Creating the Twin Screen in After Effects

After Effects is a very complicated software that I had a lot of trouble with. It has taken me weeks to try and grasp the software and get used to it. The ideas I had initially had to be rethought because I couldn't execute them in After Effects.

I thought about what I could actually do on After Effects and then I realised that I can use some skills that I learnt when playing around with the software and trying to get used to it and use them.

I chose to create a simple heart monitor on the software to represent the Digital World.

This is how I ended up doing it!

Heart Rate Monitor

Step 1:

I opened a new composition with a really dark blue background.











Step 2:

I then added a new solid colour layer. Then I used the rectangle tool and created a green rectangle the cover half the screen. After this I used the pen tool and used the 'Add vertex tool' to create 4 vertexes on the rectangle. I then used them to create the zig zag shapes.

                                     

I added more vertexes.







Step 3:

I then added the Vegas effect on the effects. Then on effect controls I changed the Rotation, Blend Mode, Stroke, Width, Colour, Length, Start Opacity and End Opacity to give it the effect I was looking for.







Step 4:

The next step was to add a glow effect onto the line layer and change the radius and intensity.









Step 5:

The Final step was to add a grid effect to it just to make it look more realistic. I changed the opacity to 10% and put it underneath the line layer.







Twin Screen

It's time to add the two compositions onto one composition. To do this I opened a new composition with a 3840x1080 px resolution and a frame rate of 25 frames per second.

To add sound effects to the project, I used a heartbeat and some EKG sound effects to create the beeping effect and added them as layers to the compositions.

Done :)

Twin Screen Idea

After reading the brief for this project I thought about what I could possibly do that would represent a connection between the digital world and the human world. Then to put it simply I thought about our most vital organ, the organ that's keeping us alive. The human heart. I want to relate that to how we can basically monitor our heart beats etc. using technology.

I wanted to work with a projector for this project because I wanted to experiment a little bit with projection.

This video inspired me to work around this theme

I really enjoyed how they managed to show the functions of the human body so successfully through technology.

I chose to focus on the heart and have an animated gif of a heart beating over my chest on one screen and a heart rate monitor on the other screen.

Reflections Photography

Reflections Digital Stills

Finding Inspiration

So, given the theme of memories for our digital stills project, there are many things that were going through my head about what I could possibly do my project on but none of them sounded brilliant to me.

So, I decided to play a word association game and write down as many words I can that linked to the word "memories".

From these words I started thinking about where I could take these ideas and narrowed it down to a couple of words/ideas that I would be interested in looking into and why.

Now, to look for inspiration from other artist's works that could help me when doing my project! Time to research!!!

Raoul Hausmann

ABCD - 1923-24

Hannah Höch

Für ein Fest gemacht (Made for a Party) - 1936

Kurt Schwitters

Scenery - 1947

Joseph Cornell

The Hotel Eden - 1945

John Stezekar

Mask XXIX - 2006

Jesse Treece

Mountains Between - 1993

My Initial Ideas

• Looking at memories and reconstructing those into new ones
• Maybe merging new and old memories
• Dreams - people in your dreams are everyone you have ever come across so it's kind of strange how all those nameless and even faceless people leave an impact on your life and you for even a millisecond cared about them.

The word I've chosen to focus on is Nostalgia. I wanted to find objects and things from my past that have made me happy and photograph them but that seemed too safe.

But, can the past present and future coexist? Why not! Why not make the whole project fun because I associate memories with fun and good times because those are the things we as humans prefer to remember. So, with influence from Joseph Cornell's collages where he combined different trivia into wooden boxes, I planned to make a memory board and put all the images on it as well as some memorabilia.

Creating the Image

I browsed through my photographs and found some pictures I'd taken last year at probably what I would consider one of the places I'd created the best memories at with my friends back home in Birmingham, The Botanical Gardens. I visited this place almost twice a week every summer for 6/7 years. This is my 'past'.

Then the next step was to kindly ask the 3 of close friends I've made here at UCA to be a part of this project and photographed them. They are my 'present' and my 'future'.

Then the next step was to find little things that could go on the memory board from my childhood which is also represents my 'past' but in a different way to the photographs.

Taking the pictures

After recruiting my friends, I took some photos of them with intent to edit them into the old pictures I took at the botanical gardens. 

Editing Process

When editing the photos in Photoshop, I wanted the photos to look like I had cut pictures of my friends out and physically stuck them onto different photographs. So I used the pen tool in Photoshop to separate them from the background and moved them into the new background using the move tool.

[insert editing process here]

Making the Memory Board

I wanted to print my images in 6x4 for the purpose of putting them on a memory board so I took my finals to boots to print them. Then, the next step was to find the board that they would all go on. I also collected some memorabilia from my past that I could add to the memory board and then just put everything together.