12 AUG 2021 - 23 SEP 2021
Duration:
6 WEEKS
MONDAYS & THURSDAYS
11 AM PST / 2 PM EST
Join Adobe "Creative to Watch" and 5-time Vega winner Tom Crate on a practicum in motion design craft and career.
This live course unpacks the elements of motion design to help you create meaning in your projects and in your work.
CAREER BOOSTER
Learn and practice how to build a project from the ground up — brief, treatment, and execution. Then, go behind the scenes with Tom to understand the industry and find what you love.
LEARN AND CONNECT
You'll learn in live classes and workshops, with personal feedback from an industry leader to help you refine your craft. Get a direct connection to a leading motion designer as you start your career or continue it.
Take control of your career. Learn proven approaches to project planning and execution that will empower you to make authentic choices, create more opportunities, and level up in work and in life.
CRATE
- Sought-after designer, 3D animator, and director involved in nearly every aspect of film and animation
- 20-year career in motion design straddling 3 continents, including 8 years at acclaimed Dutch studio Frame
- Passionate creative behind projects for brands including Nike, Adidas, Jaguar, Porsche, Microsoft, Mobile1, Huawei, Apple, and Nascar
- Winner of Creative Circle Award (2017), Muse Award (2017), and 5 Vega Awards (2016), and named an Adobe "Creative to Watch" (2018)
- Teacher, coach, speaker, and sporadic blog writer helping creatives love their work and themselves
Product Film
Summer
Wisdom
Whatever it is you enjoy doing, there are clients out there who are looking for your work. This class is about laying the real foundation of a satisfying motion design career: intentionality in where you want to go.
- Defining your strengths, weaknesses, and the talent myth
- The significance of role models and the power of commitment
- Directing your vision for personal success (and accepting that you'll never arrive)
Assignment #01: Answer the following questions, first for yourself and, secondly, for your personal motion design project: What do I want? What do I really want? What does success look like for me?
"Motion design" is a deceptively simple name for a field that is quite diverse. This class starts with a breakdown of the vast array of subjects with motion design. Then, Tom explains a number of mental models he finds useful when building and critiquing projects.
- Mental models and the art of breaking things down
- Finding your creative voice and critiquing your own work
- The only motion design rule: Establish a framework for everything
Assignment #02: Make an animation in any format, limiting yourself to 2 hours or less. Next class, you'll share your animation with the group, along with a brief assessment of what you wanted to achieve and how successful you were.
What works in motion design and why? Today, you'll take a deep dive into analysing design, motion, and your own personal taste.
- Where ideas come from and how to develop your taste
- Why "stealing like an artist" isn't stealing at all
- Curating content, ideas, and visuals
Assignment #03: Get familiar with the content platforms reviewed in class, or find your own sources of inspiration. Identify a platform for curating them (eg. Pinterest board, Savee, a physical scrapbook/sketchbook). Then, create a moodboard and a concept for a hypothetical project you would like to make.
This class is about breaking down the aspects of design and separating it from animation. You'll learn the principles for establishing perspective and emotion that underlie every great piece of design, animation aside.
- Core design principles
- Using lighting to give meaning and emotion
- Elements of composition
Assignment #04: Create 1 styleframe for a short animation on a chosen theme.
Here's a design myth that needs to be busted right now: great design speaks for itself. In today's workshop, you'll learn about how to talk about your work with clients, and then practice doing it.
- Introducing your work to clients
- Critiquing work with objectivity, not emotion
- Student presentations and feedback
Assignment #05: Based on the tips and comments given in class, create a 3-minute presentation of your styleframe.
Behind every great piece of motion design are guiding principles that can be replicated, regardless of story or style. Today, Tom will walk you through what those are and how you can use them to create unique, interesting, and valuable narratives.
- Core animation principles
- Defining and achieving flow
- Expressing emotion through motion
- Achieving your vision through editing
Assignment #06: Create a 5-second animation based on your styleframe from Lesson 4, using the medium / software of your choice.
How do all the principles we've learned so far work together? Today, we'll look at some examples of motion design with a critical eye and bring it all back to the most important question: why?
- Putting theory into practice
- Breaking down the essential elements of successful motion design
- How to clarify your decision making
Assignment #07: Take a second pass at your animation (Assignment #06). What will you change?
Today, things are getting technical. Tom will walk through the process of blocking shots and editing together an animatic in a live demo, using Adobe Premiere and C4D.
Assignment #08: Edit the 5-second animation you did in Assignment #07, using the tools demonstrated in class.
Concepts rarely appear in lightning bolts of inspiration. In this class, Tom will go deep into my process for answering a brief and using that to build a concept and treatment from the ground up.
- Answering a brief creatively and methodically
- Building a concept and treatment from the ground up
- Real-life brief and treatment walkthrough
Assignment #09: For this assignment, you will create a storyboard or script for a hypothetical project. You can choose to build on the project you've been developing so far or to create a new concept.
Tom will go through a larger scale commercial project in depth, giving practical examples of treatments and how they get realized.
- Walk through a real-world project in depth
- Go behind-the-scenes of a commercial project
- Bridging the gap between concept and execution
Assignment #10: Continue working with the project you've developed in Assignment #09 to create a simple animatic not longer than 20 seconds.
The biggest problems you'll face as a motion designer have to do with the business side. Tom will share insights into creating a successful and well-balanced career on your own terms, right down to how much to charge.
- You are always a director
- How to turbocharge your career: Networking and marketing yourself
- Leading with authenticity in your showreel and career
- Roles and responsibilities in motion design
Assignment #11: Identify your dream client and create a concept you could pitch to them.
What's your concept, and why did you make the decisions you did? These are questions you'll have to answer for every client and in this class, you'll practice doing just that. To close, you will review as a class the big ideas covered over the last 6 weeks, and discuss how you personally will put this knowledge into practice to reach your goals.
- Student project pitches
- Course review: What have you learned?
- Deciding your next steps
Assignment #12: Complete your project treatment and submit it for feedback.
by Phillip Zhang