SYNOPSIS
Having suffered from insomnia, doctors suggested a similar process, to that of the automatic writing, to help me clear my head. Basically to put my thoughts onto paper and out of my head. Working with this idea I decided to attempt the automatic writing one night when I was struggling to sleep. I found myself unable to think of anything due to all the distractions around me, such as my puppy trying to get me to play. The only other thoughts that I seemed to be getting was the worrying I was doing about everything I needed to do the following day. Finally I decided just to work with what I had. So it became a script of all the things that were distracting me from doing the automatic writing. Essentially these are all the things that feed my insomnia.
I have pulled the script apart into a story that I can work with. I am planning on working with animated text. I want to create a piece that is cartoon like because I think this is fitting to the nature of where the text came from. For the audio I want to explore different sound effects to enhance the cartoon idea.
AFTER EFFECTS
This is my first time using adobe after effects so it is a case of trial and error. Initially I found it difficult to understand and very time consuming. I have realised that my script is way to long so I have had to cut it down quite a lot. I have managed to find lots of after effects tutorials on the web and am finding them very useful for learning the program.
THE CRIT
Going into the crit my work was still very unrefined and didn’t yet have audio. The feed back that I received was really useful and gave me a good indication of what needed to be done to strengthen my ideas. The general concern that I was having was that it looked a bit like a powerpoint presentation at the start, this was confirmed in the crit feed back. It was suggested that this was occurring at the start of the work because I was learning the program and as the work progressed through so to did my skills. I am planning on now going back through and re editing the start so that it is more dynamic and flows with the rest of the piece.
AUDIO TRACKS
Gnarls Barkley, Crazy
Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out
Lily Allen, Knock ‘Em Out
REFLECTION
Overall I was reasonably happy with the final out come of this project. Once I went back through and refined the weak areas of the piece it worked a lot better. I decided to change my original idea of using sound effects for the audio as it was a little bit obvious. I wanted to enhance the idea of distractions so I cut up some music so it would appear as though music being stuck in my head. I played several sound tracks over the top of each other to enhance the idea of a crazy, distracting environment. I am generally happy with the audio and think it fits in well with the text.
I still feel that parts at the beginning of the work are a bit dull and the speed of the work in different places could do with some altering.
I found that this project was really good for experimenting with new programs and ideas. I learnt heaps of new things along the way both in class and from tutes I found on the web. Generally I really enjoyed doing this project.
