Category: FMP

After speaking with Carol, she suggested some changes that will help improve the project before the deadline.

• Change the thickness of the lines on some of the symbols as they are still too thin for the screen and become illegible.
• Look at using the write on effect to animate the roll of the hoop during the sequence. This will stop it from feel too clunky.
• Consider redrawing the symbol for roll of the hoop making the circles smoother when looping.
• Reshoot mockup imagery. At the moment the shadows are two harsh needs softer lighting – to reflect the beautiful nature of the project.

These along with the posters changes were easy enough to change and would help improve the overall finish of the project. I started by going back into illustrator and changing the line thickness. As it was only the smaller thin part of the circle using the line tool I could up the width of the stroke. After doing this on the files in illustrator it automatically updated the lines in the after effects for the animation. I also explored creating softer curves in the roll symbol and was able to start achieving this through the use of the smooth tool in illustrator. Through doing this I think that the symbols are stronger in the animation and rest of the project. The thin line of the rotation circle was often lost of the posters as well and with the change helps them to be cleaner and more sophisticated.

In terms of the animation the main change was using the write on effect to animate the roll onto the screen. I found using a YouTube tutorial was helpful in allowing me the opportunity to learn how to create a smoother write on effect using the stroke present rather than the after effects write on present. I think that this has give the roll a more organic look to the final outcome.

Click the Link to view the animation: https://abbiewilliamsdesigns.com/rhythmic-notation

I have also spent time reshooting the mockup photos for the book. I printed off a range of the spreads to photograph in context. Personally, I have preferred taking photos of printed outcomes rather than mockups but this isn’t always possible especially in the current climate. I am fortunate enough to have access to resources which allow me to shoot my own photos for the project. Using my DLSR camera and some lights I was able to replicate the photography studio settings to take some of the photos. I shot some of the photos on a white background and then some using different colour to try and make the white of the spreads pop. I personally think that these are strong mockup images and show the context of the project well. In an ideal world I would have like to have shown this being used in a gym context but unfortunately I don’t have access to this at the moment.

In order to show the context of the posters in more detail I was able to have them print out in A3 which allowed me to photograph them to work in a similar style to the rest of the project. I was happy with these posters and the detail that I was able to capture in the images. These detailed shots of the symbols really capture the essence of the project and help to showcase the beauty of the symbols. The hardest part of this was photographing all the posters together as I wasn’t fortune enough to have the biggest space in the world to do this

After a further one to one tutorial with David where we spoke about the posters. Although I’d decided to not showcase to much text on the posters David made a point about them needing to be a stand alone feature as well. Therefore having a very small amount of text on the posters would be extremely helpful to the viewer in order for them to understand the narrative of my work. David suggested looking and information design posters and the Munich Olympic Games posters for inspiration. In doing this i found that they used small heading beneath each of the icons to express what they were about. This helped has prompted me to develop the posters looking at the alignment of the icons as well as adjusting the layout of the piece.

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After more discussions with David I felt that these posters could be placed within the book and become pages that detach and then act as posters. In order for this to become reality I felt that they needed to be A3 size rather than A1 in order to work with the size format of the book. I think that this style of design works better creates more dimensions to the piece and allows the viewer to know the meaning of symbols in this format as well. It would be interesting to develop posters in a similar style to show the routine and the movement of the notation.

After further discussions with Carol on Monday, we spoke about making some more experimental posters using the photography and symbols. She suggested I look at dance posters by Wayne McGregor for inspiration. By using the imagery that I had created I was able to again create a series of posters that worked with the aesthetic that I had already created. I wanted to keep these posters simple with the new project ‘mark’ being used on the bottom without any explaining text. I like the abstract nature of these poster and feel that they continue to work with the existing posters as well as the rest of the project.

In the sign up tutorial I was able to get feedback from David on my final major project. I was able to justify all my decisions about colour, typography and placement of images which was helpful when moving forward. I got some feedback to help me develop the project further, these were small minor changes to make such as making sure all the symbols were in the middle of the animation rather than some following the path and others not. Also type detailing within the book needs some work making sure that I don’t have widows or double spaces etc.

When we were discussing the idea of posters being made for the individual symbols, might be really interesting to consider taking inspiration from the olympics. This is something that I was considering at the start of the project and something that I was still considering. I am thinking about exploring this further as this project develops over the next few days. This relates back to earlier feedback that I had about creating fold out pages to act like maps or posters in the book.

Research

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I have used these as part of visual research and inspiration for these posters. These are the some of the official icons for the Olympics in 1988 & 2012. Some of these images are interpretations of the iconography but I found linked to my visual aesthetic for the project. I’m considering how these posters could be used and there is the possibility they could be used for displaying the gym itself but also as promotional material for events. In this case they are supporting details for the project allow the viewer and opportunity to see these symbols and understand them.

