Animation is something I’ve always been interested in and once I started playing around with it, I found an increasing amount of opportunities to include it in my work. I have since produced animations for DVDs, CD-ROMs, websites, in store promotional videos and digital signage in airports.
I started animating in Macromedia Flash (as it was back then!), and soon added Swift 3D to my toolkit. Unfortunately most of the Flash websites I’ve built have long since moved onto more open technologies, but that’s the price of progress!
My preferred animation tools are now Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D, especially now almost everyone has broadband, and there are not so many advantages of using vector animations over video. I really like using After Effects as it is essentially Photoshop, my favourite program, taken to the next level!
In 2010 I was approached by designer Erik Beaton, who I had previously produced some animated Flash website content for, to animate some designs he had put together for RCS Pro AV Limited. They had installed 3 large video walls in London’s Gatwick airport and needed some content to run on them.
The screens were all bespoke systems designed and built by RCS, so I had to play around with the format to find something that would work, especially the screens above the Norwegian Airlines check in desks, which had a very unusual 33:1 aspect ratio!
The high volume of passengers that go through the airport (around 33.6 million in 2011), means that the work I’ve done for RCS is probably the most viewed of any work I’ve to date.
This is a promotional demonstration I put together for RCS of the content running on one of their screens in the south terminal. It is difficult to film them running with all the people walking around!
There are some more examples on the video page of RCS Pro AV’s website.
In 2008, I collected together some of the bits of animation I have produced and strung them together to an old blues tune by Blind Willie McTell, who’s music is long since out of copyright, at least in the UK!
Below you can see some really old Flash stuff I produced back in the day:
