Exercise 4 - Living Text
Create an animation of a “living text” based on two contrasting ideas/emotions. In this exercise you will create a “living text”. The concept of “living text” is based on bringing ideas and emotions to life using motion graphics, in this case animated text.
This will be your first chance to explore your own ideas by creating a simple animation. Keep in mind that the concept you are trying to convey is as important as the animation itself, so they must walk hand-in-hand throughout the process.
Guidelines
Create the animation of a “living text” based on two contrasting ideas/emotions (for example happiness/sadness; love/hate; day/night; infrastructure/nature). Your animation should be approximately 15 seconds long. Feel free to use words, or a combination of words and other graphic elements (for example basic shapes).
Remember, whatever the elements you plan to use, they must clearly convey your two contrasting ideas, so keep you animation simple and direct.
Steps to completion
A crucial component of creating animations is planning (steps 1-3). You should start by defining the two contrasting ideas/emotions you would like to convey. What comes to your mind when you think about them? Define the main assets you will use in your animation and sketch them by hand or using Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop.
How should you animate your assets to convey your two contrasting ideas? Think about the five digital animation properties you have learned in Lesson 4.
You are already familiar with storyboards, so create one by drawing the different frames of your animation. Start with the main frames and then fill in the frames in between (similarly to what you have done in Project 1). Indicate how you will apply the different digital animation properties you have selected to animate your text. Don’t forget to add short descriptions to each frame explaining how they contribute to express your contrasting ideas.
Indicate how your animation will move from one frame to the next, paying attention particularly to how you intend to transition from the first idea/emotion to the next.
Now it is time to start working on the different elements of your animation. Use Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop to create the different assets for your animation (including text and other graphic elements you plan to use). Remember, each element that will be animated needs to be in a separate layer.
Import your assets into Adobe After Effects. If you don’t remember how to do this step, watch again the video available on Lesson 4.
Finally, animate your assets using Adobe After Effects. Spend as much time as needed to test different speeds of animation and make adjustments to all your transitions to make sure you contrasting ideas/emotions are been represented as you envisioned them. If you need, go back and make any necessary adjustments to your original assets.
Take a closer look into your complete animation and make any necessary adjustments.
Export your final animation as an .mp4 video following this naming convention:
art204_exercise4_lastname_firstname.mp4
Upload the animation to your frame.io page and post the link on the course page.