For my posters I have experimented with having all the same group of symbols being on one poster. I decided that A1 format would work best for the photos because it would allow the symbols to have space to breathe and not look cluttered on the page. There is potential for the symbols to have their own posters developed as well however, these could be a same format such as A3. I have used the same colour coding system as the rest of the project in order for the system that has been developed. I have kept the layout of the posters simple in terms of the typography as I wanted the symbols to speak for themselves.

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I have also finalise all the sections in the book. The book has a total of 190 pages to showcase the symbols, although it might seem like a large publication I made the decision to keep the symbols to a page each mainly in order for them to be clearly seen and understood. There are still some elements of the book that I’m working on mainly adding the video content for the project but I feel that this combined with the animation and posters helps create that understanding that the project needed.

After the feedback I received from the group tutorial I have made some amendments to the animation for the project. I have started by looking at the background layer of the animation, this was described as being strapped in by the group last time I showed the animation to them therefore I have changed the soundwave bars to simple lines in order for the focus to be on the symbols about movement. I think that this allows the symbols to be at the forefront when viewing the animation however I feel that there is a sense of music that is now missing from the piece. I would like to see if there is a way to incorporate the soundwaves back into the piece without being distracting however I am not sure at this point how I can achieve this.

I have also made the changes to how the symbols are animated into the peace. I was told they need to be more elegant and softer and I have animated some of the elements to do this. However when I was considering which elements needed to be animated in this way I found that ice and animated the symbols to look like the physical movements that happen by the gymnast and I didn’t want to lose this by animating them in a slightly different way. Although I understand that rhythmic gymnastics can come across as a elegance and softer sport, The movements are more dynamic than they appear and I wanted to animate the symbols to represent the movements as that is what the project is all about. I have also added more symbols into the animation to show the complexity of routine although there are some key elements that are missing I felt it was appropriate to focus on the handling in moving gymnast gymnast.

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In terms of how the supporting book has developed I have decided to take on board the feedback by using the video content that I curated within the pages of the book. This will be done by our technology having a symbol within the pages that shows that they can be scanned by an Device and have the videos overlay certain pages. I thought that this piece of feedback really helped me to contextualise the use of these videos in the project. I experimented with Adobe Airsoft work to try and get this however at the point in time Aero does not support video files. In order to show this I took video into Adobe after affects and created a mockup of how the phone was coming and scanned the page and then the video would appear. I feel with the videos being used for our content within the book allows the project to come together it also gives me the opportunity to allow the user to scan the first page to view the animation therefore tying the book and the animation together.

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The small developments have started to make bigger changes to the project and I feel as though it is coming together finally. I know that there are certain parts of the project which still need developing the animation I feel there are elements that need to be added in a while the book there are things that also need to be changed including adding the AR triggers in themselves. Happy with the progress I have made over the past week on this project and feels that in the next two weeks before the final deadline I have time to develop and improve upon these changes. I would also like to make it clear to the viewer what I am communicating and I feel the best way to do this is a small explanation at the start of the book about what rhythmic gymnastics is and what these symbols mean.

In the final group tutorial that I had today I showed my progress from the past three weeks. The major changes have been developed to the supporting book but the feedback was focused around the animation part of the project. I was happy with the feedback and thought that it was fair and constructive to help me move forward in the next three week. In terms of developing the animation I agree with some of the transitions of the movements could be more elegant but I have attempted to animate them to represent the movements that they represent. For example some of the jumps/leap are harsher in animation because they quick fast movements where as the balances are timed to have 3 seconds to hold like they would in the routine. Other points to improve are as followed:

• softer animations for the text and elements.
• keep the colour works well with the context of the project.
• maybe consider more movements of the body how can this translate into the animation
• thicker lines for some of the symbols at the moment they are too thin at points which makes them hard to see on the screen.
• think about if keeping type to animate on softer and in more places which are legible.
• think about where using the video content could they be overlaid on pages in the book which move when they are scanned with the phone.

All this feedback I am going to take on board and develop in the next few week. I think that if I can create the AR triggers within the book this will help the viewer gain more context of the project.

After listening back to my formative feedback I decided to explore the idea of having foldout pages within the supporting book. I started to think about how I could get to view it to move their body when reading the book, The project is focused around the unique movements within which mastics I felt that it could be a nice aspect of the project if the viewer had to move their body to read the book. However, after creating a mock up of the book and sketching out ideas of how the foldout pages might look it became clear that there was no need for the viewer to move their body with the foldouts therefore I have made the decision not to have the foldout pages in the book.

