Scott Pilgrim and My Love Of Lyric Videos
So I just want to get this off my chest right now: I have no idea what Motion Design really is. I had done light research before taking this class, but nothing prepared me for what I was/am in store for this class. When I looked at Motion Design, I saw a lot of moving infographics and lyric videos. Never had I thought that Motion Design could be attributed to intro/end credits, visual overlays, and other visuals within TV and movies. That’s why I had to choose two different videos for “Motion Design I Adore.” This isn’t because I want to go above and beyond others, however it’s important to note how broad this categorization can go.
The video above is a trailer for a movie I love to watch on repeat: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Directed by Edgar Wright (Cornetto Trilogy), this movie plugged at my heartstrings with its geek references, alternative aesthetic, and the capturing of the graphic novel source of the same name. This may be a bit bias, but what really sells this movie are the visuals in the form of visual comedy and graphic novel inspired illustrations that compliment the movie’s theme. This isn’t just another “comic movie,” it’s like reading the novels themselves with subtle visual cues (onomatopoeias for hits) to direct usage of rectangles as “bubbles” for describing characters and locations. I never thought of this as “Motion Design,” but it totally makes sense after seeing other examples. If someone needs an explanation on what Motion Design is, I plead with everyone to show them this as a point of reference.
The video below is a complete 180 degrees of what Scott Pilgrim’s Motion Design is and instead communicates a message (i.e. the lyrics of the song). This is what I believed was what Motion Design was and anything else was some form of animation or something else entirely. I’ve tried my hand at creating a lyric video with After Effects, but it’s not a program easily trounced. It has a steep learning curve, like some of Adobe’s other advanced programs, and needs to be tiptoed around to do what I want it to do in the future. Why I adore this video is the typography and imagery complimenting the song itself. Honestly this is what I really want to be able to accomplish after the ten weeks of this class: to go to an album and create an entire set of lyric videos for it. Sounds painful, but rewarding and entertaining as there would be an original visualization of what I believe the music would look like. Both videos are two different forms of the same thing at the end of the day: Motion Design.
- Lynden Rothfork
