COMMERCIAL PROJECT - HAFEST IDENT: ENTRY 1

The 2^nd commercial project was to create an animation festival ident for this year’s HAFEST (Hastings Animation Festival). The length of the animation should be roughly around 10 seconds however depending on the animation we were informed that there is some leeway of going beyond the 10 seconds rule. Aside from the minimal length of the animation the brief also states to include the date as well as the location of where the event is taking place.

Unlike the previous commercial project (the university logo reveal) that had its own issues in terms of encountering problems and the need to in turn solve such issues that’ll inevitably arise. I believe the plans I’ve laid out for this animation festival will be by far the most ambitious project I’ve under taken thus far, however is within an achievable time frame. The reason as to why I believe and consider my project will be to an extent “ambitious” is because I intent to create a professional motion graphic piece that is slick, snappy and smooth. The animation will be split up into 3 sections, the first element will include a wine glass sliding onto the center of the screen then an orange fluid will fill the glass. Shortly after this a pink hand will appear dipping into the wine glass and will rise changing into an orange hand which will have the HIFEST font appearing beside the hand only for the hand to then wipe across the title and replace the I with an A instead changing it into HAFEST. The reason as to why I wanted to specifically include an animation that involved a wine glass, is because the location the festival takes place serves wines & spirits. A subtle advertisement to encourage festival-goers to make a purchase at The Palace Hastings. A good majority if not all of what I’ve mentioned in the first part of this animation is all new territory and I am genuinely unsure if I’ll be able to execute this idea to a professional standard. But this’ll be a good opportunity for myself to further improve my skills on After Effects which can only be done by imposing challenges such as the wine glass animation.  

Before working on the wine glass itself, I started with an empty composition within After Effects and thought that animating an environment set up will show a sense of class as well as professionalism. Rather than go straight for the wine glass, additionally this was also a warm up exercise; to test the waters and familiarise myself with the tools/techniques I learnt from the University Logo project. The HAFEST brief dictates to work with the Hifest colour palette, this is why the current environment background will be using 2 base colours (Pink and Blue) one functions as the wall and the other’s function is to act as the floor/ground for the wine glass to slide along. Position key frames were placed to give the base colour slides movement as well as applying an easy ease onto the key frames will smoothen the movement and won’t be as stiff.