The Nightmare Before Christmas

One of my favorite animated movies is The Nightmare Before Christmas . I love the dark muted tones in all of the "Halloween" portions and then the way it changes when entering the "Christmas" portions. It is absolutely amazing to think of all that went into making it.

It is a puppet, stop motion animation movie that took over 3 years to complete. I don't remember ever seeing anything quite so complex before. The complexity of the puppets and the space needed to do the puppeteering were also something to take into consideration. The crew were told to try to limit the space for a puppeteer to 3 feet; some couldn't and therefore were built with room below for the puppeteer to move around in. The styles of the different "towns" were also totally different which meant completely different set designs. Per Selick, "When we reach Halloween Town, it's entirely German Expressionism. When Jack enters Christmas Town, it's an outrageous Dr. Seuss-esque setpiece. Finally, when Jack is delivering presents in the 'Real World', everything is plain, simple and perfectly aligned."

Danny Elfman, who voiced two of the characters and was also Jack's singing voice, wrote the music. He said that writing the 10 songs were one of the easiest jobs he'd ever had, because he had a lot in common with Jack.

Their efforts paid off, because the film was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It won the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film, while Danny Elfman won the Saturn Award for Best Music. Director Henry Selick and the animators were also nominated for their work. Elfman was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. The American Film Institute nominated The Nightmare Before Christmas for its Top 10 Animated Films list. Here's the original movie trailer.

Upon doing research about the movie I ran across some interesting facts. "The filmmakers constructed 227 puppets to represent the characters in the movie, with Jack Skellington having around four hundred heads, allowing the expression of every possible emotion. Sally's mouth movements were animated through the replacement method. During the animation process, ... only Sally's face 'mask' was removed in order to preserve the order of her long, red hair. Sally had ten types of faces, each made with a series of eleven expressions (e.g. eyes open and closed, and various facial poses) and synchronized mouth movements." I also learned that the figurine for Jack Skellington was reused in James and the Giant Peach as a dead pirate captain.

I'm including the making of videos here, too. After you've watched these I'm sure you'll want to see the movie!

Evian Commercial

This animated commercial is from 2009, but it's pretty darn good. I watch it and think about all the time it would take to make it. The syncing of the music with the animation alone would be so time consuming! I would love to see a behind-the-scenes on how they made it.

Animated Commercials

My Motion Design class has made me much more aware of all the animation we see out there. I couldn't help but to share this animated commercial about using the bus. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Time Warp

After seeing Mark's fabulous snowboarding catalog in GDS222, this time warp video caught my eye. I thought everyone might enjoy it.

3D Design Possibilities

I was searching for commercials with good 3D effects and wasn't having much luck. However, I ran across an ad for the Art Institute. It's just a short little example of some 3D work, but I kind of like it.

Then I ran across this Evian Commercial and it was just too good to pass up. I'm not really sure how they did it, but it is pretty darn funny!

 

3D in Animation

There are so many good animation commercials out there that it's just really hard to choose which ones to share. So, here are a couple to give you a few laughs. The first is for something I've never heard of, but the second is for Power Rangers - everyone's heard of them!

  

Rotoscoping

This week's homework is on Rotoscoping. I found this to be extremely tedious, but the end results were worth it. Personally I can't imagine spending everyday doing something like this, but, it wouldn't be bad to do on occasion.

I found this Awesome compilation video on YouTube and just had to share it with you. This is the Rotoscoping Reel 2013 for the company called RotoFactory. "RotoFactory is a visual effects company located in Northern California. RotoFactory has an extremely innovative and competent artistic team and the reputation of providing the best 2D digital paint and roto anywhere. With quick turnarounds, RotoFactory has always delivered shows on time."

Masking in After Effects

This week's homework was about masking in After Effects. We had done a little of this in class, but the homework went into it a little bit more. I found this interesting because it was a lot like masks in Photoshop. Of course, I needed to find out a little bit more. 

I found this tutorial on YouTube that actually shows how to morph between mask shapes. This could give you a really cool result in some instances. 

Title Sequence Helps

I was researching tutorials on creating title sequences for my next project and across a couple of good ones.

The first one I'm including is by Brendan Riel and has some good basics that can add a little polish to your sequence.

The second one is very Saul Bass—in fact they even say so in their description. "A retro title sequence in the style of Saul Bass, pioneer of title sequences. Whether you've a Hitchcock style detective film noir or a more up beat Spielberg, Catch Me if You Can, production -- maybe even a horror film -- this sequence is abstract enough to cater for most movie genres." It is actually a template, which I didn't know they make, and can be purchased at Envato. 

