Concept Driven Motion Designer
Concept Driven Motion Designer
Client: Hulu
Director: Sabaah Folayan
Mid 2021 - Early 2022
Look At Me: XXXTENTACION chronicles the life and ascent to fame of Jahseh Onfroy, aka XXXTENTACION, a genre-bending musician who is one of the most streamed artists in history. I was the Lead Motion Designer and worked closely with Sabaah Folayan (the director) to create graphics that would support her vision for the film and the overall story.
Looping excerpt of opening titles that I designed and animated.
I designed and animated the opening title pretty late in the process and it went through a few iterations before Sabaah suggested we simplify things and reference the cover for X’s 2018 album “SAD!”.
The videos within the letters show X at different points in his career and the looping is a reference to gifs, a staple of the internet and digital communication.
Original hand lettering I created in Photoshop then tweaked and animated in After Effects.
Main reference for opening title.
Above: early style frame of a Tumblr post
Social media played a central role in XXXTENTACION’s career, so naturally it features prominently in the film.
In early brainstorming meetings, Sabaah emphasized making the digital world of social media feel tangible. We all agreed on the concept of representing social media posts on panes of glass as if it were a device from the future.
Developing the glass asset was a collaborative effort between Noel and I that went through many iterations. I nailed down the embossed look of the social media logos on the glass and she designed the color and texture of the glass itself. The final glass asset was used as a base for the many social media posts and digital archival footage featured throughout the film.
Montage showing X responding to fans on his Tumblr during the early days of his career.
This is a motion test I designed & animated for a montage in the film portraying X’s mugshot and his single “Look At Me” going viral around the same time.
I adjusted the glass asset to be neutral and designed this video player to display archival footage from YouTube.
I designed and animated this test for a montage of X’s baby photos.
Alternate styleframe with ripped paper texture. Neither treatment ended up in the film.
I developed this almost by accident early on in the design process. This was actually one of the first iterations of the voice visualizer I created for phone recordings between X and Geneva. It was decided that this would instead be used as a background asset to sit behind the copious amount of archival footage throughout the film.
This was approved for most of the post-production period since it embodied X’s unpredictable and volatile energy, but as we got closer to wrapping the film multiple revisions were requested and the asset was ultimately found to be too distracting. Even though this didn’t make it into the final cut, I learned a lot while working on it and have expanded on it in my personal work.
This was another asset I developed early on that ended up being used in the film. It was used for all of the audio recordings of phone calls between X and Geneva along with a recording of him admitting to abusing her.
The color palette of this ended up informing the how the social media assets were treated.
In meetings early on in the design process, Sabaah emphasized bridging the gap between the digital and physical. Most of XXXTENTACION’s album artwork and overall aesthetic has a very gritty, roughly textured quality to it, but the majority of the archival material in the film was from the digital world of social media and the internet.
Sabaah wanted to avoid an overly slick representation of the digital realm that most of the film takes place in. She also wanted to avoid leaning too heavily on design tropes seen in true-crime documentaries (lots of distressing, heavy vignettes, etc.) Translating her vision into something visually cohesive was a challenge, but we came up with some unique solutions through exploring various treatments.
Initially, the graphics team was just Noël Anderson and I, with me in more of a supporting role, but as the dynamics amongst the team evolved I was promoted to Lead Designer/Animator. Annie Zhao and Warren Heller joined close to the end of post-production and were indispensable in helping us get over the finish line.
Credits
Director: Sabaah Folayan
Producers: Chloe Campion, Darcy McKinnon
Post Producer: Lauren Evangelista
Lead Motion Designer: Dwayne Sealey
Motion Designers: Noël Chase Anderson, Warren Heller, Annie Xing Zhao