Whilst I continue to figure out the piece of dialogue I will use for this project which at the minute is either the love hate speech by Robert Mitchum from Night of the Hunter or a humorous but crude exchange from Team America, I have been experimenting by animating words that have expressive qualities that you can see below.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Stop Motion
These are a couple of examples of stop motion I was playing around with just trying to get the hang of timing and walk cycles.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Telling Lies
This is a clip from a short movie by Simon Ellis called Telling Lies. I like the simplicity of the piece which takes place after a drunken night where the hidden truths of an exchange of phone calls are revealed by the text flashing on screen. This is another technique I may use for my own kinetic typography project if it suits the dialogue I choose. Full movie here.
Thesis and Main project
I have been giving a lot of thought to what I may like to do for my thesis and main project lately and at this early stage stop motion animation is something that I have found interests me. The thesis and main project have to relate to each other in someway so below I have added links to a few books I have ordered that may help me learn more about this subject. I will post further information of what i have learned from these books as they arrive. I have also posted a few clips I know from YouTube that show a variety of different styles and convey contrasting tones from bigger budget efforts to the smaller bedroom productions.
The Animators Survival Kit
A Century of Stop Motion
Timing for Animation
The Animators Survival Kit
A Century of Stop Motion
Timing for Animation
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Kinetic Typography
Here are another few examples of kinetic typography similar to what is expected from the brief I have. The top one uses dialogue from the movie Full Metal Jacket. The colours used here perfectly convey war fatigues and military garb backing up the rant being handed down to a lower tiered officer from a superior. We are unable to use any imagery such as the tanks, cross hairs and missiles that we see in this piece which in my opinion are of cosmetic value to the clip as I believe it would work just as well without them. What really appeals to me about this first clip is the movement and clarity of the text as it reveals itself. The Kill Bill kinetic type piece I find effective as it has used the colour scheme of Uma Thurman's (Bruce Lee inspired) tracksuit , a similar font and is paced speedily like the actions of a Kung-Fu flick. The Abbott and Costello clip for me indicates how humour can be conveyed through kinetic type, the timing fits the delivery paralleling the comedic timing and as it is with the other examples here the font and colour suit the period and tone.
Above I have posted a contact sheet from a piece using dialogue from Stranger Than Fiction, I find these interesting and useful to look at when storyboard time comes round. They help to visualise the frame by frame make up of your project.
Below are two examples that depict other ways in which typography can be used with negative space to reveal faces in both cases. Despite the motionless nature of these 2D images maybe I could apply the techniques used here and introduce movement. Possibly map a selection of words to video image and animate the ones that are been spoken.
Tests for a client
Just a few ideas and tests I was playing around with for a job I was doing where the client wanted a short animation to play before a video clip.
Inspiration
The Classics
Not a scene with dialogue but one of Saul Bass' great opening sequences from Hitchcock's North By North West. Simple use of text and line skewed to meet the parallel lines of the building coupled with sound to evoke setting and tone. If I was to create my kinetic type project from dialogue from a Hitchcock movie it could take the route of a Bass homage piece and the same could be done with Pablo Ferro whose opening title sequence from Dr. Strangelove is instantly recognisable. Bass' fonts and colour schemes could be used to create the piece and they would aid in making the dialogue recognisable from the original source.
Polish Movie Posters
I stumbled my way across this interesting collection of posters from Poland of American movies (more here). What I gather from comments and other sources on the internet is that copyright law prohibited the Polish from using the original promotional material so they made up their own and in some cases used political commentary within the design making the posters relate less to the movie. I find them more interesting than most of the bland studio released posters. I find the nature of the typography in the Eyes Wide Shut, Mississippi's Burning and Tootsie posters to be freer and more expressive especially considering the fact that I will be using spoken word in this first project. The Blues Brothers poster shows the two main characters framed by text (cast list from the film), but they seem to have missed something with this movie as I do not recall the brothers being Siamese twins. What I think about when I look at this in relation to my project is the way I could maybe use negative space to reveal a character or shape I also think the colour used here conveys the film superbly.
Not a scene with dialogue but one of Saul Bass' great opening sequences from Hitchcock's North By North West. Simple use of text and line skewed to meet the parallel lines of the building coupled with sound to evoke setting and tone. If I was to create my kinetic type project from dialogue from a Hitchcock movie it could take the route of a Bass homage piece and the same could be done with Pablo Ferro whose opening title sequence from Dr. Strangelove is instantly recognisable. Bass' fonts and colour schemes could be used to create the piece and they would aid in making the dialogue recognisable from the original source.
