Audio in Motion Graphics with Kyle Hemrick

David:
Hey, it's David Ciccarelli, the CEO and Co Founder of Voices. On the show we have Kyle Hamrick, and he's the creative director at School of Motion. Kyle and I are going to be talking and discussing all things motion graphics, who's using them, how and when. Creatives are choosing motion graphics over live video and the interplay of use of voiceover as well.

But first, let me introduce Kyle. Kyle Hammer is an Emmy winning motion designer, video editor, and Adobe certified software trainer and all around After Effects and premier nerd. Now he serves as creative director for School of Motion, where I'm sure you've caught him on many of the tutorials, live streams and much more. He's also a mediocre guitarist his words, not mine, and a lover of dinosaurs and Lego. That was certainly my toy of choice growing up. So I think we're going to have a great show today.

And finally, he is a big believer in using his creative skills and empowering others to do so as well for good. So with that, let's kick things off. Welcome to the show, Kyle.

Kyle:
Hey, David. Thanks so much for having me on here.

David:
Oh, my pleasure. I think this is an area where we haven't covered yet around motion graphics. So you're going to be teaching a lot to me and certainly other creative producers as well. But let me first get one in here about asking you about Lego. Have you ever done motion capture or something that is inspired by Lego in any of your creative work?

Kyle:
A little bit. Not as much as I have meant to, I'll say. For that. I've mostly kind of helped my son do some little stop motion Lego pieces, but not really professionally. Yeah, more of a hobby.

David:
Hey, listen, but that's where it starts. Most of my toys growing up like Lego was always the one. I know you have experience as well with that. And I think for those who have young kids, what a great way to set them on a creative path, maybe even a career path. You don't know it, but Lego is certainly one of those toys that inspires that, I guess getting right into it over your career, how have you seen organizations use video differently? Maybe it's the form factor, maybe kind of the content itself, maybe a difference in how the stories are actually being told. But is there an evolution that you might be able to share with all of us?

Kyle:
Yeah, I've been doing this stuff professionally for, I think, 17 years at this point. And so I think anyone who's been paying attention to pretty much anything knows that there's been a huge revolution in what video and related stuff can do. The availability of all of that. I mean, obviously in that time, YouTube and now Instagram, TikTok video is everywhere. We're all carrying video players around in our pockets. So it's a very different place. And it's also like the ability to create all of this stuff has opened up so much in that time and even just over the last five to ten years. It's just a huge revolution in both expectations but availability. And on the one hand, it means that there's just so much stuff out there, but it also means that anyone can tell creative stories in pretty much any way that they can imagine if they want to spend a little time doing it. Yeah. Not only are we all carrying video players I thought that was insightful. But also video capturing devices. Right. Anyone can create a video.

David:
So does that mean that some organizations believe that they can kind of do this themselves and put together their own video production team, maybe even a small business. But is it kind of created a lot of do it yourself or is out there where maybe they aren't reaching out to you? Or do they start there and then kind of connect where they're looking to upgrade their quality or other skills?

Kyle:
Yeah, I mean the availability of these tools, a lot of times just a phone and an app. But obviously if you have a desktop computer, you have a lot more capabilities. But it does enable almost anyone to make stuff, which means that you'll find a wide array of quality levels. But sometimes that's okay. And there's even something you start seeing as you get into this. There are times where too much production quality can actually hurt the messaging of something, depending on what it is. And obviously for things like social media right now, there is in most cases you kind of don't want stuff too polished because then it stops feeling authentic. But obviously somebody like Apple isn't going to be putting out things that just somebody shot on their phone and it's all grainy and sounds terrible. Unless that is what they're going for. Right? Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I have a feeling that the answer to a lot of questions today is going to be it depends because it can be such a broad thing and it sort of depends on who you're talking to and what you're trying to say.

David:
Yeah. Would it be fair? Like, if it's an advertisement, there's almost a higher expectation of quality, whereas maybe the behind the scenes, the customer success stories, those can kind of exactly say, get away with a little bit more. It's just more raw, it's natural, kind of in the moment.

