MoGraph for Bernie Inspired MoGraph for Me

This week, I was browsing reddit when I came across an interesting post. It came from one of my newest subscriptions on reddit - r/AfterEffects. The post, titled “MoGraph video I made for Bernie”, gave me an interesting idea as to how I could apply some of my new skills. The video takes the normally visually unappealing topic of voting statistics and used motion graphics to bring some life to the numbers. I thought this was an excellent way of keeping an audience interested and involved with a topic that might have otherwise been bland or boring. Inspired by this post, I have decided to work on a video for The Ithacan that follows the same style - using nothing but motion graphics and voiceover. One thing I am somewhat nervous about is the amount of time this may take. We usually try to get videos posted at the same time as their accompanying article. This would give me 5 days to get all the facts I need, make the entire video, get it criticized and fixed up, then finalized and posted. I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to make the tight deadline, but it is something that I’m definitely interested in trying and I’m up for the challenge.

The Secret Life of the Burrowing Owl

Came across this video on Vimeo. I thought it was such a cool and unique way to do a short informational documentary, and keep in fresh and interesting. I loved the idea of animating animals over actual footage of their inhabitants. It also seems like a good way to shoot something like this on a low budget, since you don't have to try and hunt down this animal and wait for good action shots.

At the beginning, many of the animals didn't have shadows, which made them seem like they're on a different plane than the background, and the walking was a little robotic at times, but overall I felt this was done very well. The owl especially.

What's interesting to me is the amount of planning and visualizing shooting this real footage must have taken. To imagine exactly where the owl would be had to have been a tough situation, and to make sure you got all of the shots to animate over definitely took some time and precision. Kudos to whoever script supervised this...