Pre-Exam Planning, Choices, Experimentation
Shadow Inspiration
After doing my personal study on Hans-Peter Feldmann, I became much more aware of the shapes which can form from various shadows melding together. This is when by chance I came upon the shadow of a pile of towels in my house. I noticed how it somewhat resembled a face. This gave me the idea of jumbling up the towel pile and creating other shapes. This lead to me getting a good amount of images. I then had the thought of how these could be seen as a visualisation of the voices within someones head, a common trend among psychopaths shown in media etc. This first gave me the idea for incorporating the shadows into some form of madness form.
Original Photograph
Shadow Photographs
I decided on creating an animation using the shadows I had photographed and having them be presented as the voices in the head. It was from there I had the idea that everyone in life has madness in them and that it's certain traumatic events that can bring it out. This meant that madness really was part of the 'Mundane' despite if people knew it or not. This made the project a lot more interesting as I felt I was going against the common thought.
I decided to limit my colours used to Black and Red, with white if needed. I felt that these would be the best choice as these are colours often recognised with death and violence, which are often followers to madness. I wanted to create something which would show the progress of something losing themselves to the madness, which is why I thought of having madness be visualised as a person.
Font Choice
In the end I went with the first font because I felt it best suited the ideas of madness I wanted to convey.
Plan
My plan for this is to create an animation using the shadows I had taken pictures of. This is a rough step by step guide to follow during the mock.
1) Edit shadows into usable forms (.png), using Adobe Photoshop
2) Create Background for animation
3) Create visualisation of madness
4) Put together animation in Adobe Flash
5) Import the finished animation into Adobe Premier
6) Incorporate audio into the animation
Day 1:
For the first day I started by using the Images I had taken and editing the shadow shapes out of the piece and converting it to a slightly transparent .png. I then altered each shadow cut out and created an open and closed mouth version of them,
After this I started working on a background for the animation. I wanted to create something chaotic, that would really look like madness. I started out by using a gradient, however for this I split the page into two and reversed the colours used on the bottom half. This made it look as if it were reflecting the top half. I decided to combine the two gradients by merging the layers then using the smudge tool in photoshop to further merge the visible sites. I found that this worked really well, and that the idea of madness was shown even more by using the smudge to create dark spikes in the light area. I also had the idea to make the background animated with a looped animation. I wanted to keep this part simple so it didn't draw attention away from the focus of the animation. For the loop I decided to make the spikes grow and shrink as time went on.
Now that the background was made, I decided to create 'Madness'. I decided that I would create the embodiment of madness through the shape of a basic person. I used photoshop to create the character that would be this embodiment.
This is Madness, I used inner shadows to create shadings on the various parts of the head. I found that this worked well and added to the idea of this being madness. What I believe to be the best part of Madness is the eyes. I made it so rather than having pupils, it would have scribbles in place. This made it look confused which I though worked really well.
From here I imported what I had made into Flash, a program I have used many times before.
After creating the initial intro I worked on two of the inner voices faces and placed them into the animation. I used shape tweens to make them have a surreal shift, one face changing to another rather than them just fading. I found doing this part to be the most time consuming. I had to decide on what style of font I wanted to use for this piece. I decided on changing the original block font, to a fantasy styled seriff font. It suited the madness theme and I found it worked really well.
After finishing the remaining two faces I decided to cut out the fifth face as I found that there was nothing left to say in the animation. My next step was to create the ending, presenting 'Madness' to have given in to the madness and his mind to have been broken. To do this I went back into photoshop and edited the madness image. I created a version with a smaller version, representing his true self, hidden in his eye. In flash I used another layer and another shape tween to create a shattering effect, making the eye shatter and fall revealing the inner self. I then created a zoom effect to make it close up on the inner self, to reveal the crack on it, showing that it has given in.
With this the animation was complete. My next step was to import the animation to Adobe Premier, again a program I am familiar with.
I added a short title sequence to the beginning of the piece, this was just to make it more presentable. What I needed to do was add some sound to the video. I wanted to add some atmospheric music to add to the idea of madness. I decided that I wanted to use Piano music for the piece, so during my prep I found and added to a short piece. I add static clash sounds along the already rather dark sounding piece. I made these follow the events of the animation, can be seen where the eye shatters, a clash is played.
To end with I added some transitions to neaten up the final piece and again make it look more presentable.
