🧠 5 Visuals for Your Next Video

Happy Thursday everyone,

Welcome to the last RNDR article of 2023!

It’s easy around this time to let go of your working routine, which makes the return to work a little harder in January. Of course, taking some time to relax and think about the upcoming year is important, but I also think that keeping the good momentum moving is important too! You don’t want to end off the year on a roll, come to a complete halt over Christmas, and then expect to maintain that same momentum in Jan.

I noticed this was a problem in previous years, but this year, I decided not to let myself get out of the groove that I’ve been in. This Christmas-time, I made sure to at least do SOMETHING related to my work. Whether it was just cutting up footage, prepping my timeline, or adjusting audio, I wanted to at least have done something (even if it only took me 20 minutes).

Just my opinion! But it’s helped a lot in terms of my productivity this time of year!

Enjoy today’s edition!

- Rickie

5 Visuals I Loved This Week

1. This AI Process Graphic

Video: How Amazon’s Custom AI Chips Work//WSJ

• There are a few moving parts with the graphic but once broken down, this is a really simple visual!

  • The title transition (that glitch effect from “training” to “inference.”

  • The computer screen

  • The 0s & 1s going from left to right

  • The staggered opacity animation in the bottom third

• This is a really creative way to maintain movement on the screen, with the 0s & 1s moving across for the duration of the graphic.

• I would have liked a more skilled approach to the cat at the beginning moving down into the computer (like maybe a genie effect behind the computer), but I didn’t make this video.

  • In my opinion, the downward movement + the generic opacity animation kind of cheapens the graphic.

2. This Scrapbook Graphic

Video: How Toyota Changed The Way We Make Things//Bloomberg Originals

• I love the look of this visual and the whole video’s adherence to this scrapbook, paper-like styling.

• I hadn’t really thought of using a scrapbook to tell a story before, but I think it’s pretty effective as long as you have enough pictures to piece together a whole story.

• In After Effects, something like this is easily replicable. You really just need:

  • A white solid with a grid

  • Photos

  • The camera feature (or maybe just a null object, but the camera is definitely easier) to move across the scrapbook

3. This Timeline Graphic

Video: My Data-Backed Investing Plan for 2024//Humphrey Yang

• This is the first time I’ve included something I’ve made personally!

• This graphic is just a timeline that shows investment returns over presidential election milestones.

  • The cool thing about this graphic is it was made using just raw data!

  • The entire graphic came from this one part of an Investopedia article, as seen below:

• This is where you truly show your value as an editor/animator: being able to turn boring data into a more visually appealing animation.

  • Note: “Visually appealing” being subjective. I’m sure many of you could have made this graphic look 10x better, but for Humphrey’s brand, this is what we settled on!

4. This Sequence of Events Graphic

Video: When Chinese Industrial Espionage Goes Wrong//Bloomberg Originals

• I love the detailing on this visual: the slow red line, the grungy background, and the different lighting against that black paper texture.

• This entire video holds onto that red line which becomes a driver in the direction the story goes. As the story progresses, the red line moves along with it.

  • A really interesting and creative way to integrate something as simple as a red line into a critical storytelling piece.

5. This 3D Text Card Animation

Video: Deleting this video in 50 hours...//Ali Abdaal

• This video was not visual-heavy (being that it’s only supposed to be up for 50 hours), but I found this nice little detail in how the text boxes looked.

  • The slight lean of the text box in 3D is such a small detail, but it was something that I noticed right away.

• In my own videos, I hadn’t really thought much about these text boxes but as I’m seeing it, they add a cool layer to the video.

  • The 3D perspective effect paired with the slight wobble effect turns this bland text box segment into a more dynamic and lively video component.

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