I have kept the book with in sections to make it easier to navigate between the different movements (pivots, valances, leaps/jumps, and operators handling). I have also added a section at the start of the book to explain the four layers to the project in relation to my research into dance notation. The four layers are crucial to the animation which The book is meant to support. In order to showcase how the layers work I have created four separate spreads each showing one of the layers. Personally I made this decision so that the viewer could easily distinguish between each layer. The layer that is concerned with the relationship between movement and music has the ability to be scanned by a mobile device which will then allow the reader to watch the animation. The spreads have been based on the animation itself and creating that link between the book and the animation again.

The spreads within the book often have one symbol per page, this was a decision based on the idea that each individual symbol needs space to breathe and standalone by it self. Each symbol is accompanied by a value relating to its worth in terms of the scoring everything gymnastics and a brief description of the movement itself. I thought this was important as some of the symbols within the “notation” aren’t clear indications of what the movement physically is. I would like to develop some of the spreads further using AI technology to allow the viewer to scan the symbol and see the symbol doing the movement which will further reinforce the beauty of the sport. Some of the symbols are supported by photography which has been duotones in photo shop to work with the colour schemes that I have created for each individual element.

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As the project is focused around movement I re-visited some earlier ideas about flipbooks and how this could be a way of conveying the movements within the sport. I thought that these would make nice tip ins within the book and allow the viewer to get a sense of movement. The Tip ins would be smaller in size and made of a lighter GSM of paper in order for the viewer to be able to flip quickly and see the movement as if it was happening in real life. I have not included a large amount of these within the book and they are available within each section for 1 to 2 movements.

Overall the book has progressed over the past few weeks and is still developing as I would like some of the spreads to be more experimental. I also think that there is opportunity to include more nuances of rhythmic gymnastics and the movements that happen within the sport. If possible moving forward I feel that use of more imagery would bring the final outcome to a higher standard. This combined with the animation and supporting video content I feel that the project is coming together and really highlights the unique sport of rhythmic gymnastics.

At the formative feedback presentation I enjoyed seeing some new project which I haven’t seen before throughout the past couple of weeks. I found my presentation went well and the feedback I received was really positive and constructive in allowing me to move forward and develop the project:

• looking at the lines on some of the symbols seem to be too thin for the screen.
• think about how I am animating some of the symbols onto the screen at the moment they are a bit clunky.
• Think about bring more elegant animations into it so that it shows the characteristics of the sport more.
• bringing that finesse to the movements – be more playful and experimental.
• Maybe think about how this translate into text and could you add another smaller layer onto the animation to showcase this.
• within the editorial outcome could there be opportunities to explore pages folding out.
• with these fold out pages could there be something in us physically moving out bodies in order to read it – further reiterating this idea of movement.
• playful maybe folding out using the floor plan visual to do this.

Overall the feedback was really positive and has helped me to see and think of other ways in which I could develop this project further over the coming weeks. I think that all of the comments about the animation where things that I had already identified myself in terms of cleaning the animations up but it was useful to hear these points again to show me that it wasn’t just me over thinking the project. My plan over the next few weeks is to continue to develop this project into the best outcome before the final hand in.

Feedback

The feedback I got in my 1-1 tutorial on Friday was really useful in allowing me to develop the project ahead of my formative assessment on Monday. I was happy that the project was developing in the right direction and that the outcomes seemed appropriate for my project. This was the feedback I received:

• animation is beautiful and the choice of music creates the atmosphere.
• floor plan idea is working and could be applied to more outcomes throughout the project.
• need to work on the communication when accessing it what it is and what it is about so that people understand.
• booklet could be more experimental. numbers could be stronger and have a better relationship between them and the symbols for movements.
• Maybe experiment with using them like degrees – if the legs goes higher than 90 degrees it’s worth more.
• being more playful with typography within this.
• Give a page to each symbol to give it the space that it requires as they work as stand alone in the animation.
• just need to think about guiding the viewer throughout the project – really think about the communication of what the project is about.
• the supporting videos could be used on loop in a series of three.

Developments

Using the feedback I have developed the project further starting off with the booklet. for the formative presentation we had to be selective as to what we chose to showcase and I wanted to give two pages to the spreads of the booklet. Taking the advice I gave each symbol a page to breathe although this has changed the pace to be quite repetitive but I am thinking about adding some nods to the animation throughout the booklet so these spreads might be allow the pace to be broken up. In terms of the relationship between the numbers and the movements using the paths of the shapes I have set the numbers to work along these. With more time I’d like to experiment with this further in order to experiment with being more playful in the approach.

