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Cough Piece - A 2D Motion Graphic


Cough Piece is a 2D motion graphic that took inspiration from the poem "Cough Piece" by Yoko Ono. I was asked to create a short 2D motion graphics piece to interpret a Haiku poem, which is from Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit. I chose “Cough Piece” because it left an impression on me, and it felt familiar and interesting.

“Keep Coughing A Year”.



Process


Ideation

 

Coughing is the action of forcing the air out of the lungs with a short, loud sound. Coughing is considered a sign of sickness, in terms of literal meaning, usually caused by the weather, sometimes caused by a virus. From my perspective, figuratively speaking, I thought of an image of the Earth getting sick. The image represents the human impact on the Earth, making the planet sick. In other words, the human impacts are ‘the fever’, and the humans are ‘the virus’. And we are making our planet ‘sick’.

Mind map

Storyboard

1. Factories causing air pollution with smoke from the chimneys (medium shot)
1.1. The camera goes up, showing 6 small columns of smoke formed together into one single huge column of smoke (medium shot)
1.2. The smoke then slowly transitions to the ocean; the colors also change from grey to blue, showing an ocean scene (medium shot)
2. A piece of ice leaves the iceberg (aerial view)
3. A transition of the camera going down below the ocean to reveal the third scene - a fish “cat walking” under the sea with camera flashes and plastic waste as their outfit (medium shot)
4. The camera zooms out to unveil the full image of the Earth. The Earth is coughing and getting sick, with a lot of damage to the body (medium shot)

Test Frame

I used flat art and grain effects to add a messy effect to the work, creating a distortion that represents the impact that we have made on the Earth.


Scene 1

In scene 1, I used Wave Warp, Grow Bounds, and Bezier Warp to create the effect of the smoke coming out from the chimneys.


Scene 2

In scene 2, for the sea wave, I used Wave Warp and increased the width and height. For the ice sheet, I keyframed it in a seesaw pattern to give it a floating effect on the sea.


Scene 3

In scene 3, I used a loop background. I used pre-compose to create a loop, then I used pre-compose again to create a frame for the loop. I made camera flashes by increasing and decreasing the opacity, then I used Easy Ease and a loop-out ping-pong command. I used Wave Warp for the fish fin and the plastic bag, and I used the puppet tool for the tail. To make the wagging tail and the dangling necklace, I keyframed their position.


Scene 4
For scene 4, I keyframed the position and the scale to make the anticipation of coughing. I also parented the garbage and waste to the earth. I used masking for the smoke coming out of the mouth.


Sound Design


Original Author: Yoko Ono
From the book “Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono.

Visualized by Duy Dinh.