R E V O L U T I O N
A C O N C E P T U A L T V S E R I E S B Y H U N T E R S A Y L O R
When it comes to TV shows, what's one of the things that people remember? If you said specific characters and or events that occur in a show, then you are correct! Although, there's another specific asset to a show that seems to be a more memorable thing...the intro.
In my opinion, the intro is a sort of advertisement for the viewer. It's the thing that draws them in, makes them ask questions like "what are you watching" and "ooh, what's this?" For an intro, it's important to make a grand first impression, because if the intro leaves viewers with a bad impression, they most likely won't watch the show. Unless the individual is someone who skips past the intro (most people who use Netflix), then I withdraw my statement. Whoever you may be, you have to agree that an important part of a show is a good intro.
When I created the TV intro for the conceptual show Revolution, I wanted to capture the feelings of the historical and monumental events of the French Revolution. A historical time period where there was fear, bloodshed, patriotism, and unity. The people of France wanted to be free from a tyrannical French monarchy. For history, the calls of freedom swept across the globe, the Americans having finished their own revolution a few years before the French revolted against their king. With that being said, I wanted to create a show intro that would capture these historical elements. So, without further delay, let me discuss the process that occurred in the making of Revolution.
I T S T A R T E D W I T H W I Z A R D S
I wasn't originally going to do an intro for a conceptual French Revolution TV show. Originally, in a compete 180 degree turn, I was going to create a minimalist intro for a conceptual Fantastic Beasts-themed TV show. My idea was to create a sort of Mad Men intro, where there's animation involved, and it's in a minimalist style. You see, with this intro, it'd be very easy for me to create several minimalist graphics and to animate them in After Effects. So, why didn't I take this route if I was so confident in what I could accomplish? It's a one word answer...time.
While I could launch a full-scale project into designing and animating a Fantastic Beasts-themed intro, time was the one thing that stopped me. I wouldn't have enough time to complete said project. I've done a similar project in the past that ended up being a short minute animation of the Haunted Mansion ride. The only reason I was able to accomplish such a big project was because of time. I had practically a month and a half (I believe) to work on the project. This time, I only had two weeks to finish such a project. Now, there's a little quote I found which states:
"Virtually nothing is impossible in this world if you just
put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude."
- Lou Holtz
That's a great quote...if you like quotes about working yourself to DEATH! While I believe that this quote is quite correct and the way people should think when it comes to tackling projects, for some occasions, you just have to put it on hold for when the time is right. Sometimes, a specific project you're wanting to complete is like fine wine; it has to be aged in order for it to be fine. So, instead of just rushing a project and hoping that it'll come out decent, sometimes you just have to put it on hold and tackle the project another time when you have more time on your side.
So with all that being said, you're probably wondering why the French Revolution inspired everything and not about the similarities between time, fine wine and large scale projects. I'm getting there.
Since I wanted to hold off on the Fantastic Beasts project, I was left project-less. I didn't have anything to work on, and I had two weeks left to get something turned in for my video class. Unfortunately for me, I had what artists refer to as:
A R T I S T ' S
B L O C K
If you're a creative individual who loves to design, draw, paint, and or create things, then I know for a fact that you have had this. Similar to the infamous writer's block, the artist's block basically shuts down your brain regarding anything creative. All of your ideas are zoned off, unable to be expressed through any sort of mediums. Think of an artist's block as if it were construction on a road...IT'S MISERABLE AND IT DOESN'T HELP ANYONE'S CASE AT THE TIME! When you're someone like me who has to create something to submit to a video class in a matter of two weeks, it's absolutely frightening. Fortunately for me, the Man upstairs ignited an idea in my brain while I was playing around with different tools in After Effects.
N A P O L E O N S A V E S T H E D A Y
Don't you love it when an idea all of a sudden comes out of nowhere? Not just any idea though...THE GRAND DADDY OF ALL IDEAS! As a designer, I consider myself someone who likes to experiment and step out of my comfort zone (regarding design, doing something that I haven't done before). With that being said, I always play around with different tools to get certain effects. Whether it's using tools to make a film in Premiere Pro look like a film from the 1980's or making a minimalist animation through After Effects. Now, you're probably curious as to how the historical leader Napoleon Bonaparte saved the day. Well, I'll tell you!
The militaristic leader inspired me to pursue the route of the French Revolution through the CC program After Effects. I was using the iconic painting (the one that's in the video) of the historical leader in order to play around with the puppet pin tool. You see, with the puppet pin tool, you can take any normal photo or picture and literally bring it to life with simple animations. Now, I had no idea that I was going to do the same for other famous French Revolution paintings in the near future because Napoleon was merely a project I was just sort of dinking around with. Napoleon saved the day though when I saw the final results of said animation. It dawned on me almost immediately, seeing this as a sort of idea that people tend to yell "eureka" over.
In addition to Napoleon helping me spawn an idea, another person helped inspire what would become my Revolution intro...Wonder Woman.
