Artist Statement #3 - Daydream Video Project

This project was a blast for me as I got to improve my animation skills on both Adobe Animate and Adobe After Effects, all while integrating my love for cycling. I decided to create a dreamscape where I transitioned from a mountain bike ride out on the trails into a dream world with a little animated mountain biker buddy. In the video, I pass by the little guy as he hides behind a tree and we slowly appear as the background transitions into the dream world while a song starts to play. After a long adventure hitting different jumps and obstacles in the dream world, we slowly transition back into reality where after hitting a jump, the cartoon mountain biker guy flies off, out of the video. This animation sort of mirrors how I feel sometimes when I’m mountain biking, as being out on the trails can be an amazing escape from reality in the same way as the animation. 

Some challenges I faced while making this animation were dealing with the confusing Adobe Animation software. While I’m happy to have spent time in After Effects figuring out how to use various commands, the user-interface is different than other Adobe software, and figuring out how to do simple things, such as looping a short 1-second clip often turned into a long google search. I feel that in the end my animation came out very successfully. The transition in and out of reality is very interesting and I think both the music and sound effects add a light-hearted comedic element to the project.

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTcDb4rdMT4