Kyle:
Yeah, more organic. Yeah, exactly. And people don't expect those to be too polished. And if they are, they probably start questioning like, is this actually a real person or is this an actor?

David:
So how much does the planning go to create a video just before we kind of move into the stop motion graphics portion, but just planning a video from start to finish? Are there some key steps along the way that you would encourage anyone listening? Like, listen, don't just whip out the camera and expect to kind of get greatness right off the bat. Maybe there's some pre production steps that are somewhat universal that you find to be kind of tried and true.

Kyle:
Exactly. Certainly there are instances where you can just shoot something and figure it out later. And as someone that's done a lot of editing in my career, I have cleaned up that mess many times, sometimes to great effect, but typically having a plan of some kind. And even if you are, let's say, creating something that is a documentary that's very based on real footage, at least knowing what your objective is when you're going into the project and it may change in a case like that. But knowing what you're trying to achieve is kind of the base level thing. Obviously, if you're doing a more produced piece, you're going to take that a lot further and come up with design concepts and a script and all of that and make sure that you have messaging that is talking to the audience that you want to be talking to and you're communicating the right concepts and all that both through the script and dialogue and maybe through the visuals, maybe as part of a broader campaign across different kinds of media, it can kind of go wherever it needs to go. But knowing what you're trying to achieve is a very important step, kind of no matter where you are on that scale, I think.

David:
And maybe some examples of that, just to put this in kind of practical terms. Is it to drive more visitors to your storefront? Is it to maybe just bring awareness to a new product launch? Are those the kind of objectives that you're referring to?

Kyle:
Exactly. Let's say you're creating an Instagram ad, for example. In that case you're probably trying to make people aware of these widgets and make them want to buy these widgets and click on the things so that then they can figure out how to buy these widgets. It depends on what the piece is, of course, but typically you're trying to get people to take some kind of action even if it's just to click on a link or something like that, right? Yes. Well, no, that's kind of weaving in the words as well too, and other visual elements.

David:
But I want to definitely before getting to the words and the voice, let's talk about motion graphics for those who are may be new to the concept. They've certainly seen them, but maybe they weren't exactly sure of what they were referred to. What are motion graphics just for somebody new listening?

Kyle:
Sure. And if I go on too long, just let me know because it's one of those things where it's the whole course. Yeah, as you said, they're all around but I think it's a thing that people don't even think about. The way I might explain it, like to my aunt is animation but not cartoons. Which means everything from the intro sequence to your favorite TV show. Those Instagram ads I've mentioned, live visuals that go behind your favorite performer at a concert. The interstitial piece is when you're watching an NFL game and two helmets bashed together and then the score comes out. Like all of that stuff is all motion graphics, motion design, a lot of different techniques and looks. But basically, if it's a piece of video, I'll put an asterisk on that content that is not filmed footage. It's probably motion graphics.

David:
Yeah, so that's a good differentiation between motion graphics and then the live action film footage. Is there ever times where you're using some live action, kind of cropping it and then like making it do something differently? You just use your example of probably in like sports scores or different you might have an actual video capture of an element moving, but then you're manipulating is that a common technique and is it only in sports or maybe newscasts as well too?

Kyle:
Yeah, those are both two really great sort of concrete examples. And I used to do a lot of sports work myself, so I would do the player intros where they stand. There a lot of guys for baseball, they cross their arms or have the bat over their shoulder and it's the thing that plays in the stadium, but then cool stuff like spins around them or whatever. Yes, but yeah, I mean, everything from green screen, which I think most people know about, where you can then composite people into an environment that they weren't originally in, which then starts crossing over a lot into visual effects. A lot of the same techniques there. And a lot of times you would use that kind of stuff in a motion design piece, maybe to put a person in a graphic environment or bring graphics over a video. So how do you know when you've taken this far enough? And then there's probably a line where you cross where you going to say sometimes, could it ever be overdone? Where it just feels like it's too overwhelming for absolutely. Almost takes away from the story. Absolutely. And I think as with a lot of creative endeavors, I suspect that most people, as they get further into their careers, they probably start this tipping point where you start learning to take things away rather than add things. And again, it depends on what the piece is and who your audience is. Something you're designing for. Maybe a kids TV show is going to look very different than for an Apple event or something like that. But yeah, often subtlety is a very powerful and underrated value in this stuff. For sure. I love the comment around like, taking things away.

