what did we animate: message received

Message Received from charis poon on Vimeo.
A little girl discovers something magical. (Alternative title: Old School Texting)
Created in Adobe After Effects.

Just completed my Motion Graphics 2 Final. Hurrah! A little sad I won't be taking an animation class next semester — hope I retain my knowledge of After Effects...

what did we watch / listen to: skyence

Skyence – INSCT 
Collaboration between Skyence (Hamburg) and Johannes Timpernagel (Berlin).  

The animation for this video is great. I particularly enjoy the colors and intricate patterns that you only get tiny glimpses of as they pulse and you begin to wish they were on screen longer just so you could enjoy the detail in them. It's also an example of abstract motion graphics that's well done and not just flashy speedy lights and explosions.

And it's a perfect combination with the sound — which in my opinion is pretty cool stuff on its own. In fact I liked the sound design of this video so much that I've now been listening to Skyence on SoundCloud for the last hour. I don't usually listen to music without words (yeah, I realize that sometimes I'm quite musically close-minded) and I'm okay with my lyric driven songs most of the time. Discovering skyence and finding it compelling to listen to and interesting in its composition is my musical highlight of the week. Hurrah for expanding musical horizons!

what did we animate

For my Motion Graphics 2 class this week we were asked to create an imaginary creature of some sort and practice parenting and expressions in Adobe After Effects while animating our creations. What I came up with was a mystical squid-fish-bird-human hybrid of some sort (tentacles, gills, wings, hands respectively) and the resulting 20 second video above of it flying quietly.

I really enjoyed character creation and would love to dabble into it more. Also, nailing parenting and expressions in AE brought me large amounts of satisfaction. Especially since before figuring it out I spent a good 4 - 5 hours not knowing at all what wasn't working.

(Parenting is the act of linking one elements movements to another - think of it as a child following his / her parent. Expressions is the same thing but with the inclusion of some intuitive "extra" movements AE tacks on to the children elements. That's how those tentacles sway without me going in and animating each individual section.)

Hope you enjoyed the video.

what did we LOVE: PIXELS

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. - Watch original web videos.

SO AMAZING.
in love with! - that must have taken amazing amounts of work.

what did we watch: the state of the internet

really awesome video about the internet.
only complaint: some parts are a bit too fast to understand all the information being conveyed.
otherwise, pretty crazy motion info-graphic work that gets the ideas across (and a lot of numbers) effectively and in a fun way!

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

wonder what another 5 years would add to these stats and facts. taking motion graphics this semester makes me wonder if i could ever learn to create such superb pieces of work. and how much time it would take.

(credit to mike tully for posting it on his fb wall which popped up on my mini feed and is an oddly apt story about how i came across this piece)

temporary fill in! chyeah!

i feel awful for not having blogged recently. in fact. in about three weeks. awful.

i'm on a computer enough of the time (all the time except when i'm asleep) that i should be able to blog regularly. so that's some sort of half-promise i've just made in the previous statement.

here's a site full of pretty motion graphics to look at until i gather thoughts to some sort of solid subject matter. PSYOP

what did we attempt

motion graphics assignment number 2: animate the alphabet from A to Z in maximum 70 seconds. use typography found from anywhere and everywhere. be creative. alphabet should grow increasingly abstract as it continues. use audio and work to integrate the motion with the audio well.

this is my first image and from which i'm making all the "A's" drop out and slide off the papers.

*ahem* attempting to make them drop out and slide....