If you have ever watched the 2017 superhero film Wonder Woman, there's a specific part that inspired me to make several paintings come to life through the puppet pin tool in After Effects. Basically, there's a scene where Wonder Woman's mother tells her about the origins of the Amazonians and how they came to be. During this whole segment, it is told through an almost animated painting, although every "painted" person and thing is merely a three-dimensional model. It's just an overall cool effect! I knew though that I wouldn't be able to animate something as elaborate as that, considering it took the studio a year or so to finish that few minutes of animation. Plus, it's 3D animation, I'm not quite skilled in that area of animation.
C A P T U R I N G T H E M O O D
With an idea now set into motion, it was time for me to gather up some paintings to use for this project. My goal was to find paintings that were similar to the one of Napoleon (so finding paintings that were oil, had the same look, and highlighted the revolution). In addition to that, I wanted to find something that captured the mood of the revolution, a time where fear and unity coexisted with each other. When it came to the hunt for perfect paintings, you'd be very surprised with how hard it was to find several paintings that would work with the theme I had going. While there are a ton of paintings that show the French Revolution, there weren't too many oil paintings that interested me. There were a ton of paintings that looked more like a drawing or even looked like something that came out of the American Revolution (regarding art style). I eventually found some paintings that worked out in my favor.
I'm going to be honest with you, I was a little heartbroken when it came to the painting search because I didn't find any oil paintings of the guillotine. The guillotine is practically the symbol of the Reign of Terror, as the cross is to Christianity. It's just that important of an image. Although, I could've used a painting of Robespierre, since he was like the "angel of death." He wasn't someone you wanted to cross paths with.
M U S I C O F T H E R E V O L U T I O N
Look at films like Pixar's Up. The music that is played throughout the film really contributes to certain scenes in the film. One specific example I'd like to bring up is a scene that I KNOW for a fact you have seen, which is the beginning of the film, where you see Mr. Fredrickson and his wife living their life together. In this scene, the music switches moods constantly. It goes from a joyful sounding tone to a saddened one and from a hopeful sound to a somber one. With all this talk of music and moods, you're probably wondering where I'm going with it. Let me explain.
For a short 60-second long TV intro, it's hard to change the music from somber to happy. Some shows are capable of doing that, but most shows that try to create some sort of convoluted musical intro don't make it successfully. Although you can't jump back and forth between happy and sad like Up did, you can create a general mood for the show through the most appropriate musical choice. For my show, I believed that an appropriate choice for the music in the intro would have to be something that sounded dramatic as well as historical. Thankfully, in our entire history of music, we have a full arsenal of classical music; from Mozart to Bach. With that in mind, I began to search for a song that would completely capture the mood of the French Revolution.
Interestingly enough, with a lot of music to work with, I still found myself yearning for something. I could always go with Mozart's Lacrimosa, but that's too typical of a music choice for something that's intense (even though I love Mozart). Not only did I want to avoid something typical or overdone, I also wanted to avoid going with the obvious, like picking France's national anthem as theme for the intro (fun fact: France's national anthem La Marseillaise was written during the time of the revolution, although it was created when France declared war against Austria). Finally, I had thought up another idea...what if I found a song that was created during the revolution that happened to be inspired by it? I searched for songs that were created during the time of the revolution, which there wasn't a ton that stuck out to me. I did however find that Beethoven wrote a symphony in honor of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Revolution (he changed it to honor someone else though when Napoleon declared himself as emperor). After taking a considerable amount of time to search for the perfect song, I found one. Even though it wasn't made during the time of the revolution, I found myself seeing Handel's Keyboard Suite in D Minor, specifically the Sarabande part, fitting the theme of the French Revolution. It's intense, historical, it was made in the 18th century, it worked out perfectly!
T H E F I N A L R E S U L T S
For my first step towards the final product, I edited all of my paintings through Photoshop, cutting out the key elements in an image that I wanted to animate. So, for example, the painting with the wounded Frenchman holding the French flag and the man holding the musket, I had to cut both of those guys out using quick select, magic wand, and occasionally the pen point tool. It was definitely the hardest part of the project, considering the selecting tools would capture more than I anticipated because of the similar colors. Eventually though, I managed to get the key elements cut out. To fill in the missing areas of the painting, I used the content-aware tool to fill in the empty space and, depending on how bad the content-aware did, I used the spot healing tool to clean up the filled area.
Animating was the best part of the project in my opinion. It wasn't necessarily miserable to do, and the results were satisfying to look at. Even though I'm a lover of video editing, animation trumped my love for that when it came to this project. Using After Effects, I was able to animate each individual key element by using puppet pin (which in Photoshop, I think it's called puppet warp). I recommend, if you ever have to animate a photo or image in order to make it look somewhat alive, I recommend using this. Don't use it if you're going to animate it intensely unless you're a GOD with the puppet pin tool. It's more appropriate for something subtle, like a moving painting.
Video editing was probably the easiest part of the project, considering animating and Photoshop were the bulk of the project. I will say though, with the animation being satisfying for me, the video editing process had its moments. From the music coming in on cue, to the different video overlays that appear in the animations. The end result for the whole video was stunning. No, scratch that...IS stunning. I'm still super impressed that I was able to do something that isn't my expertise, and I made a stunning TV intro with it. I know it's bad to gloat or even to uphold something at such a high value, but I really am proud of this video I made.
I N S T A G R A M : @ s a y l o r _ s k e t c h e s
M A D E F O R G I T 4 1 5
