Week 13 notes

-Production process
-Requirements for your final

Homework:
-present your final project idea and work in progress
-Title page with Elevator Pitch statement
-Idea boards: color, type style, references, texture
-Color palette
-Reference movies: have your YouTube links ready and cued!
-Style frames: 3 frames of what your animation will look like
-Finish the in-class Affirmation Animation (I know, it's like so 80's gay)

Also next week:
-learning DVD studio pro

Production process/Workflow
This applies to animation/editing/comp/motion gfx
-important to know what your client wants
-4 D's:
Duration: how long is the final project going to be?
Due-Date(s): when do they want it delivered. Intermediate due-dates: rough-cut, fine cut before sound mix?
Delivery format: tape? data disc MOV? FLV? SWF? playable DVD?
Dollars: what is their budget?

Animation project: what style?
Animated stills: slideshow, animatic
Multiplane animatic: layered file that you're doing 3D-ish moves on
Cutouts: parenting, transform properties in AE or Flash
Animated masks: cutouts on crack
Flash (drawn): almost like drawing on paper
Drawn animation on paper: composited, colored, with sound means more complex
3D in Maya, XSI or 3DMax

Ask them: what do you like?
If they say, "I don't know!"
-Show them stuff.
-A variety of styles: A music video, motion graphics commercial, character animation, short narrative edit. No more than 5 QT movies with selections totalling no more than 2 minutes.
-can be from your portfolio
-can show professional examples make it clear you didn't do that.
-make sure you've done that technique before.
-have your URLs ready, and know where to cue the movie.

Style/Design: The Idea Board
-idea boards: based on what's out there. 1 for each major aspect of the project.
-If motion graphics: 1 for color, 1 for title design, 1 for lower 3rds, 1 for transition gfx, 1 for end credits
-If film/commercial video: 1 for art direction, 1 for photography style, 1 each for color treatment, grain, effects, costume.

Making idea boards:
Open PS, File/New/Preset US Paper, 11inx8.5in, 150 dpi

Content for idea Boards:
-for these, you can scan images from magazines, grab stuff from web, google images, iStockphoto.com
-scanning from a magazine: if there's black type on the reverse, put a black pc of paper behind the page b4 scanning.
-grabbing images from the web, Apple-Shift 4

Style frames:
It's a glorified storyboard
1-In AE, make something cool looking
2-set your zoom to 100% and your resolution to Full
3-Comp/Save Frame As/File
4-Select all layers (Ap A), UU to see all we changed from defaults.
5-keyframe everything
6-move to another time in timeline
7-repeat steps 1-6 again

Open all those in PS, drag them into a 150dpi image, and label what is happening.

Once you have your idea boards, your styleframes, your Titlepage (should include elevator pitch) all labeled as to what they are, save as PSD file and TIFF with no layers.
-Close all open documents, just open those TIFFs
-File/Automate/PDF presentation

This saves your images as 1 big PDF that you can scroll thru in Preview.

Spell-Check!

-Spellig coutns
-Copy your text from photoshop into TextEdit or Word and spell czech it.
-or type it into Google!

AFX 3D
3D: enable 3D by turning on the sugarcube icon in the timeline. Don't turn it off.
3D we have 3 axes: X Y Z
X goes left to right Red
Y goes up and down Green
Z goes front and back Blue

Wotate tool (hotkey W) to rotate around the skewers.
-in Rotation tool options on top toolbox, turn the "Orientation" to "Rotation"

Y door-hinge
X flip-book
Z clock

Name Affirmation in-class project:
-Type the first 3 letters of your name.
-Duplicate this 2 times, draw-a-box with the rectangle tool around each letter.
-Use the Solo switch (little O next to Eyeball in Timeline)to make sure your rectangle masks are good.

-Animate each letter disappearing using 3D rotations X and Y and opacity animation 100% to 0%.
-Select all your keyframes by selecting all layers and hitting U, drawing a box around all them.
-Moved keyfr to 2:00
-Layer/New/Null, align this with word on left side.
-Parent all your layers to the Null
-At time 1:00, turn on Position stopwatch on Null.
-At time 0, move Null all the way Right so all letters go offscreen.

