This motion graphic piece, titled Polyfaebl Parallax Promo, aims to promote a personal passionate project known as Polyfaebl (literally meaning many stories), a potential franchise of character-driven series. It will showcase the titles of six of these series and their main characters through a parallax technique.
As displayed in the storyboard, a black hexagon spirals in front of a glowing, pulsating star (STAGING). Six hexagons of different colours (red, yellow, purple, green, blue and silver) will appear one at a time, expanding from the edges of the black hexagon as they surround it (SQUASH AND STRETCH). Each project takes at least four seconds (TIMING) to present an image of their main characters (APPEAL) as they zoom in like a parallax (SLOW IN AND SLOW OUT). with their respective hexagons zooming out (ANTICIPATION) In the time between each project, the star will fade out and back in to reveal the next project (ANTICIPATION, TIMING and EXAGGERATION) The titles of the projects will appear fluidly in the staged hexagons behind the projects just as they are being presented in the foreground (SECONDARY ACTION) Once each project is presented, the Polyfaebl main title will zoom out from the screen to fit over the set of hexagons above it (STAGING).
In a late development to the project, the video will end with all the titles disappearing before the hexagons hide behind the black hexagon. The black hexagon shrinks and expands to give the effect of zooming into the screen (ANTICIPATION) and a white screen concludes the video.
JATLUS (the red hexagon) is set on an alien planet, where human Rob Clayton is mysteriously transported to. He counts on Mitaka to find his place within an alien society and protect their world from evil belligerent forces.
VICESEEKER (the yellow hexagon) is set on Earth, specifically among kingdoms in northern Europe during the declining Roman Empire. A band of sub-human people known as Zages launch a quest to protect all life on Earth from a hidden kingdom of malevolent creatures.
RINA (the purple hexagon) is set on Earth, seeing Rina (a half-human alien) travelling across Europe throughout the centuries, specifically from the Viking Era, the Dark Age, the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
GUTHELAND (the green hexagon) is set on Earth, specifically on a mystical island called Gutheland occupied by the British Empire during the late Victorian Era. This series concerns Beatrice Hepworth living on her late father’s estate on a strange island, meeting the Whitlock family and befriending a reclusive sorceress living on a hill.
HIGHRISERS (the blue hexagon) is set on modern-day Earth in a fictional British constituency known as Albanshire. The series revolves around twelve residents of an apartment building, balancing their work, studies, friendships, interests, relationships and identities with mysterious forces that haunt their home.
DISSENTERS (the silver hexagon) is set outside of the known universe, in a battle-weary galaxy which the three main characters defend. These characters (sly Mauxer, courageous Fiedri and scholarly Letiska) combine their skills to assemble an unconventional guard against warring species.
The resulting animation will be available on the Polyfaebl social media accounts (Instagram and Facebook) Therefore, the video will be rendered in the standard mp4 standard (H.264) The target audience for this short promo, and indeed potentially for the Polyfaebl franchise, is older children (older than 12 years old) to adult, open-minded to the fantasy and sci-fi genre in fictional entertainment.
STORYBOARD NOTES
1: Polyfaebl logo appears on screen, in front of pulsating star. A hexagon spins in front of star and six multicoloured hexagons surround it. The star pulses.
2: Jatlus title. Main characters (Rob Clayton and Mitaka) zoom in while red hexagon zooms out on the side. Fade out. The star pulses.
3: Viceseeker title. Main characters (Rina, Lira and Nadezhda) zoom in while yellow hexagon zooms out on the side. Fade out. The star pulses.
4: Rina title. The character Rina appears in four forms with a mysterious device zooming in while purple hexagon zooms out on the side. Fade out. The star pulses.
5: Gutheland title. Main characters (Rina and Bea Hepworth) zoom in while green hexagon zooms out on the side. Fade out. The star pulses.
6: Highrisers title. Cast of characters zoom in while blue hexagon zooms out on the side. Fade out. The star pulses.
7: Dissenters title. Main characters (Mauxer, Fiedri and Letiska) zoom in while silver hexagon zooms out on the side. Fade out. The star pulses.
8: Polyfaebl title zooms out in front of logo.
PROCESS
Most of the images seen in the motion graphic (the hexagons, the project titles, the star and the background) were already created in Illustrator prior to this project. The majority of this project was spent creating more characters and assets digitally from their sketchbooks. These characters were for the Viceseeker, Dissenters, Gutheland and Rina projects.
The characters of the Jatlus project (Rob and Mitaka) were assets in a previous Honours Project in 2018, partially redeveloped for this motion graphic project.
The characters of the Highrisers project were created prior to this project in 2020.
and rendered in Illustrator to enhance the image quality
Each character was sketched on paper before being digitalised on Photoshop to enhance the outline and give them life with colour. In the example below, the face of the character Rina is the same, which was simpler to construct on each of the four bodies digitally.
BEFORE
AFTER
Once each Photoshop file was imported into After Effects, they were placed in their respective compositions to create six parallax footages to be placed in the foreground of the promo. Each composition was given at least four seconds to display their main characters.
John Irvine - MA Motion Graphics portfolio 