The Shape of Things Promo

This summer I am committed to upping my motion graphics game. Over the Spring I took an animation bootcamp online, which primarily focused on the principles of animation. I got a lot out of that class and I am now super confident comfortable in the After Effects Interface and confident while using the graph editor. That said, I feel like I am getting pretty good at the actually movements of things, but I am still overwhelmed by the organization and juggling involved in long timelines with lots of assets.

Maintaining control over everything in an after effects timeline is one of the headaches of the software. I am currently taking another, more advanced course to help me tackle this frustration. This is our first major project, where we were handed a poster for an art exhibition and asked to create a short promo.

I think as a whole this project was succesful. But when all was said and done I can certainly see the flaws in my workflow. I would say the primary problem is under the hood, the way that the individual objects are rigged together by invisible nulls. I was able to get everything in place from beginning to end, however the puppetry involved is so strict that it is almost impossible to go back to the beginning to make adjustments without having a ripple effect down the entire timeline. If I were to do this over I feel like I might be able to set this up a little better. For now please enjoy this in what will be a long series of exercises I am attempting in my spare time.