How does the Instant Camera Work?
One of my many hobbies is film! I usually stick to an automatic point-and-shoot camera and develop and edit my film strips at home. Though not cost-effective, I also adore instant cameras like the Fujifilm INSTAX MINI, Polaroids Now, and other cameras of the instant variety. Invented in 1948, the Model 95 Land Camera was the first instant camera invented by the eventual co-founder of Polaroid Corporation, Edwin H. Land. I set out to interpret and visualize how instant photography works in an animated explainer video. Over my career as a designer, I have often utilized After Effects and other animation programs to animate spot illustrations, logos, backgrounds, and everything in between for clients. However, I wanted to create a longer, more story-driven piece of motion design work that encapsulated all my skills as a storyteller.
This short, animated explainer is a personal project I created as my final project for a motion design course, Motion Foundations with Ben Marriott. Here, I explore several different animation techniques, combining technical knowledge of Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and Procreate to produce this animated short. I crafted the script, the storyboards, and the style frames in addition to all the animation, editing, and audio selection.
After brainstorming for an idea, I landed on instant photography and immediately went into scripting. Alongside my script, I sketched out my storyboard (above). Below you can see my style frames for this project that helped guide the production. It was important to me to make sure each frame was visually engaging and unique while still feeling like a cohesive visual story.
This entire project was composed in After Effects. I utilized many different techniques and plug-ins to create a dynamic piece of animation. For a handful of scenes, I used frame-by-frame techniques to achieve smooth, complex animation. Above you can see some of the rough animations I created to guide the final scenes in After Effects. I am very passionate about frame-by-frame animation and throughout this project refined my process in creating animations by hand and then rendering them using After Effects. Below are some of my favorite final scenes.
