We created an explainer video for the article titled "little videos are cooking our brains" by Adam Clark Estes. We wanted to mimic the feeling of what the article with the challenge of having no voice over to guide viewers.
EXPLAINER VIDEO
Dimensions - 1920 x 1080
Software - After Effects
collaboration - Suzy Wang
Sound - Kelly Warner
UMP artist- Luan Lajus
Research
The client
Founded: 2014
Founders: Ezra Klein, Melissa Bell, and Matthew Yglesias
Focus: Vox covers politics, culture, technology, science, and global affairs, often using visuals, timelines, and “explainer” articles or videos.
Style: Voxs explainers answer why and how questions. Clean design using graphs, live footage and collage having a unique design according to each stories.
Research
style + media
Vox usually posts youtube explainer videos as well as illustrative works representing specific articles.
research
The goal
The goal is to create an explainer video without narration that best represents the article "Little videos are cooking our brains" by Adam Clark Estes.
Concept
First direction
AI-generated content is robbing us of our attention, reshaping and adapting to the thrill of Vertical screens.
Referencing the eye-catching effect of pop-art.
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Bright/bold
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Exaggerated forms
chosen direction
Vertical videos are hypnotizing our gaze manipulating our focus.
Design would have a digital feel while implementing Vox general design style.
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repetition
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saturated colors
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brain rot = short thrill vids
story
ROUND 1
Our first round of story beats offered a wide range of scenes. Some scenes felt more connected than others. For that reason, we decided to rework the first line of story beats to be more cohesive.
story
ROUND 2
In our critique our art director felt that we needed to have a person to represent the viewer as the story felt more narrative. We adjusted the story to follow a character through different areas that represented this tech world.
story
ROUND 3
Our final round shows a persons involvement from start to finish. There are moments where we are are diving deeper into the technical aspect of digital addiction which adds fun twists to this environemnt.
ANIMATIC
ROUND 1
ANIMATIC
ROUND 2
ANIMATIC
ROUND 3
early motion tests
TECHNICAL EXECUTION
animation
We used adobe after effects to animate the scenes. We organised certain parts in layers to create dimension as well as using lens distortion and glow effects to bring the digital aspect to life.
Trees
For scene one we start with a screen turning on. This was a shape layer with multiple animated gradients along the path as well as shape layers masked creating highlights. It then transitions into the building scene of the phone screen trees. I used nulls parented to each corner of each shape layer. There are master nulls that control the upper edge of each shape to create smooth reveal animations. I had difficulty replacing these shape layers with footage so I had to manually match the animation after it was finessed.
TECHNICAL EXECUTION
VIDEO TREATMENT
The animated colorful bands are made by distorting the imagery and stretching the color pixels. We thought this was a nice touch to represent data streams and AI data! We also made the footage feel very artificial because it is supposed to represent addictive videos
The trees have over saturated effects added to create an artificial feeling to them mimicking addictive social media. We also used effects like cc scale swipe which created a digital noise texture.
Snakes
We end with digital snakes coming in and collecting data. The way we achieved this render style is with fractal noise and colorama. To create depth I used drop shadows and adjustment layers with effects that blurred and darkened the background layers. They are animated with simple path animations which are done in a larger composition. I used a lot of cc lens distortion throughout the piece to exaggerate transitions or the feeling of your eyes focusing on something.
THE GEM
The gem becomes a pivotal moment of the animation creating a twist. It is also a break from busy compositions focusing on something specific rather than having overwhelming compositions.
Suzy used AI to help this complex idea come to life. Specifically with creating codes and expressions to create slider controls to create this Gem explosion. There is also a complex lighting system to create light refractions on each shape layer.
character
animation
The character animation is sharp and has a more serious tone. We felt that the animation shouldn't feel too bouncy to match the shape language of the character. We used shape layer animation to achieve this.
design
The design of the character was a journey. We did some sketches but they all felt way too playful considering the render style of the piece as a whole. We used roughen edges and turbulent displace to create the rendering of the character.
design quilt
final
the final
collaborator
Suzy was a great collaborator through the process! We worked hard nailing down our story which took longer than expected. We both took on multiple scenes in the project overall having equal responsibilities throughout.
I tackled the first half of the animation creating the design and animation of our animation. Suzy tackled the animation and design of the middle which had a complex twist using complex lighting systems. I then finished off with type animation for the last scene. Suzy handles composition all shots
together incorporating sound that Kelly Warner had
created for us.
Overall it was a fun project! I had never used live
fottage in this way before.
Abigail + Suzy
thoughts
The process of creating the video footage was pretty interesting. Using live footage can be really hard but it was a good challenge!