Study Task 5 - Sound Study

'La Chine a L'Honneur' (Animated short)

Created by students at the 'Gobelins' School of Visual Communication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxRGr6VKkj8


The sound in this is subtle but very effective in completing the atmosphere the visuals establish so well. As the various characters wake up and start their day the sound increases and gradually swells in reflection of this. It's very understated but fits in the mundane events being depicted in a very sympathetic way. I find the result to be very human and convincing.  I don't think the soundtrack I use will be as busy as this one but I have similar intentions in terms of creating an ambience, perhaps akin to the stillness heard at the beginning of this.

'Hors Champ' (Animated short)

Created by students at the 'Gobelins' School of Visual Communication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oC8GbblIBk


What I take mainly from this is the sort of muted and muffled quality of the sound. I think I want to use music in my sting, but have an underlying soundtrack of sort of white noise or strange muffled sounds like the ones in this (I think there's also a sort clicking sound from an old camera). I think this sort of thing will accentuate the stillness and dark ambience I want to create for my sting.


On another note, it's not an animation, but the film 'Simple Men' (directed by Hal Hartley) is the perfect example of the type of atmosphere I want to create and the way he uses music is the sort of thing I will try and do, sort of weirdly melancholy interruptions during conversations (not that I'll have any conversations in my sting). 
      

Study Task 4 - 3 Animated Shorts or Stings

Disclaimer

I'm not actually sure if any of these are made using in After Effects (the Jake Fried one definitely isn't it's hand drawn), although I'm pretty sure the ones by Michael Kennedy are because he is just some student as well. I did try to pick things which could potentially be done on After Effects though. Most of the examples I found that definitely were After Effects were fairly uninspiring so I gave up.




'The Magician', by Andy Shauf (music video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN0RPWII7gY

Director: Winston Hacking
Director of Photography (Performance Footage): Geoff Fitzgerald
Additional Image Sourcing, Paper Cutting: Andrew Zukerman
Colour Correction: Frame Discreet

This animation is paced vary consistently throughout which helps draw the viewer in, there isn't anything to jolt you out of it once it's started so it's very absorbing. There isn't much in the way of narrative but I don't think that matters so much as it evokes very well the general mood and ambience of the song. It seems to be almost a stream of consciousness type sequence (although I doubt it was that because it's so complex) which actually represents the way Andy Shauf typically writes lyrics very well, they usually follow a continuous, fairly domestic, story in great detail.


 'Mind Frame' , Jake Fried (Animated Short)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtqcY54n68

This isn't done in After Effects, but I think the way Fried structures and composes his animations is so based in layers that something in the vein of what he creates could be made in AE very easily. The technicality and detail in this I find fairly astounding and I greatly admire anyone with the patience to do something like this. I like how the movements or motions in his animations are actually just created, almost inadvertently, through the transitioning between still images. It's an approach that I feel works very effectively for something short such as a sting (although I think he mainly just creates stuff for himself). His use of sound also meshes together with the visual very well. 


'Flatpack Unpacked Stings', Michael Kennedy (Stings, made for uni)

https://vimeo.com/163416700

This is the most simplistic of all three, probably because he is a student, but I think it still feels very sophisticated. It is also the only one of the three that is a 'sting' (several stings). I very much enjoy the hand made aesthetic and the way it flickers about like older films. The colour schemes are very well thought out and ensure everything is clear despite how jittery it all is. The use of sound is also very effective and I think as important as everything else to the overall atmosphere he creates with these. It has the same sort of jumpy skittishness and is also composed largely of found sound, reflecting the way the animation is composed of cut up and collaged imagery. Again, not much narrative employed but the whole thing is so abstract I think trying to force one in would probably have caused more confusion than anything else. Having set the precedent that there is nothing you need to follow it becomes a more rewarding sensory experience.  


  

Just as a side note this video - https://vimeo.com/134074654 - also created by Michael Kennedy is very much the kind of thing I can envision doing for my sting. It doesn't actually contain any animation, but there a sequence of still images displays a narrative. The overall mood is also similar to what I will be trying to create with my sting.