I have used After Effects once before in Media One. I just did some basic keying and tracking to put static onto a moving television (you can see a screen grab from this in the featured photo for this post above). Since then I have not opened AE, slightly due to the intimidation of the program. But I have decided it is finally time to quite literally reopen.

For our project we are working towards being able to create a series of short film profiles on individuals. We wish to convey numerous types of personalities and as such we need some kind of element linking each video to its previous counterpart. One way to explore this is by creating patterns and ultimately a recipe to shoot and edit. Paul spoke to us about this in our previous class (see last blog post) in forming a set rules as a guide hopefully in turn creating a unison between multiple shoots and multiple people.

This week, in wanting to look at After Effects, I decided to explore the use of titles and logo animation as a means to bookend our films alike. Nicolette is working on a magazine company which we will be producing these clips for – IVY II. She send me a copy of the logo prototype which is currently being developed, which gave me the opportunity to delve into the beginnings of this project by looking at the opening sequence and the possibilities we have creatively. I watched a Lynda introductory video to AE and with that knowledge was able to create the following clip. I made a basic animated logo introduction, then relayed it over one of my other shoots to get an idea of the visual recourses available to us.

At this stage this is really basic, but I hope that as we begin shooting subjects and begin to flesh out this project I will be able to create something that the reflects the magazine and the image that we are trying to create.