GiffGaff Instagram and Webpage Banners - After Effects

With animating in Photoshop proving to be such a difficult way of working, I used After Effects to produce the web banners and instagram stories. This was instantly much easier to use (for instance the work I was producing was not getting lost/ changed when I worked on the following frames). When producing these, the main things I had in mind where that they were eye-catching/interesting and that they looped seamlessly. 

The pasta machine layer was brought onto screen using the Page Turn effect. Behind this, the cyclical sequence of the machine's handle is a mask that's slowly revealed as the page turn effect moves across it. The hand with the phone is keyframed using easy ease points and coincides with the sequence involving money being dispensed from the machine. The cash transition that rolls across screen fits with the message of the advert as well as covering up the fact that we didn't have a photo of the hand not holding the phone, so I couldn't have made a loop involving the hand being removed from the machine. 

The painted background is made from oil paint and is a stop-motion sequence of paint spiralling outwards. The hole in this was created by green-screening the spiral out. Once again the Page Turn effect was used for the bin object. The noise bar provided by GiffGaff could move more in retrospect. The pink doodles follow the hand and text and flash/morph, keeping the viewer's attention on the important parts of the advert in the foreground. The text is too long to read for the time that the advert is displayed for. The advert ends the same way it started, being sucked into the spiralling paint, forming the loop.

The loop for this banner is created by two pieces of paper sliding away/towards one another. The coin piles are looping sequences that help keep the foreground entertaining. They also relate to the message, as does the cash transition of the advert, that you can get money for recycling your phone with them. The text is snappy and the colours are in keeping with GiffGaff's brand. This was my favourite banner to make.

This is a simpler style banner that incorporates the Page Turn effect on both hands and they are keyframed out of shot to create the loop. The noise bars are animated here more, however this is a quieter advert on the whole. The gradient (something that features in a lot of GiffGaff adverts) changes between the brand's blue and pink. 

This was another advert I was pleased with. It uses three looping sequences of a spinning globe, a spinning coin, and a phone falling into someone's hand. I 2D animated these three icons in Photoshop before importing the sequences into After Effects. These are laid on top of and project pink shadows on jittering pieces of cutout paper. The noise bar to the right flickers and the oil spiral effect was colour corrected to fit with the brand's use of the colour blue. 

I'm happy with the slow transitioning background to this instagram story, however the green overlay dilutes these noise layers, turning it a red colour, so the background will be readjusted. I'm happy otherwise with the community shot of Madgie, Bethan and Daisy that are on loop. The doodles react to the main actions. The main message is clear on top of the paper cutout. 

What Went Well

• After Effects is much better for animating in than Photoshop
• The banners are eye-catching and loop which is what I set out to do with them
• The banners match a similar style to the 20 second advert, making it an overall clear product bundle
• The banners keep to the style that GiffGaff have specified in their brief

Criticism

• Some of the banner's backgrounds will need adjusting
• One of the banner's slogans are too long for the time given to read it
• The Page Turn effect may have been overused a bit however by using it in a lot of the adverts, I thought this would be a good way to create continuity between them