BEFORE YOU READ THIS BLOG

If this blog is printed out then before you read it... read this.

Due to the nature of the blog its in chronological order starting with the most recent, so if you want to follow the progression of the project, its advised to start at the back of the portfolio and work your way forward. Its adviseable you read the blog online though, that way you can view all the movies and visit weblinks within the text, the blog it located at http://gd3titlesequence.blogspot.com/

Beginnings of topics are clearly headed in orange. Other Sheets are interspersed in the portfolio where relevant.

A CD with the final animations accompanies this Portfolio.

Cheers

Tom Jensen

John cage - Final animation

This is the final piece. Again this blog doesn't support widescreen so the image is squished. You'll have to view the movie on the CD to see the final sequence in its proper format. To finish off I inverted a few frames to give a strobe effect to piece like the original fluxus movies.



tj -x-

John Cage - Merging the two pieces of footage

To merge the two pieces of footage I just keyed out the white of the distorted footage and then applied masks to areas that I didn't want to include.



As i said before the distorted images reminded me of distressed film, so I applied a sepia filter to the distorted footage. I then offset the footage by half a second with the original footage so that it gave the impression that the type was burning an image into the film.



Finally I inverted the distorted footage via hue. This turned the Sepia a blueish colour.



All that was left to do was apply inverted frames to the two pieces of footage to create a sort of strobe effect that can be seen on some of the original fluxus films.

tj -x-

John cage - A series of random events

Something really weird but not altogether bad has just happened. I imported the john cage animation into premier and it seemed to be corrupted. To be honest I'm not sure whats happened, but i like it non the less! I'm thinking of keeping the animation in keeping with John cages philosophy of random events and cause and effect and try and use it somehow.



The first thing I did was to enlarge the distorted animation so that the messed up bit became more abstract.



Then I applied filters to soften the image. The final effect reminds me of film spools passing across the animation, creating a rough look to the animation, which has entirely been created digitally and more or less by accident.



Now all i had to do was apply it to the type animation. tj -x-

John cage - Creation Process

As stated before i've taken the Fluxus films opening title cards as my inspiration for the John cage animation. Then in started to place the modified type I'd made on the screen. I'm trying to achieve pacing phonetically, as you would say the quote, hopefully achieving a sort of poetic movement as the original quote is about poetry its self "I have nothing to say, and i'm saying it, that poetry". So the words with double syllables are on screen for longer, and the breaks in animation are where you would naturally take breaths.


The trial piece about, lays out the positioning and pace of the animation, but it lacked an impact, i wanted to emphasise certain words more so I played with scale.


Here I tried moving the word nothing across the screen, This took alittle adjustment across a few test pieces (below) but the final outcome works well.


The two tests below are examples of adjustments to pacing and positioning.



I felt ready to start to add sound in the next example. I used a soundtrack taken from the proms performance of 4'33 (show earlier in the blog). Although the piece is silence, you get a low hum through the monitor and the odd cough from people creating an ambiance to the piece.


I experimented with adding well placed coughs when the type flickered. Overall I didn't think this worked too well.


I needed some other audio stimulus to the piece, the ambient hum worked but i think the piece needed another layer. So I grabbed a sound effect of a ticking clock, slowed it right down (1/3 speed) and put that under the 4'33 track at -15db to create a more interesting audio landscape.


The above version I'm happy with. I now need to add some inverted frames to break up the white a bit and idea taken from the fluxus videos.So I'm moving onto adobe premier to do that.

tj -x-

John cage - Fluxus

I looked to a movement John cage was heavily involved with, Fluxus, for inspiration. They were a sort of anti art, neo dada movement (referring to themselves as neo dada towards the start of the movement).

I found some old fluxus movies, and what really drew me in was the title cards, which can bee seen in the example below.

*the examples don't seem to want to embed, see the web page for details

Other examples can bee seen on the webpage, a good on is 07 George Maciunas - 10 Feet (1966).

