Typography

Thats pretty cool. I have a project coming up I may have to try this for. Post when you get done I want to see what you end up doing.
 
My thoughts are that the vignetted looking edges are 3d lights (probably in AE), and probably the camera was animated, rather than the text, on the big twists and turns. Also, when the letters look all decayed or blend into the background like in Fight Club, they're using displacement and track mattes for the letters. Both of these are based on taking the background texture, making it black and white with high contrast, and using it as a matte or displacement map. The blood drips and ink splats are real elements comped in. Probably just two clashing colors that are keyed later (black ink splattered onto white paper and then color warped in post, for example). Hope that helps...
 
I'm thinking it would be easier to create all of the text in photoshop, then import each word seperately for manipulation.Though, I wouldn't have as much control over each letter then.
 
Are you using AE? I'd just do all the type in there. So much manipulation and would make it easy to make changes should you wish to.
 
Yeah, it's be in AE, but I'm not wanting to use Ariel or Time New Roman. I mean, I may, but I'll also have that with a grungy matte attached to it. I guess I could just parent the matte to the text.

My problem is this: It's a long file. Way longer than any other typography video I've seen (almost 4 minutes), and that's going to be a LOT of layers. I figured by creating them all in PS, I could have all of them organized easier in imported folders. Am I making this too hard?
 
Hawk Teflon said:
Yeah, it's be in AE, but I'm not wanting to use Ariel or Time New Roman. I mean, I may, but I'll also have that with a grungy matte attached to it. I guess I could just parent the matte to the text.

My problem is this: It's a long file. Way longer than any other typography video I've seen (almost 4 minutes), and that's going to be a LOT of layers. I figured by creating them all in PS, I could have all of them organized easier in imported folders. Am I making this too hard?
Click to expand...

I've not done a lot with typography in AE either. But I did experiement with text being displaced by an underlying still, and got couple of interesting results that I may pursue further.

One was where the text bowed or shrunk given the underlying image 'displacement'. Another effect was sort of like a 'waterfall', where I shrunk the text, while I also used displacement, and the effect was like water going through a narrows, or the like.

I'd have to hunt around for these, so I may just do new ones for demonstrations.

I've just got my CS3 AfterEffects installed, so I don't know how much of Photoshop has been incorporated into AE as 'native' processing. I did do a quick idea on the layer properties to do a outer shadow effect in AE.

In Photoshop one can use a lower layer, and the blending option to get a 'weathered' look on a text layer above. Some of the example text had that sort of look.

Now one can also process some 'video' in Photoshop Extended, so, I wonder if some people have created their text in AE, then used PS Extended features to do specialized blending if AE doesn't have it natively...
 
That Fight Club one is pretty badly done. Total lack of relevance to the subject matter, the motion is trite and repetitive, and gets staid after the first line. The Pulp Fiction piece is better, but it's always bugged me how he used Mistral, of all fonts, in that one section.

Either way, here are some tips. First off, 4 minutes is a long time. You're best served to cut that down to a minute or so. Since this is your first time embarking on such a journey I'm going to assume you probably can't keep the whole 4 minutes interesting, even for a pro that'd be a challenge. Plus, you will guarantee that most people will not get through the whole thing. Keeping it short and sweet is far more effective, and you can focus your energies on making it really good in a short amount of time versus mediocre in a longer time period.

Reading up on typography will serve you best. Understanding kerning, weight, texture of a font, and all that goodness is key to making a good piece. Once you have a grasp on that, then you need to look at the piece from a holistic point of view. Think about composition, color, balance, texture, etc. Listen to the VO and find a meaning, a theme, then create a design that communicates this. If not, you'll probably end up recycling cliches from these vastly overdone typo pieces.

While creating this design you need to pick a font(s) that do justice to and serve the piece. Please don't reach for Arial, Times, or even Helvetica for that matter. While doing typography research take some time to read up on the history of type. Understanding the historical relevance and reasons behind certain fonts will aid in your decision. I would also suggest finding a good font family from a known foundry, even if it does involve having to shell out a few bucks. Try to avoid the free ones from places like dafont.com, etc; they usually fall short in more ways than one. A good family with several weights will give you creative flexibility. If you're picking two or more fonts, make sure you find ones that complement each other or work together in some form, even if it's in counterpoint. Again, all this should relate to the VO and it's theme.

Without knowing what audio you're using I can't give you much on specifics, but this will hopefully give you a general direction to start in.

Here are a few pieces that came way before the current crop of pieces out there, kinda the OG's for this kind of stuff. Watch 'em, dissect them, find out why they work.

Brazil Inspired MachoBox by MK12

What Barry Says by Simon Robson
 
I love that one by MK12. That's brilliant. That's what I'm looking for for ideas. The audio isn't fast like the Pulp Fiction one, so the style and speed of fill in 'Brazil' looks ideal.
 
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