Motion Type
August 13, 2007No doubt you caught the “Pulp Fiction in Typography” video going around a few months back. Ever since I’ve been noticing plenty of interesting cases of motion and type being used together to visually narrate audio.
Some are lush and detailed with accompanying illustration or video, whereas others are spartan and plain; simple colours and minimal type are used to effectively illustrate ideas, and that’s about it. The latter are harder to pull off, but demonstrate how effective graphic and motion design can be when done well.
Taken from a variety of sources like movie clips, songs, and grad projects, there are a lot of neat typography experiments on YouTube. I’ve curated a few I thought were particularly good. Enjoy!
(Note that some of these have language that many will find offensive. Proceed with caution.)
The Lions Roar
Typographics
Ocean’s Eleven Project
The Hit Song
Brazil Typography
Pulp Fiction in Typography (language warning)
Update: Bonus link that I missed first time around - Hey Ya!
These are AWESOME in a typographic way!
Don’t forget about Simon Robson’s (Knife Party) “What Barry Says” either. That’s good times:
http://www.knife-party.net/movs/barry/barry_quicktime.htm
Amazing typography and design skills in those videos. Never knew about this before - thanks for informing! I’ll have to keep an eye out for more of these in the future.
Cool stuff. I had never seen any of this. Thanks.
Makes me want to learn Adobe After Effects. Thanks for the vids.
Is After Effects the tool to do that sort of thing? I’ve never even looked at it; buying expensive software sight-unseen is painful, so I haven’t even investigated it. What other software packages exist for that sort of thing? I imagine some of the big 3d packages could do it (Maya, XSI, etc.), but I have no real knowledge of their capabilities.
Every time I see awesome motion graphics, I wonder what application is used to create it and how difficult it would be to pick up. It would be an amusing tool to have on the belt.
I’m pretty sure a few of those YouTube videos said that the animations were made in After Effects. Yeah, the others can probably do it also. I too don’t know much about these programs, but I have After Effects at work, so maybe one of these days I can mess around with it. Wonder if there’s any good instructional sites…
Don’t forget amazing work from the Vancouver Film school by Boca (aka Marcos Ceravolo) and Ryan Uhrich.
http://bigbert.vfs.com/~dd07marcos/mograph/typographics_h264.mov
After seeing the “Pulp Fiction in Typography” I went on a similar search myself. Nice finds above. My personal interest is movies and I remember a few good opening credit typographical examples. Recently Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free Die Hard) was good and in similar style to those above. However, I also recommend checking out the “Thank You For Smoking” opening titles at http://shadowplaystudio.com/smoking.html
If you interested in general typography on screen, idents.tv at http://idents.tv/blog/ has TV idents (who’d’ave guessed it) which are usually good use of typography.
Finally, I found some very cool animations and shorts (some involving typography) at Motionographer http://motionographer.com which are definitely worth checking out.
Finally, if anyone finds some good tutorials on the subject, I would appreciate looking at them. Cheers.
I didn’t see the “Pulp Fiction in Typography” before. Really a good job. In my opinion it’s made with maya. I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0iKsfuD3mI but it’s a very lower quality.
Also notable:
http://www.adobe.com/education/adaa/winners/
@Octave Z - “Don’t forget amazing work from the Vancouver Film school by Boca (aka Marcos Ceravolo) and Ryan Uhrich.”
I didn’t, that’s the one in the top row, center. But thanks for the higher-res version.
@Trovster - “I also recommend checking out the “Thank You For Smoking” opening titles at http://shadowplaystudio.com/smoking.html “
Ah, can’t believe I forgot to give that one a mention. Thanks!
I had the exact same thought: after seeing “Pulp fiction in typography” I searched youtube for more examples.
After finding about 30+ nice motion type movies, I decided to post a movie every day for a whole month…. this month (August).
I started my series almost the same as yours.
Because the month is not finished yet, there are still about 15 more to come:
http://www.matthijskamstra.nl/blog/index.php/category/animation/
Speaking of nice film credits… check out Eurotrip (yes, that bad teen movie from a couple years ago). The film itself is totally forgettable, except for a few moments), but the opening credits remind me of many of these pieces.
Nice compilation! take a look at this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CyPixDcNzk , a full music video-clip by Cuarteto de Nos, an uruguayan band that usually writes sharp and speedy lyrics. It’s clearly inspired by the Marcelus Wallace’s clip, but it’s really good and long, very hard work put into it.