David:
I know as an audio engineer myself, you're often I was taught to always cut certain frequencies out of the spectrum as opposed to just boosting, to enhance. And actually that creates more space and clarity. So there's an amateur, dare I say, just goes, oh, let's have more bass and crank it. But actually by removing certain frequencies, you can sound and feel it with more punch. So these are all things that we learn over time. Is there maybe an analogy that would be there with motion graphics of like you would think that by adding more, it would be better, but maybe you learned as something to that's commonly removed despite clients asking for it.

Kyle:
Yeah, I mean, in my industry, we sort of have a lot of these basically memes of the kind of bad stuff that clients will ask for. Just always make the logo bigger and adding starbursts. Just like adding too much crap. Right, right. And yeah, absolutely. A lot of times that takes away from the messaging because at the end of the day, I think most people understand, even if they're not designers, even we're just talking about like a still printed like a poster or something. There are maybe one or two things that you really want people to be able to see and pay attention to. And then once you put that in motion, you're bringing time into the mix. And so, you know, you can manipulate how long things are on screen, but you are directing the viewers attention. That is the primary thing that you're doing. And if you throw eight things on screen for them to look at, they aren't going to follow the important thing. They're going to follow all this sparkly crap that you threw on the screen. And so if you are mindful about what your hero element is and why you're showing that to them and what it's doing and what it's communicating by the way it's moving.

David:
Do you ever test that with eye tracking software or anything along those lines? Have you had experience with that? To know with certainty, if you will, that the main visual element. I'm sure, as you said, with years of experience, you've gotten there and know what is going to be enough to kind of catch the attention. But have you used that kind of eye tracking software for running kind of split tests?

Kyle:
I haven't. That sounds very interesting and it makes me wonder if people have. But it's a creative thing and so we probably just have the egos to think that we know what's best.

David:
Right. We don't need to test it. Less science, more art. Right, I love that. Why might a creative producer actually choose to go with more motion graphics as opposed to live action? Is there a difference in budget and time frame? Like you don't have to deal with a set? What might those decision kind of criteria be?

Kyle:
Sure. Yeah. I mean, it can have both creative and let's say logistical reasons. About two years ago, suddenly everyone realized that it was a lot easier to do motion design pieces than to shoot stuff when no one could be on set for a while and I noticed almost immediately about a week after COVID shutdowns, maybe a couple of weeks, like all the commercials I was seeing on TV were either made from stock footage or the motion design pieces. Yes, because that's what was available and obviously that's a special case. But typically motion graphics pieces are going to be usually more affordable than shooting something because bringing like a production truck and a ten person crew to something is expensive. And you can certainly have one person in a home office make a really high production value piece. It typically takes longer to make like that, but it also just enables a lot of creative stuff that you might not be able to film because it might not exist or you can do things in a much more abstract way where you might be having just friendly shapes representing concepts instead of people depicting them.

David:
No. I'm glad you brought up the onset of the Pandemic as well. Did you receive a lot of interest at School of Motion during that time because people needed to kind of ramp up the curve very quickly, realizing, oh shoot, we can't?

Kyle:
I do think so, yes. I think any online learning institutions were probably a bit busier a few months after that as people kind of realized that it wasn't going away right away. I think it also just helped a lot of people kind of realize that maybe that creative thing that they've always kind of meant to learn more about, maybe this is a good time to do it, for sure. We definitely have the same observation here that a lot of brands had purchased Airtime and maybe planned an upcoming product launch. Either way, they needed to change their messaging very quickly and so we coined that, the Pandemic ad.

