''Porn Sells Lies'' - A social media campaign
The Challenge
How can we educate teenagers about sex that enables them to have positive and long lasting relationships?
Working in a team, we were given the task to create a motion graphics project that focuses on a key issue of the world. We engaged in creating storyboards, animatics and sound to create a project that focuses on teenagers that gravitate to pornography for their sexual education.
Initial ideas
To begin this project, my team and I decided to draw storyboards on some initial ideas for our project theme of sex education and the porn industry. I decided to create two storyboards – one for taking breaks and one for erectile dysfunction.
I felt that these were good subjects to tackle during this phase of the project because they don’t have a lot of recognition and they aren’t focused on within sex education for teenagers in schools.
Script writing
After meeting as a team, we narrowed down our project idea to the misconceptions of sex education in school systems and the effect that has on the amount of young people that use pornography to answer their questions. We decided as a team to create 4 individual reels designed for Instagram that each follow the same design aesthetic.
I chose to tackle the subject of ‘perfect bodies’ because the subject of body image is a topic that I have always wanted to do a project on. I used the ''Nana-me'' website as a source for writing my own script.
Animation practice
After some animation tech workshops, I went home and decided to do some experimenting with animation styles. The video above shows my experimentation with rotoscoping an entire video with a line drawing style. I think this animation came out very well but I decided that it wasn’t a suitable style for this specific project although I would like to experiment more with this style in a future project.
Storyboarding
Using the script that I wrote and my new knowledge of effective storyboarding, I drew up my final storyboard for my Instagram reel. My team and I decided on a bright colour scheme to grab the attention of teenagers within 2 seconds as they scroll through social media.
I chose to use a variety of bodies in my storyboard to focus on how all bodies are perfect bodies and that teenagers shouldn’t use pornography to determine how their bodies should look.
Animatic
I created an animatic - including the beginning, middle and end sequences which we developed as a team – so that I could visualise how my final Instagram reel would look once completed. I didn’t include transitions within this animatic as at the time of creating it, I hadn’t worked much on Adobe After Effects and I didn’t have any knowledge of my skills within the program.
Soundscaping and voiceovers
We decided that we should use a different voice for each of our reels to make them more friendly and aimed towards teenagers as they could relate to the voices from the same age group. I decided to use my own voice in the voiceover for my Instagram reel so that I could really focus on the delivery of my script.
To find copyright-free soundscaping for my animation, I used the ''Mixkit'' website to browse lots of free sounds. I tested a lot of sound effects with my animation to find the sound effects that worked best with my work.
Tech workshops
We had a variety of different tech workshops within this project to help assist us in creating our first motion design project. As this was new aspects of design that I hadn’t explored yet, I paid close attention and created my first piece of motion design.
Storyboarding workshop
During the storyboarding workshop, I learnt how to efficiently draw storyboards whilst watching a music clip of an orchestra. This was useful for me to learn because it helped me to focus on the important details rather than the whole video.
I used this to create my final storyboard for my reel as it meant that my section of this motion project focused on the parts of the script that I deem to be the most important.
Scratching on film workshop
For this workshop, we reverted to experimenting with different medias to switch up our Graphic Design styles and to think more about how we could use this technique in future work. I enjoyed this workshop and at the final viewing of everyone’s work I found the result to be very interesting and unique.
Reflection
Overall, I think the message and concept of this project is very strong and is influential towards a variety of age groups due to its accessibility via social media. We decided as a team to change the orientation of our motion project to portrait so it was better suited towards our target audience. As a team we worked well to ensure that we all were keeping to the same animation and visual styles. We knew from the beginning that we wanted to use a reasonably flat style as this would be easier to co-ordinate across our separate reels and it would allow us to keep links between them such as keeping the same beginning, middle and end to each reel. Within this project, I experimented with new ways of design that I hadn’t before thought that I would be interested in.
I enjoyed developing new knowledge via creating storyboards, working with sound and learning new software and skills. This project has opened my eyes to how graphic design and animation can link together and I am looking forward to using some animation again. While this isn’t an area of graphic design that I would want to pursue professionally, I have enjoyed this project and would use the skills that I have learnt to create short animations in the future in my spare time. If we had more time on the project, I would have liked to develop my skillset further in Adobe After Effects so I could have pushed my work further.
Bibliography
10 awesome after effects transitions to improve your videos: Evercast blog (no date) RSS. Available at: https://www.evercast.us/blog/after-effects-transitions (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
The 20 animation styles you need to know about (2022) Kartoffel Films - Video Production Company London. Available at: https://kartoffelfilms.com/blog/top-animation-styles/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
20th, P.T.M. (2014) Porn stars vs. you: Body sizes and shapes, Mandatory. Available at: https://www.mandatory.com/fun/692463-porn-stars-vs-you-body-sizes-and-shapes (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Advocates for youth (2022) Advocates for Youth. Available at: https://www.advocatesforyouth.org/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Awesome Free assets for your next video project (no date) Mixkit. Available at: https://mixkit.co/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Felix, D. (no date) Porn vs. reality, Porn vs Reality | Dr Felix. Available at: https://www.drfelix.co.uk/porn-reality/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Honest sex education (2022) Advocates for Youth. Available at: https://www.advocatesforyouth.org/issue/honest-sex-education/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Let's talk about body image and objectifying (no date) Let's Talk About Body Image and Objectifying | Nana Jordan. Available at: https://www.nana-me.com/en-jo/myths-and-facts/puberty/body-image-objectifying/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Relationships and sex education (RSE) (secondary) (no date) GOV.UK. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education/relationships-and-sex-education-rse-secondary#by-the-end-of-secondary-school (Accessed: March 9, 2023).
Society & Body Image: Guide for Young People Who Look Different (no date) Changing Faces. Available at: https://www.changingfaces.org.uk/advice-guidance/children-parents-families/children-young-people/social-life-friends-school/guide-body-image/ (Accessed: March 9, 2023).