I'll use this to structure my type around

tj -x-

John cage - intial idea

The original idea behind the John cage animation was inspired by Robert Rausenburgs white paintings, with a soundtrack to 4'33 - silence.



This proved to be uninspiring. I'll have to come up with something else.

tj -x-

Eno Revisted

Turns out, there was a slight bit of clipping on the left hand edge of the Eno piece in the final animation, so i've adjusted the camera angle accordingly



tj -x-

Tan dun - The final animation

Below is my final piece, the only real difference from the last video in the last post is a slight alteration of type size and position.



Sadly this blog doesn't support Widescreen, so to see it properly you'll have to view the CD supplied. If you don't have the CD, it'll be on youtube shortly, and i'll post the link when it is.

tj -x-

Tan Dun - The creation process

The following post outlines the complete creation process behind the Tan Dun animation.

I added type to the animation, Century Gothic.


As with the Brian Eno animation, I opted to change the Type face to Fruitger Ext. This keeps a consistency between the two animations. The striking difference between this version and the version about id the colour correction, this was done in after effects. The original animation clocks in at about 24 seconds, this was too fast for my self allocated 20 second slot to complete the sequence in, so to try and fix this i sped up the animation. I liked the way the original animation moved to the music, so I sped up the music too. This didn't really work, the music obviously lost its haunting quality and the sped up version complete destroyed the pace of the piece. I also added the BBC four logo to keep the sequence in context.


The colour correction above really destroys the quality of the video. So i begrudgingly changed it back. But this wasn't the end of the battle!


I got the animation down to 20 seconds here, and kept the score normal speed. I think it works quiet well. I also changed the export settings to wide screen as that was that format i wised to work in. Annoyingly, because of the size of the photographs, my animation was stretched.


so i changed it back


Again I took a stab at the Colour correction, and this time got it right! It was applied in after effect and was simply a case of 'auto colour' and then adjusting the saturation and contrast to make the red really "pop" but without washing out the shadows around the paper.


Struggling with format problems I opted to zoom in on my animation and then set the composition to wide screen. I think this enhances that animation. As with the Brian Eno animation the bigger you can make the image, the more striking and dynamic it becomes.


tj -x-

Tan Dun - Colour correction

The set up I had used to take the original Photographs wasn't the best in the world. This gave the animation a yellow hue as it was lit properly. I attempted (using final cut pro) to colour correct the piece to be more in keeping with the Brian Eno piece - white background contrasting animation - but it seemed I'm not very good at colour correction. The disasters are displayed below.



After speaking with my tutor he said he didn't think it needed correcting, but it did grate on me that the two animations didn't 'match'. Its definitely something I want to go back to maybe using after effects a program I'm comfortable using.

tj -x-

Tan Dun - Music

As with the Brian Eno animation i wanted to use a track by Tan Dun thats recognisable as Tan Dun. The Hero soundtrack has won many awards and most people have seen the film and would atleats recognise the score even if they didn't know Tan Dun. I Opted to use 'For the World' from the hero soundtrack.





tj -x-

Tan Dun - Setting up the animation

Tan Dun is famous for his movie soundtracks, but his more interesting and forward thinking work takes form in his water and paper concertos - pieces created with water and paper respectively. Its the paper concerto that has inspired me to create a piece using Origami, the art of paper folding originally a Chinese art.

I decided to animated an origami lotus flower over say a crane or a swan as I think the Lotus flower has a greater sense of symbolism.

The lotus flower has a unique characteristic in that it blooms and sheds its seeds at the same time. In the context of Buddhism, the theory of karma says that, just like the lotus flower, our life is made up of cause and effect. Every cause -- be it action, word or thought -- will imprint an effect that can be seen in this lifetime or in future lives.

Cause and effect was something i used extensively in the Eno animation - the Music was the cause, the animation the effect - and John Cage was heavily influenced by 'Ching' - the Chinese book of changes, a symbol system used to identify order in random events, explaining a cosmology centred on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change. By using a Lotus flower I hope to link all three artists with the notion of, random chance and cause and effect.

