Animations (5)

Decay1

Decay 2

Decay 3

Decay 4

 

The four ‘decay’ videos utilized images created as part of the tests for the Developing Graphic Practice. The images were originally a series of variations, with the same image altered by different layers and textures in Photoshop. As a quick method of capturing the results, these images were all screen captures and were not captured with any regularity to the size of the image. This turned out to be hugely beneficial to the animations that I then created in Hue – none of the images were cropped in exactly the same way and as a result, the resulting moving image jumps around slightly.

This influence is most effective in ‘decay 2’ and ‘decay 3’ which resembled old or damaged film footage and feature more distortions and warping than ‘decay 1’ and ‘decay 4’. At certain points the main image disappears into the texture altogether, a technique that I would later use to great effect in the final ‘trailer’ video.

‘Decay 4’ is perhaps the least effective of the four but created an interesting visual that I had not intended – the overexposed whiteness of many of the frames creates a flashing effect that is slightly off-putting but at the same time resembles flashes of lightning that go well with the image of the tree.

 

Animations (4)

4x1  - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uT3IE8Snf5k

09.02.16 3 - https://youtu.be/9jhTSi_ZYLk

09.02.16 - https://youtu.be/Pahpa7iB7xA

Tony c - https://youtu.be/ToDqt0DHf-M

 

Having discovered that I could import files into Hue (as well as using the camera to capture them), I went back to the files that I had used to create the ‘fade’ tests. With these animations the pace changed completely – in ‘4x1’, ‘tony c’ and ’09.02.16 3’, the people in the images rapidly fade in and out and the lines that form them seem much more alive.

’09.02.16’ is far more successful at this speed as the images fly by (especially when the video is placed on a repeating loop) at such a speed that the loop does not seem as short as it actually is. One of the ideas that came up as part of the workshop was the amount of information that the eye / brain can take in at any time, which I tried to explore here by increasing the number of frames per second. The video also has a kind of manic energy to it – while I liked playing the images in the ‘fade’ tests as slowly as I could, there was also something very appealing about this barrage of information, an energy that was different to some of the other tests.

Animations (3)

Mark002

Rip1

 

‘Mark 002’ was an animation created by hand during the animation workshop with Molly Okell. I had planned to create an animation using photographs of textures but as soon as I began ripping up images I just went with the flow of what I was doing. There is no obvious logic to the animation but the process that created it was quite instinctive and I found working this way very rewarding. As I have noted elsewhere, the Hue software we were introduced to was basic but we were able to get to grips with it immediately and produce results in the space of half a day. The workshop also introduced me to ideas of pacing and frame rate that would dictate the speed of the experiments that followed, as well as the use of rough framing that would become a vital part of my ‘trailer’ for my narrative (see later post).

‘Rip1’ was created at home with my own copy of the Hue software. It’s a bit of silly fun that suffers from poor lighting but is further proof that an idea can be produced quickly and that working with the physical objects will open up ideas that might not have been considered had the video been planned in any way.

Animations (2)

09.02.16x 4

Fadetest 2 Misc FX

Fadetest 6 pencil GS 2

Fadetest 6 pencil sketch

Fadetest 6 pencil sketch REV

 

 

 

‘09.02.16 x 4’ is one of a series of videos created while exploring the idea of animating photographs that had been transformed into illustrations. By applying the different effects in increasing or decreasing increments I was able to create an effect where the different figures emerge out of abstract shapes. They are still recognisable as people but I was interested in testing the speed at which the forms emerged, as it related to ideas of time and the age of the subject and photos.

‘Fade test 4 Art 1’ was a version of the first fade tests but with the illustrative effect added which is not shown here as the file would not export correctly to a movie. The version with the backgrounds is the more successful this time around as the effect renders the backgrounds more alike and creates different marks to those seen in the actual photos.

‘Fade test 2 Misc FX’ is a similar experiment but with a series of different effects applied to the same pair of images. The end result isn’t always subtle, but when certain effects are placed in the right order and one of the people in the photos ‘vanishes’, the animation achieves the effect I was aiming for.

The three ‘Fade test 6 pencil’ tests were a deliberate effort to create something as slow and subtle as possible. I was now thinking of how one of these animations might be shown in an exhibition setting and how to capture the attention of the viewer. If they viewer thought they were looking at a static image but then looked back and saw that something might have changed then they might be more likely to watch the barely perceptible changes. I also wanted to do something that was the complete opposite of almost every visual stimulus in the modern world, something that tested the attention and forced the viewer to watch something differently.  Again, these tests were inspired by ideas around aging, change, memory and perception.

