Visual Narrative: Project 4: interstitial Process: Week 3

I filmed some of my sketches near Qatar academy where I found a lot of ants near the trees, but in the weekend I wanted to see if I could film better quality videos in our backyard at home. one of the difficulties with filming with my iPhone was that my hands were shaky and I couldn’t follow the ant without it getting out of the frame every second. I looked like a creep.

when I went to film at home I wanted to try and film with my canon camera because I thought it will allow me to get nicer shots but it was a disaster, it was a hundred times harder to film with the camera than to film with the iPhone, it was so heavy and it made my hands shake even more. I don’t think that a tripod will help me much since I need to be close to the ground to be able to film and follow ants with my camera. So I borrowed a mini tripod to stabilize the phone and it worked better to film the ants close up. I filmed better more stabilize footage and tried to edit it in an interesting way. At first, I thought I’ll just use only one piece of footage where the ants were picking up little pieces of rocks and throwing it out to build their nest/house. but then I decided to use some other footage that I thought is worth including in my video and used the footage where I followed the ants.

I had no idea of what kind of sound that I could use but then it was suggested to me that I try and make my video funny by using sounds that are similar to what they use in parody music videos without music. and I”m glad that I tried it because it was hilarious and I enjoyed making this short video and making it a fun experience.

Visual Narrative: Project 4: interstitial Process: Week 2

Initially, I wanted to be in a group but after long discussions, we didn’t completely agree on one idea or a theme so I ended up choosing a completely different idea than the group and the ones I had. In the end, I decided to work individually and do what interests me without the restrictions of being in a group.

After I decided I didn’t want to be in a group, I was inspired by Stan Brakhage, “Mothlight” video so I decided to film leaves and insects from our backyard and see if there is anything interesting that can come up from this idea.

My first video sketches were of some dead insects and a dead bird, I thought of making my content about dead insects and gross people out but then my sketches were not that interesting to me. So out of all the dead and alive insects that I filmed, I  found out that the ant video sketches where the most interesting, since ants move in a fast pace and it looks like they don’t know where they’re going. They look crazy.

 

Visual Narrative: Project 4: interstitial Process: Week 1

Animation Ideas:

• after effects exploration: experimenting with animating illustrations. For this I’m thinking of an under the sea theme, example:

https://vimeo.com/43872220

• space theme animation video: illustrating and animating different planets.
• experimenting and playing with effects and filters on space images.

• music video: group idea.
• Gifs: group idea where each person will choose a topic and create a Gif like video.

• stop-motion.
• experimenting with animation on top of real images/videos, example:

https://vimeo.com/249234305

• typographic video of a random funny conversation.

Visual Narrative: Project 3: Zine Reflection.

I think that the process of making a zine by hand made me fully understand how to design a booklet and how the spreads and pages go into the final production. At first, I was confused because I didn’t know how to think about it since I was used to doing it on the computer. Also, I think I should have planned how I wanted my zine better. but I was more focused on how each spread looked and was more focused on the details and where each image will go, where I should put the text, what color combination worked better with each other and for each spread. I also tried to make my zine very simple and minimalistic, which was inspired by Japanese art and compositions.

Visual Narrative: Project 3: Zine Process: Week 3

Feedback:

Appeal:

• Audience: its interesting for people who like myths, the style used fits perfectly with the Japanese culture.
• Typography: the point size is good, the type is working well with the images used, since the color palette of the images is soft, light colors.
• Images/Treatment:  Nice system used for the background, using a unified system for the whole zine or breaking the system by using plain colored paper. The first spread needs more contrast between the background and the images.

Pacing:

• Interest: the pacing of the feature story was interesting as it started slow just like how the actual story is paced.
• highlight: the page with the yellow background, red title and blue frames around text were composed really nicely like Japanese compositions and everything was placed carefully.
• boring: since all the backgrounds are blue it was hard to distinguish that there are different articles.

