You Know What I’ve Always Wanted? (2021)
This was a four-week for a graduate-level class at NYU Tandon School of Engineering entitled Visual Design for Print and Screen taught by Ahmed Ansari during the Spring 2021 semester.
Final Product
Brief
- Select a one-minute clip of meaningful dialogue from a television show or movie to bring to life with kinetic typography.
- Use principles of motion design to convey what the viewer can’t see on screen.
- Include up to five seconds of credits
Software Used
- Adobe Audition
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe After Effects
Ideation
When I started this project I knew I wanted to do something from the IDW Entertainment series Wynonna Earp.
Wynonna Earp is a Canadian TV show that follows the great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp as she attempts to break the Earp Curse with the help of her sister Waverly, and several friends. The show contains elements of found family and writing your own story.
At the time this was assigned, the show was wrapping up its fourth season on Syfy with a big moment for one of the show’s main couples. To honor this, I went back to Season 1 and selected the conversation that leads to their first kiss on “Bury Me With My Guns On.”
In this clip, there are two speakers:
- Waverly Earp: She initiates the conversation and does most of the talking. Her voice is fast and frenzied, but the character is also described as the town’s darling. She’s not delicate, but she’s also not as gruff as her sister Wynonna.
- Nicole Haught: The passive speaker with a few lines, she’s mostly listening to Waverly. She is a deputy in the Sheriff’s department and is onto the idea that there may be something supernatural in the town of Purgatory. She’s also been enchanted with Waverly for most of the season.
Storyboarding
Once I had my minute of audio picked out and markers for the dialogue. I created a transcript for myself in a google doc, hitting enter each time the speaker changed or took a breath.
This would serve as the different compositions. I wasn’t entirely sure what fonts I wanted to use at this stage but I knew that motion would take longer. As a result, I stuck to black and white for my storyboard.
I then began laying each composition out in illustrator. Since I knew I needed to create an animatic, I made multiple sketches for each composition so I could envision how different effects would look.
Since I was working in black and white for the storyboard, I had the feeling I needed to think about a possible palette. Wynonna Earp is based on a comic book, and the TV show has a cult following that makes a lot of art. I began assembling scenes from the show, art that I liked, typefaces, and possible color palettes.
Animatic
I imported my JPEGs into Adobe After Effects and imported my storyboard JPEGS. I edited them together in time with the audio and made this file which gave me a solid idea of what my intended animations might look like.
I received the following feedback from my professor:
- My motion choices were on the right track.
- Given the romantic nature, my final product definitely. needed to be in color
- When we looked at my mood board the sand and purple colors from the comics seemed to be the best fit for the clip.
- My typeface didn’t fit.
- There’s a part where music kicks in and there’s an instrumental intro; Ahmed suggested I try a long transition.
Design and Iteration
First Draft
I moved into my first draft in After Effects taking the notes from my animatic, and using it as a blueprint to create the file.
Some Considerations:
- Since the comic palette had the most romantic feel I found multiple covers and began pulling colors from each sticking to a mostly analogous palette at first.
- I adjusted the layouts slightly from my animatic, keeping several of the words in their intended compositions but accounting for more white space to let the text breathe.
- Started searching for a different typeface.
- Since this was a scene with two people on a couch in a very close space, I wanted the scene to feel contained. Most of my text would fade in, and only a few words would come flying in from off-screen to generate interest.
Waverly’s Typeface
Given that this was a romantic scene my instinct was to lean into a scripted typeface for Waverly. Given the pace at which Waverly was speaking, I didn’t want the flourishes of a handwritten font to distract from some of the imagery.
I played with Georgia and Canto Brush in my first version and after getting some feedback decided to stick with Canto Brush.
Nicole’s Typeface
Since Nicole only has a few lines, I left making a final decision on her typeface until towards the end of this project.
From the first draft, I went from a san serif typeface to a serif typeface that looked a little too close to Canto before deciding that a thin typewriter-like font would compliment Canto best. The font I ended up going with was Just Us Pro Thin
Second Draft
From here I continued to tweak after receiving feedback from both my instructor and a few friends. The feedback was mostly positive with a few tweaks for where I could push it more and noting a couple effects that seemed jarring.
Motion Considerations
I was hesitant to rely on the Animation Effects panel in After Effects and instead decided to see what I could do manually with the type animators.
Some of what I used to create the initial effects were:
- Opacity
- Skew
- Position
- Scale
Panting
I listened to the audio clip probably about 200 plus times throughout this entire process, and it made me very aware of how Waverly was breathing throughout her dialogue.
As such, I spent a lot of time going through the clips and trying to note where she was gasping. One such moment was after “brazen” where she takes a deep inhale of breath. I ended up skewing the text and scaling it a bit in time with her breath.
Anxiety
Similarly, when Waverly says “it’s you,” I knew that I wanted that last word to stick around for a bit. It grows and fades out slowly because it feels like the word hovers in the air waiting for Nicole’s reaction. When it doesn’t come, Waverly jumps into her aside about how it sounded more romantic in her head.
Confusion
Those who watch the episode understand that in this moment, Nicole is confused. They’ve been attempting to have this conversation the entire episode with so many miscommunications happening before Waverly says that they’re just friends.
Several of Nicole’s lines involves a hanging syllable as a result. For example, her “What?” at the start goes up in pitch and there’s a pause before Waverly begins speaking. To illustrate this I modified the tracking so that the text is initially very scrunched but ultimately relaxes.
My original version used the same for “I scare you” but this is when I experimented with the fade-in by word effect, and was able to get a subtle transition that seemed to match Nicole’s cadence.
Metaphor
In Waverly’s initial burst of excitement she mentions three things she’s always wanted to do:
- Parachute out of a plane
- Swim far out into the ocean
- Eat geoduck (spelled gooey duck intentionally)
This was where more dramatic animations could be used to show both the chaos of her speech and some of the activities she was mentioning. For example: “To parachute” enters from the top. “Far” moves from left to right like someone actually swimming. The words “gooey duck” are eaten.
What I Learned
This was my first kinetic typography project and I am very pleased with the final result. It got me better acquainted with After Effects and I really loved breaking down dialogue and speech.
A Few Things I’d Do Differently
- There are a few cases where the type is a little hard to read. I intended this, but I think that there’s a way to toe the line a little more so it still gets the effect without being hard on the eyes.
- I debated adding some noise to the background so that the colors weren’t completely flat.
- In an early stage, I started thinking about how I might be able to incorporate the lyrics. While the characters don’t interact with the music, the song has become embedded with this scene in fandom culture.