XKCD’s tribute to Geocities

RIP Geocities! If you have not heard, Geocities closed down today! I built my first website on Geocities more than ten years ago, complete with those infamous tacky animated gifs and tiled backgrounds. It was then that I first started experimenting with html coding and grew a strong interest for web design and multimedia. I don’t want this to turn into some kind of boring biography here, so I’m going to right ahead and skip to the part about me going to college.

I went to college and took a course called New Media and learned all sorts of things having to do with multimedia. Things like web design, interactive presentations, animation, audio/music, video, 3D, you get the idea. One of the many programs we learned about was Adobe After Effects. It is used to create motion graphics, and is used mainly for film post production. It is an amazing program with the ability to create some absolutely stunning animations and effects. You can see all sorts of motion graphics in movies, television, commercials, music videos, etc.

In school, we only touched briefly on Adobe After Effects and didn’t really spend a whole lot of time with it so we just covered the very basics. Below are two videos that I’ve created in After Effects for some projects at school. Please bear in mind that these were my first attempts using the program so they are not that great. :P

I drew everything in Adobe Photoshop and also created the background music for it too! This was my very first After Effects creation ever!

This was a project focusing on animating typography. I chose to base it on the song “Marching Bands of Manhattan” by Death Cab for Cutie (one of my most favourite bands EVER, btw) I really love the lyrics here because they are so descriptive and visual and thought this would be perfect to animate.

Sorrow drips into your heart through a pinhole
just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
but while you debate half empty or half full
it slowly rises your love is gonna drown

As you can see these were pretty basic animations since I wasn’t totally sure of what I was doing. I’d really like to learn more about the program and gain a better understanding of how it works. Which is why I am taking an evening After Effects course that begins this Thursday at my local art college! I’m excited to see what things I will learn. Just because I’m finished school doesn’t mean the learning stops there! I’m always interested to learn new things and hope I can better my knowledge in After Effects so I can make fancier things to show you!

Thanks for reading! Wish me luck in the class! :P
xo, Tiffany

ps. Here are some examples of motion graphics you should check out if you’re interested:

1. James Bond Casino Royale Intro- Awesome!
2. Stardust.tv Demo Reel – Stardust is a company that creates some of the most spectacular motion graphics I’ve ever seen. One day I will create something of this caliber. One day….