One of the main things I have learnt this unit is, sort out your printing and research into exactly what you want and how you expect it to be done!
I went for perfect bound because I wanted a professional feel to my magazine insert but when I was handed back my booklet to my horror I did not think to leave a larger margin so that the spine would not cover my images, as on a few of my pages I have images in the middle of the double page spread.
Another problem I had with my booklet is that the the front cover was not glued down correctly and is falling off. I saw this straight away when I received it back and told the person in charge with my order, but I was told to maybe fix it myself as they were busy…
Although this was not the most ideal situation for my final piece it has taught me a lot about how to go about printing documents and some of the problems I should expect from the process.
I am really excited to start this project as layout is something I want to learn and improve on. The basics of this project is to listen to six type radio interviews and choose a designer to base an editorial publication on. You are not allowed to use images produced by the designer, all images must be your own work showing your interpretation on the style and character from the type radio of your chosen designer.
These are the designers to choose from:
Peter Bilak
Philippe Apeloig
Kris Sowersby
Malcolm Garrett
Marian Bantjes
Oded Ezer.
I have really enjoyed this unit of the course, particularly because I liked learning new skills on Adobe After Effects which is a program I have not used before.
My aim for this project was to inform parents of the worrying statistics about under age alcohol use and drug abuse. I wanted my animation to be clean and minimalistic so that it is simple to understand and you do not get distracted away from the information.
The first idea I came up with was to use children toys to show the information, it would have either been a stop motion or pictures of the toy with typography around. I was also thinking of creating it with collage but I felt this idea may not look very professional or easy to read, I also think that there may be a problem with sourcing a selection of toys that would work together and match size proportions and have a consistent theme.
My final idea was to use three main colours (blue, pink and grey) to make the animation flow together with a strong consistent colour theme. I chose to have a grey background colour at the beginning to start and end the animation I feel this will give the audience a sense that the film has finished which may be obvious as the text I will use will be a rhetorical question.
I researched drug and alcohol problems on the internet using the talk to frank website mainly to find out problems with drug abuse. I looked at various sites for alcohol use within teenagers, I found more information and statistics with this issue, therefor I chose to make my animation on teenage alcohol consumption as if I mixed the two subjects it would get too confusing and would not link together and maybe confusing to the audience.
The software at times was confusing but I really like to problem solve as it is quite rewarding. The think I found most challenging was the transition between the typographic scene to the blue screen with the pink underwear on as using the camera angles and zoom control made the whole image jump to fast and it looks quite inconsistent.
I sourced the music from Youtube which looking back maybe I shouldn’t have as it would have been good practice to use royalty free sounds, or I could have contacted the owner with the rights to the song. I do however feel the sound works well as its a simple beat that has parts that I could animation the action in time.
Overall I have really enjoyed and engaged with this project as it is something I was keen to learn and software that will come in very useful. If I could change anything about my project it would be my preparation and storyboarding as I feel it is something that I rushed and I could have really improved it. I also worried to much on what I could have potentially created and I feel that maybe my final animation may have been a bit too safe and needed more effects and different transitions.
I am however happy about the graphics and colour scheme in the animation as they have given it a contemporary feel that is clear and to the point.
I look forward to using this program again and getting to know what can be created on it.
