Loops and Living Holds

In this first After Effects workshop of the year, I was really excited to start creating more moving image work after really enjoying it last year. In this first After Effects workshop, we were introduced to exploring geometry, form, the use of colour and space, and looking at motion graphics production techniques. 


We started by looking at inspiration. We were shown a Motion Graphic piece of work by Steffan K, a Danish Born Creative who specialises in motion design and art direction for moving images. Steffen combines classic graphic design with modern animation and forward-thinking audio & music. His work was really inventive and inspiring. We mainly looked at one piece of work by him called - 30 Motion Tests in 30 Seconds. 



"Over a period of 30 days, I challenged myself to created 1 second of animation every day. The idea was to experiment and explore workflow in the software package Cinema 4D and publish one frame from my experiments daily.


Rules

— Animate 1 second everyday

— Publish one frame daily at blog.steffenk.net

— Put it all together to approx. 30 seconds of animation



In the end, I didn't quite manage to complete this challenge on a daily basis, but I ended up with 30 motion tests, and this is the result.."





We were then asked to think about creating a ten-second video, in a similar style, taking influences from Steffan's work but thinking more creatively about it and how we can mould it into our own form and practice. 

We then were tasked with creating 7 Illustrator based compositions that were simplistic but creative that would allow us to edit and manipulate using the motion graphic software. I decided to think about the constant use of shaping within my work - using circles as a theme that ran throughout. 

The structure of the piece of work would be 7, 1-second animations with a 3-second show-reel. Using a strict pastel pink colour scheme; which is a kind of trend within my own work recently, and a light grey background similar to Steffan's own contemporary piece, I composed my 7 1-second animations to a good quality using many different techniques such as the wiggle tool, the transition sequences, and other tools such as the variation of keyframes which I had learnt previously. I then put them all together to create my final finished outcome. 


I think that if I was to improve on my work, I could possibly play around with sound in the way that Steffan did or in fact make the piece longer with more animations and more visual aesthetic to go off. 

Final Comp from Joe Mitchell on Vimeo.

Overall I am happy with the work produced and I thought that the session was an excellent introduction to working with the After Effects Software again. I look forward to whats to come from using After Effects and the different tasks we have set throughout the year. 

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