#animated loops

Animated commissions are open!

45 USD for a simple animated loop

New Post has been published on https://videopress.newonline.help/2020/11/23/revolut-how-to-video/

REVOLUT - How to Video

Revolut offers a range of digital banking services in a mobile app targeted at young tech-savvy users

During the Covid lockdown of April 2020, Revolut approached us in order to create some stickers, GIFs and animated cards, for their new app. The users would attach these cards when sending money to someone else,  through the Revolut app. The loops could not be more than 4-5 seconds.

There were 8 core subjects. We were asked to create concepts, direct, illustrate and animate: 

1. Staycation 2. House Party – Bedroom Beers 3. Happy birthday 4. Shopping (split the cost) 5. Roadtrip 6. Date Night 7. Long Distance Relationship 8. Freedom

Client: Revolut Created by Odd Bleat … Direction | Script | Creative Direction: Yannis Zoumakis, Manos Gerogiannis Design: Yannis Zoumakis 2D Animation: Manos Gerogiannis, Spyros Loran, Andreas Maris Cell Animation: Alexandros Apostolakis

I’ll admit that I’m still a bit confused about the exact brief/expectations for all the research work (it seems to be mixed up in the collaboration/research report proposal?), but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find Mhairi’s lecture on Monday useful. Some of what she talked about was quite similar to what we then heard during the ANI WIP conference, in terms of employable skills and networking, but we also spent a lot of time looking at job titles, descriptions, and postings - learning how to break them down and ‘translate’ them to get a clearer sense of what each job would be like, and what would be required. 

A lot of that was similar to employability talks I’ve been to in the past, but we also looked at web design. The thing Mhairi stressed most was that every choice leaves an impression - and that not keeping track of where those choices were made and left lying around can leave the wrong impression of you out in the world. This would be things like leaving an obsolete website up, or continuing to adhere to trends in design, colour psychology, etc that are now outdated. 

The other thing to consider there, though, is audience: different people react in different ways to the same stimuli, and the point of personal branding is to figure out what message you want to send, but also which audience you want to reach, and how to communicate that message to them specifically. A corporate client, for example, might see sophistication in simplicity and a monochromatic palette, while someone looking to hire for a kids’ TV network might look for bright colour that suggests a sense of fun and creativity. 

The other project we kicked off this week was the animated loops; producing short looping sequences that could be used for emojis on an app. We have a base template of a face that we have to begin and end with, and the pieces should reflect something of our experience as animators. 

My immediate go-to was a yawn, possibly because at the time I was running on about five hours’ sleep. 

That ended up as a little initial experiment, just playing around with expression and timing. We’re allowed to import assets from other programs like photoshop and TVPaint, but I actually quite enjoy the motion graphics style of after effects; it allows for very bright, clean-looking creations, which I’ve always found myself drawn to for reasons that I still can’t quite explain. It’s especially odd that I enjoy that aesthetic when so much of the appeal of stop motion for me is in intricate detail. 

This final term admittedly wasn’t my favorite, but was full of valuable lessons and projects. The first project, the animated loops, was a quick and simple animation project in After Effects where we were given a peg bar and told to visualize three emotions of an animator. I chose fury, exhaustion, and the third was more like a representation of artist’s block and trying to take off with an idea. I’m most proud of the exhaustion one (which shows a face yawning) because every loop makes the viewer sleepy or want to yawn. I did an extra fourth animated loop of a pigeon ruffling its feathers because I wanted to show my improvement in motion graphics animation since the first time I learned it, and have to say I’m most proud of that animation despite it not fitting the project’s standards.

The second project was Personal Branding and Career Planning where we were required to research companies and jobs that fit our professions, make a show reel of this year’s animations, and design an online portfolio with a CV. In the process of researching jobs on Indeed.com for my project, I had also applied to multiple companies for summer internships, and surprisingly landed one in a gaming company called Firaxis back in the US near my home, where I’d be doing editing and illustrative work similar to concept art (my dream job). In the process of applying and interviewing, I drew up a CV, which later turned into a creative CV, with my education, work experience, skills, awards, and exhibitions I’d been included in since I was originally pursuing fine art before university. My show reel was the easiest part of the project, since I only had to put together my best work and find suitable non-copyright music. The website was a struggle since I’m not used to organizing website pages. I made sure to choose a consistent color pallet, font, and email throughout the site to make sure any viewer could easily find it.

The third project was the Collaborative Visual Essay in a group of eight people, who all got along really well and the project was easily sorted in a reasonable amount of time. My group chose the Pixar film Brave, then quickly chose a color pallet we all agreed on. The rolls we were supposed to assign to each other didn’t seem all that important because we all did a little work on everything and added whatever anyone else missed. The only independent part of the project was our individual animated scenes, which we all agree to animate in After Effects. We did have trouble setting up meetings online over the spring holiday since most people were with family or had bad connection, but we were always updating one another over text.