The House That Jack Built
Production Journal
Having little knowledge of After Effects prior to making the sequence, I underwent some workshops, teaching me the fundamental basics. Here are examples of two of the workshops which I feel informed me the most:
Fractal Noise
Our task was to create an underwater effect solely using tools available in After Effects. First, we created a new shape layer and added the 4-colour gradient effect. We assigned each of the four quadrants with dark shades of blue to match the colour of the water. We then clicked keyframes and changed the colour to a darker shade as the ten seconds increased.
To our next layer, we added the CC Snowfall effect, changing the parameters so the snow was vertically flipped, slower and larger. This created a bubble illusion.
Next was the light rays effect, where we added Fractal Noise to a shape to make it appear as if light was entering the water. To do this, we first added a curtain effect, changing the colour, shape, and opacity so it faded and looked diagonal. This was then altered so that the curtain moved slower, creating the illusion of light entering the water as the waves moved on the surface. Finally, we created an oval mask around the layer, so it looks as though light was entering through the centre and fading around the edges.
Next was an adjustment layer and added vignette. This ceated two illusions. The adjustment layer’s evolution was changed, and an effect of light changing was added. Finally, the opacity was turned down to make it look as though water was moving and changing colour as it hit light at different angles. To reduce the field of vision and make it look more like a POV, a vignette layer was created by making an oval around the image, inverting it, making the surrounding black and feathering it to make it look as though it was getting darker around the edges.
Double Exposure
For this workshop, we worked with compositing different layers to make a faded effect where we are seeing two images combined into one. To do this, we first started with are base layer- a clip of a couple kissing.
The next step was to create our overlay image. For this, we used a clip of ink in water. We added a blending mode called screen, which changed all the black to transparent. As it was layered over the top, through the ink we can see the couple kissing.
After, we needed a layer to give the clip some texture. We added a grain clip, which was a solid film clip with some texture over the top. We then added the multiply blending mode, which removed all the white from the image. What was left was the grain aspect, which added nicely to the clip.
Finally, we added a cinema aspect ratio to give a better feel and clarity to the image.
Evaluation Essay
Coming into Motion Graphics, it is fair to say that I wasn’t looking forward to the unit very much. With a strong interest in narrative filmmaking, and a strong desire to write and direct my own films, Motion Graphics seemed like a waste of time. My idea initially was to do a sequence for Boyhood. Being a huge fan of the film, I thought I could use footage to create a miniature film beforehand, with the small accompaniment of Motion Graphics to create a project. This was a mistake.
With the deadline rapidly approaching, I realised that my approach to the title sequence was all wrong. With time preoccupied on planning filming, there was no time on After Effects to create anything using the new skills I had learnt in class. I think working on Motion Graphics whilst working on my university application really helped me to identify what my skills where, and what I could offer a university. A unit like Motion Graphics isn’t an opportunity to do the same thing I already knew how, but to learn something that could establish me as a well-rounded practitioner. Thus, I decided to change my project to making a sequence for The House That Jack Built. This time, I focussed solely on Motion Graphics and nothing else, but rather than consuming the sequence with skills after skills and effects after effects, focus on the smaller things I had learnt in class and apply them in a sophisticated yet simple manner.
There were two major inspirations for the project. The first was watching the sequence for Goldfinger and the second was a script I am writing. The script focusses on a filmmaker’s relationship to a prostitute he is making an experimental film about, and it explores romance, sex and violence, and the miscommunication and manipulation of all three. I thought that The House That Jack Built would allow me to research this area more, helping me gain an understanding of the symbolism, imagery and style that goes with it.
Changing from making a narrative sequence to a purely Motion Graphics based sequence gave me a lot more free time to think, making it solely with Photoshop and After Effects. I really didn’t know what I wanted to create, and the process was much more trial than error than any other project I have created. This was because venturing into a new topic and from narrative films meant I was out of my comfort zone. My first idea was to play with geometric shapes. My thinking was that animation in its basics is playing about with shapes to create something, and the first sequences in the world used something as simple as a square to create something new and ingenious. Thus, I used a series of enlarged circles to create an intrigue, then adapting them to look like snipers- a shot later referenced in the film. This provided the necessary depth that intrigues people before they have seen any raw footage. I also played with line tracing, making a road and binoculars, another two shots referenced in the film.
A thought of mine was that sex, violence and beauty all share fear as their intrigue. The fear of attraction, the fear of pain and the fear of love. Fear is always more powerful when the subject is hidden, so I had the idea of playing with colour to distort the imagery. For people, I wanted to take out the human characteristics so that they became bodies of matter- something perhaps similar to how a serial killer thinks of his victims. The best imagery for this was X-rays, in which medics look literally beneath a person in a purely physical sense. I found some poster-art for the movie, cutting the characters out and applying a tint-effect where light tones were replaced with black, and dark tones replaced with either red or white. This created the necessary effect I was looking for. I did this again for objects seen in the films, where their purpose was to sit on the boundary of the three. It created a silhouette-like effect to them whilst I felt gave a darker symbolism. Another idea I loved was the idea of bodily fluid. Violence is most often symbolised in blood and sex in ejaculate. I used a greenscreen of slime dripping, pouring it over the characters and a stripper I used in the latter half of the sequence. With the characters, it symbolised blood and violence, but as the stripper came on, ejaculate was what came to mind. I think distorting an audience’s brain in this way, where they can feel a sickness and disgust to one thing, and then feel attraction and lust to the same thing makes people question their own morality, and their own definition of what is a necessary, desirable animal instinct, and what is morally wrong. Are we all morally correct, or do we all harbour some darkness that consumes the very people a society hates?
Upon showing it to audiences, and particularly my target audience, they themselves likened it to Goldfinger. I think it is worth briefly comparing the two…
Goldfinger uses a very simple idea well, and it is repeated throughout the entirety of the sequence. A closeup of an attractive woman sits still in darkness. The woman is sat in a lustful way and is painted in Gold. Projected onto their skin are silent scenes from the film and music is played over the top. I think the best use of this imagery, and the one that shows the purpose of the sequence, is the one below.
The attractive woman is sat with her eyes closed, still, and the image projected over the top is a numberplate. Conveniently, it is placed over her mouth, not unlike tape. It constantly switches between the lust and attractiveness for women (sex), the beauty and innocence of the women themselves (beauty) and the cold, golden, dead figures to which Goldfinger himself craves (violence). We can’t help but think of the violence at the same time as the beauty and the lust, and it clouds the definition of the three. This teaches us the right morals of the films, obviously encompassed in Bond, fighting someone who lacks distinction between the three, the sadistic Goldfinger. For my own sequence, I think the similarity is seen in a shot in the latter half of the titles.
A beautiful woman dances provocatively near dripping fluid, whilst a heavy object drops above her. I think they all work to counteract each other. The woman’s beauty is shrouded by her dancing, and her dancing is both complimented and shrouded by the slime, symbolising both sex and violence. The object, a regular domestic object, gives a retro-American style to the sequence, whilst also acting as a heavy object that has the potential to cause harm. The fact that instinctively they all complement each other, yet morally they are all wrong together makes the audience question whether humans really are mentally superior in their thinking, or whether deep down we are just more evolved, primal animals living a domesticated life.