-At time 1:00 type last letters of name
-Align with current letters.
-ApR: show rulers, drag from ruler to get a Guide line.
-Draw a box with rectangle mask tool around the last letters of your name. Have bottom of box align with base of letters
-Keyframe Mask Path and Position at time 1:15
-At time 1:00, use my Pan-behind tool (letter Y) to move my letters down in a PeekABoo

-Type as separate word-objects the words that will turn your name into an affirmation.

examples: Kalika parties well. James makes a great turkey dinner.

     -To make them separate word-objects, type a word using the Type tool and then hit Enter.

     -Set anchor point using Pan-behind (Y) tool.

     -Separate letters using Masks as needed for your animation.

     -Animate words coming together one at a time, to create your "Affirmation Animation."

Typography reference:
Motionographer.com's Cream of the Crop
Paper magazine
Barnes & Noble Union Square: layout ideas from graphic design magazines
AIGA

Screenings:
What Barry Says

The Hush Sound

Pulp Fiction

Who's on First?

V for Vendetta


I encourage you to:
-Think outside what's been done before: Do something Different. We are tired of the same old crap. 

Give us new & unique work.
-Be clever
-Be creative
-Be Yourself! Make this project your own.

Week 12 notes

Outputting a high-resolution format from QT Pro:
Open your movie in QT Player Pro
Export: Movie to QT Movie
Use: Default Settings
Click the OPTIONS button

This opens a new window.
From the top:
Video: Compression Animation
Keyframes All (how many frames are perfect: higher # means that many are crap betw frames. every 100 means it's only perfect 1/100 frames.
Depth Millions
Quality Best
Size: Dimensions NTSC 720x480 4:3
(if using 16:9 footage (widescreen) please check the box next to "Preserve Aspect ratio using" and choose "Letterbox" from the dropdown)
Only check the "Deinterlace" if your final format is Web or CD-Rom

Sound: Format Linear PCM or Apple Lossless
Channels Stereo LR
Rate 48
Quality Best
Sample Size 16
Uncheck "Prepare for internet streaming"
what it means?? you can watch the 1st part of your QT while the 2nd part will load

Open Final Cut
-Reset Scratch Disks, set them all to FCP folder within your project folder.
-Save your project also to the FCP folder
-Copy/move all your editing clips (stuff you'll be putting into your FC timeline) into Capture Scratch Folder
-Drag those things into Bin window
-Drag your footage into the Timeline
-Will prolly give you an error, saying "Do you want your sequence to match your footage" and you should say Yes.
Saying No will lead to render.
-Unlink selection by clicking the small button in the upper RH corner of the Timeline.
Looks like a link, not Snap.
-Select and delete original audio
-Drag in new audio

To see waveform in FCP, go to Sequence/Seq Settings.
-Timeline Tab, chose "Track Display/Show Audio Waveform"
-Lock your audio tracks in the Timeline so you don't accidentally mess them up.
-On timeline, set in and out points for where i want the clip to last. (i for in, o for out)
-Cut your video for what action should take that amt of time.
double-click the video, go to Motion tab in clip viewer. Time Remap section, and change Duration part TO MATCH the in-out length.

Review of AE retiming

Apple's Motion software
-starts with Welcome screen
-Start with a New Project
-Preset: NTSC DV

Window/Timeline

On left,
Filebrowser: select stuff from your computer to import.
Library: Filters, Behaviors, Particles live here.
Inspector: tells us about what we have clicked.

To change colors, swivel open your particle in the Timeline till you see the "3-star symbol" and click that.
-Go to Inspector and change colors there in the Particle Cell tab, under "Color Over Life"

File/Export
Export: Qt movie
Use: Lossless + Alpha
Check the box next to "use play range"
Click OPTIONS
Go to output Tab
Resolution Full
Color: Color+Alpha
Say NO to premultiply.
Use 29.97 fps
Quality Best
Field Rendering.