In one sentence, my motion design project is a title sequence for a fictitious television series featuring my friends and me. 

FUNCTION

I will be mostly exploring mixed media designs as an area of investigation in this project. This will come from the use of photo and video, as well as hand drawn components. Through the exploration of mixed media, I will also be looking into how to recreate this style through digital techniques such as Photoshop brushes and filters, and the use of rotobrushing in After Effects. 

PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES

In terms of production techniques, I will be using a mix of personal film photography, videos,  and other scrapbooking/collage aspects and vector graphics and text which will be hand-drawn and then traced in Illustrator. 

After gathering all these elements together, I will put them into After Effects to form my motion design project. Adjustment layers and noise may be used to create a more homemade feeling to the title sequence I am creating. The use of keyframing will be essential to create movement in my project. 

I will be using the pen tool to rotobrush on the compositions I create to add to the handmade feeling of my project. 

Photoshop will be used to add filters to pictures, as well as to create “paper rip” transitions. 

EXAMPLES

I gathered a lot of inspiration from various title sequences. 

The first that my project will be the most influenced by (and loosely based on) is the ending credits for the film ‘Wild Child” (2008). This has really inspired the use of personal film photography and video, as well as the scrapbook/collage aesthetic of my work. I also really wanted to explore roto brushing techniques, similar to what is used in this.

I also really liked the hand-drawn illustrations and colour palettes used in the title sequences for the show ‘Broad City’ (2014-2019). I have begun creating something loosely based on some of the title sequences featured in seasons 1 and 2 of the show. I’m not sure how much of this will make it into my final project, but it’s definitely been an inspiration. 

Finally, I also really liked the use of mixed media in the title sequence for the film ‘Between the World and Me’ (2020). The use of the ripped paper transitions throughout the title sequence inspired me to create my own version to incorporate into my project. 

The title sequence can be found on Art of the Title: https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/between-the-world-and-me/

These techniques are also used in the title sequence for ‘Godfather of Harlem’.

STORYBOARD

After gathering all my inspiration, I started creating storyboards and rough drafts of what I’d like to create within my project. My final project may look completely different, but it’s good to have some sort of direction to start from.