Research
For this project I was very inspired by distortion effects and wanted to explore using textures and distortion with real life footage.
I really like how simple footage is manipulated to create tension. There are lots of examples throughout the video of effects pushed beyond their traditional use. The creative artefacts they create was an area wanted to explore.
This video taught me the tools within after effects that I could use to manipulate real world footage. After my own experimentation I was particularly interested in the distortion effects. I thought it could be interesting to blend these effects with real world footage. Combining these with the track matte settings and colour blending modes. i could create some very interesting artefacts for my concept.
The final area I wanted to implement into the concept was dystopian/retro VJ loops. This could have a great contrast from manipulating slower real world footage. Using a 3D environment to create a scene enhances the animation freedom within after effects beyond keyframing 2D footage.
Mood Board
Concept
The concept for the animation is to have a slow peaceful landscape transformed into a dystopia. A traditional landscape will be projected until it begins to glitch. Creative effects will be used to communicate what seems to be the video failing to operate.
After this sequence, a dystopian representation of the landscape will be developed showing a change in time/dimension to a dark digital world. This scene will then seamlessly loop back into the starting frames through a glitch visual. This concept plays creates the perception the projection has broken but then regenerates the landscape in a new perspective creating a surreal experience for viewers.
Thumbnails
Style frames
After Effects Animation with Placeholder Footage
3D Development
Since the last motion experiment I have added a lot of elements to the scene. I began by recreating a 3D scene that was more familiar with the forest footage in the beginning of the video. The scene was made with the Maya software utilizing paint effects and x gen to fill the scene. As I was tweaking Maya I began to consider how using alphas and key light could create interesting results in after effects. I decided make the trees a silhouette through keylight and the background black so other layers could be experimented with in after effects.
The Forest was created in MAYA by duplicating tress across a plane on a slight incline. A black background is used to allow for use of track mattes in after effects. The trees were set to green so they could be screened out and replaced with fill layers within after effects.
Final Render
Overall, I am very happy with the outcome. I can see this being continued into a full track visualizer