Rotation: Motiongraphics

For this rotation, I explored the theme of connection while learning how to use the motion graphics program ‘After Effects’. As I was unable to join the Monday and Tuesday morning class due to illness, I decided to follow online and built in tutorials, which taught the basics of After Effects.

The result of following built in tutorials on After Effects.
A composition I created following online tutorials.

For this project I wanted to explore the connection between the mind and the body. As a non-binary person, this is a very personal connection for me. As someone who experiences dysphoria with regards to their looks, I struggle to allow myself to enjoy subject matter which meets the societal expectations of femininity. I decided to depict this in my final piece.

I decided to depict a ball joint doll, with the fragments of the body seen as traditionally “female” being pulled away. Revealing underneath, a quick montage of images (which invoke ideas of the feminine body in science and mythology), to depict this inner conflict.

I was fairly satisfied with the final result, however due to my inexperience with After Effects, I ran into some obstacles along the way. When it came to creating my own work, I tried to keep it simple and use the imagery to clearly convey my ideas.

Ball Joint Doll Pieces

I created the separate pieces of the doll’s body in photoshop, then made a frame to hide the montage video which would sit behind the piece. I used keyframes to attempt an ease out effect, having the individual pieces slow down slightly as they come to a stop. The video was applied using the keylight effect. (I had greened out the places I wanted the video to peep through).

I felt that I could have incorporated the video in a cleaner way. The frame I created to hide the excess footage was not precise enough, and allowed some of the video to peek through in places I did not want it to. I also struggled with the rendering process, as my files were often incompatible with the video players installed on my computer. This made the whole process quite slow and making edits to my video was difficult. Next time, I would try finding a more suitable way to show the video peeking through from behind, I would also add some complexity to the piece to make the most of what After Effects can do.