1 RSA Moving Pictures: Not Enough Time

BIG IDEA SUMMARY

My solution to the ‘Not Enough Time’ moving pictures breif was to create a motion graphic that reflected the invisible pressures in society that cause women to feel pressured to be perfect.

I used a minimalist flat design in our video, used frequently in infographics to convey the key points of the audio clearly. The colour palette purposely contradicts the style of the modern vector graphics and intends to reflect the past, using black and white to reflect old televisions. This contradiction is to demonstrate the modern pressures that women feel from society and acknowledge the history that has influenced this.

The area of need that we address within my motion graphic is the sexist society we find ourselves living in, and those who suffer because of the effects of this mindset. My motion graphic targets the image the women put pressure on themselves to achieve by highlighting where these ideas come from to allow women to challange these ideas for themselves.

I arrived at omy solution by listening the the audio and analysing the important points, breaking it into sections in order to visualise these. I carried out exten-sive research into the subject of the audio and Tiffany Dufu, the narrator, in order to add further insight to the main points of the audio. Through research and brainstorming we worked to visualise these into my final outcome

2 RSA Moving Pictures: Not Enough Time

Not Enough Time

I started by doing some research into the subject ‘Not enough time’ and Tiffany Dufu. This gave me useful insights into the background of what Dufu is talking about on the audio.

I was paricularly inspired by an interview with Tiffany Dufu in which she explains why women feel like they need to achieve all these things on their ‘to-do lists’ that are referred to in the audio. Dufu also gave examples of why it was so important that these images are

challenged as they hold women back from excelling in a working environment alongside men who don’t experience the same pressures in other areas of their lives. This is where I found the need for a video that challenges these images and where they come from.

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Initial Brainstorming

I started by sketching out some ide-as for the content of the video, this was the initial concept that we came up with. The idea revolved around a women sat at a desk writing her to-do list, with items from this list popping up as they are referred to on the audio. At the same time, the thoughts and outside influences that feed the womens thought process when writing the list would appear.

I liked this idea because it is a strong visual representation of the subject. Although I decided that it didn’t necessarily follow the story of the audio or visualise what it is saying at different parts.

This led me to go back to the drawing board to find a solution that uses some of these ideas while also animating what the audio is saying at the same time.

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Mood Boards

I started by sketching out some ide-as for the content of the video, this was the initial concept that we came up with. The idea revolved around a women sat at a desk writing her to-do list, with items from this list popping up as they are referred to on the audio. At the same time, the thoughts and outside influences that feed the womens thought process when writing the list would appear.

I liked this idea because it is a strong visual representation of the subject. Although I decided that it didn’t necessarily follow the story of the audio or visualise what it is saying at different parts.

This led me to go back to the drawing board to find a solution that uses some of these ideas while also animating what the audio is saying

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Storyboard

The first step to developing a storyboard was to break the audio down into sections and visualise each of these individually. I identified 9 keys parts and sketched out a storyboard based on these.

I took inspiration from infographics and existing videos such as the RSA animates to develop my ideas.

The concept of this storyboard is to simply visualise what the audio is saying, up until the ending part where I will add examples of unrealistic images of women that we see in the real world that influ-ence us. These images will then be blown up right at the end of the video when the audio says ‘humanly impossible’ as a way of getting the viewer to question and challenge these ideas.

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Creating characters

When creating the characters to represent the 70 women within the audio I felt it was really important to show diversity so everyone could find a character that they relate to.

Although I wanted the faces to represent diversity, I made the decision to keep all the characters clothing the same. This was to link all the characters together to represent the similarities and common ground that all of these women have.

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Colour Scheme

For the final colour scheme I made the decision to go with a black and white colour palette. The reason for this was to make it look like the animation is on a black and white television.

The idea behind this was that it relates to a time when women were expected to be housewives and had little rights and this mindset still spills over today, being part of the reason why women feel like they need to be perfect both and home and at work.

The use of this colour contrasts with the modern vector style to show that there has been a lot of change but there are still elements of the past that resonate.

These are also other colour schemes I experimented with. I tried out bright colours, different to the natural skintones, to show diversity. I also experimented with reds and oranges as these colours provoke a feeling of anxiety, representing the stress that women are under in their lives to be ‘perfect’. Another idea I considered was to use pinks and purples, colours associated as feminine and then to change these colours at the end of the video to show them breaking away from the stereotype images of women.

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Creating Video Assets

To create the assets for the animation storybaord I tried to create objects that visualised the tasks that the audio was talking about.

The font I chose to use was ‘Birch Standard’ which is a Serif font. The reason I chose this font is that slightly resembles an old fashioned type-writer font to fit in with the black and white theme. At the same time it is also clean and feels quite modern so will appeal to my audience.

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Final Storyboard

To put together the final storyboard I chose the frames that I felt highlight-ed the most important points of the audio. The points each frame repre-sents is as follows:

1 - 70 women

2 - Sorting priorities

3 - Thinking about an ideal day

4 - Daily tasks

5 - How much time these would take

6 - Not one woman has enough time in their day

7 - Only half remembered essential tasks like sleep

8 - Expectations women have of themselves

9 - Impossible expectations

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Instructions for Animation

My ideal

day

70 WOMEN

My ideal

day

12 3

4

5

6

7

8

9

HOW MUCH TIMESINGLE ONEEVERY

NOT ONE WOMAN ONLY HALF

ZzzZzz Zzz

Zzz

Zzz

Zzz

Zzz

Zzz

Perfect

Women

PerfectMother

PerfectWife

Perfect

workerPerfect

friend

0-5 SECONDS1 - The figures pop onto the screen one at a time2 - Words appear on screen when said by narrator and box drawn around edges3 - Box zooms into one figure to frame next shot

5-10 SECONDS1 - Arms bounce into screen one at a time from left to right2 - Mouth of figure changes from smile to circle (confusion)3 - Arms bounce off screen one at a time from right to left4 - Women figure moves down and out of the shot

10-15 SECONDS1 - Hand comes in from bottom of the shot and writes ‘my ideal day on the screen’2 - Hand moves down and out of the shot3 - Everything in the shot shrinks into a box in the middle of the screen on a black background.

15-25 SECONDS1 - 2&3 slide out from behind 12 - 4 slides out from behind 3 and 5 slides out from behind 23 - 6 slides out from behind 4 and 7 slides out from behind 54 - 8 slides out from behind 6 and 9 slides out from behind 7

25-30 SECONDS1 - How much time typed onto shot2 - Line drawn underlining text3 - Box drops down like a swinging sign

25-30 SECONDS1 - The dot on the question mark grows and fills whole shot leaving blank

30 SECONDS1 - Figures of woman come into shot as if camera is zooming out to reveal them from centre of group

30-40 SECONDS1 - When disappear one at a time until none on the screen2 - Words appear on screen as narrated

40-45 SECONDS1 - 35 figures appear at random one at a time2 - ‘ZZZ’ s animate as if figures are snoring

45-50 SECONDS

1 - Woman pops onto screen2 - Thought bubbles appear

50-58 SECONDS1 - Bubbles appear one at a time2 - Woman gets smaller each time another bubble appears

55-60 SECONDS1 - Static takes over shot2 - Crack appears in screen