Stuff to show

Pigeon Impossible

French Roast

Let's get depressed

For our sweet advert brief, Chris (my group member), came up with the idea of a charity style ad, showing homeless lame rolos that have been discarded and forgotten about... possibly crying caramel tears, and a strapline similar to "Just 40p could help save 10 rolos"...

I thought this style is quite clever, but depending on the possible mixed reaction we might get, we may have to add in a lighthearted scene at the end of the ad..

Anyway!! i've done some research on some depressing charity ads to see what they do besides showing footage of poor people to twang the heart strings:

This is a typical charity ad, with footage of the less fortunate people in 3rd world countries, with the plea of donating money to help, and gradually getting happier when you get to see what difference the money does (cue, happy kids playing with water and running into the sunset).

This other ad for Christian Aid was very clever, instead of the usual tactic, they've created almost a short story with all the narrative being very informative of the reality of what's going on. It also has the man (supposedly the dad?) looking after the baby, and as the horrible men in suits take away everything, it makes the audience go "OMG! NOOO!!"... I've never seen a charity ad like this until now (at least i dont remember), i like it's originality and doesn't give the "rolling-eyes slightly irritated" reaction that most charity ads do.

Another common tactic in charity ads is using a child's (particularly a child because you feel sorry for them more than adults) experience of poverty. The ad tells the story of the struggle this little girl has to go through to survive...

This Oxfam ad isn't anything like the normal ads, infact i included it because of the animation in it. It has a strong meaning behind it that all these disasters, poverty and other things wrong with the world feed into this giant ugly creature known as injustice, and if you speak up and make a difference, it'll make the world a better place etc... I like the strapline at the end "Be Humankind" conveying that we are all humans, and therefore being human kind, we can look after eachother etc...

SO! This bit of research has shown me different angles to take this charity ad from- typical style so it's recognisably a charity ad, a short story and experience telling. I'm not sure the last example would be as an effective one for the idea we have at the moment.

Haha...Shape Tween

I decided to try out a different method- shape tweening and this created a really interesting trippy effect haha...

Epiphany

Since my tester on After Effects was an epic fail, i thought i might use a programme a slightly more comfortable with... Flash! i had a brilliant idea of drawings my finished picture, and then painting over it in flash, and erasing the path bit by bit whilst keyframing, to reveal the picture underneath-- this gave the illusion that the image was drawing itself :)

This gave a much more convincing animation than the previous one i did. Although, it did take a while to do... and only really worked easily with a simple shape.

I'm going to carry on looking for more time effective methods of doing this..

Note:- i noticed there's a lovely bald patch in my animation in the bottom right corner, this wasn't there in the file so i assume Flash wants to joke around with me today :(

Trying to Teach Myself...

Today i've been trying to teach myself how to get something to draw itself on After Effects (this is for my Time Project).. and it's proving quite difficult, especially as i'm getting zero guidance on how to do this, besides watching "masking" tutorials on youtube, and even these aren't telling me EXACTLY what i want...

I've decided to try and work out how to do it myself.. and below is a video of a the tester i did today.

Yes, i know it sucks and doesn't work at all, but im quite proud of it considering i'm having to teach myself at the moment until i find some proper advice.

Oh, and by the way, it's a chair :)

Embarrassing by Christina Yip (age 20)

Walk Cycles on Flash

Some background research for my Time Project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qOuvtgAkyQ&feature=related

I can't embed it so you'll have to be okay with the link!!

Confectionery Research

Our new Digital Animation project involves us collaborating with other students from other sectors- graphics/illustration and advertising. I'm quite looking forward to getting our teeth stuck in as it'll give me a taste of what's to come in the industry when you regularly work in a team.

Anyway, the project requires us to choose a confectionery product and make a advert for it, allowing the benefits of the sweet to shine through and make it tempting etc and be attractive to kids.

I've done some research on well-known, old and odd sweet adverts and looking at why they are and have been so successful:

Everyone's familiar with this gorilla, drumming for Cadbury's... it's crazy and fun- and makes the viewers laugh. Through this humour, the audience is easily able to remember the brand and probably try to mimic it!

This advert is very old, im not sure how old but you can probably tell quite old (haha) because these days, 2-D animation isn't usually shown on adverts, however, with the hand involved when it's drawing, it seems to be mixed with live action also... Anyway, i thought this was a very cute advert as they're implying that Rolos are so tasty that you'd only share your last one with someone you reaaaallyyyy love- and with their famous slogan "Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo" makes people particularly remember them.

Fruit Pastilles have got a new, upcoming star to perform on their advert to attract the young people, especially with a beat-box star- it attracts everyone's attention! The cheeky young kid at the end adds a little light-hearted humour, and the advert emphasises the irresistable chewiness of the sweet.

This is a more recent Chewits advert. The Chewits dinosaur stood for a well-known story of when monsters attack a city, however, the monster is soothed when he finds Chewits! They've also introduced an alternative to a well-known song to get it stuck in the viewers heads. (How annoying).

I've always loved M&M's adverts, they're very funny and sometimes relatable. And the clever use of mixing live action with CG animation, almost makes the viewer live it too (even if it's just an advert). I love how throughout their massive series of different adverts, they've even been able to give each M&M their own personality :)

Succchhh an old advert, and they use the old grandpa for all the Werther's Original adverts, and throughout my research of this sweet, the same script aswell! even in different languages!!... I guess the advert is trying to get the idea across that the sweet has never changed, and it's a sentimental sweet that adults should share with their loved ones.

These adverts i really never get, but i have friends that find them highly amusing. The random dialogue and the light-hearted humour highlights the "natural fruit" quality of the sweets. I like how they use the actual sweets as characters aswell.

Noone will forget the sexy Cadbury's Caramel Bunny- she takes it eassssyyy like the gooey caramel center. After discussing with many of my male friends, i don't think any of them would say no to the alluring fictional rabbit. I guess that's how people remember her!

One of our groups ideas was to advertise Jawbreakers or Gobstoppers... Although there aren't any adverts for this very well-known sweet (apparently they sell themselves!) It always reminded me of this cartoon i watched when i was younger- Ed Edd n Eddy! When they would always get up to mischief and earn money to buy Jawbreakers- and their cheeks would grow ridiculously big when they had them in- haha! I loved it!

What i learnt from looking at all these examples is that the characters (if any) personality, would literally be the sweet personified e.g. laid-back sexy bunny- gooey melty caramel, cheeky m&ms are soft on the inside but hard on the outside... And all the adverts try to sell the single benefit their sweet has compared to the others on the market. Also, humour plays a massive part in the commercial business so i need to get my funny owwwwnnn!