Story so far... DMU year 3, term 2

For my second term I had to create a TV intro and a Movie intro. These needed to be stand alone with no footage either side. So just the opening sequences.

Both of my final decisions on what to make were heavily influenced by the Cinema. I had just watched the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solice. I loved the opening Credits for this so much I decided instantly that I was going to create my own James Bond opening sequence.

Now I knew what I was going to make, I needed a theme for my film.

At the time I had my radio was set to switch on as my alarm in the mornings, and one morning my radio switched on, woke me up at the exact time a song started. That song was Rain on your Parade, by Duffy. I knew instantly that I had my song! (I have only just noticed when linking the song to its wiki page that it is quoted as having a 'James Bond-esque sound', therefore proof that great minds think alike! )

The song works perfectly as a James Bond theme. It has all the movements that you could desire, as well as the common instruments of a Bond Theme.

The song has dark tones and I saw dark purple and blues as I listened to it. This decided the colours I wished to use.

I decided early on I wanted to film my characters the same was I filmed my music video in the first year.

This would mean filming in front of a white screen and luma keying the characters to create a stencil effects.

At the time I was beginning to under stand Trapcode Form really well. Therefore I decided to use this as the main tool for my work.

I created the back ground using Trapcode Horizon. I then moved a camera through 3D space as Trapcode Form was set to move to the music with some additional controlled parameters.

On top of this the silhouettes of the characters and a gun were combined with Form, Star Glow and at times Shine.

Text was added and manipulated over an uncompressed render of the final sequence.

Some blurs such as CC radial blur were added to some parts. And Particular was used as gun shots and explosions.

Final colour enhancement was done with Magic Bullet Looks.

For me this is one of the most enjoyable and highest quality pieces of work I have ever done. I still enjoy watching the video and the feeling the visuals combined with the audio create.

After this Motion Graphics became more of a for front in my activity's.

My TV intro, as stated earlier, was inspired by the Cinema as well. At this point I had just seen the first full trailer for the Star Trek XI film.

Being very excited about this I decided to make my own Star Trek opening.

At the time I was at the hight of my Knowledge with Blender and 3D modelling. So I created my Enterprise, which I wanted to be different from the ones seen before.

I did all the modelling, texturing and lighting in Blender.

I animated the ship and the camera in Blender and Rendered it straight out of the program as well.

I created the planet, comet and explosions in After Effects. This included heavy use of Particular.

The background was made with Horizon, but the back ground once the ship appears was all done inside Blender.

For when the ship goes to warp the effect was created with Star Glow, Shine and lens flares.

All of the text was treated with Star Glow.

I used the music from The Next Generation. I also paid homage to the Original Series intro and the Next Generation, with the ship flying past the camera.

This was great fun to make and I enjoyed ever second of it. Even though it was course work, and I did very well with it, I was glad to make it and get it out of my system.

I even did the captains voice over myself, even though my voice doesn't quite suit it, it was a chance that I wasn't going to miss.