06 | Motion Graphics
(Individual Contribution)
Project Brief
Information in motion (infomotion) provides the designer with tools for unfolding an infographic-based story. This project's goal is to develop a 40-180 second infomotion based on the topic 'I've always wondered...'. In order to successfully and rationally express complicated topics, the motion graphic must immediately summon rhetorically significant signals and symbols. Overall, the finished product must be distinctive and include concept creation, research, screenplay writing, storyboarding, sound, art, and animation strategically. Because it will be broadcast on the Information Design YouTube channel, the infomotion must be customised to a large and diverse target audience.
Project Deliverables
• Workshop assignments
• Moodboard
• Research
• Conceptual development
Design Strategy
It's generally understood that gossip isn't a great thing. No one wants to be labelled a gossip, and yet everyone seems to partake in this guilty pleasure. Why is that? Hence our brief took us down the path of thinking "I've always wondered why gossip is so universal, but maintains such a bad rep?". Research uncovered that gossip is an ancient practice, and the term itself comes from more wholesome and innocent beginnings. Negative associations with gossip can be traced through history along a clear path of pervasive sexism and patriarchy. Gossip is bad because it's an activity associated with women.
The design of our animation fell into 3 parts: script writing and voiceovers; visual style; and music and sound effects.
The script is brought to life by a female narrator explaining the surprising origins, instances, associations and effects of gossip through time. While the narrative starts off more factual and humourous, by the end, the viewer is drawn in emotionally by how gossip has often served as a lifeline for women in various struggles for equality. Three male voices serve to portray the negative stereotypes associated with gossip, allowing the female narrator to deliver the story in a more conversational and contextual way.
The visual style seeks to show the pervasiveness of gossip and how quickly it travels. Moreover, gossip affects people and environments, whether it is good or bad. Visually, gossip is represented as a lightweight, abstract orb that affects everything around it with light reflections. There is a sensory, tactile feeling about the orb, creating the sense of intimacy felt when sharing gossip with someone. Yellow represents gossip as a high-energy colour, while the pink and blue reference the gender dynamic. The infomotion also incorporates found video clips that are popular and easily recognisable to drive the viewers' recognition of gossip's ubiquity in the greater culture.
Music is a key driver of the narrative, creating a steady but eager build-up to the climax of the story. This seeks to mimic how people listening to gossip try to be patient, but are always itching to reach the key points.
Individual Contributions
Overall this project was truly a collaborative effort. From conceptualising to storyboarding we worked together, building the concept and creating the narrative. It was only during the animation phase that we adopted the strategy of divide and conquer. Every group member contributed in some way to the project's design, from conceptualisation and research to drawing and animation. We collaborated to do research, develop the script, and come to conceptual conclusions throughout all stages of the project. As most individuals worked on different components of a single scene, we also got together as a group to storyboard each of the many scenes.
Myself and Lana lead the animation while the other members of the team were in charge of the sound design and some animated sections. Lana and I worked as a team for most of the scenes whereby she would illustrate and I would animate and do the transitions. I was also in charge of making sure that all the people kept a consistent look and feel as I was also responsible for developing the visual style. I was also in charge of doing the large parts of animation to keep a consistent style such as the scene of the orb inside of the body as well as the story/folklore scene and the full final scene.
Research and Development
The research and development process of the concept (from initial research about gossip, scriptwriting and storyboard sketches) was a true collaboration between all team members. At each step, each member would work on their own to develop ideas, present these to the group, and then the final concepts would be reached through iterations, adjustments and combinations of the best ideas. The script, visual style and storyboards went through many iterations before settling on the final directions.
To see all of our process work and development click here.
Final Script
Style Exploration
For our first animation test, we created a rotoscoped video animation, as well as a collage-style animation. Based on the feedback we received on these tests we moved on to our second round of animation tests where we refined these styles. For the third round of testing, we combined the two styles, creating an animation with a mixture of hand-drawn imagery and found images. We finally landed on our visual style in the fourth round of testing, settling on bold colours and frame-by-frame animation.
Audio
In order to fully immerse the audience in the animated infographic, the sound design for this project was created using Epidemic Sound and unique sound effects. The main musical selection was "Melting Glass," an intriguing work by Eden Avery that was timed to the beat of the plot, rising and falling in a dynamic manner to match the action as it happened. With a purposeful emphasis on key scenes, the music progressively fades away in time for the story's conclusion, heightening the emotional effect. Moreover, the integration of customised sound effects enhances the auditory encounter by imparting a feeling of realism and complexity, so augmenting the audience's interaction with the animation's universe.
Storyboard Development
In our design work, storyboarding was a step-by-step process. Using the top-down method, we took it one script line at a time, thus creating various visual solutions. Each group member individually created a visual idea and then we met as a group to discuss the storyboard section collaboratively. This process repeated throughout the project for each section, thus we utilised an iterative design process when storyboarding.
To see all of our storyboard process click here.
YouTube Thumbnail and Description
Ever wondered why gossip get’s such a bad rap? Or why do we do it at all? Humans have been gossiping since the invention of spoken language, it creates accountability and brings people closer together, so why is it so vilified? Spoiler alert, it might have something to do with patriarchy...
Final Infomotion
Final Storyboard and Animation Contributions
