OUAN505 - Finalising the Forest Scene

The forest scene was one of the first scenes we came up with as a group. The idea of having a moving shot of the paper cut outs really appealed to us, and this was the sequence of scenes it featured in. Gavin produced the bulk of the scene and I only had to change a couple of things before it was finalised for the final animation. Firstly, the Earth scenes that were used looked too over exposed and needed to be dulled down. I simply replaced these with the original shot of the Earth we had so that there was consistency through the animation and it also looked a higher resolution because the image hadn't been resized. After rendering the scene from After Effects and listening back to make sure everything was as it should be, I realised that the two shots of the Earth within this specific sequence were virtually identical. To add variation to the scenes and to make it so they had a better purpose whilst tying it in to the narrative I decided to make some adjustments. The first time it is shown it's illustrating the point that trees help make up the Earth's atmosphere. To emphasis this I created a blue ring to go round the outside of the Earth on Photoshop and for the duration of the scene altered the opacity between about 10-50% so that it was obvious to the audience what was being visualised. The second time the shot is on screen it is so visualise the idea of climate change. To link both scenes together I added a red ring around the outside and proceeded to create the same effect by altering the opacity - again visualising the point that was being addressed in the narration.

I think there are certain areas of the animation that do need additional things like this to make sure that the audience fully grasps the concepts being talked about, otherwise there would be no real reason to have visuals - so they have to be complimentary to the narration and not detrimental. Aside from the practical aspect it does add something to the scene in terms of movement and we were going for the subtle but necessary style when it came to moving images and the amount of movement we included. I also think we have been relatively efficient in terms of the imagery that have been used, and reusing this particular scene several times throughout the duration of the animation isn't an issue as long as it is consistent. In a way it become recognisable for the audience and the way it has been used on each scene where the narration mentions the Earth as a whole instead of just a specific aspect of the world means that its even more evident what is being discussed.