Welcome to my process for this title sequence animation from storyboard to motion! We’ll breakdown three specific shots- starting with the storyboard to the final shot.

The tone of this title animation is shadowy and serious, which influences the motion. Keep that in mind as we go explorin’!

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shot 1: memories

for this opening, I note on the storyboard:

• flash on (the image)
• shadow melts in
• ‘memory’ fades
• flip upside down

note: specifically, these are more vague as they are just notes for me- I would definitely be more clear if I was handing this storyboard off to someone else.

1. flash on
   1. As the graphic itself lends to visual buildup, I end up leaning in that dynamic to stagger in the fade in- the motion becomes much more interesting rather than just fading in the whole piece at once.
2. shadow melts in
   1. I ended up Not doing this (having the person’s shadow fade in later), simply because it didn’t fit the vibe of the scene.
3. ‘memory’ fades
   1. Treatment of the words. Since the whole line is ‘some memories should stay forgotten,’ I intended to fade out only memories at the end. When I was playing around with it, I had the idea of fading out ‘memories’ while bringing in ‘forgotten’ to drive home that particular point of the line.
4. flip upside down
   1. At the end of this scene, the graphic momentarily flips upside down. This was to imitate the ending of the opening title sequences for Gravity Falls, to reinforce the eeriness of the overall theme. I believe it’s a reference to old film reels back in the day where the film would flip upside down at the end and reverse… but don’t quote me.

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shot 2: clocks

For this scene, it is a simple close-up quick shot to a wide frame. Very simple, yet effective shot- to add more flavor to it, I added some gaussian blur to the close-up. Easy to miss, but adds another layer to the quickness of the close-up.

the notes here are:

1. tick up
   1. Just a note of the motion here- a reminder to my future self that the hand will tick up so the composition feels balanced.
2. random fade in and out
   1. I ended up Not doing this, since the layout of the frame gets changed from 4×4 to 5×3. as the focal point is the center, I didn’t want to distract the viewer from the name by randomly fading out some of the clocks.
3. emmett preciado
   1. Another reminder of what name will go in there. originally it was planned to put said name to the side (indicated by the line to the left in the frame), but visually the final shot works best.

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We’ll pause here right before shot 3. I hope you enjoyed and see you next time on motion talks!

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