I Don't Know

It seems as if I have a love/hate relationship with the stuff I make.

This week, I did this.

It was for the AE Challenge I set myself, where I was planning on designing something every other day during the Christmas holidays. This was the second one.

I used Particular to get the whole line stuff, and then other stuff to get the other stuff. Very informative information, there.

Anyway, considering I made this in under two hours or so (and off memory, too), I'm rather pleased with the result. But, there seems to be something off with it.

At first, I thought it was the kerning, the fact that (for example) you can see the end of the 'y' inside the 'D', or that there's a shadow for the text but not for the actual lines. I have no idea.

I also have trouble labeling the style of this. Is this style suited more for a poster promoting dubstep or house music more than a personal desktop background?

I don't know.

And that's something that seems to be my saying of the last few months.

For some reason, I just say I don't know if I have no idea how to explain myself or something I've been asked about. Some times, it's because I have no idea about it.

Other times, mind, it's think it's because I assume that I'm instantly wrong, therefore I instantly think that I shield myself by just saying I don't know rather than just saying what I believe, right or wrong.

Is this real life? Or is it just idiocy?

Like many things, I don't know.

In other news, I've failed the whole AE challenge thing that I gave myself, and I failed it miserably. No idea why. I was really up for it, but then my mind decided that thinking about things was more important than developing my After Effects skills. If it does the same when I'm in my second half of my placement, I'll go ape shit.

And that's another thing, In about two weeks, I'll be starting my second placement, this time with Burning Red. my fuck, that's both worrying and brilliant at the same time.

In other, other news, I've started to write scripts for videos for some reason. I've finished one, and I've almost written the second one. Both of them make no sense, both of them involve After Effects and both involve at least one character lying on the ground in pain. No idea why I've suddenly thought you know what would be funny? If one person stands for something they wrongly believe and punishes another person by putting someone else in a world of pain. 

Brilliant, brain. Absolute brilliance.

Anyway, the ideas aren't original. Someone, somewhere has already done it three thousand times, and they've done it to a higher standart that I'll ever hope to reach. I just really need the practice in After Effects that involve live action. Not really had enough practice with it.

Ah well.

Anyway, I should leave for now. It's time I should go to sleep if I want to get back into waking up early before I go back to work.

- Back in the day, we didn't finish blog posts with a stupid sentence and putting FIN in there somewhere. We had decent endings, ones that made you feel loved and happy and had a message about not smoking or something.

Critique Fanatique: Bridges Visual Effects Sequence

This time, it's a some kind of self Critique Fanatique. But then again, I'm not stopping you telling me what you think of it. If I didn't want any comments on the video, I wouldn't publish it online on so many social networking sites. Anyway, that's said. Boom.

If you didn't know, the last assignment that I handed in was to create a visual effects sequence to promote a product.

I, having no idea whatsoever, decided to do it on Bridges, which, according to their blog, a new and exclusive project working with LGBT young people aged 13-17 in Rhondda Cynon Taff.

This, is the final result.




I handed it in yesterday, and late last night the dude who runs Bridges, Martyn David, posted it in the Bridges Facebook Page, among other places. It had some likes, which I'm not really concerned with. To me, most of the time a like is just an acknowledgment of something, not necessarily an actual liking for something.

It also received some comments, with two people saying that it looks professional and it looks great. Which, I thank them for those comments, considering they could have just said dude, this looks like shit and you deserve a fail.

But, as I woke up this morning, feeling rather run down, I instantly thought of this video. I instantly thought of ways that I can improve it, ways to make it suck less.

You have to admit, there are aspects of this video that fail miserably. The tracking for the text could (and should) be so much better. I mean, look at the Rhondda Cynon Taff text early on in the video. That was supposed to stay with a certain tree, falling into the background. But what does it do? It pops around. Same goes to the Bridges text.

Then, there's the lighting of the video. It's really not consistent. It doesn't help that the first shot was fine, but I didn't bother changing the settings for the second and third ones, meaning that the middle shot was extremely over-exposed. I didn't notice until I opened the files up on my Mac. Word to the wise, folks, just because you're in roughly the same location doesn't mean the settings are correct.

Then there's the sound. I wish I knew how to get rid of the hum sound generated from the wind. But no, I couldn't do it.

And the still you can see before watching the footage, the image that I took on the first Bridges photoshoot, I basically used a JPEG file. I asked for the original, but couldn't get it on time for various reasons beyond my reach.

I don't know, all I see when I see this is the worst video technique wise that I've handed in. I was supposed to create a visual effects sequence, and all I've done is put some text to coincide with what is said on the video. If I get anything higher than a fail, I'll be extremely happy.

That said, I'm not saying that the video is shit, nor am I saying that what is said and done within the footage is terrible. All I'm saying is that everything done in post production is rather weak - the tracking of the text, the colour correction, the overall edits.

The last assignment I did for this assignment, I spent at least two weeks after handing it in perfecting it, and for some reason I want to do the same for this one. Well, instead of perfecting it, I just want to redo it all.

Ever the optimist.

Anyway, if you have your own opinion on the final project, feel free to comment. I really encourage others to let me know what they think of anything that I've done, whether it's a complement or a critique.

- Critique FINitique. What am I doing with my life?...