Kinetic Typography - Basic Skills from Nicole H.D.W. Sinclair on Vimeo.
Summary
For our forth After effects workshop we were taught how to
creating moving text, or kinetic typography as it is formally known as. I found
that the positioning and basic animating elements of moving the type, were both
similar to that of Adobe Flash which I have used previously and intuitive to
pick up after my previous workshops. I learnt how to set about creating a
kinetic video from starting with choosing your audio file, which in this case
needed to be ten seconds long only.
Cutting the sound
In order to get it to just ten second long I went onto
GarageBand and cut the film’s audio up to get the required speech without any
long pauses and saved this as an mp3. However at one point in creating my video
in After Effects I accidently lost my progress with aligning each section up to
which I decided the easiest way to go about it was to recut the audio clip from
the film into one single clip directly within AfterEffects.
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| Cutting and Remixing The Track |
After Effects or GarageBand
After using both After Effects and GarageBand to do this I
feel they are both equal in terms of re-mixing a track (unless of course you
wish to add further instrumental sounds into such, which GarageBand has options
to easily enable such recordings of) though each has their disadvantages and
advantages. Bearing in mind I have very little knowledge of GarageBand in
comparison to After Effects I find one advantage of this software being the
ability to cut up the track without it separating layers, this gives for easier
orientation as to where on the original track it had resided. I also find it is
a lot simpler to export the cut down tracks as Mp3 within GarageBand, though
these options may be limited in comparison to After Effects.
In regards to After Effects its interface for re-mixing a
track is the same as all other re-mixing tasks, whether this be film, or
animation as it all runs on the timeline. One way in which After Effects is
good for re-mixing tracks is if you have decided to save it as a composition
and then later import this into your animation’s composition then you can
easily tweak any areas of the track which required so without the need to
remove and re-import it. I also find the markers very useful when mixing
anything within the timeline as you can create any amount of these and simply use
them as a guide when it comes to cutting up the track or overlaying areas.
The Idea to The Animation
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| New Illustrator Document |
As a general rule you don’t want too much text on the screen
all at once, you also should treat paragraphs as headings within kinetic
typography. If you want your film to move at a quick pace it is best to have as
little type on the screen in that section as you can. This will then enable you
to create for example fast paced lyric videos. To start off with create a short storyboard within
Illustrator to visualise your idea of how you want the text to appear in each
scene. It is a good idea to try different fonts out when using illustrator, as
you can use this as a guide to which fonts suit the subject and the colour
scheme you choose.
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| Storyboard |
I have first written down the transcript of which I have
omitted a few words, which are unneeded due to them being repetitive though
they still appear in the audio. For certain key words I have used an
alternative font to that of the main text body as to give a focus upon such. I
then followed the step just described before creating the new project file and
composition within After Effects.
Moving the Text
For both the track you use and the composition for the main
animation you need to ensure the frame rate is set at 25 for both, as on
default this is set to 29.
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| Lining up the text to its original position |
Typically within a work scenario you would have about two or
three days to create a typographic animation, though this would be a lot longer
then the one we are making here. Some important features I learnt are described
below:
Title/Action Safe Grid
This frame guide is very important
and useful as it ensure your full imagery is seen whether the viewer is viewing
on a 4:3 screen or a 16:9 widescreen. Action safe is the outer box; this shows
where all your imagery is safe to be placed within meaning the viewer will
always see the full image.
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| Text/Action Safe |
The text safe is the second one in and is a guide
for placing the text, this ensures your text doesn’t take too make space on the
film while ensuring it is also visible. A good hint to point out is that in
most kinetic typography videos the text is placed within the middle of the
frame, this is to create a clean and focused look throughout the video.
Motion Blur
Motion blur is a useful feature shown in the timeline
switches which reduces any skippy like motion on a text’s movement. This renders
the movement into a smooth transition.
Null Object
This brings text from various areas to one central
point. First place an “Null Object”, this can be found in the layer, new
options on the top toolbar. Now assign each type layer as a child to the null
object. This enables you to move all the text as a group, which can be useful
if you want to have some elements fly in before then making them all move out
in one direction. As if you were to do this manually without the null object,
some of the text may move out of place therefore requires extra time to be
spent correcting such.
Easy Easing
To create a smoother drop into the end position for a layer,
simply right-click on the appropriate keyframe and select “Keyframe Assistant”
and choose “Easy Ease In”. This softens how the text sits into its space rather
then entering it in a rushed manner.
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| Easing In |
Presets
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| Animation Preset Applied |
You can create some interesting animations using the text by using the animation presets, to use one on your text simply select the layer and then go to the animation drop down menu and select “Apply Animation Preset…” locate the adobe after effects preset folder and chose from one of the text effects, there is a wide range to choose from and you can also tweak these to create a custom style later.
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| Animation Preset In Action |
Evaluation
I used a combination of these different features within my
animation, the ones I didn’t use within this piece was that of Easy Easing and
Null Objects, though at a later date I will use what I have learnt to create another
kinetic typography video and include those within such. In regards to this experimental
video I have created for this task I am most happy with the last frame though I
would have liked to have put a lot more variation into the animation and there
are areas I feel need improvement. I found this workshop fun and interesting
and cant wait to develop my skills as Kinetic typography is something which
both interests me and entertains me within lyric videos, as these are more commonly
seen nowadays.
You can see my experimental outcome at the very top of this
post. The audio I used for the video is that from my Primary research for my Earth
Artifact project as I felt it would be interesting to see how I can use this
within animation.
