For this project we are tasked with creating a motion graphics outcome based on Glasgow Central Station.
So where else better to start than Central itself.
The information on the tour was immense, but seeing the physical history of the station was by far the most interesting for me. Seeing all the hidden parts of central station and the story of years gone by was fascinating. The leader of the tour Paul Lyons spoke to us about what we were doing saying that Interaction Design has been a great help for them, seeing some work in the wild was also good as it gave an idea of the context that this work could be used in as well as Cat in the Monday Morning sessions saying that this type of data vis art helps people process visualise and relate to large quantities of data. Paul mentioned that people were able to pick out relatives and their own home addresses from the video which was a great insight into how the general public react to this sort of work.
Looking at the given examples of work I was already familiar with a few of the studios from my time in college, Iso and Axis studios. I attended a talk by Iso in 2016 talking about the Commonwealth Games and how they achieved the visuals for the opening ceremony. It was really interesting to hear and I remember a lot of the parts of the talk “we were the first company to really hammer After Effects”. Really don’t know why I remember it but I think it was because of the fact it was after effects, a program I used being put to work on the global scale, I have always found this sort of context really inspiring, seeing what I could potentially do once I got to grips with the software.
I was also familiar with Axis’ studios work already as they create a lot of the cinematics, animations etc for games that I play, they also came to my college to talk about jobs and such, I didn’t really get a lot from that talk but its great to see a more local studio being used for these huge games.
Looking further into our given examples, one of our DHT readings was actually by Lev Manovich, it was on the topic of new media and how to identify it. Which I think was really handy and insightful, his paper written over 20 years ago is still relevant and almost shapes the futur, it also touches on some of the points discussed in the overview and was a really good crossover.
I also found a twitter account last used in 2013 posting some of his tweets.
Don’t really know what I took from this but I found it quite funny.
I also looked into different animation techniques / styles such as the 12 rules of animation
A lot of this is to do with character animation, I don’t plan on doing this but it leads to a cleaner and more satisfying animation for the viewer. Things like staging will still apply to this as it is intended to guide the viewers eyes and things like follow through will give things a more realistic sense of movement / speed.
Collage Studies
Looking again more into the given examples of Alan Fletcher, some of his collage work I found really interesting.
https://karenhanrahan.zenfolio.com/blog/2018/1/integrating-typography-into-collage
I also found this blog by really interesting, using collage and typography to create some really interesting stuff, the use of people, type and different types of imagery create some really engaging outcomes. I think because it has that physical look and everyone knows how fun it is to create collages.
I looked into Hannah Hochs work also, I really like the playfulness of this work combining animals, humans, illustrations statues etc to create some really surreal works.
and Kurt Schwitters
I found Kurts work interesting for almost the opposite reason of Hannahs work, his mix of materials, blocks of colour and limited text. It looks like something you would find on the ground outside, but there is defiantly something charming about this.
Some collages I quickly made using images from google of Glasgow Central, new and old incorporating type also. I however think that I need to be careful with committing to this idea due to the time constraints of the project. I do however like the idea of focusing on the history of Glasgow central station, using the collage look to unravel / unwrap the story of Glasgow central as Paul Lyons said on the tour, “if these walls could speak who knows the stories they’d tell”. I feel like the use of paper and such is a good callback to the tour, as there was a lot of old documents, diagrams and books from the stations history in the tour.
Workshop
I found the expression part of this workshop interesting with the use of looping, will be helpful with precomps etc and improving workflows, stops just copying and pasting keyframes etc.
After Effects
Looking at my last files I saved out from after effects I realised I probably haven’t used it in well over a year, so I need to get myself re acquainted with the program.
Trying to get animating again using squash and stretch to animate a bouncing ball, attempting to make the movement look natural proves a challenge however the outcomes are worth it.
I created this animated look for a friend of a friends wax melt business that never got used, interesting playing about with the effects and lighting within after effects.
A bit of a shameless plug of my own instagram as well here but I made these in college as development for a kinetic type project.
I also have some previous work with stop motion as well
Although its quite a tedious process stop motion can be extremely rewarding as it produces a very unique effect. This was created using an app on my iPhone then composited using after effects. I suppose this also shows the power of after effects being a multi faceted program.
Some other after effects work I’ve done in the past using the various effects such as the page turning in the first video and also wiggle expressions in the second.
