Understanding Industry – Character animation

Deep understanding of Motion Designer – Hear from Ben Marriott

Ben Marriott is my favorite motion designer on YouTube.

Ben Marriott has been designing professionally for 10 years and animating for 7.

In 2020, he decided to say goodbye to the freelance life so he could focus on his own projects, products & teaching on YouTube.

And now he reaches 637,000 subscribers on YouTube.

Here are some Q&A from Ben on the price of motion graphics:

What is the income of a Motion Graphic, 2D animator career in your country?

In Australia that will vary mostly based on your seniority if you’re a junior I would expect rates to start between 40 and 60000 dollars a year, and a senior animator will be getting around 100000.

What’s considered a starting, mid, and “spicy” hourly rate for freelancing in the industry?

Mainly on where you’re located and where your clients are located but generally in Australia starting day rates going to be around 400-450 dollars, For top levels I’d be going to charge 800 plus but you have to be pretty specialized maybe doing some directing as well, offering a lot to get that kind of payment.

And here are some very useful advice from Ben:

Planning your motion graphics project is the most important part of a production workflow.

If you don’t have time to plan storyboards and make detailed animatics, the most effective planning you can do in under a minute is to ask yourself these 3 questions.

But before I show you the questions, if you’ve got the time, I strongly suggest you prepare your project in advance.

Creating work you’re proud of when you’re up against a tight deadline is no easy task, especially when your clients aren’t afraid of changing their minds.

The key to making great work in this situation, and any situation really, is preparation. Being prepared keeps you in control.

However, if time becomes is a luxury in your situation, then you can get started with these 3 questions:

What’s the message this project/scene/shot is trying to convey?

What are the most important elements on-screen we can use to achieve that?

How can we animate them effectively?

These three questions help you not only help you understand better where to focus on, aka spend the most of your time on, consider other options, but most importantly. It gives you reasons to justify your choices.

From my personal point of view, if I want to enter the industry, it is essential to have a good independent portfolio, to let the client know what I can do and what kind of effect I can achieve, it is especially important to have a decent showreel.

I think the overall salary level is up to my expectations, on the one hand, I can prepare my portfolio as a standard to enter an independent studio, on the other hand, I can also pitch my work to freelance platforms like Fiverr as a freelance option.

I think there is a lot of development in this industry and more opportunities in the future in the era of short videos.

Motion Graphic Designer – Animation Positions in Marketing Companies

My perception of MG animation

MG is often used in the film industry for film credits, logo animation at the end of TVC commercials, as well as in TV packaging for logo interpretation, ID callouts, corner signs, etc.
MG is used in the film industry, at the end of TVC commercials, at the end of logo animations, in TV packaging, in logo renditions, in ID callouts, in corner labels, etc.

In the new Internet industry, such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other social platforms, MG animation is mainly used in product presentation, branding, motion prototyping, client launch pages and other areas.

The production of Motion Design requires a combination of pre-production (PS, AI), post-production (Cinema 4D, After Effects) and other software to work with each other.

Breakdown of occupations in MG animation

In essence, Motion Design is a design category that has been subdivided due to the development of the whole UX industry.

Therefore, in general, 1. the more developed the UX industry is, the greater the demand for motion design.

2. the larger and more complex the product, the more the demand for motion design (PC > Mobile, OS > App).

3. The larger the design team, the clearer the division of labour, the more dedicated motion designers there are.

Many design teams have dedicated motion designers, such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc.

The two levels of function of a motion designer are:

The basic level, which better demonstrates the existing interaction, visual design, conceptual design, service flow, etc. Through motion presentations.

The advanced level, directly involved in the design of the product, the development of the product in the dynamic design style, inspired by the visual design, interaction design and sound design, improve the overall quality of the product and experience.

What I would choose if I would work as motion graphic designer

I personally love to play around with texture, digital arts, remix with different type of style. So, from the perspective of the development of digital art and motion design, Internet companies are my main choice of target, and I would go for something more artistically expressive.

Even though my current skill level may not be sufficient for me to achieve this ambition, I will continue to move in this direction as much as possible in my future studies.

Here are the companies that I have found to be ideal for me.

Helloplayful based in Shanghai

https://helloplayful.com/

https://www.hellomonday.com/

https://tubikstudio.com/

Jelly based in London

https://www.thisisjelly.com/uk

Professional Practice in Motion Animation

Leaves & Flower Draw in Adobe Illustrator

During the production of my ‘Canary’ film, I tried to use After Effect to create a dynamic effect. I drew the flowers and leaves in Adobe Illustrator I and then imported them into After Effect to create the swaying leaves.

Because I didn’t consider layering in AI, I had to use pins in AE to make the leaves skeletal and wobbly, which was quick and easy to do, but the downside was that you couldn’t look at them closely and there were some rigid movements.

Fortunately, the shot is only a few seconds long and is presented as a background rather than a subject, so the final result is satisfactory.

If you need to create a leaf-swaying animation like this in the future, you should try to avoid too many layers in the drawing process, as this will greatly reduce the speed of your computer and will affect your final film.

Visit Animation Studio – Blinkink

29/9/2022

Blinkink studio is a world class, london based animation studio. They create short-form video content with our partners in advertising, music, gaming, fashion and broadcast industries.

During this visit, the main person in charge of Blinkink presented us with their animation work, which was based on creative short film commercials, and the work was a good combination of 2D-3D and stop-motion.

I was surprised at how well they were able to produce such a short film in a short period of time, and I was most surprised at how well the music rhythm matched the graphics.

The shooting process of stop-motion animation

I learned that they usually set the music before the animation starts, and then shoot and produce the images afterward. The advantage of this is that the rhythm and tone of the film is set upfront, and the images then complement the music, which is a very quick and clever way of making animation.

The director told us that they usually produce a piece of work in three months and that most people work from home and only come to the studio for stop-motion filming.

I personally like this way of working and have worked in an advertising company so I am familiar with the workflow, I have also worked as a freelancer for a while, and I am very interested in stop-motion animation, which was my final project at my university. I think this would definitely be a career path I would consider in the future.