The last two pencil test animations focused on transforming the images from actual photographs to illustrations (or vice versa) – from reality to fiction if you will. The ghost-like effects created as people’s features fade away would later appear in a version of the printed narrative.

 

Animations (1)

Please click on the links below to view the videos at Vimeo:

Fade test 2

Fade test 3 backgrounds

NOTE: At the time of writing, there appears to be an issue with the fade effect on these videos. New links will be posted when this has been fixed.

These ‘animations’ were initiated in PowerPoint, as at some point I had noticed that among the mostly cheesy ‘transition’ effects there was a ‘fade’ option. Following on from the failure of the polaroid tests, I still wanted to try and create a moving visual of some description that featured images fading in and out of the page and / or each other, to represent people fading from memory and the way that memories often blur together and are less than reliable. Using PowerPoint for this was probably not what it was intended for, but it allowed me the degree of control over the images and their movement that I needed and did not involve any steep learning curves that I normally experience with learning new software.

With ‘Fade test 2’ I chose to have two images side by side, so that one would fade out but start to appear in the frame opposite, potentially creating new or random associations and narratives. The video is designed to loop back around and continue on.

‘Fade test 3 backgrounds’ is the same set of images but with rough backgrounds added to attempt to distract / overload the viewer and further explore ideas memories and context. I don’t think this version is that successful, mainly due to the inconsistency of the background images. A better result might have been achieved if I had restricted the extra imagery to something simpler such as photo corners or variations of the same page.

Polaroid timelapse tests

Click here to view Polaroid timelapse test #1: 'Forwards' version

Click here to view Polaroid timelapse test #2: 'Backwards' version

These two short videos were an attempt to create a timelapse video of a polaroid image developing. As I was using modern Impossible film, the development would take 30-40 minutes and I thought it would be visually interesting to try and record the process of an image coming into being, and then potentially alter this 'narrative' digitally.

The tests weren't a complete failure but were not without their problems. my first issue came with taking a still shot of each of the two Polaroids at regular intervals as they developed. My inability to do this led to an uneven series of images, with one of the polaroids coming out so dark in every image that the series was unusable without adjusting the the contrast in for every one in Photoshop.
The next problem presented itself when I took the successful images into Photoshop and tried to create a consistent crop of each image. In the 'forwards' version, with the image cropped to show the Polaroid as an object rather than an image, the frame jumps around a little and detracts from the overall effect.

Following this attempt, I used a closer crop and just focussed on the image itself. This time I reversed the flow of images to make the subject 'disappear' - I think this result is slightly more successful, as with the loss of the white frame, the physical 'shift' created by the inconsistent cropping almost becomes an effect itself. The closer crop, however, only seeks to highlight the differences between each version of the image.

If I was to repeat this experiment, I would try and film the development of the Polaroid rather than capture a progression of still images. This would allow me to capture the entire process and still allow me to edit it down after to create a condensed version, either by speeding up the film, or experimenting with the frame rate. Hopefully this would create a more consistent outcome. The downside of all of the videos shown here to date is that they were created in iMovie, which fine for testing, but I look forward to testing ideas in Premiere.

Journey to college video #4

Click on this link to view the video in high quality on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/147736304

This fourth version of the 'journey to college' narrative was created in response to feedback from the first group crit. It was suggested that the sudden change in narrative (going away from the college) could be matched to a change in the music, and that the music could build up to that point.
With this in mind, I added an edited version of Breton's '15 Minutes' to the video. The normal version of the track runs to 4m08 seconds with a moment 2m45 seconds in where the track explodes. Working backwards, I edited the track so that the first of the post-collage images coincided with this change in tempo.
The build up to this moment is perhaps not as mellow or subdued as I would have liked, and the track now just fades in at the start of the video, but the effect of the music and the change of pace in both the visual and the music makes for a great effect.
The build up to the 'explosion' features minimal use of the Ken Burns effect, and a fairly slow pace; after the change this comes into play as the images come thick and fast, and the 'camera' pans down and across the images. By this stage I was becoming more confident at using the effect and even in this rough edit, feel there is a dynamic momentum present.
As I now had a longer piece of music, I added more images and this time added different takes of the same scene, which also added something extra to the narrative. The three shots of the horse were a happy accident but serve as a basic form of animation that could be extended and further experimented with in future iterations. I feel that the Ken Burns effect could be more consistent but each time I go back to this version, I find new mini-sequences within the overall structure that have their own rhythm, which coincided with the attempts to create new narratives out of existing visuals that I was exploring elsewhere in this module.
Finally, in retrospect, this version would benefit from having the contrast / vintage tone on just the images in the build up section, which would then change to the bright colours of the new images which were added to this version, and enhance the overall change in tone.