PROJECT DETAILS
A supplementary video for the Obedience section of MacIntroPsych's PSYCH 1X03: Introduction to Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour course at McMaster University. This video was created in collaboration with the Biomedical Science Communication Master's program at the University of Toronto by 1T9 students Carmen Burroughs, Contessa Giontsis, Nitai Steinberg, and Colleen Tang Poy. It summarizes the Milgram experiment (Milgram, 1963), nurse study (Hofling et al., 1966), and the social psychology concept of obedience.
AUDIENCE
Undergrad psychology students
Medium
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe AfterEffects
client
Prof. Nick Woolridge
Dr. Joseph Kim
format
Video on the web
Date
April 2019
LOOK DEVELOPMENT
My first role for this project was look development. These are sketches that detail the look and feel of the final animation. Color palettes, line widths, and character/item stylization were all designed to match the overall tone of each scene of the animation. I wanted to keep the look simplified but with enough detail to easily read what objects and expressions were, while keeping the colors a medium saturation with colored outlines, as I felt black was too harsh for general use.
STORYBOARDING
The next step for me was to storyboard the introduction scene of the animation. This scene needed to be attention grabbing so I suggested involving an "interactive" experience for the watcher (as the students would most likely be watching this on a personal computer or phone/tablet). It also needed to introduce our topic and properly lead into the next scene. Aspects such as camera movement, character movement, transitions, motion graphics, and narration are all detailed and worked through.
ASSET BUILDING
After the storyboard was finalized, our group split up the responsibility of building assets. Colleen and I chose the task of building the assets for the characters (heads, eyes/mouth, bodies, arms, hands, legs, clothing, items being held, etc), while Nitai and Contessa built the props and environments (tables, car, building, trees, etc). Colleen and I had to take into consideration how to build the characters in a way that would allow for easier character animation later on. Assets were built in Adobe Illustrator.
ASSEMBLING AND ANIMATING IN AFTER EFFECTS
We then brought our assets into After Effects, assembled them, and began to animate to our recorded narration. While Colleen and I did majority of the character animation, Nitai contributed some as well (the hand-flipping-switches scene in the Milgram Study). Contessa and Nitai animated the items and motion graphic elements (texts, bubbles, lights, candles, car, etc). Together as a group we found or made our sound effects, decided on music, and composited everything together for the final animation. For a fun, personal touch Colleen and I each made two head animations for our group in the credits.