Previous post show the research onto how I could set up the animation. I decided wall mounting the paper with masking tape and blue tack would be the way to go, as at the time i didn't have a tripod set up.

The image below shows the set up i used.


At 12 frames per second I opted to have the animation consist of around 240 photographs for a 20 second piece. I took about 220, the remaining 20 frames were left to allow room to create reversed animations on some of the folds. after a few test shots





The end result.

tj -x-

Eno - The final Title sequence

Above is the final title sequence, set to widescreen (16:9), as it would be displayed when aired. If the TV the viewer had was only 4:3 aspect ratio then the show would be set in a letter box. I feel this is appropiate to the target auidence and a channel that shows world cinema and art film. The BBC Four logo is included to give the piece context. The Sequence is bang on 20 seconds or 500 frames. I wanted to achive to this to show that I can edit within a set parameters. This is key to media within TV which have very tight slots of viewing time. If this was a film title project, I wouldn't have to work to these constraints. tj -x-

Making the Animation more dynamic

I'm happy with how the animation works. But as it is it's a bit boring, within the title sequence I have to keep the audiences attention for 20 seconds so their has to be a certain dynamism to it. I'll ac hive this through camera movement.

My first test just panned out completely, from right up close to the distance the camera was originally set at. I also experimented with the type positioning.



When watching this back the most interesting part was the close ups of the animations so in my next series of tests i experimented with going right in close and panning back ever so slightly, allowing the shape of the generated image to dominate the screen. I also panned and orbited the camera (ever so slightly) to the left, this left an obvious space in the right hand corner for the type.



Watching this back It was clear that I could go even closer to the image still. This is my final composition, where the camera pans out ever so slightly, keeping pace with the soundtrack and allows the animation to create a dynamic by dominating the screen before fading off to the left and leaving the type to take centre stage at the end.



tj -x-

Eno - Music Bars and Font Consideration

In my sketchbook I've toyed with the idea of having the the generated string like lines in the animation as bars in a musical score. My sketches included using the treble and bass cleft as motifs, but I think that's not subtle enough, I want to hint at elements, not show them entirely.



This animation is slightly more complicated than the previous animations. Instead of using the combined channels bass and treble to create the two particle generators, I needed to create six to create the three layers of strings seen in the animation. To do this I split the music into left, right and combined channels. I then split these into bass and treble creating 6 waveforms to extract positions from.

The same process of converting the waveforms into positional key frames and applying them to the particle generators within set parameters based on the high and low point of the waveform remains the same.

I also changed the font from Century Gothic to Frutiger Ext.



I like century Gothic I really do, but i want a font that has some sort of tie to Eno, however tenuous. I decided on Frutiger for the simple reason that Eno is famous for "Music for airports" and frutiger is a "typeface for airports". The Ext version just seems to fit nicely.

Being a modern Sans Serif font it also has the potential to be used across the series, and tie all the sequences together typographically.

tj -x-

Eno - generative images

Moving through the electrical landscape was all very well, and i could have gone further with it. But to me it doesn't say anything, theirs no real concept to it other than illustrating electrical circuits and the idea than Eno used electronic beats, which is nothing really unique to Eno. So I've decided to go back to using music to generated images. I'm doing this because its a play on Enos techniques.

Eno used to generate music from random elements - So in Turn i'm generating an image from Enos music.

The first thing I changed was the track. The previous animation used 1/1, which although was groundbreaking in Enos career, when i asked a few people they had no idea what who it was by. So I looked into Brian eno his ventures into mainstream popular culture, I considered using the spore soundtrack but that's a generative piece that doesn't repeat, Or the windows 95 start up sound;



But that's one; too short, and two horrible.

Eno tracks have been used in movies and the track that people recognised the most was "An Ending (ascent)" From 1983s Apollo atmospheres and soundtracks. People didn't recognise that it was Eno, but rather it was "that track from 28 days later".



I plugged that track into the after effects expressions I had created previously and created a generative animation.



