Concept Driven Motion Designer
Concept Driven Motion Designer
Client: Quibi
Production: Blowback Productions
Quibi launched in April 2020 as the first mobile only entertainment platform. I was commissioned by Blowback Productions to create the graphics package for a documentary about the first year of the I Promise School, a public school in Akron, Ohio started by the LeBron James Family Foundation.
The work I did consisted of compositing, custom lettering, lower thirds, illustration, character animation, and visual effects. Videos on Quibi switch seamlessly between being watched either veritcally or horizontally, so I had to make 2 versions of everything. This was definitely the biggest project I’ve had to work on alone and it was a great experience.
One of the episodes in the documentary series explores how the students are taught to manage their emotions. The teachers there use a chart called “Zones of Regulation” that break down common emotions into color coded zones. I was originally asked to just trace over the existing chart but I suggested customizing the “emojis” to reflect the demographics of the school.
I started off by going through the footage and photos of the students and using them as references for rough sketches of the various moods.
These illustrations were used in overlays and cards to discuss the different zones the students could find themselves in on any given day.
I had a lot of fun animating a few of the emojis for the overlays using the Duik Bassel plug-in for After Effects.
Originally I was asked to letter the names of the 4 students profiled in the documentary. This then expanded into lettering the names of 19 students who were interviewed. Finally I was asked to create a custom font based on the lettering.
Throughout the I Promise School there are letter boards scattered around with messages for the students and staff. I was tasked with creating letter board composites mostly showing how close the fall and spring standardized tests were.
The client didn't want it to be so obvious that LeBron was watching a video from his camera roll so I was asked to remove the filmstrip at the bottom of the screen.