Title Sequence Project

Storyboard

The storyboard was little more than very rough sketches, since
we both had a clear idea of the sequence in our minds anyway.

Edit Decision List
- When the idea of the explosion behind the buildings was suggested by Tommy, we decided to have two shots: the long pan over the city for most of the credits, and then a cutaway to a representation of the LA skyline, which the explosion would be behind.
- We quickly divvied up the two external elements required, the images and the music, since each would play to our experience in each field. Tommy has experience with music, and thus composed the music. I have experience with creating minimalistic imagery in Illustrator, and thus I would create the two image files needed.
- Used dafont.com for the credits font, since they have many suitable public domain fonts to choose from.
- Used detonationfilms.com for the explosion required after finding a suitable clip that is free to be used for all purposes, both commercial and private.
- Added an unplanned fire effect at the bottom of the screen when a suitable clip was stumbled upon while searching for an explosion on detonationfilms.com.
- Considered adding a smoke effect in background, but the proposed detonationfilms.com video was too low-quality to be used.
- Another detonationfilms.com clip, this one of a simulated nuclear bomb effect, was also considered but was vetoed by Tommy, who thought that since it did not have the lightning present in actual nuclear explosions, and adding After Effects lightning would have been too obvious an effect, it would be better to go with the generic explosion used.
- Stumbled upon the 'dispersal' effect the text of the credits have when they disappear when I was playing around with the text to make it look interesting. Also decided upon the transparent-text-on-red-drop-shadow nature of the credits in the same way.
- Decided on timing of the sequence when the music was listened to thoroughly and the following edit points pinpointed and timed: the beginning of the long pan, the cut from the long pan to the zoom out, and the explosion.
- The producer and director credits being added separately from the main credits was decided on when not only would that mean the rest of the credits would fit the long pan near perfectly, but also would be closer to an actual movie title sequence, where high-level positions such as producers and directors not only get pride of place at the end of the sequence, but often have credits that last longer than the rest as well.
- Decided to not bother with the original idea of having the word "TERMINATOR" explode, forming various anagrams as it did, such as "ATOM WAR". Not only would this have been a hard job to make it look anything but an incredibly bad text motion effect, but it also would have been extremely time consuming to do, and ended up being more trouble than it was worth.

Research
For the second shot zooming out of the group of buildings, we looked at images of the Los Angeles skyline. While admittedly the image did not end up looking that similar to the familiar group of skyscrapers, I did attempt to create a vague semblance of the skyline in the minimalist style of the sequence, having a photograph open in my internet browser for reference while I created the image.

Self-assessment

While the final product may have its faults, from a production standpoint this project has been a resounding success. Not only have I solidified my Illustrator skills, proving to myself that I can create fantastic-looking images in Illustrator easily and (relatively) quickly while working within a minimalist style, but also have gotten into After Effects. While, naturally, I am still not fluent with the program, this project has gotten me over the initial phase you encounter with most high-end programs of being unable to figure out the interface. Now that I have a basic grounding and a vague idea of what does what, where it is in the interface, and how to do it, I can now expand my skills in my own time with the version of the software I have at home.

So from the perspective of production, it was pretty much the ideal college project: quick, stress-free and skill-expanding. The perspective of evaluating the final piece, however, is a slightly different matter.

Before we go into negatives though, I have to say I could not be prouder of the images I created.  No doubt to other people they seem basic, perhaps even too basic, to me they represent a massive achievement. While I had some experience with Illustrator beforehand, this project was the first major work I created with the program, and it came out looking far better than I could have imagined. It taught me some valuable shortcuts, for example, when my piles of rubble just looked like ugly, indistinct blobs, I hit upon the idea that since I was creating the effect of damaged buildings by haphazardly cutting chunks out of the buildings with the Knife tool, instead of just deleted the removed sections I could chop them up further with the Knife tool and have the resulting jagged pieces jutting out of the rubble piles. The resulting effect was so good that I ended up having more piles of nondescript mess than distinct architecture than I planned, since a blob with chopped-up building poking out of it is both easier and quicker to do than figuring out a way to create, say, a collapsed highway or other such urban architecture in the minimalist art style.

The music was not my concern, but I was happy with how it came out. The overly loud recording of the file, once the file had its volume turned down in editing, created a distorted, industrial sound to the piece that was both appropriate to the context and novel in concept. It also had very clear points that we could sync the images to, which made the process of editing far easier.

As for the After Effects side of the equation... well, this is where the negatives start to come in. While I am happy with how my images were used, and found the animation of the text to be not fantastic but certainly not bad, the Achilles heel of the sequence is most definitely the explosions. They're okay for a first attempt, but judged on their own they really aren't of sufficiently high quality in my opinion. The chroma keying applied to the clips are painfully obvious, and the fact that the clips had to be scaled up from their original dimensions to fit the composition didn't help matters. Up until then, the sequence is good enough, but when the explosions appear at the end, it becomes incredibly amateurish very quickly. I suppose we both now know how to chroma key a clip in After Effects, so at least it was a learning experience, but it still lets down what was otherwise a perfectly acceptable sequence.

Overall then, the project was certainly not one that was little more than quietly going through the motions and leaves no impression once it is completed. It had both highs and lows, and left me with valuable experience and skills that I can take with me going forward and am already developing further in my own time. Already, I can add titles to a project that are synced with the movement of the camera in a video, and have expanded into creating far more things in Illustrator using the same minimalist art style I used here, to the point that I am now confident enough to attempt to create an entire short comic strip in the program for Practice in Context. So, while I may not be too thrilled with the outcome that resulted from the project, the skills and experience I obtained are extremely valuable.

Bibliography

The Terminator (1984) HD Intro, YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTvvCft3gpo (last accessed 19/10/12) 

Dominator Font by Andreas Lindholm: http://www.dafont.com/dominator.font (last accessed 12/10/12)

Terminator Real NFI Font by Norfok Incredible Font Design: http://www.dafont.com/terminator-real-nfi.font (last accessed 12/10/12)

Image of Los Angeles skyline: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPbjv4QsaibOGUsyMBqV4yGP9ztiVU4S4yrg6j9JlWyUGyz_TxBkI0qpVxB_xqqy23CMn3m0SZ1D0_fr7i6Xa03Ezxw3hLI8S8GyXyq-PJFQ9jC_I2dM0myY7nxgOugSMYRt2_W6ED7jNt/s1600/MMA+Los+Angeles.jpg (last accessed 11/10/12)

'ArcRipper' spreading fire effect by Detonation Films: http://detonationfilms.com/UnitK-2.html (last accessed 12/10/12)

'Aftermath02' rejected smoke effect by Detonation Films: http://detonationfilms.com/UnitK-4.html (last accessed 12/10/12)

'DV_HDBR13' explosion effect by Detonation Films: http://detonationfilms.com/UnitK-10.html (last accessed 12/10/12)

'Nuke01' rejected nuclear cloud effect by Detonation Films: http://detonationfilms.com/free_stuff_page_2.htm (last accessed 12/10/12)

'black.jpg' black screen used for background and fades: http://www.ledr.com/colours/black.jpg (last accessed 12/10/12)

'LIGHTBOX.jpg' white screen used for flash fade: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3aXh3CLrVlg/Tc2_MTv14LI/AAAAAAAABX8/Oij_0Mk-0_U/s1600/LIGHTBOX.jpg (last accessed 12/10/12)