Animated Sting - alternate version/ re-work

As much as i want to keep going back and adding more stuff to it, i think it might pretty much be there.

After finding the relevant sound fx on youttube, i would convert them into mp3 files via youtube-mp3.org, and import them into Ae. If they were on the long side, or had lots of noises on one track, i would also take them into WavePad, and chop them into smaller pieces.This is also handy way to file the sounds for future use, if i should ever need a the calls of elk in the future.

The Royksopp song 'What else is there' that i used in the background. I had this as my choice for accompanying music from quite early on after it came up on my iTunes randomly. It hadn't popped up for a good while & I'd forgotten i'd had it, but it fits in really well with the mood I'm trying to set in the animation. Murakami refers a lot to Jazz music in hi novels, and feel that would've been the obvious choice to go with - and having been listening to jazz playlists for a while now and seeing if anything would be suitable for this sting, I've become a bit bored with a lot of it. Jazz is quite an 'old' sounding style of music, and my imagery is a bit more futuristic looking so I'm not sure the two would really make a good pairing.

Additional bells and whistles included on this version are the BBC Four logo, to make it look like the ident or intro to a Murakami based programme. The animation style is probably more suited to E4, but you'd never getting anything that cultural being shown on E4. Also knocked up a little animated signature at the end, so anyone whole doesn't know what the sting is all about (i.e; everyone),  will eventually find out, after 13 seconds.

Original photo of Murakami signed book page

Isolated signature

Isolated mask of signature in PNG format. 

Using Ae's stroke facilities i was able to animate the stroke to simulate live handwriting 

                  

harukiSIG_1 from IanF on Vimeo.

Even though theres a lack physical drawn storyboards, i like to think that my initial storyboards were so thorough that they covered every possible movement that my existing Ae skill level would allow. Looking back at the original ideas you can see how many of them appeared in my tests and indeed final version of the sting, more or less how i had sketched them out. 

With the sound Fx sourced from YouTube, and background music from Royksopp, it compliments the floatiness quite well. Not sure about some of the skull movements towards the end, seem a bit stiff and unnatural.Wish i'd made the hands 'reach' a bit more realistic somehow.

                   
                                                      DownTheTubes from IanF on Vimeo.

I am still really tempted to make a sting for each print, but knowing how frustrating some of this one was to make (punching walls and head butting desks level frustrating) i might quit while I'm just about ahead.