Approach: This week included creating and discovering better ways of improving my explainer video and where to begin with my research topic for this semester. It mainly began with myself realizing that I did not have a clear idea as to what I should study for the next 4 weeks, as this would serve as the stepping stone to more research or switching my idea entirely to a new topic. For my topic, I want to explore and possibly better understand the developmental effects of humor on people throughout their childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; but aimed specifically towards how animated works could be the main cause or an influencing factor. I’m still finishing up my progress on my explainer video and have uploaded my current progress to my Vimeo page. Parts that I still want to change are the sections that explain the masking techniques and the Inverse Kinematic part. I also went to the Ohio State University library (Thompson) and checked out some books based on the philosophy, anatomy, intricacies, and depth of different types of humor to begin my research on my topic. I do not want to fully upload this video for self-preservation reasons and fear of someone copying my character, so I will use screenshots instead. My script was also re-written to accommodate extra spaces between the explanations and a "breather" for the audience between different sections (you can find the download link above). *A screenshot of "Archer" - One of the inspirations for my character* Choices Made: For this week I mainly worked on my explainer video. Some of the choices I wanted to explore were how to make the video more interesting than my initial animatic. I used a flat grey background and white text to emphasize what I wanted to explain visually versus through audio. I feel if the backgrounds were too highly detailed, it would detract from me giving a clear explanation about the overall project. I also made all of my textual elements and visual cues fade in/out, shift position smoothly, and used masking along the edges of my videos for clean transitions and for side-by-side comparisons. My actual outcome I thought came across much stronger than my initial animatic, which makes me believe that I should create animatics for these types of projects in After Effects first rather than later; unless it’s an actual animation versus explanation video. I also used a dual drop-shadow technique on the text. The first was for a solid drop shadow that made the text pop-out with some depth, the next was a soft drop shadow to make the text look like it was even further out as separate from the flat background. I also used some subtle animation techniques such as rotation and opacity changes, as well as a trim-path for animating a pen-strokes regarding my “next steps” sections. I also went back and re-recorded my audio in the video itself and made sure to fix the issues with the MONO vs STEREO tracks I was having such a hard time with. Relevant Sources: I used a channel on YouTube that I often go to for motion-graphics inspirations called “Mount MoGraph”. I have listed his channel link below: www.youtube.com/user/mtmograph His tutorial videos are often helpful and go through the steps clearly when he needs to make sure his audience understands. It also helps that he shows the final product in the beginning and then proceeds to act like you will have no prior knowledge; I often find this the most effective way to teach as it makes a clearly defined path to the current problems and future uses of After Effects techniques. I also checked out a number of books that I believe will help me with my research in the future for my topic this semester. I have also listed them below (note – not cited correctly):
Questions Raised & Needs: Some questions I have regarding my video:
Some questions for my books I’ve checked out:
Next Steps: For my next steps I plan to edit my video one last time to make sure that I have all the assets I need and the explanations are clear and concise. I want to record a short section involving DUIK controls and how they can be controlled by "your friend" moving your hand to a specified location (this will be in live-action). For the other, I want to start reading my books and come up with a clearly defined idea for my research about humor, existentialism, and behavioral psychology. I will review the notes from my professor regarding what to change and expand upon, and come up with a better reasoning behind my research and where it will lead myself and the audience that happens to find interest. -Taylor Olsen *An image of yours truly. Being weird as usual.*
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