1: Phosphenes

ASSIGNMENT: Create a moving image composition that reveals a visual phenomena that cannot be recorded by camera. You will draw and animate a moving image composition that makes visible for others what you see when you close your eyes. Your own perceptual system creates visual effects. What do you see? How does it move, change, or evolve over time? Those blobs, lights, shapes, sparks and patterns you see when you close your eyes – especially when you rub them while closed – are real. “A phosphene is a phenomenon characterized by the experience of seeing light without light actually entering the eye. – more info on Wikipedia. Remember to create a title for your project and add that to your movie, including credit for yourself. Consider the style, timing and placement of your title within your movie. This is a visual project only, no audio.

Your final composition should be rendered at 1280 x 720 square pixels (HDV setting) at a minimum time of 60 seconds, maximum 90 seconds. Copy your properly compressed movie file into the folder titled “PROJECT 1” on the instructor computer before class starts on the due date. If your movie file does not play smoothly on the class computers, you need to re-render it with more compression.

Techniques: Start with drawings of what you see when you close your eyes. These could created on paper and scanned into the computer, or created directly in a raster or vector program. These will be animated in Adobe After Effects, using scale, position, rotation, opacity, layering and effects.

This project is 10% of your overall grade