For this assignment, we were required to use AfterEffects to produce a short video animation. This was our final project, and a culmination of smaller work done in AfterEffects. We could either create components of the video in illustrator or cut them out of photos of the web. The only real guidelines were that it just had to be a creative short video. If you used music, you had to create it yourself unless you bought rights to use it in the video.
I created a short video in AfterEffects using photos from the Internet and narrated it myself.
This was probably one of my most memorable projects, and the most difficult. I created a short story about guinea pigs in Peru and their takeover of the city. It took me a long time to decide the storyline for my video, and I sketched it out many times with George before I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I had to meet George multiple times outside of class for him to review my storyboard and then ultimately help me begin transitioning it to AfterEffects. When I finally started doing work in AfterEffects, I took it one storyboard at a time. I would create one scene and add animation before moving to the next. Once I had at least something for each scene in AfterEffects, I began adjusting the animations and making note of where I wanted to add sound. An avid guinea pig lover myself, I actually made the noise the guinea pigs make in the video by myself, but I recruited friends for the voice-overs. I added the sounds and then watched the video over multiple times to check for any last changes I wanted to make. Finally, I saved the file and rendered the video.
The first and most significant decision I made was to create the plot of my video. I had no idea what I wanted my video to be about, but I wanted it to be something interesting enough for me to enjoy creating. I loved guinea pigs when I was younger, so I thought it would be funny to create a scenario where they revolt against Peruvians who eat them. Once I had that idea, it took a while to decide what was important enough to include on my storyboard. I also decided to use photos off of the internet because I was not confident in my illustrator skills, but I think if I were to do the project now, I would want to create the graphics in Illustrator first.
My concept for this project was basically just my storyline, and my design was based off of that. The entire video is somewhat corky, which is what I intended. The idea of guinea pigs actually taking over Peru is completely unrealistic, so I wanted my video to be more funny as opposed to more serious.