I believe that overall this animation came out well. What I thought was good was how the music worked alongside the animation, adding a sense of synchronicity to the piece, which in turn added to the power that the piece had. I thought that the point of the animation was presented clearly and that it really captured my idea of visualising madness. I thought that the background I made was good, and making it animate was a good idea as it adds to the chaos of madness which is occurring throughout the piece, I hadn't used the smudge tool much before, but I feel the smudged spikes really added to the madness effect making the idea much more visible through the piece. What I didn't like was the transitions between the shifting of the faces. I thought they looked sloppy and If I had the time, I would replace them with frame by frame changes rather than the shape tweens I used, although the fragmented box look seemed interesting, I feel that maybe it was too structured and may not have conveyed the idea of chaos. Another point that I found good was the font I used for the text. It really suited the idea of madness and sublimity, whilst still being perfectly legible seriff. Another improvement I feel that I could make would be to smooth out the animation, since from what I saw It didn't seem that the motions were fluid enough. I also thought that the motions were rather boring at times and didn't really carry out the chaotic idea that I originally had in mind. My personal favourite part of the animation was the eye cracking and splitting apart as it fell. This gave it a really chaotic effect and revealed the inner self. It also could be seen as another metaphor to show the an idea of shattering reality or making it so just because you see something, doesn't make it real. I feel as if I did capture my own views and opinions of how Madness is part of the mundane well, and I also felt that I used sublimity well to portray this. An issue I had with using the shadows was the right angle. although part of me thought that it matched the idea of chaos and unstructured madness, I thought it would look better without the straight lines and with more of a curve. Another issue I felt I had with the faces is that they were not the most varied in appearance, which is partially why I decided not to use the fifth face in the end.
If I were to redo this piece, I think I would experiment with alternate ways of revealing the inner self. Although the shattering eye was really good in my opinion, I felt that using a different way, for example the whole of madness shattering, could seem interesting and could get as good or an even better effect of carrying the message. I would also make it so the faces would have greater variation, I feel that it would convey the idea of madness further.
Now that the background was made, I decided to create 'Madness'. I decided that I would create the embodiment of madness through the shape of a basic person. I used photoshop to create the character that would be this embodiment.
From here I imported what I had made into Flash, a program I have used many times before.
Day 2:
After finishing the remaining two faces I decided to cut out the fifth face as I found that there was nothing left to say in the animation. My next step was to create the ending, presenting 'Madness' to have given in to the madness and his mind to have been broken. To do this I went back into photoshop and edited the madness image. I created a version with a smaller version, representing his true self, hidden in his eye. In flash I used another layer and another shape tween to create a shattering effect, making the eye shatter and fall revealing the inner self. I then created a zoom effect to make it close up on the inner self, to reveal the crack on it, showing that it has given in.
With this the animation was complete. My next step was to import the animation to Adobe Premier, again a program I am familiar with.
I added a short title sequence to the beginning of the piece, this was just to make it more presentable. What I needed to do was add some sound to the video. I wanted to add some atmospheric music to add to the idea of madness. I decided that I wanted to use Piano music for the piece, so during my prep I found and added to a short piece. I add static clash sounds along the already rather dark sounding piece. I made these follow the events of the animation, can be seen where the eye shatters, a clash is played.
To end with I added some transitions to neaten up the final piece and again make it look more presentable.
Descent to Madness
Evaluation
I believe that overall this animation came out well. What I thought was good was how the music worked alongside the animation, adding a sense of synchronicity to the piece, which in turn added to the power that the piece had. I thought that the point of the animation was presented clearly and that it really captured my idea of visualising madness. I thought that the background I made was good, and making it animate was a good idea as it adds to the chaos of madness which is occurring throughout the piece, I hadn't used the smudge tool much before, but I feel the smudged spikes really added to the madness effect making the idea much more visible through the piece. What I didn't like was the transitions between the shifting of the faces. I thought they looked sloppy and If I had the time, I would replace them with frame by frame changes rather than the shape tweens I used, although the fragmented box look seemed interesting, I feel that maybe it was too structured and may not have conveyed the idea of chaos. Another point that I found good was the font I used for the text. It really suited the idea of madness and sublimity, whilst still being perfectly legible seriff. Another improvement I feel that I could make would be to smooth out the animation, since from what I saw It didn't seem that the motions were fluid enough. I also thought that the motions were rather boring at times and didn't really carry out the chaotic idea that I originally had in mind. My personal favourite part of the animation was the eye cracking and splitting apart as it fell. This gave it a really chaotic effect and revealed the inner self. It also could be seen as another metaphor to show the an idea of shattering reality or making it so just because you see something, doesn't make it real. I feel as if I did capture my own views and opinions of how Madness is part of the mundane well, and I also felt that I used sublimity well to portray this. An issue I had with using the shadows was the right angle. although part of me thought that it matched the idea of chaos and unstructured madness, I thought it would look better without the straight lines and with more of a curve. Another issue I felt I had with the faces is that they were not the most varied in appearance, which is partially why I decided not to use the fifth face in the end.
If I were to redo this piece, I think I would experiment with alternate ways of revealing the inner self. Although the shattering eye was really good in my opinion, I felt that using a different way, for example the whole of madness shattering, could seem interesting and could get as good or an even better effect of carrying the message. I would also make it so the faces would have greater variation, I feel that it would convey the idea of madness further.
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