Book An Artist
~Promotion Videos~
Case Study
Motion graphic videos for my client, Book An Artist, a platform like Upwork, but mainly for mural artists. This page not only showcases the work, but it is also showing the painful process.🥴
Year: 2023
Role: Illustrator, Storyboarder, Motion Graphic Designer & Video Editor
Use of software: Premiere Pro, After Effect, Illustrator & Clip Studio Paint
List of work:
(Click the link below to jump to the specific section)
Promotion Video 1: Looking for cool art? Meet Book An Artist.
The objective of this project is to promote the online service to potential clients through YouTube. In this promotion video project, I collaborated with another colleague. Each of us is responsible for half part of this video.
The working process is below:
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Brainstorming the idea
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Storyboarding
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Element creation
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Animation
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Video editing
Brainstorming & Storyboarding
The layout I suggested to show the artwork
The concept is very simple. We decided to tell the audience that why they should use Book An Artist. My supervisor created some prompts that are about the situations in which potential clients may want to use the service.
To show the artwork I suggested using a 'UI/UX Showcase' to show the artwork that was finished through Book An Artist's platform, I suggested using the 'UX/UI showcase' to present because it can show much artwork at the same time.
About the scene of introducing the brand, I also suggested turning the phone and showing the brand logo with a yellow spreading colour background because it means the brand can light up the clients' life.
The final storyboard of this project
Based on our ideas, my colleague and I created 2 storyboards. Mine has many scenes because I would like to show all the situations. However, it is quite hard to show all of them in a minute, whereas, my colleague's storyboard has a simple story that can easily to deliver in a minute. Therefore, my colleague and I combined them into 1 because each of them has something good to use.
Element Creation
The illustration of the client
Since this project started while I was working on the illustration for the brand, I also created all the elements that would be animated in the video. To make our work easier, I had already separated the layers of the animated elements while I was creating them.
Animation
The part I animated
Each of us is responsible for half part of the motion graphic video. I made the first part and she made the second part.
The 3D feature in After Effects
I think the most challenging part is the final scene because it should be a 3D model with the brand logo. I initially tried to create it on After Effects because I knew there was a feature that could make the element look like a 3D object. However, it did not look like what I expected. its edge was black, not white.
Because of the situation above, I decided to use a more complicated way to create this sense, using Maya to create the phone animation. (I know it is kind of dumb, but at least I learned something from this stupid experience)
Although I was not good at Maya, I still managed to finish the phone animation. Nevertheless, I found that I could not export my animation on Maya. So, I sought my friend's help, who has much knowledge about Maya and I was astonished about the reason.
It cannot be exported because the file address has other languages than English🙃.
This is the most ridiculous reason I heard ever. I always save my files on the desktop because it is easy to find, but I could not do this because it is called '桌面'(desktop in Chinese), not 'Desktop'.
While I was rendering the phone animation on Maya, my friend asked me why I did not use After Effects to do this. I explained the reason I mentioned above. Then, she taught me I should use another layer which is white colour to be the 3D object so that the edge of the phone would be white.
Well...She is right. So, I went back to After Effects to do this scene because I found it was not efficient to adjust the animation in Maya.
Video Editing
Although this step was not difficult, there was still lots of work to do, because we tried different narrators, text-to-speech AI, the CEO of Book An Artist and my supervisor.
Finally, we chose the version of my supervisor because it sounds more energetic. My least favourite version is the text-to-speech. It does not have any emotion.
During this process, I did not only replace the soundtrack, but I also needed to adjust and edit the animation to make sure it could match the narrator. It was not hard, but time-consuming.
Promotion Video 1: Book An Artist_Before & After
The objective of this project is to add some new content to Book An Artist's official YouTube channel. Since this project was started in the final week of my internship, the deadline was tight. Moreover, other colleagues who know how to use After Effects finished their internships. Therefore, I only had a week to finish it by myself.
The working process is below:
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Brainstorming the idea
-
Element creation
-
Animation
-
Video editing
Brainstorming (Day 1)
The restrictions of this project:
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Only using the images and graphics to present the brand
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Tight deadline (a week)
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limited resources (It is a solo project)
I think this is the most difficult part of this project because I have many restrictions, such as limited human resources and tight deadlines. I tried to watch the content that is related to art and I found there were many interview videos and some working process videos. I suggested interviewing the artists who use Book An Artist because this one is suitable for the tight deadline. However, due to the limited resources, this idea had been eliminated.
I kept doing research and I finally found a type of video that fulfils all the requirements of this solo project, a before and after video. I saw many industrial design companies post this kind of video to present how they make the clients' houses better. Most of these videos are only created with still images and some background music.
In the beginning, my supervisor doubted this kind of video because she made it once and the outcome was not good at all. Therefore, I suggested creating a motion graphic video that shows all the murals around the world on the map. I think it is more interesting than showing the before and after of the wall.
Finally, she approved this idea as it can also show that their service is available in many countries.
Element Creation (Day 2-3)
My initial thought was to create a 3D model of a plane and animate it so that it would look like it is flying into the earth. However, I am a newbie in 3D modelling. Therefore, I could not create a model that was the same as my stylesheet. Due to the limited deadline, I changed it to 2D and made it simple. Probably practising my 3D modelling later.
Regarding the map, I downloaded it from a royalty-free stock image website.
Animation & Video Editing (Day 4-5)
The biggest challenge of this project is creating the animation. It is not because it is hard to animate, but it is about my computer. Since I could only use my laptop computer to do this project, my computer did not have enough memory to process the animation for me to review in After Effects. I always had to wait a minute to preview even though I adjusted the resolution when I previewed it.
Except for the limitation of hardware, I also faced another challenge with After Effects because I am not familiar with many effects in this software. Therefore, the list below is what I learnt from others while I created this video.
FYI, the reason why I decided to present the images with a projection effect is because I think it would be more interesting and cooler to show the differences. At least it is better than using the words 'Before' and 'After' in the scene.