There are a lot tutorial sites on the web now, including Motionworks. I take time every morning to watch at least one tutorial as a way of keeping my skills sharp and up-to-date. When watching tutorials I’m generally not looking for design ideas but rather technique and workflow. If it’s something that looks like “the next big look in motion graphics” I won’t simply copy it in my next project; but do file the technique away for consideration when it suits a project.
For example, Dark Knight uses a shatter technique I copied from AETUTS, Quantum Of Solace includes a modified version of the MILG 5 Form Face tutorial. Neither of these are copying the tutorial step-by-step; the technique is much the same but the look is modified based on the project brief and my own design sense and imagination.
Looks from popular tutorial sites can be easily identified and if copied without being filtered through your own design sense and imagination, there is a danger that your work, like thousands of others, will be a simple clone and won’t be taken seriously.
Some people have said to me “I’m just not creative like you”. I believe everyone has the ability to be creative because everyone has an imagination. Some of us just need practice at using it.
Here’s something I do to flex my imagination. I travel by bus to work every morning and often listen to an ipod loaded with my favorite music. While listening I create graphics for the track that’s playing; and I don’t mean on my laptop, I mean in my head. I watch what is going on around me, on the bus, out the window and imagine I’m creating a music video. Changing colors, time remapping, adding effects, distorting, deforming, scaling, using 3D, moving an imaginary camera, your imagination is the only limit.
This morning I was listening to Magificent, a powerful anthem by U2 from their latest release, and was passing a steel tower carrying electricity cables; the first thing that came into my head was the tower transforming into a transformer-like version of the Edge (lead guitarist), sending pulses of electricity down the wires to the next tower which transformed into Bono (lead singer). It may or may not have been silly but that’s not the point, there are no rules, my imagination ran free.
Given that I’m on a bus people feature strongly in my imaginary videos, I look at faces, some of joy, some of sadness, some of anger, most with no emotion. Today there was a young women at the bus stop I was passing, laughing with a friend; I imagined it in super-slow motion then as the bus passed directly in front of her, the camera whipped around to face the bus passing and me in the window looking at her – all in slow motion. Again nothing wrong with that, just my imagination.
Not surprisingly almost all my ideas for projects come to me when I’m on the bus. Oh and for the record I haven’t had a single day of design training. I learned techniques through books and videos and for almost 13 years have been building my design skills on the job… and on the bus.
16 Responses to this post
April 9, 2009 at 4:27 am |
Hi JD, thank you for being such an inspiration and motivation for us all the time! You are right with every word you wrote. In the next three moonths I got a job where I travel a lot by train – I hope your tip about imagination works there too
April 9, 2009 at 5:06 am |
On a train, on a bus, even walking, your imagination goes along for the ride
April 9, 2009 at 6:59 am |
At a school I went to, they used the video-copilot stuff directly in their promotions. The only changes they made were the insertion of the school logo and name in place of whatever Kramer had typed. It was embarrassing to me, as we did have a strong vfx dept so they could have asked any of us to make them some original and creative promo work. I always worried potential employers would see the video and just assume all the students could do was liberally borrow other people’s work.
I agree going somewhere outside of your normal space and observing the enviornment is a great way to spark the creative juices.
April 9, 2009 at 7:24 am |
Hi John,
I do the same kind of mind exercise while walking my two dogs. Many times I’ll see a spot on TV, maybe a commercial or a scene in a film and try to break it down and eventually come up with my own version. Although I really enjoy the tutorials from this and other sites, I rarely copy them outright and never download the project files. I see far too much of that going on around youtube and other sharing sites.
Andrew Kramer did a tutorial called, Growing Vines, or something to that effect. His 3D vines were made in 3D Max and then composited into a 3D environment in AE. I’m no 3D guru (yet) and wondered if I could pull off the same look in AE alone. I came up with a pretty good imitation of the effect using 3D Stroke from Trapcode. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/user/Brett5758. A few weeks after I had posted my attempt, I see that Maltaanon came up with a totally different approach using a light emitter and Particular!
