I was going to do within After Effects. My first world (the one that only contained the Duke of Yorks building) was my first real light experiment and though it made my image humungous to allow me to place lights within it I found it really effective. Placing a very soft grain onto the artwork helped to create the impression that this world had been cut out of paper which I further developed within after effects but introducing drop shadows to the various elements. These shadows helped to separate my scene into two different spaces background and foreground. Since the character movement was very simple I also think it helped to really cement the styling of the world.

After Effects wise again I dont feel like Ive done anything complicated at all- after a quick intro into the After Effects light effects - I decided that the best way of making my world light out was by using simple fill circles with a glow on them. Staggering the shapes gave the impression that the lights were turning on in a running movement. It was very simple but time consuming - I had to go back into illustrator to turn off all of my lights- and though turning them on again was easy. There were a lot of lights- all parented to the moving world and positioned accordingly, In the end I think I ended up with about 150 light layers. Although my After Effects usage was simple I dont think that anything complicated would have worked within the animation. I kept my idea purposefully simple (based off the London Film Festival stop motion trailer) in order to allow me to fully develop my Illustrations. Regardless of its simplicity I think that the animation is very effective, playful and it definitely embodies Brighton.

Working with a client was a bit stressful - although I dont think that my correspondence with them was too bad or demanding. Latest Tv were vague and disorganised. I was really irritated that they hadnt provided me with finished music at the start of the project- its my main gripe really. I think that if you have the opportunity to get free work then you should utilise that and they didn't seem to be bothered. At times I felt like they werent ready in the production process to consult with a designer. I also had issues with the presenters- they kept changing their minds as to who the presenters were going to be- and when I asked for details - I got frustratingly vague responses which wasnt helpful. Having said this Val has kept in regular contact and the new producer Richard provided me with his tweaks as a nice understandable list - which were completed for them- Bill was the only one who really irritated me - he seemed to want something completely different to what Val and I had discussed and I was even told by Val to ignore Bills ideas. I appreciate that in the real world there will be disorganised clients out there and I did manage to remain polite and civil. I think the key to client correspondence is to remain polite and to provide them with strict deadlines because otherwise these tweaks could continue indefinitely.  I've also completed what they wanted and have made it clear that I wont have the time to work on it after the deadline. So I can only hope that they will be happy.

Submitting for Latest...

Since Latest havent gotten back to me about the coloured mopeds - I am providing them with several opening sequence versions. One with red mopeds and no words, one with coloured mopeds and no words as well as both red and colourful with the words. This way they can choose what they like and I have certainly provided them with a variation. I have informed them that after the wednesday deadline I will no longer be available to work on the titles so I want them as finished as possible (I informed them of this about a week or so before the deadline so I gave them time) I also gave them monday as a time limit for any tweaks to the animation (which they upheld) they seemed really happy pre changes and the changes I was asked to make werent big changes so I confident that they will be able to use them.

Lower Thirds

I asked Val what I should do about Lower Thirds since I had never done them before and didnt really know what I should provide. Lastest would have to add their own text in so I didnt see the point in animating anything. I also didnt know how long they would need certain bits up for or where they were going to come up. So after a quick discussion with Val it was decided that I should create a long line of lights framed with my lampposts- leaving the middle transparent. I would provide this as a high quality png and the Latest Team would animate that accordingly. Since I think that the words are going to be harder to read since theres no background I plan on providing one lower third with a solid red section within the middle as well.

The Stings...

Stings were another requirement from the brief- since I had very little time to play with I decided to keep the stings themselves very simple. I didnt really want to redesign them and felt that I had enough elements to play with to create them so I simply opted to use bits of those. I liked the shadow element and thought it had a nice softness that matched my overall light theme so I opted to use that in the beginning of the sting. I used a similar mask to make the words appear onto the world as I had within the main body of my project to cement the programme, and its branding at the end. I can't say that I really love this sting but I think it works for the project and its only a couple of seconds long so I dont plan on changing anything.