Too bad it’s in spanish (for the non spanish speakers) because almost every phrase has a graphic relevant to the meaning, but nevertheless it’s worth the look!!
Cheers.
Thanks for the plug, Dave!
If anyone wants to try something like this with one of our music beds, we’d be interested in talking with you… we won’t even charge you for the license! :)
But seriously, we’d love to do some promo for our new site in this style, as I think using text-only design allows the music to be really impactful.
Dave You made a great list of typography experiments on YouTube! My favourite is also The Hush Sound - The Lions Roar. They make it on Maya or 3D studio MAX or something else?
Not only do these types of things make me appreciate typography a lot more, it really makes me appreciate the talented voice actors that have the ability to convey emotion through just one of our senses.
That original Samuel L. Jackson clip from the past was a real eye-opener in that sense as the surrounding typography illustrated just how emotive he really was being.
Probably said before, but the introduction sequences in Casino Royale were quite fantastic. Not typography, but very similar. Also, the end credits of 300 weren’t bad either.
Is this type of thing not done in livetype and final cut pro?
Some great stuff none the less.
I am going to be attempting something like this myself shortly.
Anyone know of a good tutorial.
The pulp fiction one blew me away
I really love these I really do. I need to make my own little typography motion.
Man…that’s some creative stuff. Thanks for the find. I love the Ocean’s Eleven one best. Apart from the typography I think the spacial approach is pretty awesome to in some of them.
Great selection of videos Dave. I haven’t come across any of these before, so I am very thankful for the find. But, I have seen the opening titles for “Thank You For Smoking”, and I second your recommendation (I loved the movie too).
@Nick Husher & Michael - Tools of the Trade
After Effects was probably used in many of these because it does have some very robust animation capabilities. That combined with its video processing and effects fuctions make it very suitable for this sort of work. I am guessing Final Cut Pro could also be put to similar uses, and I’m sure Flash is also a poular choice.
3D animation software can be very useful in creating graphic animations. They have the added advantage of having not just animation capabilities but also lighting, and the ability to work in the 3rd dimension in a much more free-from way than allowed by regular video and effects packages.
I have no experience with Maya and XSI, but I have done similar work in the Open Source Blender. software. It is growing into a very capable platform and the reason I used it for a corporate video project I was working on was that it has video editing and effects functionality built in, so things like overlays, motion-blur, bloom effects can be all worked on under the same interface. It can be a bit of a challenge to get to grips with in the beginning, but then what complex graphic software isn’t?
I don’t have this documented on my site yet, so here are some shots of what I created:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/samirb/Thermo-Motion-Type-01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/samirb/Thermo-Motion-Type-02.jpg
The fact that the final image needs to be “rendered”, means that a very wide range of visual effects can be created. So, 3D software is a very flexible (if slightly complex) solution for producing motion graphics.
It can even be done with sport content… (language warning!) http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=Alternative+Rugby+Commentary&search=
this is nice too
http://30gms.com/movies/CRDVremix_h264b.mov
No doubt!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIQmTJo-wW0
What is interesting is that Mike #2 already mentioned the very well animated and well done, political pamphlet “What Barry Says”, but that there is no reaction whatsoever to such content. Are we graphic designers that occupied with design and form only that we have no interest in what is actually said in our works?
“What Barry Says”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4101597497633477094
Squarepusher animation, a very old one from around 2003 (kinda NSFW), but imagine the time and effort it took in those days to animate stuff in flash.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKi4aeMnWrU
EUROSTILE: LA FORMA DEL FUTURO
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ohO_75earT8
Yeah - after effects I reckon. It’s a hefty price tag unless you’re really serious about what your doing though.
Some great videos! As a hip hop and Pulp Fiction fan I was particularly drawn to ‘The Hit Song’ and the ‘Pulp Fiction’ ones. Although they are all great!
Great post, loved it!
Hey, Im trying to do a kinetic typography piece for a project I’m working on. I have Adobe After Effects but havent used it yet. Anyone have any ideas or tutorials on how to create these?
Please.
Or if anyone has any ideas of audio I could use, that’d be Fantastic!
Speaking about screen typography-related issues, there is a page about movie company logos seen in various movies (www.closinglogos.com/page/Logo+Variations), like the famous “30th Century Fox” joke from Futurama and melting Warner Bros logo in Terminator 3.