Motion Graphics
What are motion graphics?
Motion graphics are graphics that utilize video footage or animation such as motion and rotation
that are used in projects such as online adverts, DVD interfaces and TV & Film opening credits.
The main reason companies use motion graphics is in order to make a visually exciting and
interesting piece of work that will capture the eye of the intended audience. Many companies use
various types of motion graphics to present their logos or ideas. Places where you can find motion
graphics include the internet (websites and online videos), TV (adverts and idents) and more.
Video Compositing
Compositing video is where you combine multiple visual elements into one single image; mainly to
make it appear that they are all a part of the same scene. ‘Chroma key’ and ‘Green screen’ are just a
couple of names given to the live-action shooting side of compositing for video where a piece of
video footage is keyed out and placed into a scene with other visual elements.
Examples
Title and credit sequences
Sequences used in film and TV are an interesting way to start or end a film or program, these can
vary based on the genre. For example an action film might have a tense or ‘epic’ styled title
sequence and might also utilize more complex visual effects such as 3d animation to give the
audience a taste of what’s to come and to set the mood. However Credit sequences are usual less
exciting and are there to give a sense of finality to the film and also, hence the name, credit the
people that had a part in the films production therefore meaning there is no need to make a visual
effects heavy motion graphic. In my opinion, some of the most well-known title sequences are from
the James Bond franchise.
Technical issues with Title and credit sequences are usually related to video format and screen ratio.
Since films are shown worldwide, the video format will need to be changed according to the country
that they are shown in. An example is that Europe and other places use PAL which is 25FPS thus
meaning this format cannot be used in a country such as North america since they use a different
video format known as NTSC which uses 30FPS. In addition, screen ratio is an issue because if you
are viewing a 16:9 film on a 5:3 display, it is going to look wrong and be out of proportion which
means the screen ratio of the film might need to be changed.
DVD Interfaces
The purpose of DVD interfaces are to give a visually exciting way to present a DVD’s menu and
features such as ‘Scene selection’ and ‘Bonus features’. These interfaces typically use a still
background with some clips from the film being animated in an interesting way, these clips loop over
and over until a selection from the menu is made. Another addition to DVD interfaces is music to
make them more appealing, a DVD interface might use a song to set the mood of the film, and for
example a horror might use a creepy sort of song in order to keep to the horror theme. DVD
interfaces are kept simple yet still visually interesting because they’re meant to attract your eye but
also just acompany the menu selections whilst still sticking with the theme and style of the film.
Since DVD interfaces are shown on DVD’s alongside films, the technical issues will be the same,
screen ratio and video format.
Idents
The full name for an ident is ‘Station identification’ and does exactly what it says in the name, it
identifies the station/channel. For example idents are used on most TV channels such as BBC and ITV
where a short motion graphic including the channels logo is shown in a visually exciting way and is a
form of Branding. Usually these idents would have a narrator speaking over them perhaps stating
the upcoming TV programme or some other piece of information. These idents are almost always
paired with music as well as the narrator.
Most idents don’t include complex visual effects since they’re so short, they usualy just feature a
single image background, for example, pictured below you can see the ITV and Channel 4 idents are
just a piece of footage of a city with the channels logo on it. However the BBC ident uses a more
complex piece of footage, probably keyed out from a green screen of cyclists riding round in a circle
whereas the other two are just a logo a simple piece of footage of a city.
The technological aspects of idents would be that they are pretty much all set at a 1080p resolution
on HD channels and 480p on normal/SD channels. This is because these resolutions are most
commonly used on modern televisions.
The technical issues of idents would be the same as title and credit sequences since both are set to a
certain format and ratio so if they’re shown in different locations then they might appear
differentely.
Frame rate
Frame rate, commonly called frames per second or FPS for short, is the frequency of images
produced consecutively by an imaging device such as a Camera. These individual images are called
frames.
Video Formats
Two of the most common video formats are PAL and NTSC. In the map below you can see which
country uses which format.
Europe, Australia and some Asian countries all use a video format called Phase Alternating Line (PAL)
which has a frame rate of 25 frames per second and uses 625 lines.
Most countries in North and South America use the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC)
format which has a frame rate of 30 frames per second and uses 525 lines, 100 less than PAL.
Screen ratios
A screen ratio, also known as Aspect ratio is the relationship between an images width and height
and is shown as two numbers separated by a colon, for example widescreen and HD can be shown
as 16:9. This 16:9 aspect ratio is commonly used in HD television and computer displays. The aspect
ratio used in standard definition European television is 5:3 and the aspect ratio used in widescreen
cinema is 2:39:1.
Resolution
All displays have a resolution, such as a digital television or a computer monitor. A resolution is the
number of pixels that can be displayed in each dimension, width and height (x and y). The most
common resolution used throughout high definition film and television is 1920 x 1080 (1080p/Full
HD). This mean that’s the resolution is 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high. Other resolutions
include 1280 x 720 (720p) and 640 x 480 (480p/SD).
Compression
In short, date compression is the process in which a file’s size is reduced. The more detailed
explanation is that Data compression is the encoding of information where the final file has fewer
bits than the original. There are two types of compression which are Lossy and Lossless. The
differences between the two are that Lossy compression reduces bits by erasing unnecessary
information that has been identified, whereas Lossless compression means that no information is
lost or erased.