After Effects Production Pack

After Effects Brief: 

Self-branded motion graphic intro for professional development. 

OR 

Develop an experimental artistic simulation in response to a piece of music, sampled audio or field recording (1 min max).

For this After Effects project we had the option of choosing between two contrasting themes. Either we could go down a more promotional route and start to brand ourselves or we could take a more creative route. I decided to opt for the more creative project. This was because the idea of creating visuals in response to a piece of music sounded exciting and i felt like it would open up endless possibilities. I've been very interested in creating certain moods and tones through music (such as soundscapes) in the past, so i saw this as an opportunity to really focus on how the visuals can enhance the music even further and vice versa. At the beginning of this project i really wasn't confident with After Effects at all. Having an interesting brief to run with definitely helped me want to get more familiar with it. After Effects has so many presets to experiment with so, before properly committing to an idea, i decided to have a play around with the software to see what was possible. In One of Will's tutorials, he focused on the concept of creating 3-Dimensional spaces. For this, you had to enable the camera tracker by going to Layer-New-Camera. You then switch it to 3D, allowing you to being to push and pull the camera to change perspectives. You then keyframe the camera and start making your path by dragging the camera through your chosen space. I found the ability to be able to create the illusion of passing through a 3D space really interesting! It adds depth and gives your visuals more of an immersive atmosphere. I want to be able to create something that feels like a bit of a journey. I want to make the audience feel very involved with the visuals- almost like they're a part of the immersive space.   

I watched a youtube tutorial on how to experiment with lots of different effects and create some interesting spaces. I wanted to create a test that made it look as though you're travelling through an endless tunnel. In order to make a tunnel you had to create a sphere using the ellipse tool and then add a repeater. From this repeater i could then make several more copies of the sphere if i needed to! I moved the copies to the center so that they were all on top of one another in the middle of the frame. I then increased the scale of these copies to create a tunnel effect. I then added wiggle paths to make the spheres appear jagged. This also created a little animation where the lines of the spheres would 'wiggle', as if being blown by the wind, swirling in the sea or gently wiggling in space. So, now that i had some subtle movement, i wanted to experiment further. I added a CC Spotlight onto the shape layer which created the effect you can see below. I realised that you could change the opacity of this light so i started the animation by having the spotlight move ominously across the tunnel only showing a fraction of the subject matter. I did this because i thought it would add a bit of intrigue and ambiguity to my test animation. The audience are left navigating an eerie atmosphere with only a spotlight to give them the slightest idea as to where they may be. 

This was the result: 

I set a keyframe on the spotlight's position and moved it across the frame then back to the center. 

When it got to the centre, i set a keyframe on the opacity and began to reveal more of the tunnel. I then made it so the tunnel began to rotate, which looked quite interesting. It helped begin to establish the illusion of a 3-Dimensional space. 

I then increased the scale, making it look like you're travelling through the tunnel. All in all, this was a very successful first experiment and i was already feeling more confident with After Effects. 

Second Experiment

For this experiment, i took what i learnt from my first test and developed it. 

I used the ellipse tool again and created two repeaters with several copies. This way, when i increased the scale and rotation, a different effect was created. By having more copies, a rather biological looking shape was created. The tunnel moved and morphed into something that resembled DNA. I really liked this. More layers were revealed and the tunnel began by opening up almost like a flower or some kind of sea shell. As the tunnel rotates it covers more of the frame and then bends round out of it. I changed the opacity so that it seemed like there was a sense of depth and distance- like the tunnel was leading somewhere. The tunnel then bends round and enters back in the other side of the frame. I like it because, at this point, the tunnel form itself has dispersed and left interesting, abstract, wiggling lines. We can only see what faintly remains of the tunnel in the background. I enjoyed how different this outcome was and felt like it's multi-layered effect created more of an immersive atmosphere. 

Third Experiment

For this experiment i decided to take a slightly different approach. I used the polystar tool to create a different shape. I added repeaters and multiple copies like before to create a tunnel/vortex-like object. However, I lowered the scale right down at the beginning, making the tunnel invisible. I then set a keyframe for the scale and increased it to make it look as though we, as an audience, are slowly approaching a vortex in space. I then made it so that the tunnel covered the entire frame. We then slowly travel further down and then the tunnel begins to rotate. This was a good experiment for testing when to start different keyframes in order to add variation to my composition. I also really liked the texture that the star tool with the added wiggle effect gave the tunnel. 

Texture Experiments

The more i experimented, the more i began to realise that i needed to start coming up with a solid idea for my composition. I needed to start thinking about music and exactly how i wanted to visualise it. Did i want to tell a story through the visuals? Or did i want to keep it abstract? I began with what i already knew. Recently i have been very interested in illustration and have done a lot on photoshop- mainly black and white. I thought it would be interesting, after seeing how diverse After Effects can be, to import one of my illustrations into the software and see how i can manipulate it. This would be a more personal approach to the project. As the illustrations i've already done are quite abstract, i wanted to start with an image that would be a little more obvious as to what it was. This way, i could go in and make it abstract through After Effects. I quickly found a photograph of myself and decided to sketch around it. Sketch shown below:

I imported the sketch into After Effects and started to experiment. I added the CC Kaleida and put a keyframe on rotation. This created a really unexpected and really beautiful pattern. It really was like looking through a Kaleidoscope. It was also interesting to see how After Effects interpreted the image i imported in. You can see specific textures but not all of them which i really like.  

This was another illustration with the same effect. You can see how different it looks. 

I then started a new composition and added an effect called Turbulent Displace. I loved this effect, as it almost liquified the image and created a really beautiful, flowing pattern. It reminded me of liquid light- shows (very trippy and addictive to watch). 

Experiments with Music

Song- Sigur Ros 'Svefn-g-englar'. 

