Our project brief asked us to choose a poem by Seamus Heaney, and to come up with a motion visual that would help depict the poem. At the start, I was stuck between two: 'Exposure' and 'Act of Union', two of my favourites, but after much deliberation and research on the themes of both poems, I decided the more interesting option would be 'Exposure'. 'Act of Union' was based around the political unrest that Heaney witnessed growing up in Northern Ireland, whereas 'Exposure' was a poem that focused mostly on descriptions of nature and Heaney's contemplation of his role in society as a poet. 

Figuring out the type of video I wanted to make was a much easier process! While researching motion poetry on YouTube, I discovered multiple animated depictions of poems that I found aesthetically pleasing, mostly because of the pop of colour in each, and also because of the transitions. 

After deciding on the type of animation I wanted to create, I put together a quick storyboard to guide me when I'm drawing up the frames:

With that done, I started drawing up the frames using a drawing tablet and Photoshop. As I wanted to use cross dissolve to piece the video together, I had to draw each individual frame separately, or adjusted the layers as I went along, so that when I brought them into Premiere Pro at the end, they would blend how I envisioned them. I was very conscious throughout the piece to add in the pops of colour, as you can see below. 

After creating all of the nature shots, I knew that the film would lack personality, so I decided to add an aged man to the final scene. I wanted him to look like he is contemplating something, as this is exactly what Seamus Heaney was doing as he wrote this poem, he was contemplating his role as a poet in society. You can see his finished form below. 

Overall I really enjoyed making this video, I found experimenting with animation to be exciting, as I had only briefly tried it before. It was definitely harder than I expected, and if I were to redo the project, I would use an app that was more suited to creating animated clips.