Like Enos work its minimalist black on white with a subtle title on the bottom right hand corner, hopefully this will appeal to both Enos fans and BBC 4 watchers.

tj -x-

Target audience - BBC Four

To proceed with appropriate visuals i need to consider a target audience. The hypothetical documentaries on contemporary classical composers will be aired on BBC Four. BBC Four is a channel aimed at

a wide variety of programmes including drama, documentaries, music, international film, comedy and current affairs ... an alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels

The channel broadcasts a mixture of art and science documentaries, vintage drama (including many rare black-and-white programmes), and non-English language productions such as films from the Artificial Eye catalogue and the French thriller Spiral. BBC Four further supports foreign language films with its annual World Cinema Award which has been running since 2004.

So BBC 4 aires an alternative listing to the mainstream BBC 1 and 2 by targeting a demograph interested in the arts, sciences and politics, one of its previous slogans (which it has now dropped) was "Everyone Needs A Place To Think", so BBC 4 could almost be considered the thinking persons TV channel.

I will create my animations with this audience in mind. So they'll need to be 'artsy' sophisticated and more importantly different to the kind of title sequences seen on the other BBC channels.

I also need to target people interested in Contemporary classical composers directly. I'll do this by using a very minimalist pallete, and minimal, yet sophisticated animations that have a concept behind them. Hopefully the concept will shine through, creating a prelude to the tone of documentary to come.

tj -x-

Eno - Electrical circuit Tests and Failures

The above animations are tests into moving through a electrical circuit landscape.

In all honesty I'm not to happy with it all. It has the 'After effects look' to it (panning cameras and visuals that look like postcards), something i think i should try to avoid.

The soundtrack is also a problem, I've used "1/1" from music for airports as i've been told its a "trademark track" of Eno and i want to animated my title sequences to familiar pieces by the artists featured. But its very slow boring and quite uninspiring to animated to. Another problem is that I want to hit the 20second mark dead on with each animation and with such a minimalist piece i think it will prove difficult to create a pace throughout the animation (even though minimalist pieces are Enos forte).

tj -x-

Eno - Electrical circuits

The Album Discreet music was famous for Eno early experiments in Generative music, the method of recording is explained;

"liner notes contain a diagram of how this piece was created. It begins with two melodic phrases of different lengths played back from a synthesizer's digital recall system (the equipment used in this case was an EMS Synthi AKS, which had a then-exotic, built-in digital sequencer). This signal is then run through a graphic equalizer to occasionally change its timbre. It is then run through an echo unit before being recorded onto a tape machine. The tape runs to the take-up reel of a second machine. The output of that machine is fed back into the first tape machine which records the overlapped signals."

See Diagrams





... and a stylised version of the diagram.



With this in mind i'm going to create an animation than moves through a landscape of circuit diagrams much like the animation below moves through a painted landscape.



tj -x-

Tan Dun - Origami animation research

To represent Tan Dun I want to animated origami. I'm not sure what i'll animate yet, either a lotus flower, or a crane are options right up there as they represent the oriental vibe i'm going. The animations below are examples of what i'm hoping to achive.





tj -x-

Tan Dun - Visuals and concepts

A brief synopsis of Tan Dun.
Tan Dun's Website.

Tan Dun is most recognised for His work on the Hero and Crouching tiger hidden dragon soundtracks.



But what really captures my imagination is his Concertos, Water and Paper.
Water uses Various Bowls of water to creat the sound whereas Paper uses... yup paper to create sounds (rolf harris may spring to mind but i think the picture demonstrates they're worlds apart).


A brief synopsis of Tan Dun.
Tan Dun's Website.

I have my animation left to do so a stop motion of paper folding springs to mind, as it originated in china.

tj -x-

John Cage - visuals and concepts

Brief synopsis of
John Cage.

I've decided to explore John cage because My tutor mentioned him in a tutorial and it threw me back to my foundation year when i used his 4.33 as the basis for one of my pieces. 4.33 is basically 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence where audience is ment to not here the music but the sounds around the music. An example can be seen here.



