Motion Graphics

1. Motion Graphics By Justin Francis-McLeish.

2. Introduction Motion Graphics and Compositing Video is used in all sectors of the whole media industry. Motion Graphics: • Motion Graphics is a type of animation, basically they’re still images that are used most of the time, and the term is used to describe ‘Graphics’ that move around. Motion Graphics are used to enhance visual quality and pleasing the viewer. If you’re still a bit unsure, Channel 4’s Ident (which I will be covering soon) is a prime example that has motion graphics involved, it’s used to enhance the artistic quality of the production. That’s the Channel 4 Ident

3. More on motion graphics and compositing video… • The difference between motion graphics and compositing video is that compositing is used to create, merge or combine pieces of video to achieve a greater conclusion. It is a process that occurs once all footage has been shot so the editors can alter the properties. Things such as framing, content, colour and digital effects can be manipulated to give the desired effect. Very little video gets exported when shot but most goes through some form of compositing. Compositing involves elements such as frame rate, video format, screen ratio, resolution and compression. • Now that we know the difference is and what they’re about let’s get started.

4. Film title sequence • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3tidwW1gGM • The rise of the planet apes is a prime example of a film introduction that uses motion graphics. This clip consists of effective background music, text, cut-scenes and dialogue from the actors. Text is used in between the short film action to build suspense and attract attention from the viewer as the action is happening rapidly due to the cut scenes. • Many tools and techniques were used to make this film such as deep compositing and the founder of this film collaborated with Weta Digital to create lifelike apes through new revolutionary visual effects. Weta Digital who made effects for Avatar and King Kong used their ‘state-of-the-art’ tools to render photo-realistic apes. • They had various departments such as creatures, texture and a model department, all designing how the apes were going to look and how they moved, all of that work got sent to the filming department where everything came together. ‘Caesar’ the main character of the film and the other apes were developed through motion capture as you can see in the image above. All the emotions seen by Caesar was shown cause of the type of imagery the camera was giving, it gave more facial information.

5. More on the rise of the planet apes • They also brought motion capture into a live location; they had a huge green screen on the Golden Gate Bridge (when all the apes went on top of the cars). After shooting that scene, they rotoscoped the action and used Nukex 6.3 which is a software that allowed them to deep image composite the footagei.e creating the background setting of the bridge, adding colours etc. The green screen on the bridge. – Filming the scene. The end result.

6. Tv title sequence • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX-oSFtWTtU • Hollyoaks is a very effective title sequence that uses motion graphics. In this title sequence, we can easily notice that the footage was shot on a green screen using a video camera. The use of the different backgrounds for each character is metaphorically used to emphasise the characters personality. The effect the designers used for each background were still images which may have been slightly edited on Photoshop and then after that they used the ‘masking’ effect. Some anamorphic flares were added to stretch the distorted image (background) so that it fits the screen. Each scene was created using Illustrator & Maya and then composited and exported all together in After Effects using h.264 format. • The frame rate for British television (PAL) is 25 frames per second. Each program shown on television are required to be in HD and the size must be 1920x1080 pixels in an aspect ratio of 16:9 so that we receive high resolution footage that fits our screens.

7. Computer games • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iVfUWVDLPk • Hotel Dusk Room 215 is a gritty typed game. The whole trailer and game was primarily created using the skill of Rotoscoping and some visual effects. The designers used the ‘rotobrush’ tool on After Effects to trace over the live action. the designers basically removed the characters from the background which then gets composited on to a different one. The designers used the ‘rotobrush’ tool on After Effects to trace over the live action. Lastly if there were any areas that didn’t match the flow of the scene i.e a colour may not match the scene before, designers can use ‘Refine Matte’ which aids to blend the image in.

8. TV/Film advert • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQcVllWpwGs • Throughout this the designers used cinematography. Firstly, the director took still images of the babies against the green screen. After that they put motion capture wires on to the adult actors, put a costume on them and recorded the movement/dance moves against the green screen. Once that was all done, they perfectly fitted the babies’ faces onto the motion captured movement that was made by the adults.

9. Music video • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qF_qbaWt3Q • The creators behind the scenes of ‘Waiting for the end’ created a huge impact on attracting the viewers eyes. A skill they used is morphing, morphing is a distinctive effect that changes one image shape into another, in this video, they morph into the animals. • There are a few geometrical lines added semi-linked with the morph with a bit of colour added, how they did it was Linkin Park was shot against a green screen. The background was changed to black and the geometrical lines were basically showing the viewer what they were focusing on. A geometry line is a connected set of infinitely various points that extends infinitely far in two opposite directions. It has an infinite length, zero width and a zero height and also any two points on the line are used to name it.

10. TV channel iDent • http://www.theidentgallery.com/player.php?id=C4-2007-ID-HAY • Every channel 4 ident consists of multi-pass renderingthat usually contain pieces of colours, ambient occlusion, shadows and reflection to help out the colour grading. • Each 7 blocks used to build the channel 4 logo are rendered in 3D individually which increases the complexity of the setting. • 60 years ago (1953) on Decemeber 2nd the BBC launched their first ever television ident, channel 4 launched theirs in 1982, 29 years later. • Abram Games, the creator of the first BBC ident started off drawing sketches on newspaper, it took him about 2 years to make this ident. According to the BBC website, he made the model out of piano wire and brass and strobing lights, which survived long enough to be filmed, before reputedly breaking down irrecoverably. First BBC Ident the ‘bats wings’ – an ‘abstract pattern’.

11. Internet banner graphic • Internet banner’s are used to advertise. A prime example is when you go onto YouTube, as you can see in the image below. • Banner graphics are normally made on flash and they can be animated gifs, they normally come with fixed pixel dimension, preferably 720x128. Also they are not compatible with responsive websites. A responsive website is a website that fits and suits all platforms such as computer screens, tablets and mobile phones. • To sort out this problem, designers should use html 5 layout, this layout can be made adaptable to any size with CSS3 media queries and can use dynamic website server scripting. Internet banner graphic.