As for myself, I can’t open AE and not be inspired. For ten years now it’s been the place I work and play. Give your brain recess once in awhile and just run wild trying anything and everything. And don’t forget to share what you’ve learned with others because that’s what this site and so many others are doing to make life more interesting for us all. Thanks John.
Brett Perry
April 9, 2009 at 7:24 am |
Time-remapping on the bus. I love it, John. I visit Motionworks every morning with my cup of coffee to start my work day; I really enjoyed reading this post. In High School I would do something similar while riding the bus to school, although it usually involved wild and/or extinct animals galloping through the Wisconsin countryside and destroying everything in their path. Raarrgggg! I guess my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. Cheers!
April 9, 2009 at 8:41 am |
I’m all the more sold on motionworks now that I know John’s a U2 fan!!!
April 9, 2009 at 10:37 am |
Great post on inspiration. A lot of times, I’m the guy that likes movie intros more than the movies themselves. There are incredible lessons to be learned by just paying attention to rhythm, pacing, how sound goes with graphics, how fonts match emotional qualities, etc.
And I think there’s a lot to be said for just using your imagination. A lot of people come out of graphic schooling and aren’t really all that good/confident at what they do. But then there are guys who do it all themselves and just pay attention and find inspiration. That too is schooling. Like John, I never went to any sort of design school (I’m an ex-architect actually), but I could never help being inspired by all the things I see around me and before I knew it, I had my own design company.
April 9, 2009 at 8:15 pm |
this is very inspiring John
April 9, 2009 at 8:17 pm |
Awesome John,
Words of wisdom to be sure! We are all a direct product of our influences, and as I instruct my students: Striving for complete originality is a waste of time, as it simply doesn’t exist (even Picasso said that!). A better pursuit is to produce work that is ‘uniquely derivative’ of our influences. Your post is a good reminder to make sure we look far and wide to ‘capture’ those influences, and flex our creativity always, not just when we sit down to bang out the next job.
April 10, 2009 at 4:11 pm |
Great post,
You are NOT talking about this:
http://sacco.com.uy/galerias/index.php?AlbumTypeId=2&AlbumClassId=16&AlbumId=103
mmmm…….. This ENERGY …..I know it from somewhere…..
John: Your site is awesome!!! Thanks for sharing.
April 11, 2009 at 8:22 am |
Great Post JD.
Imagination is the flow of the creative spirit helping us as we encounter everything we touch, see and hear.
Imagination is our TV set; it’s how we ‘picture’ life.
Imagine…
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
April 13, 2009 at 1:35 am |
When I was going to film school in Chicago 12 years ago…I took the train into the city and walked 20min one way from the train station to school. While on the train, I was able to read/write scripts…story board…or do just what you described, John…make music videos based on what I saw. It was GREAT! That’s one of the biggest things I miss now in my daily life in Los Angeles.
April 13, 2009 at 4:22 pm |
Great post John!
A great designer will use their environment to shape and inspire their design… always designing, always creating, whether on paper, computer or in the mind.
And remember… Very rarely, if not ever, does a designer hit the nail on the head first go. People only see the end result of a great design but don’t see all of the hard work, experimentation and down-right ugly(!) versions that the designer played with before having something solid. Never be afraid to play, test, shape and mould and go right out of your comfort zone every now and again… the resuts can be outstanding!
Look forward to your next post John, keep up the inspiring work!
Cheers
Ben
April 13, 2009 at 8:34 pm |
I always get a little stumped at doing the creativity justice, having wild ideas like the U2 song above is all well and good, but you either have to be totally on top of everything (know your software inside out) or have a great team working for you to realise them.
For my mind it is how to realise those ideas – to a high professional standard, that is the problem. Especially now that I don’t have as much time to play around with a project (hours get watched by supervisor and the company that i work for likes to bang things out.)
April 14, 2009 at 10:34 pm |
pretty cool technique to improve imagination
.
I’m @ the beginning of my Design Life and I wish I’ll have the ability to be creative like you
May 7, 2009 at 12:32 pm |
(I create graphics for the track that’s playing;)
I think this is one of the most inspiration thing i´ve ever read.
Thank you very much!
(sorry about my poor english)
Trackbacks