Wednesday, December 17, 2014

MINIMART: An After Effects Character Animation


"MiniMart"


It's 3 AM in the inner city. 
For sleepy old Greg Ormansen, this is his 9-5. 
For Markis Ricardo, this is chance to pay back his loan shark.

By Drew McCall


It's been a while since my last blog post because my E-Comm teachers (whom require that I turn in my assignments on this blog) have changed what they want in the posts as far as content goes. The posts will likely be way more "in depth" now and go "into the details" of the project, whatever that means.

Anyway, let's talk about white gangsters that drive astro vans.




The purpose of this project was to exercise our abilities using After Effects for 2D animation. We had to draw the characters, scan them, color them in photoshop, rig them in after effects, and animate them.
What's that?
Sounds easy, you say?
Obviously you've never used after effects before.

Like all films (good and bad), I started by outlining the story.
Most ideas for my work either come from exploring a concept that I find interesting (as is the case with Carl, a script I came up with after thinking about imaginary friends; the film itself is about an imaginary friend coming to terms with the fact that he doesn't exist), or out of necessity. In the writer's room it's important to accept ideas even if they aren't good, because they can sometimes lead you to a fantastic idea. I actually created this project several months ago when I didn't exercise this technique as much, but since I'm just now updating my blog post I thought I should include it.

If you don't mind, here's a quick tangent about storytelling:



 itcame up with the idea after thinking about making a movie about a robbery. After considering options for the story, I decided to make it about mistaken identity, where the robber is mistaken for a person applying for a job. I was unsure how  to tell the story without them talking, but after some research, I found a program that was capable of animating mouth movements called papagayo. I used it to animate the mouths only, everything else was made in after effects. I recorded my brother's voice for the character's voices and edited in iMovie. It took a very long time to make, hence the reason why I am late on posting this.



Next time, I would definitely take the time to draw out all of the backgrounds, because I used pictures off of the internet for the backgrounds inside of the minimart. I did, however, like using the software to animate the mouths. If I ever need to quickly animate mouths, I will definitely use that software again. I really liked this project and am happy with the final product. Plus, I think it's pretty funny, too.

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