DPI Final Project

25.10.21 - 28.11.21 (Week 9 - Week 14)
Chai Yi Xuan / 0346645 / B' Creative Media
Digital Photography and Imaging
Final Project / Self-Titled

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LECTURES

Week 9 (Introduction to After Effects)

Adobe After Effects is a 2.5D animation program that animation, visual effects, and motion picture compositing. This software is used in the post-production phase, and allows: 

• manipulate imagery 
• combine layers of video and images into the same scene

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 INSTRUCTIONS

To-Do List:

• Self-titled portrait
  
• Animating portrait as IG reel
  

 

Week 10

Before sketching any ideas, we were told to write a small short biography about ourselves and a design statement to have a clearer idea on what we want to do for our self-titled portrait.

Biography:

Tell us about yourself 
I am Chai Yi Xuan, a 19y/o female living in KL. My hobbies include drawing, writing, playing the piano and photography.  

What is your passion?
To create something of my own interpretation and at the same time express my feelings in it.

What motivates you to achieve your dream?
To be able to do what I want to do, and achieve the best that I can do. As long as I can do what I love, I can persevere

How do you want to visualize your dream into an artwork?
A poster that has a mix of my passions, just me being at peace with doing what I like.

 

Work statement: 

Tell us about your work 
I want to create a surrealistic poster that shows off my interests and hobbies while using a calming aesthetic 

What is the concept behind it? 
I tend to express and vent through different expressions like drawing, writing and photography. It helps me destress and able to sort out my emotions, providing myself inner peace. 

 

What is the message you want people to understand it?

Explore your passions and do what you want. To find your inner peace.

What is your motto/ quote? 
“Find peace in love and love in peace.”

Then, I went onto Pinterest to create a mood board for the project.

Figure 1.1: Inspiration #1

Figure 1.2: Inspiration #2

Figure 1.3: Inspiration #3

Week 11

Figure 1.4: Sketch #1

Figure 1.5: Sketch #2

Figure 1.6: Sketch #3

I sketched out some ideas for my poster. I chose to use sketch #3 since it fits more to what I want to show in my self-titled portrait.

Week 12

Once I received feedback from Mr Martin, I went ahead and take the photograph for my portrait.

Figure 1.7: Photograph for self-titled project

Then, I searched up for other photography elements needed for my portrait.

I then went to Adobe Photoshop to assemble everything together.

Figure 1.8: Self-titled portrait, prototype

Week 13

Mr Martin gave some feedback, so I made some changes accordingly.

Figure 1.9: Finalised self-titled portrait

Once the self portrait is done, I animated it in Adobe After Effects. The requirement was a 15-second long Instagram reel (1080px[w] * 1920px[h]), so I made sure everything is in the right format before animating.

Figure 1.10: Animating in Adobe After Effects

Figure 1.11: Self-titled portrait, animated

Link to video: https://youtu.be/5Ko15PLCoXM

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FEEDBACK

Week 11

1st November, Monday

Mr Martin can see my intention for my design. However, he advised that I get some better references to strengthened my idea and the direction that I want to take for my self-titled portrait.

Week 12

8th November, Monday

The digital poster is good, but the photographed subject(me) looks out of place. Heighten the contrast of the subject to match the lighting of the other elements, and add some adjustment layers to make it look more bright and saturated.

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REFLECTIONS

Experience 

After all the exercises and projects done throughout the semester, the final project seemed like an easy thing to do. The new challenge was to take a good photography of ourselves, and animating everything in Adobe After Effects. The photography part was easy, since I had experience in taking pictures. It was animating the portrait that became challenging. It was a struggle and a half to animate the butterflies, but since I really wanted to have them in my portrait, I pushed myself till the end. At least I know how animate butterflies now.

 

Observations

I observed that colour choice affects the mood of a design. For example, a more muted palette would indicate a relaxing mood, while a saturated palette would make the design look hyper. Depending on what we want to express, we should carefully select the colours that best represent the feeling of our design.

 

Findings

I found that having a clear idea of what to do makes the ideation process easier. This can be helped by asking what is needed and who it is for. Looking up on examples and getting inspiration from them also helps in the ideation process, as it shows how you can show your message through your design.