🧠 5 Visuals for Your Next Video

Happy Friday everyone,

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot - and if you told me in high school that I would be writing so much in my career, I’d have laughed at you. I’m currently working on a script for my newest video and I’m hoping to show that to you guys soon. I’m still filling in some gaps in the research process but man, last night was tough for me in terms of actually writing.

Here are a few things I noticed about writing that you could maybe apply broadly to work in general.

• When you have writer’s/creator’s block, change your environment. I’ve been frequenting coffee shops a lot more lately to get out my home office and it’s helped.

• Don’t try to force it. Your end product and your sanity will thank you.

• Write earlier in the day, and if you have the clarity in the evening, continue the momentum.

On a sidenote: I tried really hard not to include a Vox/previously Vox affiliated creator this week but they really are the gold standard for quality motion design. One day, maybe they’ll all disappoint me and I don’t include them but I find that unlikely. So until they stop being the premier source for motion design on YouTube, they’ll have a spot in the newsletter!

Enjoy today’s edition!

- Rickie

5 Visuals I Loved This Week

1. This Intro

Video: Can AI help us predict extreme weather//Vox

• Vox’s intro’s are really first class. They’re always coming up with new and creative concepts to integrate the topic at hand and motion design.

• This intro in particular pairs well with the script where at the beginning, the narrator talks about “bringing the future into clear view”.

  • That line is followed by a scrolling effect into the week’s forecast with a pixellating effect disappearing to reveal the weather.

• I also really like the whole retro, digital look they have going on here too (it’s not just the low res of the GIF I attached).

  • It’s the texture of the icons at the beginning, the loading timer after the mouse click, the old web icon, even the dropped frame rate they use to give their animations a choppy look.

• The motion design gets a little messy once they bring everything in and I’d like to hear why the animator chose to add all those assets (the blue circles, the use of rectangles, the landing text effects).

  • Maybe it’s the branding for their entire series “AI, explained”?

  • It works though, I like it.

    • In terms of replicating it, this looks like a ton of work.

2. This Monopoly B-Roll

Video: The Time Bomb Lurking in All Those Empty Office Buildings//Bloomberg Originals

• This isn’t normally something I’d include in the 5 Visuals I Loved This Week but from a technological advancement lens, I felt it was worth talking about.

• This is a prime candidate for a clip that Sora, OpenAI’s newest video program, could create.

  • Gone are the days of physically needing to shoot something like this, you can easily get something to this effect by prompting Sora to give you “Monopoly money falling out of the frame onto a Monopoly board on a black circular table in a dark room”

• This is what Sora is here to replace (for now). I’d never go shoot this on my own - it’s honestly too time consuming and not really worth it, in my opinion.

  • But if all I had to do was prompt Sora, then of course I’d include something like this.

3. This Chart Graphic

Video: How Qatar is Trying to Become the Switzerland of the Middle East//Wendover Productions

• I’m always a sucker for 3D chart animations, so of course I had to include this one.

• The only thing I’d say about it would be that it was kind of hard to actually follow the data because of the vignette and how it was moving but as long as the movement of the line conveys the story, it’s fine.

  • I probably wouldn’t include a graphic like this in my own videos but I liked it!

4. This Pie Chart Transition

Video: How to Become a More Interesting Person//The School of Life

• Lately, I feel like I’ve made a lot of these pie charts, so seeing this visual really stood out to me.

• I’m not necessarily a HUGE fan of pie charts so finding ways to make them more interesting is important.

• It like all the different dots coming together before expanding into the chart.

  • I think this kind of visual framework can be applied in any visual. The blending/transition from one frame to another. Using colors to make the blend seamless.

5. This Orbiting Graphic

Video: Why Direct-To-Consumer Companies Like Casper, Allbirds And Peloton Are All Struggling//CNBC

• This graphic stood out to me not for its use in a YouTube video, but for its use in a software ad.

• I included something to this effect in a previous newsletter with an ad from Google Bard but I think this kind of visual wold be really good to showcase features of a software using icons.

• The only thing I’d change about this visual is that they should have put the laptop in front of the web of logos so that when they shrunk, they’d disappear behind the laptop.

  • Maybe this was done intentionally to show that they were going into the screen? I don’t know. But I would have preferred it go behind.

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