Welcome to the design and production of motion graphics! 

“Music thunders around our sitting room, frightening the cats…For me, the most exciting part is all that hoo-ha at the beginning. Oh, to be in charge of all those symbolic anvils, scorched maps, blood-drenched flags, boiling clouds and crimson fire-storms on the horizon!”

Peter Tory’s Daily Mail review of Thames Television’s Joseph Stalin documentary series, enthusing about motion graphics designer Morgan Sendall’s title sequence.

Motion graphics is the design, art direction and production of opening sequences, production design, programme graphics and channel identities (or 'idents'). Having evolved as an art form from the first opening sequence – Saul Bass's titles for The Man With The Golden Arm, in 1955 – the work of the motion graphics designer now represents about one fifth of all broadcast time on UK television. As such, it is an increasing field of design employment, especially as there are now dozens of channels (only fifteen years ago, there were only five in the UK). Until 1984, motion graphics were produced with card, ink, paper paint and acetate, then filmed under a rostrum or recorded through a studio video camera. Typographic graphics were created with rub-down transfer lettering (Letraset) or were printed with a hot press. In 1984, digital graphics replaced these hand-crafted methods in the form of the Quantel Paintbox. But these digital systems were very expensive to buy or hire – beyond the budget of smaller television companies and productions – and it was the advent of desktop Apple computers, and software like Adobe Photoshop, After Effects and 3D animation programmes, that brought complete production back into the designer's studio around 1996.

Promoting television channels and designing title sequences is a huge creative responsibility. If the viewers’ interest is not engaged immediately, they will switch over. Often, the titles are remembered long after the series has been forgotten. Famous examples are Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Channel 4 ‘idents’, Have I Got News for You, Panorama, BBC News and University Challenge. Titles are also used for cinema feature films: remember all those James Bond or Pink Panther opening sequences?

The field of ‘motion graphics’ covers art direction, animation, video, illustration, photography, graphic design and digital imaging. The motion graphics designer needs to be skilled in all, or most, of these fields. The ability to work as part of a production team, to think creatively, to plan, research and organise, and to work calmly under pressure (with deadlines sometimes a matter of minutes) are essential personal attributes.

What you will do in this module

This module encompasses all of the subjects and skills studied in the Digital Arts Subject. However, you need not use all of them for your assignment. This should be confined to using your specialisms.

Depending on your knowledge of techniques, you will use a variety of skills in image design, video and animation that are used to produce sequences that front television programmes and feature films. The module will also encourage an understanding of the function and importance of opening sequence as an overture to the production, inviting the viewer to stay tuned to the channel, as well as television company ‘idents’ – such as the BB2 and Channel 4 identities.

You will also be taught the basics of compositing, luma and chromakeying, using appropriate software, such as Adobe After Effects, although you will be expected to undertake advanced tuition in this application from online tutorials. If you already have knowledge of Adobe After Effects, you need not attend this basic tuition session.

The assignment brief and hand in

This is in three parts:

1)  A storyboard, depicting the keyframes and descriptors of the action. This will have been the storyboard from which you worked on your sequence. Please scan this as a JPEG file.

2)  The finished sequence itself. 

3)  A critical statement (or learning report), reflecting on your ideas and cultural influences in your sequence and providing a critical evaluation. It is not a log of what you did. Don't forget to reference your statements. No statement of opinion should be made with out a supporting reference to a critical source or work.

All three components will be marked as 100%.

The sequence may fall into one of the following categories:

a)  an opening sequence for an actual, or fictitious, television programme or series;

b)  An opening credit sequence for a cinema motion picture.

Your sequence should be about 30 - 40 seconds in duration.

The finished assignment must be submitted on a CD or DVD. (The storyboard may be scanned in as individual frames, or as a whole sheet.) Remember the rule of submission: if we cannot open the disk on a DAC computer, the submission will score as a Non-submission Fail! Similarly, any file that cannot be opened will not be marked – so, do check first. Any assignment that misses the deadline (see below) can only gain a D-. After five days, a non submission will score a Fail.

Hand in day

Submission day will be given to you later in the semester.

Do not bring the assignment to the tutor. Take it to the assignment drop-in point at Bredon, together with the bar-code sheet downloaded from SOLE. In this way, your assignment will automatically be registered as having been submitted.