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Furthermore, I started to add more layers to animation by adding more handling symbols in-between the main movements to showcase that the apparatus doesn’t stop moving. I thought that this was working well as I have used the same approach throughout with all the apparatus handling symbols when animating them. I feel that the animation still needs a lot of work on and some of the animation aren’t perfect and in the way that I would like them to do but I wanted to be able to show what the final animation will look like at the formative assessment.

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I also developed the support videos to give the symbols context to the apparatus movements in real life. As suggested I presented three of these videos looping using the colour coding that I had developed throughout the rest of project to ensure that they were connecting t the other outcomes. The photographs these give the viewer a chance to see the movements in real life and give them a grounding for when they watch the animation.

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Even though the project has been developed throughout these past 5 weeks and I am happy with where the project is heading there are still elements of it that need to develop during the easter break and three weeks before the final hand in. I am hoping that with the formative feedback I receive on Monday this will help me to develop it further and create a project which is strong, playful and experimental.

Animation

After my group tutorials this week and my research into dance notation I have developed the animation further to try an establish the clear layers that I have found from my research and applied to the sport of Rhythmic Gymnastics. In order to do this and to keep on top of the layers I create a series of compositions each on relating to one of the layers in the routine. As mentioned before I wanted to use this idea of a floor plan to showcase there relationship between the movement and space. To do this I thought that I would be best to animation the lines to create a sense of how fast the gymnast was movements and which direction they were moving in so that by the end of animation you can see the entire pathway that the gymnast has taken. At the points where the gymnast would perform an element I place the generic symbol for that elements group in order to showcase this at the end as well. Using an audio spectrum i was able to animation the line to react to the music this again highlight that relationship between movement and music in a more subtle manner.

In the next composition I animated the symbols to show the body movements which is another layer that comes from dance notation. The symbols appear in the animation where they would be performed within the routine to the music again reinforcing that layer of the routine. I start to animate these symbols where they would be in the routine. I took inspiration from what the movements look like in real life in to how I animate them. As I was colour coding these to highlight difference between the movements I also animated the background colour to change so that the symbols would stand out in their certain colours. I feel that this has started to bring the project together. I then when onto start animating the handling that would happen on each of the elements. Again taking inspiration from how the apparatus moves in real life. This is the 4th layer which I found when applying this idea of layers to rhythmic gymnastics. There is still more work to be done in terms of this layer and showing the movements of the apparatus in-between the main movements.

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Booklet

After my research into type specimen books I thought I would start off my designing a few spreads to show at my 1-1 tutorial to get some feedback on the direction I was heading. As the booklet will follow the colour coding from animation and other supporting material I decided that I would start with just one section to begin with. Using the content from the Code of Points already I was able to add in the value of each movement and what it was called in terms of the code of points. I wanted to think about pace and changing up the spread so that some showcased one or two symbols while others showcases 5/6 different ones within the same group of elements. I also have started to include some of my own photography into this part of the project to show how the elements look in real life giving them more context.

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Before moving forward to develop the animation further I wanted to explore dance notation further. I listen to Anna Trevien talk about Benish notation which is the form of notation I have been looking at throughout this project. I learnt that to learn notation doesn’t mean you have to have a background in dance, notation has actually been used to record movement in different industries like aeroplane engineering and architecture. Notation has become about movement in general rather than just about dance.

Within banish notation movements are record on a score which has 5 different lines. Each of the lines represent a proportion of the body. This allows the reader to understand which part of the body is moving. Relating this back to the symbols of rhythmic gymnastics I don’t think using a score would work as well in this sense as the signs are more symbolic rather than index signs if we are applying semiotic knowledge to them. (Index – show evidence of the object they represent.) (Symbols – Show no representation of the object it’s referring to) Based on this I feel that it wouldn’t suit the notation format to use a score for this project.

While listening I also learn that when reading notation you are reading as though you are the dancer not the audience. This means that a turn left means turn to your left not the dancers left. This was interesting as in rhythmic gymnastics there is no specific directional symbols to accompany the signs. The signs just tell you the element to perform and the handling that goes with in. However, in the animation I could show the direction but the way in which I animate the handling symbol to show the plane that the hoop might rotate on or the angle which the hoop should be thrown at.

Furthermore, Anna showed how floor plan often accompany notation scores to allow a choreographer to get a better sense of space on the stage, not just from score but also visually from this small diagrams. When I used to compete as a gymnast and choreograph routines, I would often draw the routine floor path to ensure that I was using all areas of the floor and that I wasn’t just going up and down continuously. I thought that this might be a nice way in the animation to show this layer of relationship between movement and space.

Overall by having more understanding of the dance notation will help me to develop both the animation and supporting content that I am producing for this project. I think with more development and information like this I will be able to develop a strong outcome and final project.

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Reference

https://www.peopleoftheatre.com/spotlight/anna-trevien