Final Sequence - evaluation

The final sequence has turned out really well.
Aftereffects was a joy to use despite little bugs. The initial tutorials given in Aftereffects were great and extremely useful. This coupled with tutorials off Video co-pilot, I feel I really got to grips with the basic functions from the outset and spending more time with the software meant it just came to life. It’s a piece of software that I have been dying to use and it has not been disappointing.
After the crit, i re edited the music to sync with the vid through bringing the tempo down in Ableton. This helped dramatise the changes in imagery and structure the fade ins and outs.
I went back and masked all the areas that needed to be black to neaten everything up compositionally instead of roughly blocking them out with a solid black layer.
Leaving the ‘Blake’ quote at the start to run for longer gives the initial imagery more impact and makes the start more dynamic. The same with the title of the documentary (NO ONE GETS OUT OF HERE ALIVE) that appears as the end of the sequence. Altering the timing of the masking and opacity on the two right hand images to fade out (in) earlier, allowing the title to remain on a black background, with the sound of the crash at the end helps round off the sequence to a more professional, industry standard.
I wanted a scrapbook, indie documentary feel but did not want it to look unprofessional. Masking, and the inverse of masked layers allowed this to be achieved. It provided blanket cover and accurate solid layers for blanking spurious bits of information within the images that didn’t need to be shown or that looked scruffy. In particular around the edges of the frame where the images constructed may have not fitted snugly or be over lapping pages
I decided to use Helvetica as my font. I looked at hundreds of '60's" fonts but they were all just simply far too obvious and characatures of themselves. Having looked at documentary title sequences the type is always clean, readable, concise and small, allowing the imagery to take precedent. Through out the editing process it became more and more apparent that this style of clean typography would fit the feel of the sequence much better. I feel it really bought the whole piece together.
Being made in 58 and renamed Helvetia in 1960, its creation is from the right era, its just neutral instead of being another means of subconscious symbolism. The text I feel achieves this direct, clear and concise aesthetic I wanted and in the animation process, working in direct syncopation with the still images of the characters in the film as they pass through the video window.

Due to not story boarding the sequence to begin with, a lot of wasted time on this project in editing was lost, having to go back and redesign certain aspects 2 or 3 times. In future projects this has to be done as soon as the initial ideas are complete. This preparation saves time.
Time management was the thing learned most harshly from this module. Finished well within the deadline but failed to deliver a full product at the crit wheich was extremely disappointing. However this is the first piece of work since is started Uni that i am genuinely proud of. Finding Aftereffects and the subject matter, the brief and the scope given has really inspired a new motivation for ‘making things’ again. I began to doubt if I was good enough or if I could make things to specification that were good enough. This evaporated over the course of this module and am looking forward to making a video fully syncopated to music for the next brief.

Aftereffects is definitely a program that i would like to invest in and use a lot more. Out of all the software used so far it has been the best and the Adobe interface and familiar set up meant for quick learning. The functionality and compatibility capabilities it has make it an incredibly useful tool in as much that Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are programs that I use a lot. Importing pieces with layers or vectors, all this information can be directly transferred, layers and vectors still in tact. Opens up new worlds of detail that can be animated and effected. It’s a program where expression is managed more easily than others.
I would like to look at M.xMSP as another potential. An opportunity i hope to get in the future.