The second sting is by far my favourite- I have tried to use the running lights to follow through (its supposed to convey the concept of journeys which is a big aspect within the opening titles) I am really happy with it - it feels very dynamic and playful and it shows off my artwork. I didnt bother putting sound effects to either because I am pretty sure that Val/Latest will put a clip of their music to them.

Final Submission For my Project....

This is what I plan on submitting- I have added in some additional lights at the start of the Welcome to Brighton scene in order to provide some movement. I did try introducing a glow to the words but I didnt like them so I opted to add some familiar running lights movement instead. The glow on the added lights in the beginning looks a bit thicker than it is in my final submission mov but I am very happy with them regardless. I think Ive managed to turn a confusing and complicated brief into something fun and colourful. I've corrected the North Laine/Laines spelling, fully extended the clock tower scene, tried to have the people come in from the middle of frame - which I did for two of the moped scenes- the first mopeds scenes had to allow the characters to come into frame from the side otherwise it would have looked weird. The next two scenes I adjusted so they were travelling from the middle of frame and then the last scene I felt like I had to really utilise the arrow positioning so it looked better to give that scene a longer entrance and exit moped movement. I have also added in extra drop shadows- it was an aspect I completely forgot so in order to ensure the overall continuity I put extra drop shadows in - particularly around the various locations which helped to separate them from the background and match the cutout styling.

Crit...

So this is what I created for crit- I still have yet to correct the Laine /Laines but overall I am really happy, I think that the different coloured mopeds really help to individualise the characters. And the close ups break up the repetitive movements of the mopeds. I have put it to My Generation by The Who since its era appropriate and very much about the mods and rockers. I liked how the just because we get around lyric matched the moped presenters as they journeyed around the world. The song is fun upbeat and I think it works really well with my styling. I have learnt from past projects to go with my first choice on music and I had this song in my head when designing so I was always pretty adamant that it would work with it. I will provide Latest with a version that doesn't contain the music since they cant use it but I am hoping that the music will be upbeat enough to match the styling. Obviously it would have been ideal to be provided with the music at the beginning of the project so I could have designed and cut to that but alas the music was/is not ready.

Not sure if Latest wants the colourful mopeds since they havent replied to address that issue, but I really like it. Jim suggested that I make it look like some of the mopeds are coming in from the middle since they enter from the side of the screen all the time- which will be a simple case of moving some of the compositions so they start from the middle and not from the beginning. Andrew suggested adding something into the Welcome to Brighton sign as well and suggested making the words glow which I might try since it definitely needs something- as it is the scene feels very still.

The first Opening Sequence...

This first video is what I submitted for Val as a finished animation. The emails in the last post regard this version of the opening sequence. Val really liked it - she seemed very enthusiastic. I am also very proud of it although I have some changes of my own that I plan on making. Thankfully in this project I really utilised the composition tool element which I didnt do in the last animation project which will make it easier to change aspects. The spinning world with the various lights that light up as the world revolves is one composition I have used throughout to keep the movement continuous. It was Jims idea to make one world (which saved me Illustrator time on making each individual scene) to which I am grateful because I love how it has turned out.

Val and Latests Changes...

Val would like me to integrate two close ups of the extra presenters Bill mentioned in his email. I was happy to do this one because I think it helps to break up the scenes a bit and provide additional focal elements. The only concern I had with this aspect was that I was worried that the presenters wouldnt look like the actual people. Since I had a square ish retro style I knew that the faces didnt have to look exactly right but they still had to be approximations.


Taking out the words- according to Bill the words look too twee- whilst I disagree with this completely (I feel like the words help to fill the screen and look very Brighton) I plan on just providing Latest with a no words version since it wont take me long to turn of the appropriate layers.

It was pointed out to me that it was the North Laine not Laines- obviously this is my mistake- so I plan on changing that to both my project and Latests- Im hoping I can just replace the footage since I have exported everything out as same size pngs (I had to put a grain on a lot of my images- didnt like the grain within after effects so it made sense to export as pngs so I could manipulate in Photoshop).

My changes...

I want to experiment with colourful mopeds- I really think changing the colour will help to make them look more individual..

Possibly add some lights into the opening Welcome to Brighton sign.