In the past, Advanced Digital Imaging has been a class about Photoshop. I am so thankful that our instructor this quarter stepped it up and delivered a lot more value than usual to a disparate group of animators, photographers, and graphic designers. He came up with projects that forced us to work more holistically and explore unfamiliar skills. All quarter long, I looked forward to our final project: an short animation.

I always get a thrill from combining music with image in meaningful, energetic ways. I have no interest in creating a creating a character that talks and moves, but I think I could take any of my design projects and convert them to moving graphics enhanced with sound. The advantage to something like that is the total control I have of the viewers’ experience. As I guide them through visuals and information, I can also affect their emotions through timing and sound.

In the past, I’ve done this very simply in applications like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. But the premiere industry-standard software for motion graphics and visual effects is Adobe After Effects. I made it my goal to learn this software in order to produce the final project. It was a blast! The best thing about After Effects is that with even a basic understanding, your possibilities are almost limitless.

Our instructor showed us Marvel Comic’s Spider-Woman Motion Comics as examples of what could be done using only still imagery and a soundtrack as the raw material. It was way more aesthetically powerful than I expected!

We were given a few parameters, but the theme/story of the animation was entirely up to us. I was interested in creating an evocative tribute to childhood memories, taking those evanescent thoughts and feelings and tying them impressionistically to shapes, sounds, and colors. This original plan morphed slightly based on my limited knowledge of the software and time constraints, so I’d say the end result turned out to be a more literal interpretation. I’m still happy with it, though.

Additionally, this project represents one of my first attempts at music sampling and remixing – something I want to continue to explore. I selected music and sounds that I remember listening to over and over in each hometown and looked for ways to blend them together.