This student project was my first try on creating an animated movie in After Effects, which made me want to give a shot to as many animation techniques as possible and deep-dive into the software.
I had to choose a track less than 2 minutes long, with a minimum amount of vocals and rich instrumentals. The shortlist of songs mainly consisted of A. G. Cook, the final choice fell on the track called "Anything Could Happen". I heard a division into compositional parts and a gradual complication of sound, while the lyrics served as the plot basis of the video — after studying it, I wanted to tell the story of a butterfly that fell into captivity.
As a part of the project, I had the opportunity to work with hand-drawn animation I drawn in Photoshop and then imported it into After Effects. In one of the fragments you can see stop-motion — I photographed Lego compositions using a photo box. The final part of the video illustrates my experience with video shootings. I was also greatly favored by numerous photos of real butterflies, the ones generated by Midjourney and emoji animation from Telegram.
Even at the stage of researching references and creating sketches, I came up with the idea that realistic appearance of a butterfly would illustrate moments when it is in captivity, it was caught and chained. The image of butterfly transforms into a painting in moments of fantasies about the past in freedom and desire to get out.
I also decided to divide typography into two types — the first illustrates a real butterfly (Apple Garamond), and the second supports the drawn butterfly and adopts its style.
I also decided to divide typography into two types — the first illustrates a real butterfly (Apple Garamond), and the second supports the drawn butterfly and adopts its style.
The color palette of the video is dictated by the color of the main character — in addition to pure black and white, I used blue (#0C00FF) and its shades that appeared as a result of applying effects.
Many of the effects were found by accident, but they had a common goal — to demonstrate the transitional states of the butterfly, it’s feelings and emotions.
