This brief started off with having a look into BBC Radio 3. Looking for a 10-20 second audio clip to create a kinetic typographic animation for wasn’t easy as there was a lot of classical music being played and not so many words being said.

I came across an interesting documentary on one of Radio 3’s Sunday afternoon shows called The Pleasure Telephone. This gave a little insight on the history of how the telephone would be used to listen to live opera as opposed to attending the event to watch it.

The clip I chose from this documentary is of Edward Seckerson, who has a pretend conversation on the phone in order to introduce the topic of discussion. Below is a transcript of what is being said:

“Yeah, Edward speaking”“Oh, hi, hi, look, look, I can’t talk just now because I’m just off to Paris”“I’m investigating how they could listen to live opera on the telephone back in 1881”

Doing further research on the audience of Radio 3, I discovered that the majority of their listeners are over the age of 55. This was important to bear in mind when starting to develop my idea for the kinetic typography.

As this audio clip was based on a topic from the 19th century opera I decided to look at some fonts that were widely used in that century. These were mostly found in posters advertising the opera.

But as this fake phone call displaying the discussion was made in this century I also looked at some of the font from the 21st century.

On the left hand side is font from the 21st century. Next to it is a variety of fonts displayed, from the 19th century.

I decided to use one type of font as my basis and work from there, rather than using different sort of fonts. The proof of the use of the 21st century would be displayed in the sort of methods used to play about with the chosen font.

I also looked at posters that were used in the 19th century to advertise the operas they would hold. This helped give a rough visualisation of how I would want my kinetic typography to appear in terms of font, texture and colours.

By looking at these posters I knew that I wanted the old style of the century to be quite obvious in myoutcome. My first and final idea was to use some old-looking paper as the basis of the background of the animation. From there I would play about with the texture, the size, the colours and so on by crumpling up the paper or by taking pictures of it under different lights.

I also looked at the different processes found in the 19th century to start creating my animation. I knew in order to this I would have to use a more hands-on approach to start creating my final piece.

I had a look at a documentary called ‘Media Magica’ which showed some of the different processes they used before the 21st century to make films or animations.

Some of the ones that stood out the most to me were the zoescope, ombre cinema (example shown on the right hand side as I did in one of my experiments).

I also looked at 21st century processes as I wanted to combine the two somehow. In order to do this I decided to use digital processes (i.e. AfterEffects) to help create and finalise the animaton.

The first experiment I did was a foundation of a further sequence of other experiments to come.

It was important that I kept the texture of the background the same. To do this I made sure to always use old paper but alternate it by using different sizes or different textures by using creased or uncreased paper.

In the image on the far right there are six different fonts that I had used. Each of the letters were cut out on foam paper then put in black paint so that they would print out the letter on the paper.

I wanted to stick to one type of font, and the one that stood out the most to me was the ‘circus’ font, (in the image on the closest right). I chose this because I felt it was the one that was most distinctive. Playing around with such a font would make the outcome look better because of its shape.

When starting my kinetic typography I wanted to play around with the font that I was planning on using so that it wouldn’t look the same throughout the whole animation. I drew out three ways of representing the font (shown on the nearest image on the right):

-The first way was to cut out the outline of the font onto foam paper, that way it could be used to stamp on a piece of paper. -The second way was to cut out the whole font onto foam paper, this would also be used to stamp onto paper.-The third way would be to use the actual design of the chosen font, so it would have all the details on the font. This would be drawn out on a normal piece of paper. I would then cut out small pieces of foam paper on the back of the letter that way it raises the font off its background to create a bit of a shadow, this way more depth is created.

When working with this piece of audio I decided to split the dailogue in different categories so I could change the style of the visual for each part of that dialogue in the animation.

On the far right is an image of the first test made using the foam paper font outline. This is what the final result looked like.

The nearest image shows how the full font would look like when stamped out on paper.

In the image at the far end are the pieces of cut out letters of the font. They have been stuck on foam paper so that they raise off the paper slightly. In the image you can see the slight shadow that this effect creates.I felt that this sort of style of type suited this part of the dialogue as it was the most ‘theatrical’, and by using this effect, it gave off the most theatre or drama.

This time when I stamped the font onto paper I placed it on some creased paper. I want to carry on the effect of using an old-looking background, and this made it look older. It also gave the font more texture to it as it was less neat-looking.

The images show how I managed to use this process.

The images to the right represent my storyboard for the final kinetic typography I had in mind. Using the experiments I had previously worked on I made sure to implement them into my final piece.

The experiments done were merely a starting point, so that I could play with the font, texture and shapes.

There were certain words I felt should be represented on their own as they were key words of what the audio was talking about. For example. the words ‘Paris’, ‘opera’, ‘listen’, ‘telephone’ and ‘1881’.

The theme of this audio was theatrical, so I made sure I showed this in the best way I could by playing around with the words, and the way the words were placed on the background. A lot of this was done by cutting out the the letters individually on Photoshop then placing them on different backgrounds.

My final kinetic typography displays a range of techniques that I had messed about with when I did my experiments. There were certain words I felt were important so made sure they would stand out when making this animation, as the video is quite quick and short. It was important that the viewers were able to read the most important words.