These are all things id like to incorporate into my video, however I know how long it takes to get things working successfully in after effects so it’ll be a challenge to get this done and two minutes is a lot of time. As I want my project to be one that conveys information the text on screen will be in a way my saving grace as the information will need to be on screen long enough to read, however this doesn’t make it any easier as I essentially need to play around this information ensuring it is readable and enough will fit into the animation.
Topics of Interest
-Grahamston and the origins of the station; “Glasgows forgotten village”
-War effort; well documented
-beeching cuts; beeching axe
Theres lots of impactful things to focus on with the history of the station. Especially through the rival railway companies etc
I found this site an interesting read into the history of the station as well as the impact of its construction to the people of Grahamston with it stating that it displaced around 10000 people. Grahamston was also home to Glasgows first theatre.
In modern times £80 million was spent in the 1990’s to refurbish the station with the goal of conserving and restoring. The roof structure, Hielanman’s Umbrella were refurbished and new station buildings were constructed, replicating the original work by James Millar.
Glasgow Central is also the site of crime, the highest in Scotland which I suppose is no surprise, even I have experienced my fair share of this, however, as important the issue is, I don’t want to focus on that, I feel like focusing on the crime won’t do the station any favours as everyone really already knows about this, I would much rather focus on the more hidden details, that are literally hidden underground.
Peeling back layers
Just using filler text here but this is something like what I want to achieve, the information is buried underneath the station, the images in this case will be archive footage from the station.
I however may simplify this as reading the text proves quite difficult perhaps one tear separating images and text.This will also allow me to fill the screen easier and not be as limited to the square my collage takes up.
Im having a bit of a hard time collecting footage for this project so I may create a timelapse of me walking around the area of Grahamston.
Here I have a rough start as to what my animation will look like, it will however be rejigged to accommodate the information better, this look I feel at the moment is more suited to pictures and video rather than containing text as it cuts it off and makes it harder to read. I do like the way it turns out however, the idea of peeling back the layers of the station to learn what lies beneath.
For this mockup I have stolen some archive footage off youtube of a train leaving the station in the 60’s. Its always interesting looking at footage like this because you can pick apart whats still there and how the station has changed over time.
As this kind of looks a bit like a powerpoint transition I do want to polish it up a bit, wanting to perhaps have the individual parts of the video/ image tearing off
This is something a bit similar to what I intend to create, a simplified version with more readable text.
Thinking of incorporating stop motion with different parts such as the intro or different segments on what the videos about. I have a phone tripod on the way so hopefully that will arrive soon so I can more easily create footage for it.
Was going to colour correct the paper but i feel it makes it look more real
For the submission version I will polish up the tearing animation to make it look more natural perhaps using a tearing paper video as reference, or perhaps mask out a video of me actually tearing paper.
I also need to polish up the use of text as it kind of looks a bit slapped on, I also want the imagery on the screen to do with the text displayed however as there is not much footage / photos of Grahamston it is proving difficult.
Further Video Dev
Intro for Grahamston letters will slowly be pieced together perhaps even from a bundle of letters so that its as if its being found/ dug up over time. I want to convey the idea that it has been forgotten perhaps as a title / subheading in the intro but without using those exact words, don’t want to copy the book.
I combined all these elements as in order to create my animation, I would have liked to include more footage / images but due to outside factors such as time and money I couldn’t do so.
with my animation I ensured to create a more fluid look due to adding arcs and easy ease, arcs are used to make a more fluid animation more akin to an actual natural movement vs a robotic one.
I also came into some technical difficulties with the techniques I was using such as the page turning and keying effects not playing ball with each other, so I had to adjust my animation to accommodate this, such as changing part of it to the pages moving off the screen instead of another tear, however I do think this is a good thing as it keeps it changing, not as repetitive.
Future Thoughts
I would love to add some sort of audio for this, it feels like its missing something because of this, however the element of time made and me not being at all musically inclined so could not generate my own.
I’d also like to polish the animations a bit more as well as make it a bit more “dynamic” that being with subtle animations / more footage in order to make it a bit more alive. I found the brief really interesting I learned a lot about the city which is surprising considering I’ve been in and out of Glasgow as long as I can remember. Laying this project out was something I was much more used to going a bit more back to my roots in college. However I don’t really know if thats a good or bad thing for me, I did get various flashbacks with the different strange interactions and bugs that After Effects brings, However thats just part of the process.
Stewart Marshall IxD 