Working with Adobe AfterEffects has been an extremely pleasant experience, especially in contrast to the challenges I faced when working with Gimp. What I enjoyed most about Adobe AfterEffects was its easy format. A lot of the program’s functions resemble those in Photoshop, making it a relatively easy transition.
Despite this initial ease, AfterEffects challenged me by forcing me to test my patience when working with a new program. I caught myself trying to get through this project as soon as possible, rather than taking the time to enjoy the process and create high quality work. After realizing this, I made sure to go back over each piece of my AfterEffects project, to make sure that my initial impatience did not affect the quality of my work.
I focused the content of my work on the questions of space assignment we did via wordpress a few weeks ago. I liked the abstract questions that I proposed, and thought that it would be visually striking to have such open-ended questions rather than telling a story like in the “Dakota” video we watched in class. When it came to animating the text and bringing it to life, I tried to utilize AfterEffects’ functions to personify the meaning behind the words.
For example, I ask the question “What determines where one space ends and another begins?” I chose to animate this question by having the text stretch across the screen, suggesting that space is everywhere and there are no clear divisions between spaces.
I also utilized color to emphasis words and highlight distinctions between the assorted vocabulary, such as in this photo example below:
Furthermore, AfterEffects provided me with several opportunities to both learn about myself as a worker, and learn about utilizing a new computer program to create art. I am pleased with the developments I have made regarding both, in addition to the work I have created in class all semester.
