Motion Graphics
The Aim
Our aim is to combat the increasing amount of deforestation, and it’s impact on the environment, by collaborating with Lush to educate the public and tell them how to make a difference.
Deforestation is such a big topic, that we felt it would be best to express our calls to action by creating three animations that each show a different cause of deforestation. This includes large-scale agriculture, pasture and logging.
The majority of deforestation is linked to meat, soya and palm oil. Huge swathes of tropical forest are removed so the land can be used for growing soya to feed farm animals like pigs and poultry. All to meet the insatiable global demand for cheap meat.
Palm oil has been and continues to be a major driver of deforestation of some of the world’s most biodiverse forests, destroying the habitat of already endangered species like the Orangutan, pygmy elephant and Sumatran rhino.
Motion Graphics
Deforestation
Collaboration
Collaboration With Lush
We chose to Collaborate with Lush as they're known for their ethical products and being great advocates for enviromental matters while supporting great organisations. They have previously campaigned for the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS). Orangutans’ forests in Sumatra are under immense and mounting threat. They are being torn down for farmlands, logging, hydropower projects, mining and roads. International demand for products such as palm oil and timber, combined with weak forest governance and short-sighted land-use policies are driving deforestation at an alarming rate.
Research
Researching Deforestation
Our research consisted of looking in depth at deforestation and the effects it has on the enviroment. We researched various websites, organisations and articles to enhance what we know about deforestation and to also gather facts and figures that we could use in our Motion graphics sequence.
Workshops
Learning After Effects and Workshops
The flipbook workshop and story board workshop.
During this project I taught myself how to use after effects. This was a challenge and took a lot of time. I used a lot of youtube tutorials which helped massively. I learnt things such as making an object bounce and images masking into other images. I enjoyed learning a new skill especially as this is a skill which will be great for future employment. I will continue to expand my confidence on after effects.
Youtube Tutorials on After Effects
Expanding My After Effects Skills
In order to expand my skills and learn new effects I watched various youtube videos. This helped me a lot as I could simply pause the video or go back and rewatch It whenever I was stuck. I enjoyed learning these cool effects and was excited to put them to use.
Initial Character Sketches
Story Board Development
Story Board 2 Development
In both story boards we wanted to include facts and figures that would surprise the audience. It was also important to keep the style the same, we did this through a colour palette and coming up with a style together.
Story Board 1 Development
Initially, I focused on getting my ideas onto paper. At first my story board was over complicated and held too many different ideas. I went back and thought deeper on what i wanted to get across and to who this made me reconsider my story board numerous times as it was important to get across a clear message and the design still fitting in with the Lush ascetic.
Final Story Boards
Story Boards
These are the final story boards we used to make our animations. We used after effects to complete our animation.
Colour and Font
For the colours we wanted to keep in neutral as we felt it was appropriate for the topic of deforestation. Additionally, we felt including and artificial colours would have looked less sophisticated for our animations when we want to portray a serious message.
For the font we decided to use the fonts that lush use as this keeps the animation linking to the brand and follows their brand identity making it more recognisable for lush.
Style
Animatics
Animatics
Our final animatics we did helped us when creating our final animations. We kept consistent with the style and focused on putting across a clear message.
Motion Graphics Development
Development
Our final crit helped me and my team partner Isobel Beech develop the motion graphics video from the helpful feedback we got from Dan Bacon and Mark Osborne
Attention to Detail
We made a lot of changes. A lot of it was attention to detail and transitions that helped improve our motion graphics. I decided to change the football pitch animatic to be more of an exciting transition. Secondly, in the crit it was suggested to make it countdown from high to low instead of low to high as it doesn't fit the context for the numbers to count up. Additionally, from the feedback it was said the sloth skeletons where too much so I decided to remove them form the motion graphics.
I was very excited to begin this motion graphics project as It was a completely new skill that I could learn. Although, having no previous experience with after effects made me nervous as I knew there would be a lot of challenges.
When me and my team mate Isobel thought about the topics we wanted to do the motion graphics on we felt it was important to do something that we’re both passionate and knowledgeable about. We decided to go with environmental issues, in particular, deforestation. We felt deforestation was a topic that is not talked about enough and that companies don’t do enough to help save the trees. We researched and found out the biggest reasons for deforestation are the use of palm oil in every day products in terms of food and cosmetics. Another reason is the use of farming. As deforestation is such a big topic our initial story boards where way too complicated as we had a lot of ideas. Through showing our initial story boards to our tutors and peers they suggested we simplified it as it would help create a clearer message.
We chose to Collaborate with Lush as they're known for their ethical products and being great advocates for environmental matters while supporting great organisations. They have previously campaigned for the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS). Orangutans’ forests in Sumatra are under immense and mounting threat. They are being torn down for farmlands, logging, hydropower projects, mining and roads. International demand for products such as palm oil and timber, combined with weak forest governance and short-sighted land-use policies are driving deforestation at an alarming rate.
My strengths were coming up with strong story boards and being able to simplify them to put across a clear message. Additionally, I could come up with good designs that matched Lush’s brand identity and kept it consistent between both storyboards.
Throughout this project I learnt a lot of after effects skills. Having no knowledge of after effects previous from this project I feel I have come very far with developing my skills and am excited to continue to expand my skills. However, because of this I felt it left less time for me to develop my designs as a lot of my time in this project was spent learning how to use the software.
In the future, I will feel a lot more confident using Adobe After Effects which will leave my more time to concentrate on developing my designs more.
• Derouin, S. (2019). Deforestation: Facts, Causes & Effects [online]. Available from: https://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html.
• Digital Art Creation (2020). How to Morph Illustrator Shapes in Animation In Adobe After Effects | Tutorial. YouTube [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48Rz_c1kujA&t=402s [Accessed 4 March 2021].
• Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics UKAvailable from: https://uk.lush.com/?gclid=CjwKCAiAp4KCBhB6EiwAxRxbpKT_itE6CyBCCpM1Ii1xCgrsYPga6bAIPdWmmNT_AHHjR-ziWA4ZGxoCj0QQAvD_BwE (n.d.). Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics UK.
• ProgrammingKnowledge (2020). After Effects Tutorial - Liquid Fill Logo Animation. YouTube [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsnuXECkZE8 [Accessed 4 March 2021].
• SOS – Sumatran Orangutan SocietyAvailable from: https://www.orangutans-sos.org (n.d.). Save sumatran orangutans - donate now [online]. [Accessed 4 March 2021].
• Tech Infusion (2019). How to Animate a Number Counter in After Effects CC 2019 (Tutorial). YouTube [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXQbyxg-EsQ [Accessed 4 March 2021].
• web-services (2017). Orangutan Soap: When they’re gone, they’re gone [online]. Available from: https://uk.lush.com/article/orangutan-soap-when-theyre-gone-theyre-gone [Accessed 4 March 2021].
• World Wildlife FundAvailable from: https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation-and-forest-degradation#causes (n.d.). Deforestation and Forest Degradation | Threats | WWF.