MOTION GRAPHICS

MOVEMENT

motion graphic piece by Wilson Wong - Australia

Movement is the most dominant visual element in Motion Graphics as well as the human experience. By giving movement to graphics, a real-life like sensibility is created that can have a strong effect on delivering a message to a viewer. By using moving objects and words to tell a story or communicate an idea, a much deeper effect can be achieved than that of a static image. Movement is achieved in Motion Graphics through programs like Adobe After Effects or Apple Motion which utilize a timeline on which the designer plots and composes each element's action. Motion Graphics create stories, like the example above, which are composed of moving elements and text which guide the viewer along.

Here is an example of how movement is directed in the production of a motion graphic. In this case, the 'camera' movement is being plotted out:

(example of the planning of a "camera angle" in a software program during the production of a motion graphics piece)

Movement is used in consideration of the viewer. The way in which motion graphics designers compose their moving images ends up being the way their ideas are "read" and thus seen by our eye movements, which we've learned in class.

LINE

Process board for Title sequence to Charles de Lauzirika’s "Crave" (2012) by Raleigh Stewart

Lines express ideas. Besides the lines that end up composing the final piece in motion graphics, the ideation phase of planning a project, (as in other realms of design), begins with sketches of lines on a page (or screen). Dondis describes the line as "the essential tool for previsualization, that means for presenting... that which does not exist yet, except in the imagination." (Dondis 43) Nearly all end pieces of motion graphic work begin with simple line drawings referring to the ideas of the designers, as we can see in the above process board for a title sequence for Charles de Lauzirika’s "Crave" (2012).

We can also consider the line in regards to the timeline that all moving pieces contain: a starting point to an end point, as lines both literally and metaphorically are marks of progression. 

The line is a huge factor in delivering a motion graphic's message, where like a flow-chart, our experience in viewing a piece is structurally guided in a progression from one idea to the next until the whole message is attained. Some times this is done explicitly by following an actual lines movement form say one piece of text to the next.

TONE

stills from "Crave" (2012) title sequence by Raleigh Stewart

Tone builds from line. Lines form the edges and borders of dark and light pattern areas. These dark and light areas exist as tone, which is the representation of the relative presence and absence of light. Without light our physical world would be in the dark and we would be unable to see our environment. The same circumstance has to be considered when creating the virtual worlds of motion graphics. 

Tone is the basic visual element that allows us to see defined shapes and environments. "Line alone will not create the illusion of reality effectively without the aid of tone. The addition of tonal background detail reinforces the appearance of reality through the sensation of reflected light and cast shadows." (Dondis 48)

So it is vital that tone be used correctly, especially when a designers goal is to interpret a physical world. Motion Graphic designers need be aware of tone in their work, especially when they want to convey real-world like environments.



Work Cited:
Dondis, D. A. (1973). A primer of visual literacy. (First ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

(& in-class lectures)