Non-Linear Community
Kari Everson | Fall ’20 | Motion Graphics
Prompt:
The use of non-linear narrative is a technique that portrays events out of chronological order — often without an exact beginning and end. It dates back to oral traditions of ancient times and is increasingly common in contemporary media.
Develop a vignette or vignettes that features a non-linear narrative and whose message is based on a vision of community. How you choose to interpret ‘community’ is up to you.
Overview: Dystopia
An imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.
For this last motion project I chose to make 3 videos each a minute long based on the them of Dystopian worlds. To achieve this I selected 3 movies/books that I have seen, that depicted epic dystopian worlds and I felt that I could really have fun making. From here I created each video using type, shape animations, old screen effects, and ominous/haunting soundtracks to portray these movies/books. My final outcome are 3 videos representing:
- Dystopian Nation — The Purge
- Dystopian District — The Hunger Games
- Dystopian Society — 1984
Besides telling stories and messages I also just really wanted this project to be another learning experience for me personally. After Effects is still somewhat new to me and I wanted to try achieving more creations strictly being created in After Effects.
Reflecting:
When looking back on my process and the steps that I took in this project, I would say that I worked really hard on these videos and they took a lot of time and effort. I’m still going to say I struggled because After Effects will always be a learning curve for me and especially because my computer is old and has a hard time running the system. I will say this is the first time that I had a pretty solid vision of what I wanted to do and that helped a lot getting this project done in a timely fashion. If I’m being truthful here what I struggled with the most was feedback and guidance on my videos. I felt like all the hard hours I had put in to learn an effect was crushed in one minute because my videos were too “obvious” when thinking dystopian worlds. I understand where these comments were coming from but these effects were really hard to learn and I worked really hard on them. And I wasn’t really given guidance as to how to approach it differently.
Big shoutout to Arjun who helped talk me through some things and helped me learn more tricks in After Effects and overall just be really supportive in this process. I learned so much in a matter of 2 weeks from him.
Overall I think my videos turned out pretty good and I’m personally happy with them and that’s really all that matters at the end of the day. It’s like many people say; enjoy being in grad school because you’ll never be creating things that are fully your decisions. This project is also going on during MFA 2 Thesis presentations week and the main goal was just to get this project done at this point. Also all three of my videos were able to render in Media Encoder which is a huge win for me because I’ve never been able to render in Media Encoder. Truthfully though each video took about an hour to render but they still made it out! For some reason I had the best luck with the tech for this project.
Step #1 — Sketches:
The sketching phase I kind just went through really quickly. For this project it was better for me to start creating in After Effects instead of sketching things out. I think because I already knew the storylines and I wanted to keep the transitions simple. I did start off by saying I would be making one of my videos based off of the movie and book, Divergent, decided doing it on 1984 because I had a better idea and concept in mind for the animation. Also Arjun thought it would be a better one instead of the idea I had for the Divergent animation.
Step #2 — Drafts + First Phases:
The first video I created was The Purge animation. I had an idea right away in my head and so I pretty much created the entire video in the first week. The second video I created was The Hunger Games animation. This week was the rough one where I got the feedback that my videos were too obvious. Honestly being told this really made me second guess myself on this project. And I had been having fun up until this point. After much thinking personally and talking it through with others I had decided that all my decisions were the right choice. I’ve always taken feedback into consideration in all my projects in grad school but this is the first one that I decided to go with what I wanted for once and that’s what I proceeded to do. The last video created was the 1984 animation and this one I really changed things up a bit. Starting in Illustrator and then bringing elements into After Effects.
Step #3 — Finals:
Here is my final videos for the Non-Linear (Community) project. Three, 1-min videos showing 3 dystopian worlds.
Dystopia: Nation
Inspried by The Purge is a 2013 American dystopian action horror film. In an America ravaged by crime and overcrowded prisons, the government sanctions an annual 12-hour period during which all criminal activity — including murder — is legal. James Sandin and his family face the ultimate test when an intruder drags the vicious outside world into their home. James, Mary and their two children struggle to survive the night while trying not to turn into monsters like the ones they are striving to avoid.
Dystopia: District
Inspried by The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels and films. In what was once North America, the Capitol of Panem maintains its hold on its 12 districts by forcing them each to select a boy and a girl, called Tributes, to compete in a nationally televised event called the Hunger Games. Every citizen must watch as the youths fight to the death until only one remains. District 12 Tribute Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) has little to rely on, other than her hunting skills and sharp instincts, in an arena where she must weigh survival against love.
Dystopia: Society
Inspired by Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English novelist George Orwell. A man loses his identity while living under a repressive regime. In a story based on George Orwell’s classic novel, Winston Smith is a government employee whose job involves the rewriting of history in a manner that casts his fictional country’s leaders in a charitable light. His trysts with Julia provide his only measure of enjoyment, but lawmakers frown on the relationship — and in this closely monitored society, there is no escape from Big Brother.