Check Sections:

• Feature1: keep the feature article a blue background, add a title.
• Article 1 and 2: change the color of the background to distinguish the different articles.
• Personal essay: could be the introduction.

Visual Narrative: Project 3: Zine Process: Week 2

Topics I’m interested in:

• psychedelic art
• poetry
• mythology

I chose mythology but I wasn’t sure of the specific topic I wanted to explore, so I did some research and narrowed it down to three possible topics: mythical places that exist in real life, dragon myths in different cultures and Japanese myths/ Japanese mythical creatures.

After further research on Japanese mythology, I chose to make my zine about Japanese creation myth, which is the story of Izanagi & Izanami.

As for how it will be part of a series of zines, I’m considering making this zine either:

• Focusing on the creation myth and adding some small side stories to complement the main story. since I found some stories that can be considered a continuation of the main story of Izanagi & Izanami.
• Comparing myths from other cultures that have the same general theme. Like in Greek mythology.
• Make the topic of my zine series about Japanese myths and in each issue, I focus on one aspect of the myths, for example, for the next issue I explore the different Japanese mythical creatures.

Visual Narrative: Project3: Zine Process: Week 1

3 sources on zines:

1.  A guide on how to make zines, I think this will be very helpful in getting started with my zine and how to think about making it. https://www.creativebloq.com/print-design/make-your-own-zines-11410390
2. This website shows a variety of different styles, ways, and methods of making a zine and different visual languages that creatively match the topic of the zines. http://thebookdesignblog.com/category/zine-design-inspiration
3.  I found this video helpful in terms of how to use scrap paper and other materials, I also liked the use of stamps and the stitching she did in the zine.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0wmN7cFafU 

 

Visual Narrative: Project2: kinetic type Process: Week 4

This week I was finalizing some details of my video. I thought that the orange color type was a good choice at the beginning but I felt that it wasn’t a good choice when I was finalizing. Although I was inspired by the colors of the scene and the candle lights.

I changed the colors based on house Frey’s shield. I gave Lord Frey the blue color, I gave the family a grey color and gave Arya a slightly different color of blue and a different typeface.

After I changed the colors of the type and added some illustrations and effects to the video it looked more interesting.

 

Visual Narrative: Project2: kinetic type Process: Week 3

I watched a lot of tutorials on how to animate type in after effects, and still find it hard to make things move or appear nicely. I didn’t like what I was doing so far but decided to continue syncing the words to the sound, and then going back and change the things I didn’t like. I don’t know if I don’t like the colors or the typeface that I’m using, but I think it matches the visuals of the scene I chose since its a dark scene. maybe changing the background to another dark color or adding an effect to the background at some points will be more interesting than the solid black that I have right now.

since I only know how to do very basic things on after effects, I watched tutorials on things I wanted to make when I started making the animations. I do not think that the storyboard helped me much in visualizing what I want the video to look like because at the beginning I didn’t know what I wanted to do or didn’t know what I can or can’t do. but making one helped me in some parts and in composing the type, it helped me in breaking down the sentences and deciding how they would look like on the screen. for the animation, I decided on what to use when I started and was experimenting with the different effects that are already in after effects and watched some tutorials for other techniques.

storyboard(front)

storyboard(back)

 

I made the words that’s emphasized bigger

found this effect that separates the word in two, I think it gives the idea cutting (slaughtering)

I used the jiggy effect here since the crowd was also yelling

Visual Narrative: Project2: kinetic type Process: Week 2

I chose the audio from game of thrones because I liked the rhythm or the way lord Frey was talking. I found out that an easier way to work in after effects is to create separate illustrator files for each sentence and put each word in a separate layer for easy animation. It’s easier to design and organize the type and make little illustrations in illustrator and this is a very useful way to do it and animate it. I was not able to visualize how I would want the animation to be so I figured I should start making it and figuring out how to do things while making. But later on, I figured that I could do much more with the type if I did it in after effects so I changed my mind about working in illustrator for the type.