FINAL PROJECT-
My final Motion Design topic, Call of the Wild, was personally a success for me. I met my own objectives and what I wanted to achieve for this project. In terms of technical achievement, I didn’t do anything complicated that needed a tutorial, nor did I use any effects in my work. Since the project was narrative driven, the story came before the technical requirements. So as a purely technical goal, I don’t think I achieved much as I only used basic functions.
I think motional design fundamentals were a bit better, I did get some frames moving very well and follow some primary animation for the dogs. Other than that, it is mostly a slideshow of scenes with little bits of movement to draw attention to a scene. One thing I did play with was lyrics. I arranged an order so that my lyrics are always behind the dogs and main scenes. It gives more depth to the image, as well as the lyrics itself being a form of motion to complement the dogs.
Aesthetically, I think it came out great and was the strongest part of my Animatic. It has consistent designs and scenery/art direction that is recognisable. Balancing the colours was my goal, as well as simplicity.
As for my own goals, I’m very happy it turned out the way it did. Using my reference of ‘Ivypool- Ain’t it fun’ was a good benchmark to go for and motivated me to reach that level. Telling a story in 3 and a half minutes with a song in the background is no easy task, but I hit most of the marks. One that I didn’t hit in my opinion was smoothness and animation. Some scenes are very static, and while I did my best to make it all flow, it can come off as a glorified PowerPoint at times.
My 3 critical moments. My first critical moment in getting this project off the ground was drawing the design references of Buck and Spitz. Drawing those felt like a step towards an ‘official project’ and I felt motivated to complete it.
My second critical moment was opening After Effects and combining the scenes together to make the first part of the Animatic where Buck gets kidnapped and driven away to Alaska. It reassured me that I could put everything together in the way that I wanted, and it wasn’t a complicated skill out of reach.
My third and final critical moment was drawing the background for a scene (artwork below) and I figured out a way to make very simple snow marks in a short time frame. I was really happy with the result and how it looked, so it gave me a confidence boost in drawing the other backgrounds for the project and gave me a way to but more effort into the backgrounds.
This project has certainly showed me that there are a lot more possibilities to After Effects than just what I created. While my reference of ‘Ivypool- Ain’t it fun’ was a good benchmark to aim for, there are other references I looked at that set a higher bar with effects and layering, providing more depth to it than just a slideshow, examples being ‘Fumetsu no Anata E MAD’ at 0:30 with the food bowl and ‘Dovepaw: Rolling Thunder’ at 1:11 with the camera going over the hill.
Overall, it was a good exercise in my art abilities and creating a contained narrative in the time I was given.
Extra Tidbit- My total working hours for this project from JUST drawing alone (Procreate tracks how long you draw for) add up to 54 hours. That includes the sketching, drawing and backgrounds used for the project. It does not include the editing time.
Amely Koenig's Blog and Art 