Storyboards were created by Disney in the early 1930's, after improving the initial idea that had been used previously by other animation companies, and Disney itself, before then.
These two storyboards are from the film No Country From Old Men. The whole film was planned out in storyboards, so as such these are just tiny sections of the film, but ones that contain action, and lots of movement. The first one shows a view from the drivers from a truck driving it round a corner, before coming into a collision with a car; hitting it on the side. The storyboards are clearly labeled, so it helps confirm what the image shows, and clarifies what you may have been unsure about. The second storyboard has a different view of the action, as this scene shows the crash from the view from the corner that the truck speeds around before hitting the parked car. Yet again, this is clearly labeled, and gives you all the information that you need; as well as information on where the scene takes place, and other minor details. I believe that this scene contains more action than the other one, even though they are portraying the same thing, and this is because of the more dramatic angle the second storyboard takes on.
This is a storyboard for a stage adaption of Disney's Tarzan, and as such it uses the same character design found in the animated movie. The storyboard shows Tarzan jump down onto a branch, face the viewer, pound his chest, then finally swing along vines before landing in front of the audience, facing them. This storyboard gives a clear idea as to what will happen in the sequence, and it contains quite a lot of action. The storyboard uses lots of dynamic poses and facial expressions, and this makes the seuquence easy to imagine when it is animated. Whilst it doesn't show every little bit of movement, it leaves in enough to give you a clear idea as to what is happening, and it all flows well, so you don't have to wonder what happens between one part and the next; it is easy to see.
The title sequence for Spiderman 3 works fantastically. It was made by Kyle Cooper, who made the other titles for the previous two Spiderman films. The fact that it works so well is that the titles for the third film incorporates pieces from the other two films titles; such as the web motif that is present throughout, and the way it tells the story of the previous films within the web. Spiderman 2 did this with animtaed, comic book like stills showing key moments of the first film, but this title sequence includes actual scenes from the previous two films, to give people who had seen them a recap, and to give newcomers an idea as to what the films are about. Even though the intro is pretty much a recap, the addition of the more darker, black drops and theme, helps portray the main theme of this film, which is about darkness and corruption. As the titles go on, the background colour goes from a dark indigo colour, to just plain black, signifying the corruption, before going back to a slightly brighter colour, which shows redemption. The one thing I don't like about this title sequence is that the comic book theme from the Spiderman 2's intro worked better, as it helped show that it was a film based on a comic book, whereas this intro has little connections with the comic book theme, except the Marvel part that debuted with the first Spiderman.
I really like the intro titles for From Russia With Love. It starts off with the traditional gun barrel sequence that is present in all James Bond film openings, before going into the main titles. One of the thing that makes these titles different from the rest is the lack of an opening song, instead it is an instrumental piece, with the main theme playing at the ending credits. I think that it works better this way, as this helps build up a sense as to what the film is going to be like, with the conclusion having the bigger song, which helps give the ending of the film a larger impact. The title sequence shows a belly dancer, with text appearing on top of her; it moving when she moves, due to the text being projected onto the dancer. This helps bring a lot of movement to this title sequence, and allows the type to move and contort in all different ways, whilst still staying easy to read, and for the bits that aren't legible, they are shown in a plain view, with the dancers hand waving them around slightly. The titles follow a colour film of gold and yellow, and the theme of the belly dancer appears in the film itself. The thing that I'm not so fond of with this title sequence is the fact it gives you hardly any information as to what the film will actually be about, something that a lot of other James Bond films, as well as other films, do.
The Pink Panther Strikes Again has a fun title sequence, which features the cartoon version of the Pink Panther, and Inspector Clouseau following each other, before going into the Pink Panther playing short parody roles of famous films and movies, which included variations of songs and music from the parodied films. I think this aspect works really well for the title sequence, and whilst it doesn't give much about the film, it follows the tradition of other Pink Panther film title sequences, and in my opinion tops most of the ones prior to it, with the exception of the original. I also like the way that the chracters are animated to follow the music through a lot of the title, and any change in music nearly always signifying the characters doing something, or the scene changing; the ending part with Inspector Clouseau trapped behind the screen being a great example of this. If there is one thing I don't like about this title sequence, its that the animation draws your attention away from the actual text, so you may have to watch it a second time to read the actual title credits, and even then you may find yourself focusing more on the animation.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb has a great title sequence. It is quite a simple title sequence, with a nice, hand written looking font, with some pleasant music playing in the background, and a black and white video playing with planes flying in the sky. The title starts off with a brief, narrated summary to the backstory of the film, which helps give off an idea of some of the themes present in the film, as well as a brief overview as to what it is about. I like the simplicity of this title sequence, and I feel that the image of planes in flight goes well with the music, and the font adds to this feeling of calmness. I also like the logo for the film itself, as the title of the film is spelt out in different sizes and weight of the white font used throughout the whole sequence, and arranged in a sort of rectangle. The only complaint I have about this title sequence is that it is hard to read some of the smaller text, due to the font being so thin.
This is an animation that I produced in After Effects. This was my first time using the software, so it was more of a learning process than something technical. I started off with a simple square, which I transformed in various different ways, such as scale, transparency, movement speed, movement path, and altered the colours. Then I reflected the pattern, modifying x and y values in the corresponding way, before doing so again. I scaled down the movie size, due to it being quite large, and added music onto it.
I enjoyed using After Effects, as it allowed me to make something that would have taken me days to make in Flash under 2 hours to make. The software is easy and fun to use, and up to now it isn't that complicated. I am pleased with the animation I ended up with, as it animates nicely, and looks cool. The only thing I don't really like is how erratic the movement is- I may try making the movement slower, and smoother.
This animation involved quite a large process, but I am quite pleased with the end results. It shows that I will be able to work with much more complex shapes, and still animate them just as easy once they have been broken down in Photoshop.
After working with After Effects for a while, it seems to me that what it involves is the manipulation of several small image animations, which are then combined into one large animation.
Once the pieces of my face were broken down, and skin covered the gaps it created, I placed it in After Effects, and began to contort and move each of the pieces individually. For the eyebrows I used the Bezier Warp tool, which added hinges onto them, which I could manipulate easily, via stretching and rotating. Once I had edited the facial features, I made the lights in the background pulse on and off, which isn't really noticable, and added a sort of rain effect, using an image I imported from Photoshop that was larger than the main canvas, dragging it down diagonally, then looping it, to make it animate smoothly.
This was the second thing I produced on After Effects. We were looking at how easy it is to manipulate a characters movement, and how saving each limb as a different composition, editing them seperately, then placing them together at the end makes the whole process of animation a lot easier, and leaves less clutter.
I like this animation, and I would be interested to try this method to a more high quality standard, moving onto real animated characters, not just basic forms.
This is an advert for the programme House that appears on the Hallmark Channel. This advert features text rotating, and more becoming visible as the main
character narrates what is shown on screen. Small pictures accompany the moving text to emphasize what is being said/shown.
This is one of the crack intros that were commonly used before Amiga games loaded up. This would have been made in the 80's or early 90's, and is a great example of what animated
type was like years ago. Whilst it isn't very technical- it does it's job, and looks OK.
