VFX - Production
Scene 1: Pieces on black screen
I started off with the first frame of the storyboard and created the geometric shapes with the Pen Tool, so that i could change the size of the shape after I'd created this. I used the pen tool instead of the shape tool, because I feel like the shapes created with the pen tool gives me more freedom to shape the shapes. I used scaling to make it look like the shapes pop onto the screen simply by making them go from 0%, to 150%, and then back to 100%. Doing this over 4-5 frames makes it look the pieces come into existence smoothly, instead of just suddenly being there. I feel like using this effect makes the shapes look more cartoony and playful - it also works better with the music. I made the chimney piece come in a little bit later to show that it played a slightly different role than the other pieces, and to give the pieces a sort of personality - making them act a bit human ads to the feel of it being a childrens movie. To create the smoke coming from the chimney I used the particle playground tool, to essentially just create a stream of visible particles spouting from a certain point on screen. I turned the gravity dial so that the particles would float upwards, and then I played around with scattering, opacity, colour, and frequency, until it looked like smoke floating up from the chimney. This was also to set it apart from the rest a little bit, and make it look playful. I then used positioning, rotation, and the pen tool to make the pieces float off screen in different ways, again, I did this to give them personalities, and to stick to my style of Pixar/Disney. I also used pre-comps with each piece and animation to keep my work space tidy, and to make it easier to keep my animations separate. At the end of the scene I also turned all of the individual compositions into one big one, so that I can move it around easily, and make space for the next scene.
Scene 2: House and Title
Creating the house itself took ages and four millennia. I created each part of it with the pen tool, and then coloured in based on what I could find on the internet. It has a cartoony feel, and the simplistic lines and colours makes it look very nice a Pixar-y. After saving the entire house as a pre-comp, I carried on the animation of how the pieces move from the previous screen, until they safely landed on the house, so that the house would be completed. After that I made the balloons pop in the same way I did with the pieces in the first scene. I figured this would be a fun way to spell out Pixar, before covering them up with more balloons, and then having the house float away and reveal the title. I feel like this whimsical style really fits the tone of the film, and ads to the sense of strange adventure.
Scene 3: Clouds and Director
I wanted the rest of the title sequence to be about the houses journey through the sky. So in this scene I wanted it to swoop by while revealing the name of the director. The clouds were drawn in Photoshop, and then imported into After Effects as psd files. This allowed me to move them around as I please as transparent layers. I made them move across the screen with a simple position change, as well as the house.
Scene 4: The change from day to night
As well as showing the house travel, I wanted to show that this was a long journey. I did this by doing one long scene where we see the scenery change from a warm sunset to a star filled night. The sun and moon both move with simple positioning, the moon being slightly larger for the larger than life cartoon feel. I also had the name of the co-director here, and just as with the first one I put a mask on it so that the object moving over the text "reveals" it. The background was a gradient, which I set to change hue over a certain amount of time - first from sunset to early night, and then to dark night. I also created a star effect by creating a normal shape with the shape tool, and then applying the Ball Action filter. After playing around with the different settings to make sure that the scale, distance between particles, random movement, etc was correct, I made sure I put expansion to a lower level, so that I could make it expand slowly while the house floats across the sky. I feel like this scene in particular captures the feeling I hoped to portray with the entire sequence - the small explorer in a big world feeling.
Scene 5: Disney and balloons flying off
Every good adventure has to come to an end, and like in the film this sequence ends when the balloons deflate/ fly off, and the house starts falling down. This was all done by simple positioning, and the text was hidden under the house so that it was revealed when the house fell. I was trying to create a feeling of dawn in the background, as to bring the cycle of day, evening, night, and dawn to an end, but I'm not sure I succeeded completely.
Scene 6: The End
The end image was drawn in Photoshop and then put into After Effects. The background is a gradient I created to show the morning, and the sun rising on a new day and a new world. All in all I think my title sequence tell the story of adventure, and captures the feeling of the film very well. Accompanied with music from the film, it gives a sense of childish adventure, as well as a cosy feel.
TJ
TJ
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