Collaboration, learning and our first motion graphics project.

I am proud to share this motion graphics project that you see above. It was not all me either. I am blessed to work with a talented graphic designer, a copywriter and a fun and creative marketing team at my day job. I’m usually busy making videos with real people in them or snapping photos for presentation decks, events, and other marketing material.

This time we had the ability to create characters. We could build our own environments. We could tell a story with complete control of the elements we use. Nearly no limits. It was honestly the most fun project I have worked on at my day job. A whole lot of collaboration, development and most importantly learning.

How we made it happen.

We began with simple storyboarding. Sadly I cannot share any images with you due to our corporate policy. We started with random thoughts and sketches on whiteboard. Inspiration came from videos all over the web. After a few work sessions, we came up with a solid storyboard with panels for each part of the video. Then I sat down with our graphic designer and created end frames for each part of our story board with full graphics. The color scheme and fonts stayed within our branding guidelines. You can check out an awesome video by Michael Jones that we used for guidance here.

We created a script. We wanted the graphics to emphasize the message being told in the voice over. Sometimes words would appear, but sometimes the graphics would help describe the words being told. The script became shorter and shorter as the process progressed. We kept it within our brand’s copywriting guidelines.

We wanted a feeling to be conveyed. Everything from the color choices to the voice over and even the music. A feeling is just as important as the message. The blend of visuals, voice over and music was great.

We reviewed, edited and repeated that process until we were happy with it. We wanted to set our own expectations pretty high for ourselves, but we also knew this would be our first collaborative animated piece. We found a happy middle ground with the end product. We felt satisfied with the final edit.

How I made it happen.

I’ve never done a 90 second animated sequence before. I’ve done short little ones for video overlays, but never one of this scale. We had all the graphics, script and storyboard ready to go so now making the thing actually happen was now on my shoulders.

I had some experience in Adobe After Effects before doing this project, but not enough to make this project a success. So it was important to me to educate myself and gain some new knowledge of the program. Not just what the tools do, but how I can use them. I think that is one of the most vital turning points in building knowledge of any software or any tool in general. So learning new techniques, ideas and new tools is a fantastic combination to find.

Think of it this way…

You know the ins and the outs of the tool. You know what you have done with it in the past. At least to your own knowledge. Then someone shows you how they use the tool. It’s completely different than how you use it.

It blows your mind… Next thing you know, you are thinking of even more ways to use the tool. Your skills are forever changed. This is why finding a mentor or someone with other skills that your own is vital to learning more about a mutual tool that you use. There is always more than one way to use a tool for an end goal. When you add multiple tools, your possibilities begin to stack.

Education after schooling should be a combination of comprehension and mentorship. You need someone to to tell you how they use a tool once you learn more about it. If you are told what a tool is used for without multiple options of context, your learning can be flawed. You limit your possibilities. You need to find people to show you possible paths with the same tools. It also helps you discover what your style could be or can evolve into.

This is why I loved using Skillshare – people that work in the real world sharing experience with a tool.

I went from only making lower thirds for videos to making a fully animated motion graphic project in a very short amount of time. Less than 60 days. This was on top of working on other team projects as well. If I can do, you can too.

I’m excited to say we will be doing more of these in the future!