David:
I mean, it was very stereotypical. It all said we're in this together and we're here for you. So the scripts were all the same from a voiceover perspective. And then also you're right, it was like stock music and animation or motion graphics because no understanding vocal tone. Exactly. All the artistic direction was very much the same. Now kind of being optimistic and saying I think we're coming out in terms of certainly less restrictions and lockdowns coming out of the Pandemic. Would you say that a lot of those have you observed that a lot of those approaches to creating content have stuck around or people kind of going back to no, let's go for the big ten person crew and get the lighting set up? Is there a renewed and kind of a stickiness around using more motion graphics in the content and ads that are being produced?

Kyle:
I don't think they're mutually exclusive and I think that they will both be around for a long time. The thing about motion graphics and related stuff is that especially as we continue to have these devices and probably more devices and all this stuff, it's just going to continue to be more and more ubiquitous. And it's one of those things that you kind of see it in, all this little stuff you don't even think about when you pick up your phone and you do a command or something. The little movements that your phone does to help communicate something to you based on your interactions, like, those are a part of motion design as well. And all these little things, as we get into whatever AR or VR ends up becoming, if it ever becomes something, that's all going to be aspects of motion design too. The principles of things moving and having that communicate something to you, I think are just going to continue to expand as we go here.

David:
What's your experience? Have you put on one of these headsets, a quest or quest two over the last couple of years?

Kyle:
A little bit. I was at a friend's house playing some mini golf on cliffs the other day on a oculus, so a little bit mostly just for fun.

David:
Yeah. Did you have the sense of being dizzy? I know this is often one of the challenges of, like, this, I'm floating. I don't have a sense of, like, being grounded. But did that come into play for you?

Kyle:
I am fortunate in that I'm very comfortable with heights, and that seems to translate well into these VR environments. The rest of my family is not so fortunate.

David:
Right. Yeah. No, I'm not great with heights myself either, so I tend to just need a moment to kind of catch my breath and realize this is just something you're seeing, but your brain nonetheless, is interpreting it different. I kind of touched on this a little bit, tongue in cheek about what can go right and more likely, what can go wrong with motion graphics. Any other kind of words of wisdom, especially on the what can go wrong, because I think helping others learn from our mistakes, avoid common missteps, certainly saves people a lot of time in the editing room or going back and forth with clients. But aside from the starburst, lightning bolts and so forth, what else can go wrong in using motion graphics?

Kyle:
Sure. So I think the biggest thing I think a lot of people would clearly understand, if you're working with live actors and you're shooting stuff, like, once you've shot that thing, you really can't change it too much. You can edit it, but it's sort of done right. And I think a lot of clients don't understand as much. Like, yes, with motion graphics, you can always change everything, but that starts unspooling a lot of things, and that typically translates into time and money.

Participant #1:
I like a waterfall analogy. As you're working through a project, you probably want to sign off on the concept and then sign off on the script and sign off on some design concepts and then, like, more refined and stuff like that. And as you go you don't want to get there and deliver the final project. And then that is when the client realizes that they want to change half the script because now everything has to be all undone. And yes, all of it is changeable because we kind of just made it all up. But it's a lot of spaghetti to untangle to just start changing things at that point. So it requires a lot more sort of check ins along the way to make sure that everyone is on board with everything as it's being created and that we're not going to have to have a sudden uturn at the end.

David:
Is there a risk? So I totally appreciate the waterfall approach that's similar to these kind of gates, if you will, that you pass through, whether it's software development or a creative process like this. Is there ever a risk where you're showing a client either in house at a brand or you work in an agency or create a firm and you're showing an end client something that's like two unfinished and it kind of feels like, wow, I thought we were going to have this a lot better. No, this is just the first touch point.

