Project 1 - Place

What Makes A Place What it is? (Defining Place):

Choose a location that interests you and portray the character of that space in  non-narrative animation.

Your animations must depict a particular shift that happens in that place (day to night; inside to outside; high to low; aboveground and below ground, deep to shallow; bright to dark; crowded to empty.) Your shots should create contrast and highlight the different angles, textures, distances, details, and rhythms that occur in the space across time and give it atmosphere. Because a place cannot be taken in all at once, your shots should add up to create  a sense of thewhole. Strive to capture and relay a sense of what it was actually like to be there. Also consider how knowing certain histories change the way you see the place. Some of these histories could include:

• Class, Race, or Gender
• Political Associations
• History
• Ownership
• Community
• Natural Dynamics
• Ecology/Human Intervention

Create a viewing experience that portrays a shift in the place you choose. You may be as creative as necessary in creating the concept for your shoot, but may NOT create fictional characters or narratives. You are in service to the description of the space. Projects will be evaluated based on the creative use of images, sequencing, animation control, and refinement to evoke the shift in atmosphere without relying on storytelling.

Process 1:

Over several visits to your place, capture digital images in LANDSCAPE FORMAT to construct a short animation. Don't frame all of your shots the same.

Shoot in landscape orientation

Form:

Consider the following camera distances:

• Extreme Long Shot
• Long Shot
• Medium Shot
• Close-up
• Extreme Close-up

Consider the following camera angles:

• Low
• Eye-Level
• High
• Worm's Eye
• Bird's Eye

Consider the following when working with motion:

• speed
• velocity
• distance
• animation curves for slow in/slow out

Process 2:

• Color Correct or Enhance your images if needed, keeping a naturalistic feel.
• Create a New Project in After Effects
• Create a Composition in After Effects: HDV/HDTV 1080 (1920 x 1080).
• 30 FPS
• Composition Settings
• Import your still shots
• Import your image sequence (separately)
• Make 2 Animated Scenes following the guidelines below
• Render your Compositions and present in class for critique and discussion

Form 1: Standard Camera Edits

Follow the SHOT LIST EXACTLY for timing, camera movement and transitions including

• Tracking and Craning shots should be VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL ONLY
• Wipes must be exactly horizontal or vertical
• Digital Zooms must be realistic
• Straight cuts must be the entire frame
• Singular Camera Movements only

Make sure to:

• Fine tune your animation (Ease in, Ease Out, Graph Editor)
• Render your animation
• Render Settings - rendering with After Effects

Form 2 - (Non-Standard Edits- Experimental Edits- Extreme Edits)

• Make up your OWN TIMELINE for camera movements, timing and transitions
• Explore non-standard and extreme edits (camera movement, speed, rotation, etc.)
• Maximum length of 30 seconds
• Fine tune your motion
• Create all animated elements from scratch by setting custom keyframes
• Render your animation
• Render Settings - rendering with After Effects

Parameters

• ALL original source images (new images only)
• No Effects, No Filters, No Animation Presets, No Expressions, No Stock Assets or Transitions
• No Video, No Sound, No Text

Resources

Adobe Keyboard

Shortcuts used in class

Format:

Your final shorts will be in the following format:

format: H264 (.mp4)

size: HDV/HDTV 1080 (1920 x 1080 pixels - square pixels)

frame rate: 30

video encoded as: H.264

What to Turn in:

• put all of your assets used in one folder > right click (compress) to create a .zip > whatever_your_files.zip
• firstname_lastname_place_01.mp4
• firstname_lastname_place_02.mp4
• whatever_your_filename.aep

Submit your file to D2L Assignment 1

Criteria For Grading and Evaluation: