The Goal of this Project: To develop a 6-word memoir. This memoir may describe your life as a whole, a period, or a certain aspect. Then you must create 2 separate animations for said memoir. The first one is limited to only rectangles and spheres, a maximum of 4 colors, and must be ~10 seconds long. The second one must use photographic or vector elements, any amount of color, must include the memoir written out during the animation, and include an element of sound.
My 6-word memoir: Break the Stranger out the Mold
My Final Animation for Animation 1: I chose to animate a ball that is being trapped in a cage. This ball attempts to break free from the cage and is unsuccessful the first time, but it then recollects itself and tries again with more momentum. It breaks free from the cage and is free to roam around and grow to fill the screen. The reason for choosing the color blue in the beginning and red at the end is because this shows that the ball started cold when it's being restrained, but then it warms itself up and expands to fill the screen.
These are the most important stills from my Animation 1. These stills are crucial points in the animation that give the sense of attempting to break free, and finally being successful.
Animation 1 Sketches: Here is the original storyboard for my animation. I didn't veer too far off from my original idea in my final, but I took some liberties when it came to the bending of the bars, and how I added the ball not breaking out the first time.
Gus Dapperton, The Stranger, 0:00-0:10
My Final Animation for Animation 2: I decided to use tape as my medium for my 2nd animation. The tape represents how someone can be patched up and put together, and once those bindings are removed, you are broken free. The song I used is called The Stranger by Gus Dapperton. It is a very special song to me as it's really when my life took a turning point. This is the song that influenced my memoir as a whole.
These stills show the movement of the tape throughout the animation, and how the tape reveals the memoir once it's broken free from the frame of the video.
Animation 2 Sketches: My final animation is quite different from what I originally thought of when making my sketches. I had an idea of a man with tape over his mouth in the beginning, but I ended up not feeling like the guy was needed at all.
Conclusion: This was genuinely one of the most fun projects I have done as a graphic designer. I enjoyed learning how to use After Effects. It was quite difficult to get the hang of it at first, but I feel quite sufficient in the program after this single project alone.