Kyle:
Yeah, that's definitely as someone that's done this for a lot of years and I've done a lot of direct to client work as well as a lot of work with ad agencies and stuff. And I think a big part of it is just making sure that you're communicating, just communicating expectations are the biggest one because if someone thinks that they're supposed to be looking at something final and it's a rough sketch, they're not going to react the right way. Right? Yeah. And especially when you're working with an agency who might be working with another agency, the further you've removed you are from the end client, it gets harder to give that context. The biggest thing is just making sure that people understand what they're looking at because the average person doesn't have the ability to sort of pre visualize where something is going to end up, which I think is one of the things that designers of all types that's sort of a superpower that they have, is being able to see this crummy napkin sketch is going to turn into this beautiful thing. But we kind of need to confirm these three shapes before I spend a couple of days making it look beautiful.

David:
Absolutely. Whether they're paper prototypes or scratch track reads and voiceover. In fact, we had a graphic designer that she was pretty legendary of doing in her sketchbook, just six quick doodles, in which case then she'd go, this is literally pencil and paper, which do you want me to spend time on? And that kind of process. She's actually iterated six times already and given some variation where we can pick a path and go down there. So I thought it was really important what the advice can be given of like communicating and setting those expectations ahead of time before someone just looks at the still or clicks play on a preview video that they understand where we are in the process. So that's great. Let's kind of weave this into how a lot of video using motion graphics is going to rely on voiceover. You've got the script written when and where do you kind of tie in the voiceover? Because I'm sure like, certain words are going to hit certain visual elements. Maybe you're emphasizing it. Is it recorded voiceover recorded before or after? And maybe it kind of happens on both.

Kyle:
Yeah, I've done it both ways and there's pluses and minuses. I will say let's kind of put this in a specific use case, which is what I'll call an explainer video. These are typically 60 to 90 seconds and they might be explaining what a product is or what an app does or what a company does or something like that. We've all seen a million of these. And that's the case where voiceover is very important because you might otherwise just be looking at illustrated or animated elements on screen. And so your voice is, as you say, there's going to be some very important, what I'll call hero moments, where you're probably going to look for those really meaningful, like, sync ups between the visuals and the voice script. And when you animate something like that, you don't want to do it twice. And so I love to have the real Vo as early as possible in that process, but also fully understand that sometimes depending on the nature of the project and depending on the nature of the client and your relationship and some of that stuff we talked about before. Yeah, you might need to work through a lot of that stuff in a rougher form so that they can see enough to kind of know like, yeah, okay, this is where it's going, even if it's still rough. I'll say personally, I really like to do what's called an animatic, where you might just take the still design frames and you edit them on a timeline with a scratch vo that often I'll just do myself. And so I can set that pacing and kind of set the tone, even if I'm not a proper voice actor. And we can work through you can find the places in the script that have maybe a gap that you're going to need to fill or just stuff doesn't feel right. You can work with it a lot more at that stage. But before I start doing proper animation, I really like to have the real Vo so that we have the emotion and the pacing and you can really work out those important moments.

David:
Is this an oversimplification the way I've heard it before for live action like films, as you said, film footage, if that's the output you're going to record, capture that first and then do the video afterwards and then if it's animation, predominantly animation or motion graphics, you actually get the video first in that situation and then animate around that because in live action, the voice actors actually trying to hit those moments on camera that are already happening. Is there some truth to that kind of rule of thumb?

Kyle:
Yeah, usually. Because often if you are animating something and maybe you created all those visuals from scratch, you're often keying off that vocal performance to kind of help create some of the characterization of you might even just be animating like a square moving around the screen or something. And so it might be that the personality that your voiceover talent brings to that spot is actually feeding you a lot of inspiration for maybe how that square moves.

David:
Yeah, no, certainly working with the talent and getting that great read out of them. If you've worked with voice talent previously, how do you get that great read? Any advice aside from you just send them a script? Maybe there's a creative brief, but for those kind of live directed sessions or maybe there are certain words that you find that are often interpreted very well by the talent. Any guidance on getting a great read from a talent that you've worked with?

