Extended Practice: No Headlights Animation Production 3

Since I didn't get to use this background that I spent a lot of time on in the first advert, I decided to make use of it for the next scene for the third animation. I found it more fitting this for this time actually, because of the time of night and illustrating just how dark it could be in real life too.

Again, I used the same car from my turnaround but a different angle this time, and used it to illustrate the speed of the car zooming through the streets. I wanted this scene to be in here because since there are no headlights, it is a little harder to see but that is the whole point. The audience can't really him too clearly, and in the animation, this is what will foreshadow the ending.

What I tried to do with the zoom shot, is create a slight depth of field that I have seen in many 2D animations before. So for the building in the front, especially at the left of the screen, I had brought them forward quite a bit so that the After Effects camera would focus on the centre of the sequence and create a more realistic depth instead of all the buildings sharp and flat! There is still some sheen to the roof tops and overall, I like the aesthetic of this quick small scene.

Then I wanted to animate the car driving forward like I had in my texting and driving animation. I wanted to obviously avoid lighting the scene with headlights because that would defeat the purpose of the animation, but without the headlights what else would light the scene? I therefore thought about perhaps other cars passing by? Or streetlights being reflected off the car metallic paint? I tried to replicate this with some extra spot light layers, that travelled and faded, as well as light beams all at different paces. At this stage, it really doesn't look like much, so I was ready to scrap this idea.

But, once I added some movements, detail and textures to the scene, I thought it began to look more lively. I made the scene even darker, but I am worried that it is too dark. I know that when the animation is played it will look cohesive, but at the next crit I will have to see how it looks on a bigger screen. Even though I was happy with this scene, it still didn't feel like the car was travelling far, so I added some more features to it.

I animated some road lines that create the illusion of speed which is perfect! I also added some trees again which I liked because they create the motion of the car moving forward and I added some glowing stars in the background which light the scene up slights so that it isn't TOO dark. The one thing I didn't like was how the trees just shrink when they move backwards, so I went and fixed this too.

And this is the final result.

Scenes altogether so far.