For our final project in Photoshop class, we had to create a 3D animation. It could be anything we liked, whether for personal or professional use. Adding sound (in a separate program — in my case, iMovie) was optional. In fact, the only criterion was that it be a minimum of 10 seconds long.
I gave it some thought and decided I wanted to create something that would be funny to watch. Given the limitations of what can be done in Photoshop, I decided to keep it simple… and British. The image of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster popped into my head, and from thereon my mini-comedy began to take shape…
One of the things I miss about living in England is the humour: I think we Brits are quite good at laughing at ourselves, much to the confusion and astonishment of people unfamiliar with our culture. Yet sometimes just as confusing is our emotional stoicism — I’ve written before about how “the only time I have ever been glad to inherit that most English of postures, the stiff upper lip, is when there is something unpleasant to be done.” — and think that the Brits could sometimes express feelings better. I feel that this mini-comedy both celebrates and pokes fun at what it means to be British. ‘Nuff said… Enjoy:
Fool Britannia from Lauren Vasil on Vimeo
Credits
Spoiler alert - if you haven’t yet watched this lil’ video, be warned that there are spoilers below. Watch it now, if you haven’t already – it’s only 37 seconds!
Sounds via ILoveWavs – a great selection of WAVs compiled from across the internet. Do check first if you plan on using them for anything other than personal / educational use – under copyright law I was able to because this video was for a college project.
Keep Calm and Carry On poster via Wikipedia – an iconic piece of WWII propaganda, I later learned it was the third in a series of wartime posters but never actually seen by the public: it was designed in 1939 by a British civil servant and would have been released had Germany invaded Britain (read more about the history here). I can just hear the BBC correspondent now, dispensing this government-issued advice in his fraightfully clipped RP accent. As it turns out, the image of the KC&CO poster is actually in the public domain: as it was originally created by the British government it was protected by Crown Copyright which expires after 50 years.
Vector Crown by rones @ AllFreeDownload – it was sheer luck that I should find a vector-based image for the crown in the poster. It definitely made it easy to play around with its position without losing resolution.
Pointed Hand, via The Graphics Fairy – The Graphics Fairy is a wonderful resource for clip art that is in the public domain. I downloaded her Victorian pointed hand and ‘shopped in a long, black sleeve for the part where the big crown is raised in the video. I also ‘shopped out the fingers to make the back of the hand that presses the On button / draws her moustache; and recreated the open hands with painted fingernails by duplicating the fingers, reducing their scale, and then duplicating / flipping the image horizontally to create the pair of hands the open to reveal the Queen.
Brick Wall via LoveTextures via – I wanted to find a brick wall that reminded me of London in the early ’80s. One of my favourite resources, NaldzGraphics, led me to this particular image. I zoomed in to get the bricks to the size I wanted and then modified the colour ever so slightly.
Union Flag via AllFreeDownload – it seemed fitting that the spoof open and close with the Union Flag*, so why not wield some basic Photoshop warping skills and make theatrical curtains too?
* Not many people know that it’s only called the Union Jack when the flag is at sea.
The image of the Queen was obtained via a simple Google Images search. Sadly, I was not able to determine its copyright information, so if you are the copyright holder, please let me know via email at fizgiggery / gmail
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Too fun, I love it!! This is on my list of things that I want to learn how to do. Great job! … and thanks for giving me credit for the hand that was so sweet of you!
Glad you liked it, Karen! You’re very welcome — it seemed only fair to give you a nod
You must try out Photoshop’s 3D / Animation capabilities, it was a lot of fun. If you get stuck, let me know — I’m not an expert by any means, but I did learn a few tricks along the way.
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