I never even thought about designing motion graphics to sell. This opens up new ideas to me. Imagine designing really cool sequences, or things like it, and then possibly selling them "en mass". That's a completely different market.

Great TV Title Sequences

I have to share some really good title sequences that are on, of all places, TV. These are just some of the ones that I have found to be really well done that also fit the shows perfectly.

This first one is from Mad Men and is just awesome!



Then we have Dexter! I love this show and the opening credits are perfect for it!
 



Then I have Game of Thrones...enough said, right!

Animating Text

This week's homework was on animating text. It was pretty informative and I know that I will be using some of the things that I learned. This, of course, led me to look for more things to do to animate text, which took me to none other than YouTube.

I came across quite a few tutorials by Evan Abrams that I found to be helpful. Here is his YouTube bio:

"Here you'll find "quality" Adobe After Effects tutorials. And by quality I mean things I would have found useful when I was starting out in motion graphics. I've been using After Effects since 1995, which is longer than the average YouTube viewer has been alive so... I'm kind of an expert. And now I'm sharing that knowledge with you, but you have to pay the tole of listening to my bad jokes.
New tutorials come out on the Weekend, and if you ever have troubles just ask me a question in the comments or on my twitter @ECAbrams. Oh and if learning isn't your jam and you just want me to make something for you send business inquiries to info@evanabrams.com, I'm usually available... except when I'm not."

Top 10 New Features of Hype 2

I was searching for information on Hype 2, before purchasing for my own use at home, and ran across this video by Tumult on YouTube. Below is the information that I found about the video, along with a link to their website.

Published on Aug 20, 2013

Tumult Hype is the HTML5 animation builder for OS X. Explore the top 10 new features of Tumult Hype 2.0 in 10 minutes and learn about Hype Reflect, a brand new companion app for iOS.

1. Instant Preview to iOS 0:29
2. Audio Actions 1:19
3. Curved Motion Paths 2:48
4. Web Fonts 3:42
5. Swipe and Touch Events 4:44
6. Mobile Options 6:31
7. Enhanced Preview Toolbar Button 7:03
8. Search Engine Visibility 7:28
9. Shapes 7:48
10. OS X Technology 8:07

For more information:
http://tumult.com/hype/

Motion Design examples from iFlexDesigns

This week I thought I would feature a design firm that specializes in motion design  iFlexDesigns - Young Artists, Unique Ideas © 2014. I gleaned the following information from their YouTube channel. "iFlexDesigns is a Graphics teams, full of young & passionate designers, sharing their creativity and originality through visuality. Originally started by an individual, iFlexDesigns has grown enormously the past year, and currently manages over 20 both Graphic & Motion Designers! Effective Art, is an exellence of creativity, which has the ability to influence others by its visuality and originality - Dyllan Khawam // Founder of iFlexDesigns."

The first example I'm sharing was published on Feb. 15, 2013, and titled "Motion-Design Reel" and was found on YouTube. It shows a really good combination of music and motion with some good ideas that could come in useful in the future. 




This is iFlexDesigns Promo video, which I also found on YouTube, and was published on Nov. 18, 2013. This shows a compilation of the different things that they do at iFlexDesigns. I'm impressed with the wide range of things they work on. The way this was set up, it will automatically go to their next video, etc. So, you can watch one, or however many you want.

What is Motion Design

I thought that for this week's blog I would look up the question "What is Motion Design" on YouTube and see what I comes back. I was quite pleasantly surprised! The first example that I'm sharing with you is by Kaprion Vision. "Kaprion Vision - is a small but tightly organized studio based in Central Europe. We creat music videos, commercials, short films, animations, and everything that has a speed of 24 frames per second."




This second one is by Vancouver Film School. "Published on Apr 15, 2013, Created by Vancouver Film School students Nicholas Ferreira and Dominik Grejc through the VFS Digital Design program."

I find the difference between the two to be refreshing. There is such a wide variety in how everyone chooses to show motion in their designs. Pretty fascinating when you look at how far we've come in such a short period of time.

LINES CREATOR (Motion Graphics)

I found this on YouTube and wanted to share it. It grabbed my attention and I thought it was pretty cool. It's to show how to create lines in After Effects. It's almost completely lines, but is creative too!

This blog was previously for Web Design and will now be for Motion Design

I used this blog for GDS 220 (Graphic Design for the Web) previously and will now be using it for GDS 230 (Motion Design). Thank you for taking the time to check it out.