So the concept behind this title sequence will be a series of images related to John cages life (filmed) to the track 4.33.

Another source of visual material is Prepared piano, where objects were placed on a piano to change the sound, this could be quite entertaining to film, i just need to find a piano and objects to put on it, preferably with connections to John Cage.

But all in all, like Eno, Cage explored the concept of chance in music, a good example of that is Imaginary Landscape No. 4 where radios were used to create music using volume and frenquency but couldn't control what came out of the broadcast. Also I'll note that Cage was interested in In Ching (Chinese “Book of Changes”), which tenuiously links him to the Chineese Composer Tan Dun.

I'd also like to get the quote "I have nothing to say and I'm saying it..." into the piece.

Aesthetically I want the piece to be mirrored by Robert Rauschenbergs white paintings which were in turn influenced by 4.33.



I'm not talking about having 20seconds of white space and silence, (although i may try it), but instead upthe contrasts and brightness and film everything in black and white with a slight gausian blur to soften the edges, this will create a very white sequence, infact i could use this scheme across the 3 sequences to tie them together, whith only flashes of bright colour to break up the monochrome.

This will be my filmed piece.

tj -x-

Brian Eno - Visual and conceptual ideas

Brian Eno coined the phrase "ambient music" with his album Discreet music. A synopsis of his life can be found here.

His work is very diverse working first with roxy music and then branchinh out into solo work, and colaborations as well as commissions for sound tracks and even the windows 95 startup chime (which insidently was produced on a mac). His work is heavly experimental and conceptual in nature, so choosing a difiniative piece to work with is going to be a challenge.

Eample of Enos Work from the album Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks



So whay have i chosen Brian Eno? Well what really interests me about his work is a late ninties experiement called 'Generative music', The basic premise of generative music is the blending of several independent musical tracks, of varying sounds, length, and in some cases, silence. When each individual track concludes, it starts again mixing with the other tracks allowing the listener to hear an almost infinite combination. In one instance of generative music, Eno calculated that it would take almost 10,000 years to hear the entire possibilities of one individual piece.

he quotes on this here:

Some very basic forms of generative music have existed for a long time, but as marginal curiosities. Wind chimes are an example, but the only compositional control you have over the music they produce is in the original choice of notes that the chimes will sound. Recently, however, out of the union of synthesisers and computers, some much finer tools have evolved. Koan Software is probably the best of these systems, allowing a composer to control, not one, but one hundred and fifty, musical and sonic parameters, within which the computer then improvises (as wind improvises the wind chimes).
The works I have made with this system symbolise, to me, the beginning of a new era of music. Until a hundred years ago, every musical event was unique: music was ephemeral and unrepeatable, and even classical scoring couldn't guarantee precise duplication. Then came the gramophone record, which captured particular performances, and made it possible to hear them identically, over and over again.

But now, there are three alternatives: live music, recorded music, and generative music. Generative music enjoys some of the benefits of both its ancestors. Like live music, it is always different. Like recorded music, it is free of time-and-place limitations — you can hear it when and where you want.

I really think it is possible that our grandchildren will look at us in wonder and say: "You mean you used to listen to exactly the same thing over and over again?"

This concept parrellels with sound what i have been doing with visuals with after effects expressions. That is to say the visuals are being generated by the music to give an independent experience everytime a new track is plugged in.

Using audio generated visuals in a title sequence about Brian Eno would be relevant conceptually.

On a side Note Eno has collaborated with sound and music in 77 Million Paintings.

77 Million Paintings is a software/DVD combination by British musician Brian Eno, released in 2006.

The release consists of two discs, one containing the software that creates the randomized music and images that emulate a single screen of one of Eno's video installation pieces. The other is a DVD containing interviews with the artist.

The title is derived from the possible number of combinations of video and music which can be generated by the software, effectively ensuring that the same image/soundscape is never played twice.

An accompanying booklet includes a piece by Nick Robertson describing the intention behind the software, and an article by Brian Eno ("My Light Years") describing his experiments with light and music.

