Ident 2 - Fireline

For our second ident, Fireline, I decided that we wanted some fire (inspired by the title) to spread out into bubbles across the screen. I executed this by using various effects, mostly CC Particle Systems, using the 'Fire' physics mode, and a particle type of Bubble.

I also increased the birth size and decreased the death size to make the particles grow smaller as they rise, giving a stronger idea that they come from one point. I changed the longevity and birth rate to have the particles last less long (to give a fading away look at the top of the fire) and spawn more frequently (to give an idea that this is a roaring fire) respectively. I made sure to change the colours so that the particles were a gradient of orange the whole way through the animation. I adjusted the velocity and other parameters - from here on it was just a case of fiddling with things until I got the look I wanted. I also used a motion blur, Vector Blur, Fast Blur, Directional Blur, and Echo (although faded these out when the fire turns to bubbles) to blend the particles together and give more of a firey look. I also added a curves adjustment to make the fire more orange and a turbulent displace and a Glow to tie everything together. I then played around with the Direction, Resistance, Gravity, Extra, and Velocity settings to get a bubble result I was happy with.

Titles Test 2

For our titles I ventured onto dafont.com whereupon I encountered this font, Mocking Bird.

We like this font because of the handwritten feel and we thought it would be simple to create this in after effects for our intertitles.

I used after effects' Stroke effect to draw a mask in the shape of the text and reveal it, following the shape of the original text. I have taught my partner how to do this too (she did the 'Emma' one) and we both really like the effect it creates.

Ident Testing

This is my initial attempt at an ident. It consists of a grid made of an Advanced Lightning effect, with the Lightning Type set to Bouncey, Forking to 100%, Minimum Fork Distance to 10 pixels, Complexity to 2, and Glow to 0. I then added some red glow over the top and a gold title to give it a cool effect.

After talking to my partner, we decided to make the ident redder as we thought it would fit more firmly into the thriller genre. I did this by decreasing the green and blue Curves adjustment.

I was dissatisfied with the result, as I had initially liked the more golden flash. I added this back in and my partner and I agree that this looks much nicer. I also made the background more red so as to distinguish it from a title.


Here is my first attempt at what our titles might look like - the 'dust' is made of 50,000 particles per frame and this took a very long time to render. It will be a consideration going forward.



We like the font for the ident as we think it fits with both film and genre but the text for the titles is too generic and doesn't really match the thriller genre.