Rachel's Viewfinder

One tool essential to any video-producer these days is motion graphics.  In the business, there are whole design firms dedicated to creating the opening or closing titles of a movie, or any graphic illustrating the film (such as MK12’s work on Stranger Than Fiction, or Quantum of Solace).

On a much smaller scale, there’s me.  With the scope of the video I produce being much smaller, I don’t hire an outside firm to create my titles.  I create my own.  The past three months, I’ve been taking the time to learn more about motion graphics.  Last Friday, I completed the opening title animation for my latest project.

The first step involved story-boarding out the motion that I wanted to take place on screen.  That’s the photo at top.  Now, the tricky part.  Actually making it work.  For the past three months, I’ve been playing with the actions in Motion, trying to figure out how to make an object “paint” on the screen as if it was being painted on in real-time.  With this project, I finally figured it out!

By drawing on the screen with the Paint Stroke Tool, I created the outline I wanted to animate.  After giving the shape some style (in this case, some heavy graphite), I then had to figure out how to make it write on.  Surprisingly, this is not as simple as applying the Write On behavior in Motion. 

After having spent the time in keyframes animating the coffee graphic in my last video project, I had a better understanding of how to approach the movement of an element.  I needed something to tell Motion what the order of my paint stroke was.  I chose to apply the Sequence Paint behavior first.  Then I figured I needed to tell Motion how to track the sequence.  That meant a Track Points behavior.  Then, I added the Write On.  To my surprise and delight, it worked!  After that, it was simply a matter of getting the timing right.

Here’s the finished piece:

Earlier this week, I posted a tweet that said, “Boost your skills by making time to learn new techniques/software/etc.  Your creative work cannot afford to stagnate.”

This statement has come from observations on my work, and that of my co-workers at the US office of SIM.  We are a small department, working as a part of a larger global, Christian mission organization.  There are times when the workload outweighs our capacity as a department.  For me as a video producer, this means learning to produce videos at as fast a rate as possible, while not compromising quality of work.  This also leads to a conundrum: if the workload demands I spend all my time producing, then when do I get the time to learn how to do it better?

My solution is Friday Projects.  Ever since January of this year, I have made it a point to take Fridays and learn something new that pertains to my field.  One area I’ve been keenly interested in is Motion Design, and the software tools required to create motion graphics.  For the past two months, my Friday Projects have concentrated on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and Apple Motion.  And it’s begun to pay off.

The idea of transforming valuable production time into learning time goes against the grind of production schedules.  But in a creative field where the best videos combine interviews, narration, b-roll, music, motion graphics, design elements and more, one cannot afford to stagnate.  Only by taking time to learn and be a learner enables better and more effective creation.  The dividends of learning a new skill or technique is exponential, and may be the thing to take your work to a new level.

So in light of all this, what’s with the picture at the head of this post?  On my most recent video project, I had the opportunity to use my newly acquired skills in Adobe Illustrator and Motion to create a motion graphic illustrating the similarities between a cup of coffee and a missionary.  As a part of the process, I used Illustrator to recreate a piece of clip art given to me by my client.  I wouldn’t have known how to do that if it was not for my Friday Projects.

Over the past few months, I spent time pondering what God would have me do with this passion for Art, Faith and Inspiration.  As I thought, researched and talked with other creative people, I also tried to take the time to creatively “practice.” These little forays into creative expression aren’t meant to be spectacular.  They’re meant to give the brain some fodder to chew on in between bigger projects.

Back in May, these words caught me on www.writerlylife.com: “Optimism has a funny way of encouraging more optimism; creativity often works that way. The more you make space for a creative mood in your daily life, the more you’ll find that creative mood popping up in the course of a day.” (http://www.writerlylife.com/2011/05/how-to-grab-a-creative-mood-when-it-passes-by/)

The concept struck a chord in me.  I was stressed from getting married, moving, work, etc.  My health took a dive (see April 11 post).  All my energy was gone.  My schedule had no room in it for a creative mood. But my job is a creative one.  Everyday, I use creative storytelling through visual mediums, primarily through video producing.  For example, a 45-minute interview becomes a 3-minute video with music, pictures, graphics…whatever.  Every aspect of the production requires creativity.  Over the past year, my projects piled up, and work became drudgery.  How can you be creative on a schedule if you’re out of juice?  As I thought about being creative, I realized I couldn’t afford to skip recharging my creative batteries.  If creativity begets creativity, then I needed to do some extra-curricular creation. I started thinking of other ways to be creative that were not work-related.

So began a binge of gluten-free baking.  First on the list were eclairs. Next came cheesecake.  Because that was so rewarding, I started work again on a piece of science fiction.  And then came my friend’s wedding and her bachelorette party…after squeezing the creative lemon for my previous projects, it was a delight to make her some hand-painted underware.

Now what does any of that have to with being creatively better at video-production?  Well…not much…on the surface.  Gluten-free eclairs, writing and underware don’t seem to have much in common.  But as a means of letting my creative brain “do something else,” it was invaluable.  I  found that creativity on a schedule is demanding and draining.  Giving my brain the time to “goof-off” and just “practice” being creative meant that creating on the schedule was not so taxing. And that meant regaining a level of enthusiasm that was missing at my day job.

Some things I’ve learned from my “practice” sessions:

1). Do something where the hands make something: cupcakes, curtains, a new doodle for the fridge…the goal is to have the hands moving with the creative brain.

2). Think, but not too much.  Start with a general idea and let your mistakes guide the finished product.  Remember, this is practice, not masterpiece.

3). Work in short bursts.  It’s practice.  Who cares if it’s finished (if ever?).

4).  Avoid passive “inspiration”; no TV watching, Internet surfing, magazine browsing.  The goal is to practice doing your own thing, not copy another’s work.

5). If there’s no creative tools, or you can’t think of what else to try, give reading fiction a whirl.  It engages the imagination, the creative “muscle” to stretch and develop.

One of my co-workers, Andy Caldwell, had this to say in one of our department meetings: “Creativity is not instant grits.” He couldn’t be more right.  It takes time…and practice.  How do you practice being creative?

(Pt. 5 in a sometimes occasional series on Art, Faith and Inspiration)

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