A second edition of "77 Million Paintings", featuring improved morphing and a further two layers of sound, was released on 14 January 2008.



So this is all subitbly pretentiuos, and i'm quiet happy with the concept.

Moving on tho visuals

Well at the moment i'm thinking electrical circitboard, windchimes and wave forms, ideas surrounding electronic music and random events. All Going back to seminal pieces by Mr Eno, Music for Airports was his first Album titled Ambient so maybe i should explore visual metaphors and semiotics surrounding aviation?

tj -x-

Oh and this is the pure after effects title sequence.

Subject

With all this focus on the technical aspect of my project i'm forgottent he bare bones and that thats the subject matter. I really need to decide on this. With the Vivaldi example i came to the conclusion that i would focus on classical music and do three diffrent title sequences based on three different classical composers. The wall i hit here was a lack of interesting visual material. All i see is funny wigs, sheet music and pianos in my head.







Also I have nothing i can really relate to classical, classical music. Its just not something i really listen too... apart from that stint where i managed a cable warehouse for a while and the guy i worked with insisted we listen to classical fm... but i digress.

Saying that what i can relate too is soundtracks, I have hundreds of tracks from Films and computergames i regulary listen to so why not concertrate on contempory classical composers? Why not explore composers such as:

Danny elf man


Inon Zur



Leon Willet


(An interest in video game soundtracks must be in my blood as a scandinavian, see the Play symphoney.)

Tan Dun


or John Williams


The list could go on and on. Considering my last project where i studied Sigur ros and Daft Punk I could even go as far to include Contempory popular musical 'Composers' such as:

NIN
Thom Yorke
or The cinematic Orchestra

But i think i've managed to narrow down my choices to the three contempory composers i need, based on good visual and conceptual material. These will be:

Brain eno
John Cage
& Tan Dun

tj -x-

Using the expression to create somehting useful

Here's an example of how i've used my expression to create something visually useful. Now i jsy need to work it into an animation.

[PENDING UPLOAD]

Here's the expression

[pening screen shots]

tj -x-

What should a title sequence be?

After my first tutorial we were asked what a title sequence for TV is.

Basically i'm to set the mood the the TV show, so the title sequence should reflect the content within.

Looking at some of the links below its clear that title sequences for TV should be about 20 seconds in length. If i can hit 20 seconds exactly, to the frame, it will shoulw that i can edit professionally so i'm going to go with 500 frames no more no less.

Because i'm doing title sequences for TV I need to almost brand the show. I'm going to scrap the idea of a modular title sequence as stated below so i'll have more interestign material to work with, so hopefully i'll do three different sequences using three different methods but the overall aesthetic and tone will be consistent. I'm thinking of...

one pure after effects
one animation (probaley stop motion)
and one film

tj -x-

Pluging in a different track

Well as it turns out plugging in a difffent track, isn't as easy as i first anticipated. I still have to create two new new null objects from the new track postitions (convert audio to keyframes) but after that its a simple case of copying and pasteing the same expressions into the new null objects and applying whatever parameters fit the new waveforms.



As an exmaple i've tested my visuals out on a classical track by vivaldi: I've changed the background to white and the particle generator to black to see if an idea i've been playing around with would work. More on that later, i'm busy noting down some visuals on paper (le gasp!)

tj -x-

Animation to Music Test using after effects

I was struggling on deciding on which program would be best for the job, my intial chocice was flash, but sadly i only have basic knowledge of that program and google wasn't giving me anything to work with. Then i thought that what i'm creating it basically a windows media visualisation and there are plenty of tutorial on how to create them.

Custom media player visualisations tutorials

Now i could follow these tutorials but it would a) mean learning somehting completely new that only applies to a niche part of design and b) wouldn't really give me the control i wanted over the animation. Also in order ot export it to a format viewable on TV it would have to be screen grabbed and the audio applied over it, which is a very unprofessional and ad-hoc way of doing things.

