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AJ Hanneld

Let's get ((strategically)) weird.

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SIENNA :: an adventure in AfterEffects

When last we met, I mentioned an interest in learning motion graphics. I've always been fascinated by movie title sequences but never thought that I would be capable of making them--those were jobs for people better than me. Which brings us to now: I've decided to fake it 'til I make it and set my sights on building as much experience as possible by turning out one million mediocre projects. It's excruciating to produce sub-par work AND to discuss it on the internet. Thankfully, I only have two readers. (Hi Marc! Hi Dad!) In color theory, we were assigned a color at random to research and write a paper on, create a presentation for that included 15+ objects from life and digital sources, and to create a mysterious thing. The mysterious thing could be a cake, a collage, really anything you wanted -- I decided to attempt motion graphics.

Under a tight timeline and with the restrictions of other assignments during midterms, I cranked out a one minute "Sienna" video.

My original intent was to create a homage to the Metropolis title sequence (fast forward to 1:27) with animation that wraps around the letters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGj66_UC7wo

So I found a YouTube tutorial that looked like it was doing something like I wanted to do (I haven't had AfterEffects in a class yet) and hand key-framed motion paths to send light shooting down:

sienna

Only to realize that I'd created some sort of masks rather than shapes and all the Googling in the world couldn't help me figure out how to convert them to animation paths.

Sadly, due to time constraints, I had to move forward with the video without my hat-tip to Metropolis.

https://vimeo.com/154952726

I also may have fallen a little too in love with color dodge (or was it burn?) -- it made the text beautiful but less readable -- I made the call to keep it since I wasn't that crazy about the text I'd written anyway. The video is meant to follow my presentation, which doesn't have much text in it since most of it was spoken, but the general thrust was how widely varied interpretations of the color Sienna are -- raw is ocher-brown, burnt is reddish-brown, and Pantone or spot is a coral-salmon. (WTF, indeed.)

sienna_10FEB_Page_01

Sienna is a clay earth-element composed of naturally occurring minerals, iron oxide and manganese oxide.

sienna_10FEB_Page_03

A cursory Googling of the word Sienna yields mostly movie star Sienna Miller and the Toyota Sienna (the “Original Swagger Wagon,” whatever that means…) It’s also the name of a city in Italy – more on that in a second.

The Pantone Sienna’s vary widely and are very different from paints of the same name; in pantone world, Burnt Sienna is more akin to a deep salmon. Raw Sienna, rather than being a brown-ocher, is a deep red-brown.

When I began to get really excited about Sienna: Along with ochre and umber, sienna was one of the first pigments to be used by humans and is found in primitive art including cave paintings.

New analysis of ancient handprints suggests that handprints in ancient cave art most often belonged to women, overturning years of assumption that the earliest artists were all men. Fun fact!

The first recorded use of the name, “sienna,” was in 1760. The name originates from the Italian, “terra di Siena,” or Siena earth…

Siena is the Italian city that produced most of the world’s supply of sienna during the Renaissance. During the Renaissance, it was used in its “burned” form as dark brown by most artists.

categories: Color Theory, Graphic Design, New Media, Video
Sunday 02.14.16
Posted by aj hanneld
Comments: 2
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