Our Stop Motion Animation Adventure
Two days ago Eric and I decided to create our own 30 second pitch for the upcoming Emerging Talk conference in Syracuse. We didn’t want it to take a really long time like some of the other videos we made that were really effects heavy, so we decided to make a stop motion animation. Turns out that was the worst idea we have ever had when it came to saving time. We spent two nights mostly sleepless but we think the final product was well worth it. The video was comprised of about 450 images taken on a tripod with a regular digital camera, 12 black dry erase markers, a few packets of yellow post its, and a giant piece of glass (used at the end). The video moves very fast, so you really need to watch it a few times catch all the details.
PS, The ending sequence with Eric drawing on the glass was really shot in reverse. We started with the full logo, then erased bit by bit and took pictures.
Posted in Behind the Scenes
Tagged Animation, Inspiration, Post it, Stop Motion, Whiteboard
Leave a comment
Animation Aspiration
Although this video is about two years old, I just stumbled upon it and had no choice but to blog about it, its just that good. I’ve been searching Vimeo for days and I cannot find anything that lives up to this, aside from Carlos Lascano’s other work. The detail put into everything is amazing. The first video reminds me of the scene in the Pixar movie UP which shows the life of the elderly couple (You will know what I’m talking about if you have seen the movie). I can honestly say these two videos as well as the scene from UP have definitely confirmed that there is no question I want to be a motion graphics designer and animator. Carlos you are the man.
You can find more of his work here http://www.carloslascano.com/
A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.
The Can from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.
Posted in After Effects, Insipration, Motion Graphics
Tagged After Effects, Animation, Inspiration, Stop Motion
Leave a comment
Adobe After Effects Workflow discoveries.
Over the past few days I have been dusting off my Adobe After Effects skills. With ideas brewing in my head I booted up the program ready to create greatness. As soon as I got into the program the first thing I did is go right to the effects menu and see how many effects, particles, and distortions I could combine to get the coolest results. While this is awesome and tons of fun, it can get you into alot of trouble regarding productivity and organization, two things I deemed unimportant, until today.
After working through a mess of a project today here are some things I found that can help you out in stick
Also keep in mind, there is a time and place for effects testing. This should be done in a separate composition or project even and should just be to familiarize yourself with what looks right, without jeopardizing the organization of you main project.
Keep the big picture in mind
Although it can be tempting to zoom into your timeline as far as it will go and start animating away, DON’T DO IT. Try and rough out motion first, no matter how bad it looks. If you don’t have the artwork done yet use placeholders. Remember the little stuff is easy to change, the big stuff? No so much.
CTRL+SHIFT+D everything
Ctrl+Shift+D will chop you selected layer in two at the frame where the playhead is currently on. I suggest that you chop the end and beginning off of every layer when it is not visible or in use. Why is this important? This will give you a much better understanding of how things are ordered from a single glimpse at the timeline. Looking at a timeline with 10 solid bars for layers requires you to untwirl every layer to gain access to its keyframes, just to see when and where it is relevant. This will save you a ton of time when you have 20+ layers and only so much screen space.
*This can also be useful when setting parents. Want a layer to match up to another layer for 5 seconds then do its own thing for another five? Simply cut it off and set the 2nd part’s parent to none. This is much easier then wrestling with something that is getting instructions from both you and another layer.
CTRL+SHIFT+C the little stuff
If something is considered “Done” in your mind and you want to reduce the clutter, select the appropriate layers and hit Ctrl+Shift+C. This will essentially group them all together into their own composition and is called Pre-Compose. The selected layers keyframes will now be in the newly created composition. Do keep in mind that doing this to text does make it lose its vector quality and will take on the resolution of the new composition, therefore it cannot be scaled while retaining its quality.
Use CAPS when things get crazy
When things get too slow to handle and you are constantly waiting for frames to render while you are editing values. Just hit CAPS. It will put a lock on the main viewport and will allow you to make whatever edits you need without waiting for the current frame to render.
View in lower resolutions
This should be a no brainer. Don’t view everything in full res. Use half, third, and quarter mode when necessary. However do check full resolution mode however before you render your project to make sure everything lines up as you thought it did in lower resolutions.
*Also keep in mind, there is a time and place for effects testing. This should be done in a separate composition or project even and should just be to familiarize yourself with what looks right, without jeopardizing the organization of you main project.
If this post is interesting to you and you want to hear more about motion graphics and After Effects. Follow me on twitter.
Posted in After Effects
Tagged AE, After Effects, CS4, Hotkeys, Productivity, Workflow
Leave a comment
Getting my blog on.
I have come to the decision that it is time for me to start a blog. Why you ask? Well, a great portion of my day goes into reading blogs. Consuming information left and right. Almost everyday I read blogs on technology, startups, games, web development, food, design, movies, animation, toys, or anything else that catches my eye. It has become almost second nature. However, ever since the dawn of blogging I have felt a little suspicious about actually doing it myself. Would I really want to sit here and write about what interests me on a regular basis? “No, of course not”, I thought at first, but I feel that the time has come for that to change. I realized a do have a voice, and a pretty good one at that. I am not just a consumer of all these things I read, I am a participant as well. I create things, and this is where I will share them, as well as anything else I deem worth sharing. Usually I am a more private type of person, but I feel the age of privacy is ending, and it has been for awhile. So here is my blog. Don’t believe me about this whole privacy thing ending? Mark Zuckerburg will back me up.
Stay posted to see what kind of trouble I get into.