The final NSS advert...

 

Heres the final NSS advert, all created using Adobe After Affects with imported designs created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop...

 

The advert so far...

Heres how the advert is shaping up so far- things might still change but i'm liking how it looks so far...

 

 

From here, certain things will be changed for the final film...

 

New storyboards for the NSS...

Now that the advert is designed, its just a matter of putting it all together, starting with looking at it in sotryboard form...

Now this can be transferred into an animatic to see how the timing is working and see if any changes need to be made before getting stuck into making the final advert.

The new design of the NSS...

 

I want the look of the final advert to have a cut out style, with sketchy edges- rough lines yet block shapes and colours, based on the look of the Monsters Inc intro...

The look of the final character is one that I am happy with- he can be moved easilly using the puppet tool on After Effects, and is simple, sketchy and hopefully stand out...

The other objects in the film have to match the sketchy and blocky stlye,  keeping simple and bold, and also carrying the NSS logo and brand throughout the advert, so that whenever someone starts watching, they will know what it is advertising...

A further new direction for the NSS

 

The idea has changed and will now focus on a student going through various stages of university, experiencing the good and bad sides of them...

The idea needed to be simplified, so after looking at various example of other NSS adverts, I wanted to focus on the main areas of the survey in a simple, yet bold way...

By making the seperate areas combine into the letters of the NSS keeps the idea simple and hopefully effective. I want to keep it sketchy and bold, using only details that are neccesary, so will bare this in mind when it comes to desigining the look and style.

Change of direction for the NSS...

 

The Harry potter idea turned out to be too difficult to reinvent for the project. By keeping the idea the same, it would have left little opportunity to work into it in after effects, and by changing the idea, it didn't seem as if it was working in the same way, so it may be better to start with a fresh idea altogether, tailored around using After Effects for it's creation...

With just a short time period to create the final advert, I'm going to have to stop myself from going overvboard and giving myself too much to handle- plus i need to make sure the information gets across in the best and most effective way possible in the space of time.

harry potter and the return of the NSS...

 

Now that pre- production is done and dusted, we moved on to learn After Effects. It was software I'd never touched before, so was daunting at first, but after a week of tutorials and teaching ourselves the basics, it turned out there was more that it was capable of doing than I could have ever imagined.

 

So to test our new found knoweledge, we had to take our NSS advert from the Flash project and revamp it, tweak it and add extra effects and features using After Effects, so it was back to the world of Harry Potter.

 

I was told to change certain story elements from the advert so began by storyboarding new ideas...

 

The final look of 'Showtime'...

These shots show the layouts of the film- how the film will hopefully look when made, showing the characters and the backgrounds together...

 

So thats it for now...pre-production is over, and its time to move on to another project, but once thats complete, it's on to making the film- what all of this has been leading up to...

Decorating the world with props...

The next step was to design the series of props and other animals that will go into the film...

 

The pencil and rubber is obviously a major part of the film and will need to be designed and made into something that can be re-used alot, so may be made in illustrator to suit the look of the animator desk design...