After Effects
Waterville Title Sequences: Two Genres
The Challenge
Waterville, Maine is about to be the star of two new films, and you have been hired to design the opening titles for both.
The same city, the same crew, the same credits, but two very different movies. Your job is to show that a designer can change what an audience feels by changing type, color, motion, and pacing.
You will build your titles in Adobe After Effects. You are in charge of your own learning: find tutorials, forums, and documentation online, and teach yourself the techniques your design needs.
The focus of this assignment is to use text as a character to set the mood of a film. Create shapes, lines, and use color to enhance your text animations. Or add photos and video to enhance your title sequences.
Start by watching: “david fincher and the art of the title sequence”
https://youtu.be/d32-xXdYU48?si=Uz8PartLQAKG4GJi
and watch my overview of After Effects:
The Two Films
Film A: Two Cent Bridge (suspense / mystery) A missing person case unfolds along the Kennebec River on a foggy autumn night. Think: tension, shadows, secrets in a small city.
Film B: Main Street Summer (warm comedy / coming-of-age) Three friends spend one chaotic summer in Waterville. Think: energy, humor, nostalgia, community.
The One-Setup, Two-Films Approach
To finish in four hours, you can build one flexible After Effects project and restyle it for the second film instead of starting over. To do that, you make one project and a separate compositions for each. Do not destroy your first composition. Duplicate it, and make major changes in style, mood, tone, etc.
Add two credits in addition to the title (for example: Directed by, Starring, Filmed by)
Have some clear connection to Waterville. That could be a Waterville image or footage source (your own downtown photo, or a credited image from Unsplash, or footage downloaded from these two sites:
Search “small town” and you’ll find some decent footage.
You can also do this without video or images - you’d create a background, fill it with a color, and use shapes and lines to enhance it. A block of vertical small rectangles represents a small downtown. A meandering, curving, extending blue line could be the Kennebec River. You have to do something, though to tie it to Waterville. A film subtitle maybe? A reference to something specific about Waterville, or even images or footage that give us that small city, small town, vibe.
What changes in the two compositions is everything that creates mood: typefaces, colors, effects, easing and timing, camera movement, transitions, and sound.
Design Requirements
Each title sequence must:
Run 8 to 10 seconds.
Include the film title and two credits.
Clearly express the genre and mood of its film.
Include a Waterville connection (a local place, landmark, texture, history, or atmosphere).
Be exported as MP4, 1920×1080, 24 fps or 23.976 fps.
Across the whole project, you must use at least three After Effects techniques you taught yourself (for example: keyframes and easing, text animators, masks, shape layers, parenting, precomps, expressions, effects and blending modes, camera or 3D layers, lights, track mattes). Techniques that help you reuse your work, such as precomps and duplicated compositions, count.
Sound: Optional. Use only original, royalty-free, or Creative Commons audio, and credit it. Music or sound effects are optional but strongly recommended for mood. Provide a source for the music in the credits.
Learning Independently
You will not get step-by-step instructions, and that is intentional. Expect to get stuck. Getting unstuck is part of the skill. Dig in.
Start with the orientation video, then search for tutorials on what you want to do (try "After Effects text animator" or "After Effects duplicate composition").
Google “adobe after effects tutorials” and you will find Adobe’s own tutorials and other resources (https://www.adobe.com/learn/after-effects)
Keep a Learning List: each time you learn a technique, note what it is, where you learned it (link), and how you used it.
Ask another student for help, after you have researched on your own
Suggested Pacing
Period 1 (2 hours): Plan and build Film A
0:00–0:20 Research both genres: conventions, real title sequences you admire
0:20–0:35 Quick storyboard (3 to 4 frames per film); pick fonts, colors, and sound for each film
0:35–2:00 Learn what you need and build Film A (suspense) in After Effects, set up so the composition can be duplicated
Period 2 (2 hours): Restyle for Film B and finish
0:00–0:15 Duplicate your composition; list what you will change for Film B
0:15–1:10 Extensively restyle for Film B (comedy): type, color, motion, timing, effects, sound
1:10–1:35 Refine both sequences, export both
1:35–2:00 Submit files to BEEP in a folder with your name, finish Learning List and submit via email to me
What to Submit
Drag a folder labeled with your name to the AM or PM folder on BEEP with this inside of it
Two MP4 videos (one per film)
Your After Effects project file (collected, with assets)
Learning List (at least three entries with sources) emailed to dboardman@ao292.org
Artist statement (4 to 6 sentences): Explain what you changed to move from suspense to comedy. Which design choices made the biggest difference, and why?