Polish Movie Posters
I stumbled my way across this interesting collection of posters from Poland of American movies (more here). What I gather from comments and other sources on the internet is that copyright law prohibited the Polish from using the original promotional material so they made up their own and in some cases used political commentary within the design making the posters relate less to the movie. I find them more interesting than most of the bland studio released posters. I find the nature of the typography in the Eyes Wide Shut, Mississippi's Burning and Tootsie posters to be freer and more expressive especially considering the fact that I will be using spoken word in this first project. The Blues Brothers poster shows the two main characters framed by text (cast list from the film), but they seem to have missed something with this movie as I do not recall the brothers being Siamese twins. What I think about when I look at this in relation to my project is the way I could maybe use negative space to reveal a character or shape I also think the colour used here conveys the film superbly.
Kinetic Typography
What is Kinetic Typography
"Kinetic typography refers to the art and technique of expression with animated text. Similar to the study of traditional typography of designing static typographic forms, kinetic typography focuses on understanding the effect time has on the expression of text. Kinetic typography has demonstrated the ability to add significant emotive content and appeal to expressive text, allowing some of the qualities normally found in film and the spoken word to be added to static text. Kinetic type has been widely and successfully used in film as well as in television and computer-based advertising. Perceptual psychology research on attention, reading performance, and comprehension has indicated that time-based presentation of text can be used effectively to capture and manipulate a viewer’s attention and in some cases improve overall reading performance."
- link
Our first project is a kinetic type project based on dialogue from a film. The brief states that the piece should be roughly 30 seconds long and two voices must be heard. Whilst searching YouTube for examples I came across the two clips you see above. The first scene is from Phone Booth where Colin Farrell's character is locked in conversation with Kiefer Sutherland, a gunman hidden in one of the many high rise buildings that surround the Phone Booth that Farrell is now unknowingly trapped in. Elements of this project that I found really effective include the moments where the words build up like blocks to reveal themselves as two buildings side by side evoking the setting, this was done just as effectively when the rifle was constructed from the words Sutherland's character uses as he describes it and the binoculars that appear when the "B" tips on its side, overall it suits and fits the tone of the piece perfectly - playful, mischievous yet sinister. In the second video, based on the rules of Fight Club from the movie of the same name, Tyler Durden's words are transformed to create a piece that moves smoothly and doesn't suffer from the same fate as many of the other kinetic type projects using the same dialogue, which are difficult to read or are too fast. As well as the smooth movement here I also like the way the camera returns to reveal a bit of text that's being reused in the dialogue, this really adds to the clarity. The tone is captured well by using a grungey typeface and rusty background which captures the darker nature of the film.
"Kinetic typography refers to the art and technique of expression with animated text. Similar to the study of traditional typography of designing static typographic forms, kinetic typography focuses on understanding the effect time has on the expression of text. Kinetic typography has demonstrated the ability to add significant emotive content and appeal to expressive text, allowing some of the qualities normally found in film and the spoken word to be added to static text. Kinetic type has been widely and successfully used in film as well as in television and computer-based advertising. Perceptual psychology research on attention, reading performance, and comprehension has indicated that time-based presentation of text can be used effectively to capture and manipulate a viewer’s attention and in some cases improve overall reading performance."
- link
Our first project is a kinetic type project based on dialogue from a film. The brief states that the piece should be roughly 30 seconds long and two voices must be heard. Whilst searching YouTube for examples I came across the two clips you see above. The first scene is from Phone Booth where Colin Farrell's character is locked in conversation with Kiefer Sutherland, a gunman hidden in one of the many high rise buildings that surround the Phone Booth that Farrell is now unknowingly trapped in. Elements of this project that I found really effective include the moments where the words build up like blocks to reveal themselves as two buildings side by side evoking the setting, this was done just as effectively when the rifle was constructed from the words Sutherland's character uses as he describes it and the binoculars that appear when the "B" tips on its side, overall it suits and fits the tone of the piece perfectly - playful, mischievous yet sinister. In the second video, based on the rules of Fight Club from the movie of the same name, Tyler Durden's words are transformed to create a piece that moves smoothly and doesn't suffer from the same fate as many of the other kinetic type projects using the same dialogue, which are difficult to read or are too fast. As well as the smooth movement here I also like the way the camera returns to reveal a bit of text that's being reused in the dialogue, this really adds to the clarity. The tone is captured well by using a grungey typeface and rusty background which captures the darker nature of the film.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)