Thankfuly I do have quiet a good knowledge of after effects and whilst on Andrew Kramers site video co-pilot i discovered a tutorial on creating exactly what i wanted to do within aftereffects

vidoecopilot

I follwed the turtorial basically to the word with only minor changes. But in doing so i've an understanding on how to make two expressions work together to create parameters to animated visuals, keyframed to the postition of the waveform. This theory can be used to power any function in after effects that has a numerial vaule, which is evrything come to think of it, i just need to adjust the multiplier in the first expression (Treble = effect("Both Channels")("Slider");
value+[0, Treble]) and the set the corrisponding parameters in the second (linear(value,10,100,0,600)) to control how the visual reacts.



Im order to make the pink and and the blue move indepentdantly i split the audio chanels into bass and treble so the blue is the treble and the pink is the bass.

The track is Eastern Jam by chase and status (and is only a 60 second sample) and has very prominant beats. The next step is to see if this works with another song plugged into the composition, somehting completely diffrent, a punk track, a pop song or maybe somehting classical.

tj -x-

TV title sequences

Although remaking a film sequence offers the oppotunity to explore visual material surrounding the concepts behind the movie its a very linear exercise. What appeals to me about the TV series title sequences is the oppotunity to create a set of title sequences that have a constant element to them, but differ throughout the series. For instance a series of biographical documentaries that represent the induvidual identiy but keep a constant tone throughout the series. This has led me to look at a more modular concept.

It would be nice to be able to some automate the title sequence much like the recent idents for SC4 recently created by Proud.

SC4 indents by Proud


Proud Creative, S4C Audio Ident 2 from Proud Creative on Vimeo.

Within these idents the images moves to the broadcasters voice, sound creates a unique image so that no two ident is ever the same.
With this in mind i could create a series of idents that animate visually to a unique sound that is played across them. Useing the example of the biogrpahical docmentaries, I could do a series of based on the lives of famous and influenctial musical artists.

other examples of image moving to music are everywhere, from the simple visualisations on media player to VJ sets at clubs. An exmaple that reall stands out is "Solar" a music video for Goldfrapp by Flight404. It uses the music to power an animation and lyrics to power the typographic element.


Solar - Flight404


Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.

With this in mind i aim to create a script or expression within a program that will allow me to plug in any song, from the corrisponding artist, which in turn will animate visual elements within my title sequence. This will create a unquie sequence for each biography within the series. Now i just need to figure out whicih program to use.

tj -x-

Film title sequence intial ideas

The first film that entered my mind was amelie, for two reasons the first being that there's a bloody great big poster of Audrey Tautou above my bed and secondly i thought its aesthetic and playful tone would give me plenty of opportunities to appeal to the current trend of craft within design (see this months issues of both creative review an eye for discussions on this trend), this trend is evident as much within animation as any other design disciplines.

"Stay In My Memory" by Bim is a good example of this aesthetic


with regard to an amelie title sequence i've a couple of ideas knocking around my head one being using the very odd expressions Audrey Tautou makes in the outtakes of the movie



and combining them with the photograph motif that runs throughout the movie to create a stop motion animation alot like the Sia - "Breathe Me" video (embedding disabled click link)

Another idea is a vectored animation along the lines of Lisa Schibels T-mobile illustrations (illusive pg.73)



The problem with using amelie as a basis for this project is that the movie already has a pretty good title sequence. (sequence come in at 1min 14sec)



Its Also already been re-done before, this version is quiet clever though, I really like that way the credits are displayed on relevant objects such as the director of photography displayed on a camera for example.



So we're looking for a film that has no title sequence or a really bad title sequence.

I've been watching alot of German cinema lately, and a friend informed me that Run Lola Run has a particular bad title sequence. (title sequence starts at 2min 46 secs)



It kinda reminds me of a cross between the opening to fraggle rock and a Hannah Barbara cartoon.

But as a concept this movie is great it deals with time, destiny and choices which can make great metaphorical visual material as well as the physical aspect of running. But with its heavy mid 90s techno beats it doesn't make for good material when it comes to a more crafted appearance, but thats not so say if i did go forward with this movie i'd have to keep to that aesthetic anyway, it'd just be nice.