Kyle:
Totally. So as someone on my side of it, I would definitely spend time first and I would have at least a rough idea of what the visuals are going to be before I come into this Vo session. And so I ideally already know sort of what some of those hero moments are and where it's really important that we nail certain phrases or certain words even. And there might be some parts that it's just kind of filler. You're talking about what an app does or something. I mean, it just needs to get the job done right. And of course, especially if you're dealing with something that's maybe a more emotive piece instead of informational, obviously it becomes more and more important to really get a performance there instead of just like reading some words. Yeah, we're kind of going back to my earlier things like if you know what your objective is, you can be very clear about what it is that you're trying to get. And I think an important thing for people like me to remember, ultimately we're probably building something for a client and we're creating our interpretation of what this client has told us their product or service is and then passing that on to a voiceover artist like you would know even less about what this thing is. And so it's up to me to communicate very importantly, like what kind of emotion are we trying to get out of this? What are we trying to communicate here? What sort of motivation might you have on the script or different parts of the script and how is that going to help me create the piece that I am trying to create?

David:
Yeah, so that your role as a creative director is in a lot of ways the communicator and a translator of ideas and concepts into putting some words around them that are going to get everybody on the same page, but then ultimately translating that into a visual piece as well. Too there's a weird blend of content out there where some are calling it edutainment. What is this? I've heard this term a few times and I know you had thrown it out there as well. Too what's edutainment?

Kyle:
I mean, I'm still figuring that out. I have used that as one of the many ways to describe the long list of things that I do right. The motion design industry has gotten to a place where we have matured, matured in quotes enough that we can have silly stuff that's also communicating stuff. I had one of those myself for a while. I was doing a live stream with another motion designer and we were kind of calling it Car Talk for After Effects, which is one of the primary software. And we have a couple of other guys that do a weekly YouTube show and they kind of are just messing around, but they make all kinds of really interesting creative stuff in the process of doing it. But at the end of the day, as someone that does a lot of this teaching and tutorials and stuff, like, ultimately you're making software demos and you need to make them interesting. And so adding some charisma to that and some fun, I think is a very important component of making people want to watch this stuff and want to learn this stuff and also just showing them a lot of the creative capabilities, even if it can be in sort of a goofier way sometimes.

David:
Yeah. Is there a favorite one that maybe was done recently that people could find on YouTube we can link up in the show notes that particularly memorable for you.

Kyle:
So there's a great one right now. So one of the things I alluded to, there's a show called VFX and Chill, which is a weekly show on YouTube, and it's a couple of guys who work for Maxon, which is a company that creates various software for what I do. And a couple of weeks ago, they landed on a thing where they tracked a Velociraptor, like from Jurassic Park. They tracked that head over Tom Cruise in several clips as part of an April Fool's Day thing and they've just kept it going. So there's a Twitter account called but with Raptors. They're just tracking these raptor heads over all these movie clips and other things. And what they're doing usually looks pretty good and it's always really funny, but it's also just a great it shows the power of this kind of stuff, the capabilities.

David:
Yeah, exactly. Well, that's really funny. We'll have to check that one out as well. What's next for you and the team at School of Motion? Anything that's kind of on deck that you'd like to speak about.

Kyle:
Yeah. So at School of Motion, we've got courses for people to learn motion design and design for Motion in a variety of ways, and we're always looking for new ways to help people learn that stuff. We've got a lot of great courses already. We always tend to have some new stuff in the pipe. And without giving too much away, I'd say we have some interesting stuff on the near term horizon, so I would maybe keep your eyes out there. But we're also always putting out awesome tutorials on YouTube. We have a ton of free content as well. So if people just want to learn more about designing for Motion or getting into Motion in either 2D or 3D variety of techniques like, check us out, that's awesome.

David:
And I think that you really delivered a lot of value and expressed your personality, I'm sure, of exactly what they can expect in those tutorials. I thought we had a great conversation. I learned a ton and enjoyed connecting with you. Well, thanks for joining me today, Kyle. Absolutely. We will sign it off there. Until next time, I'm David Ciccarelli, the CEO and Founder of Voices, and you've been listening to Voice Branding.