Explorations: After Effects Commercial

Introduction

For the explorations project, we were instructed to create our own project, in order to develop our 21st century skills. The 21st century skills are visual literacy, technological literacy, creativity, self direction, high productivity, teaming and collaboration, social and civic responsibility and risk taking. I chose to develop my teaming and collaboration skills, social and civic responsibility and self direction, by creating an After Effects commercial for the Liberal Action Club in my school. I recorded a fake phone call, between commercial for the Liberal Action Club at my school. The concept of the video is that it is a fake phone call, between “Stella Nicole” a ditsy cheerleader played by Prahita Magal (the club’s social media manager) and “Ms. Vic VanBumble” a teacher annoyed by Stella’s antics, played by me.

Process

In order to make the After Effects commercial, I recorded and edited a script in Pro Tools, by doing a series of takes on separate tracks, and isolating the best take, before compiling every line into a fluid timeline. I also took photos of myself and Prahita in costume, to include in the final video. I edited the photos in Photoshop, where I touched up the colors, and added a transparent background, so I could place the characters on a colorful background, created in Illustrator. I then put the audio, and images into After Effects, and added a few visual effects, as well as sound effects. I animated the different facial expressions of the two characters, by overlaying the two photos for a brief period of time, in which one photo rapidly shifts from 100% opacity to zero, and the new photo rapidly shifts from 0% opacity, to 100%. In order to animate the phone ringing icon at the beginning of the video, I added a series of keyframes rapidly changing the “rotation” of the image, to make it appear as if it were vibrating.

This is a screenshot of Pro Tools.

This is a screenshot of me editing audio in Pro Tools.

This is a screenshot of Adobe After Effects.

This is a screenshot of my work in Adobe After Effects.

This is a screenshot of Photoshop.

This is a screenshot of me editing photos in Photoshop.

Infographic

Since my project was a commercial for the Liberal Action Club, I decided to make my infographic on how to get people involved in their community. I researched reasons people may not get involved, and then I drew a visual to represent it, as well as the percentage of people who do not get involved for this particular reason. I then listed a way activists can counter this, and encourage people to get more involved, with their own visual symbols, in order to make the infographic more interesting. I created the individual symbols with Illustrator, and used InDesign to add the text, and organize all of the individual components.

 

 

The final InfoGraphic

This is my infographic This is a screenshot of Illustrator.

This is a screenshot of me designing an image in Illustrator.

This is a screenshot of InDesign.

This is a screenshot of me designing my infographic in InDesign.

 

Reflection

The explorations project was fun and interesting, because of the abundance of freedom we had. Whenever I had a question, I got to decide the answer, and approach the project from the perspective I chose. It was a good feeling to be able to lay out the full arsenal of skills and tools Freestyle had taught me how to use, and decide which one I wanted to use to tackle any specific task. I look forward to practicing and learning more in the future and further expanding my knowledge and skill. It was also fun to collaborate with another group outside of Freestyle, because my project was no longer a closed system of ideas. I hope to collaborate more in the future.

This is a screenshot of Dreamweaver.

This is a screenshot of me creating this website in Dreamweaver.