When it comes to updating the title sequence for Run Lola Run something that sticks in my mind is Mirrors Edge, a first person free running game from Swedish developer DICE, there are some quiet striking similarities between Lola and faith too



but then again shoulder length matted hair and vest tops seem to be the norm for women that can run really fast ...

The first person perspective is interesting, and could be a good design direction to go in. I also like the motif right at the start with the foot print reveling the EA logo, I think that could translate very well to a title sequence.



You can also hear similarities in the euro-tech soundtrack :p

The realse Lead up trailers were animated shorts. Material for basing my own animations on perhaps? If i was to animate a figure i'd like to do some sort of motion capture and achieve these kind of effects.



tj -x-

The brief

Titles Sequence Project

Context
You are to produce three short title sequences for either film or television.
There will be a range of genres and subject to choose from, that will have interesting visual material associated with them. Check out the links at the bottom of the page for some inspiration. The list of titles will be available later.

Task
You will be asked to produce three sequences each with a different mood or visual approach that is appropriate to the context. You could use video or stop frame or a combination of the two. You can use any approach you like but as they are title sequences some typography will be incorporated- this could be really simple – just nice static type and moving image or could be pure animated type.

The idea for the project is you can explore a range of visual approaches that will make your portfolio stand out in contrast to all the competition briefs that employers see each year from students.

The project will allow you to develop your motion graphic craft through the three different approaches. Don’t worry how experienced you are. This project is suitable for both inexperienced and experienced students. You may have some motion ambitions but feel you have no knowledge to proceed through a project; the aim of the project is to improve your knowledge. There are a good number of weeks to complete the project.

Content
There will be tutorial workshops in the appropriate media
Jon Hamilton in tutorial workshops will show you
· How some of the sequences you have seen are made
-Eg;what media and approaches were used for Prologues projects
· How to use our new HDV cameras
· The different methods of using either an HDV camera for video or a Digital stills camera for stop frame animation.
· How After Effects can be used to communicate your project
· How Final Cut Pro can be used to communicate your project

You may have some knowledge at the start or you may have only a limited amount some the intention is that you will have developed both your knowledge and your craft and skills.

Things to be inspired by!:
Motion Graphics community site
www.motionographer.com

Film and television sequences by Kyle Cooper’s company Prologue;
www.prologue.com
http://www.prologue.com/index2.html

Prologue sequences to view:
· Bridge to Terrabithia
· Curious George
· Dawn of the Dead
· Iron Man
· Rock n Rolla
· SOP (standard operating procedures)
· Wimbledon

Prologue Montage showreel;
http://www.prologue.com/index2.html

TV and Film Title sequence genres and themes

As usual research your topic from a wide range of sources,not just the internet.
Do you need to know factual information as well as visual research?
What visual and motion tone is appropriate to the subject matter?

Film Title Sequence;
Chose a film that you think deserves a better title sequence. Consider three different approaches, three different treatments, to the title sequence for your chosen film.
Consider who you think the audience is for your chosen film.

You may find a film that has no title sequence in the way that we know them today; today most films have a designed title sequence but this was not always the case prior to the mid 1990s.

TV Title Sequence;
The TV genres are
Architecture
Technology
Business and Finance
Historical/biography

Find a theme from these genres that interests you or is of interest to your target audience. Chose one genre and develop three different TV Title treatments. The titles could work as a series but each sequence covering a different theme. For example each architecture TV title sequence would feature a different architect.

If you are needing some guidance for Architecture or Historical/Biographical below are some examples of people who have good strong visual material associated with them.

Architecture;
Richard Rodgers Partnership
Future Systems
Will Alsop
Sir John Soane
Le Corbusier

Historical/biography;
William Morris
Alexander Rodchenko
Buckminster Fuller
Jacques- Henri Lartigue
Jamie Reid

Bridget Riley
Tracey Emin
Diane Arbus
Marie Curie
Sarah Bernhardt