60 Second Documentary: The Importance of Maintaining Balance - Initial Ideas

With the short time span for production turnover, the design wanted to find an existing video, where the audio could be extracted and used for production. 

This proved difficult with the extensive and lack of summarised content online.

The design found a video that summarised the ideas in a very short amount of time (around 30 seconds) and slowed it down, to get less of an americanised voice, and more of a neutral, slower pace and understandable audio output. In this way the design considers the audio for education purposes, so  that the person is not categorised by its audience. 

Furthermore, the concepts covered in these 30 seconds would be easy to animate, covering key ideas in a short amount of time. Thus, using After Effects it was possible to slow it down and produce 40 seconds of video time.

The design decided to use mobile app software, as the production was to be shared on a mobile phone format, the quality would be appropriate. 

Forge of Neon, an app that allows the user to draw freely in an LED format, which can then be exported as high quality 6, 15 or 30 second videos. 

The software offers a range of axis drawings (x, y or z), and is symmetrical, which ties in well with the idea of balance. 

As such, the design went on the produce imagery that reflected:

1. The Four Elements

• Earth
• Air
• Water
• Fire

2. The Four States of Matter

• Solid
• Liquid
• Gas
• Plasma

3. The Four Seasons

• Winter
• Autumn
• Summer
• Spring

4. A Square (Four Sided Shape)

5. The Four Directions 

6. The Four Ways of Taking in Energy

• Food
• Water
• Oxygen
• Prana

Visual investigation into ways of present these:

• Earth - a core / magnetic field / browns and greens 
• Air - blurred / gas-like structure / whites, blues (reminiscent of a clear day)
• Water - blues / flowing molecular structure like waves, rivers etc
• Fire - yellow, reds, oranges / flame-like structure

• Winter - reminiscent of a snow drop 
• Summer - a flower / highly saturated colours / strong yellow for the sun & strong blue for the sea
• Spring - blossom 
• Autumn - browns, oranges, reds, greens / faller leaves

• Solid - a tight-nit molecular structure
• Liquid - a loose water-like droplet
• Gas - grey / undefined / blurred

Outcomes:

Fire - Try 1

Fire - Try 2 (refined to a more flame like structure). The fire animation was also given a glare that the others were not, to reflect the light given from a flame, and the static-ness mimics the lack of oxygen this produces.

Water 

Air

Plasma:

Solid - was tried in a few variations to mimic a box structure, or close rigid compounds

Liquid - used a flower pattern to draw to mirror its purpose and give it a looser feel:

Earth:

Spring - started off simple, then added an inner part to resemble a flower / blossom

 Autumn:

 Summer - Try 1: initially wanted strong yellows and greens to reflect fields full of life, and the shape resembled a Daffodil, however it did not seem saturated or bright enough for summer. 

 Summer - Try 2: captures the burning hot glow of the summer sun and the flowing of water from the oceans like is the beach was a planet 

 For the square the design wanted to incorporate the colours of fire and earth (red) , plants and fields (green) water and sky (blue) and air / gas / clouds (white) to fully represent the four elements. 

The design then created two forms of rotation to mimic 'the geometry of a square' which will display it flat (2d), and 'this prevalent system of four all of over world' which mimics the rotation of 'all over' and taking it into three dimensions. 

 The four directions (N,E,S,W) reflects the compass, showing both the spherical shape of our world, the four possible directions, and how this makes up the geometry of a square. Thus visually communicating the exact concept of 'prevalent system of four all around our world' that is the basis of the video. 

Gas - simple and unseen

Plasma - inspired by the popular plasma balls 

For the final section to part one 'ways of taking in energy' a combination of the four elements was designed for the remaining 'food, water, oxygen and prana' to tie the four ideas together for the second section.

Due to the length needing to fill the 60 seconds, it was also decided to make an introductory title sequence, and search for a relevant section two to the video, to make it the full 60 seconds.

The design chose the typeface Harriet text Bold as an in-trend and more formal serif font, with the hope of adding a relaxed but authoritative tone of voice. 

The title sequence was made on Photoshop timeline, exported as an .mp4 and placed onto After Effects with the rest of the videos.