"Ever since I learned what Kinetic Typography was, I wanted to try my hand at creating it. I chose a more simplistic cartoony style of presenting my animation because that style appeals to me and I thought it would be something I might actually be able to do (having no experience in Flash), versus very detailed work. The content came to me when I realized that there are things I both like and dislike about Toronto but still consider it home. My goal was to outline this in a kinetic typography animation so I might remember how I felt only a few months of living here and show other people my perspective.
My target audience is anyone interested in living in Toronto or who already lives here and wants a different perspective of the city. I tried to mention as many different aspects of the city as possible so the animation wouldn’t portray itself as a student perspective. Besides the mention of Ryerson, I think the different factors could apply to anyone. I made the script somewhat humorous so people wouldn’t take my words entirely seriously; reminding them that everyone has different opinions.
I had to really hone my Flash skills with this animation. I had at least made sure to write and record my script ahead of time, plus draw storyboards, so I could get straight to work on the animation. I ended up making a ton of movie clips inside movie clips because I wanted different elements to move and repeat while other things were going on on stage. Motion tweens and action script were used heavily throughout. I used masks as part of some of my movie clips to make words appear/disappear. I had to employ my Fireworks pen skills once more to trace the Toronto city hall logo, a maple leaf and ram horns. I even used a guide to move broken apart letters in a word to make it look like they were blown in the air. All this was done while using my typographic knowledge of fonts and my awareness of design concepts like repetition in certain movie clips, contrast between good and bad elements, alignment of my text and drawn images, and proximity, mostly in how many words I put on the stage at one time.
When I found out some of the things I wanted to put in my assignment weren’t as easy to animate as they were to storyboard, I really had to get to know Flash to accomplish my goals. I anticipated a lot of work, but I was still surprised with how much time I had to put into the assignment to achieve what I wanted. I actually made my button screens last so I had to make a new scene for my opening frames. I also realized to make an existing movie clip a button with different elements; you need to make a duplicate of said movie clip. I had a lot of problems with certain movie clips within movie clips looping which made me realize I had to put action script to make the movie clips stop after one run-through. I debated over having background music and background images, and decided to go with music but not images, because both would be too distracting, but the music would add a new layer of mood to the piece whereas I thought imagery would be too busy or confusing.
It was really application of knowledge from the tutorials and expanding on it that accomplished this project. Without the basic knowledge I never would have known where to start, but without the gall to move forward and experiment I wouldn’t have gotten the result I was looking for. In the end, I’m proud that I managed to turn out a product that is similar to and improves upon my storyboard models. I even ended up with animations where I hadn’t planned them originally! I worked really hard on this animation and I think it paid off."
I scanned in my storyboards so you can see what my initial ideas were. Here they are:
(Click to see them close up)
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