I wanted a song that made you feel like you were being taken on a journey- something almost cinematic and very atmospheric. This song was used in 'Beautiful Boy'- a beautiful film with a feeling of hopelessness and dread at it's centre. It captures the essence of a drug addict on a downward's spiral. "For a loving and caring father to see his beautiful boy become something he never expected and doesn't understand and can't help is tragic". This idea of having something so pure that you've created become something you don't recognise anymore made me think about the beginning of life and how we all begin as a blank slate. I noticed also that the album cover depicts an alien-like foetus. It seemed very relevant to focus my idea on how life begins and the curiosity it brings. I thought about how i could symbolise the beginning of life and the first thing that came to mind was the eye. The eye is the window to the soul and it's also just a really interesting and beautiful part of our anatomy. I filmed my own eye very close up and then imported it into After Effects. I wasn't sure what the outcome was going to be but i just thought it would be interesting to experiment. I used the CC Lens which created a spherical shape. The eye was the main focus of the sphere which created a very eerie image. It still looked a bit odd so i decided to play around with inverting the colours. I applied curves and the results were really interesting. I really liked the intensity of the blue that came out. So, i decided to stick with that. I duplicated the layer and subtracted the path i had made with the pen tool to reveal the eye behind it. I then changed the scale to move closer to the eye. I really liked the effect this created. I then have the footage cut to a distorted image of colourful lights. This was a photograph i had taken a while ago and decided to see how i could manipulate it. I added turbulent displace to that as well to animate it. I really liked the flowing movement but decided that i wasn't too keen on the transition. I envisioned the colourful lights to represent the kind of marks, scratches and patterns we see in the black when we close our eyes. However, i just felt like the style of these lights didn't fit the aesthetic of the blue sphere. I liked the sphere because it looked a lot like an embryo- implying the beginning of life, but i wanted to develop away from the lights. 

'Wherever You Go'

'Sunk in all the memories'

I wanted to make the sphere shape appear even more embryonic, therefore, I adjusted the size of the CC Lens to change the position of the eye-ball and changed the colours with curves. I set keyframes on curves so that the colours would fluctuate as the film composition progressed. This way, it made it look like this sphere was alive and growing. I found the colours extremely striking and beautiful, and was really happy with the outcome. Just to experiment, i did a music test on these visuals with several different songs. These songs were 'OMDB' by Big Red Machine, 'Wherever You Go' by The Avalanches and 'I Sunk In All The Memories' by Vancouver Sleep Clinic. I found 'Wherever You Go' to be really effective. The song begins with a kind of commentary:

'We step out of our solar system,

into the universe,

Seeking only peace and friendship,

To teach if we are called upon,

To be taught if we are fortunate,

We know full well that our planet. 

I would like to extend the greetings,

Of the government and the people,

To the extraterrestrial habitants,

Wherever you go, you got, we go too,

Hello, from the children of the planet earth.'

I really love this song and the way it builds. It's very diverse and, listening to it this time, i paid even more attention to the lyrics. It made me want to create a story through my visuals. This song focuses a lot on humans as a species and what lies beyond us. It talks of what we hope to gain from life and stepping out beyond our universe. This relates back to my idea to base the composition on the beginning of life. We start as a blank slate, ready to teach if we are called upon, ready to be taught if we are fortunate. It would be interesting to develop my visuals to focus on the universe and what lies out there, as well as the beginning of human life. Maybe instead of just the beginning of our lives, i could focus on the beginning of life in general. Whether that be human or extraterrestrial. I will experiment with combining the blue eye that i began with, with the colourful embryo shape i have now created. 

FINAL OUTCOME

For my final composition, i combined a lot of the skills i had learnt through all my experiments. I wasn't happy with the first transition from the blue eye to the developed eye. To get around this i decided to develop the idea i had about creating visuals for the patterns we see when we close our eyes. Instead of colourful lights, i imported a picture of a lumen print that i had made (shown below). 

I added noise and grain to give it some texture. I then added turbulent displace to animate it and make it eventually disperse, leaving behind it, images of a galaxy. I then changed the opacity and linked this layer with the music to make it move in time with the sound. To do this, i right clicked on the sound then went to keyframe assistant, then pressed convert audio to keyframe. This opened up and audio amplitude layer which has a slider under both channels. I then linked the scale of the layer i wanted to move with the music to the slider and i worked! I needed to change the numbers in the translate bar to +[100,100] to make it the right size. I also changed the beginning of the composition as i wasn't satisfied with just suddenly having the blue eye appear. It did look quite striking but i wanted to add a bit of variation. I duplicated some images of eyes and adjusted the colours to make them look more alien-like and eerie. I then used the pen tool to cut out the centre of the pupils. I then subtracted each layer so that what ever was behind the composition would show through the eyes. I increased the scale and as you get closer to the centre of the eye you begin to see a universe. The blue eye then appears as we get closer. As the blue eye blinks, we transition to the grainy lumen print (representing what we see when we close our eyes). That then disperses through turbulent displace, revealing a galaxy behind it. We then transition to a close up of the bright, colourful eye. The frame is then filled with the colour changing embryo shape. 

Overall, I am very happy with the end result. I feel like the visuals i have created compliment the chosen music very well and carry a story. I do wish that i had been a bit more prepared however and if i was to do this project again, i would like to pick the music before i do anything else! Even though the visuals and the music did end up influencing one another, it would be interesting to be completely inspired by the song and not start creating visuals before i even know what song i'm going to use. I also wish that i had used the camera tracker properly. I think i came across a simpler way to achieve the look i was going for and stuck with that. I will make sure to learn more about the camera in future. Despite not using it greatly this time, i am satisfied with my outcome. I have gained a lot of confidence within After Effects through this project and hope to use it a lot more in the future.