Explainer Video
Why Launch Rockets From Florida?
Upon moving to Orlando and witnessing so many rocket launches, I asked myself the same question. I did a deep dive into the topic and came out with a one-minute quick rundown of the science of launching from Cape Canaveral.
The Process
Concepting rocket science
Before all else, a unifying style inspired by retro-futurism and clean design needed to be nailed down. I found a pleasing balance of cool purples and hot reds that encapsulates the extremes of space to work into my mood board. With a texture focused on clean lines and dirty edges, I found that blend that harkens back to mid-century sci-fi illustrations.
I like using Miro to design moods and textures in the concepting phase, and if I wanted to add additional team members, it becomes a collaboration space that works as a reference document going forward.
Finding the flight plan
One big challenge was writing the script around social media use, and keeping the information under a minute. After getting there, the visual story will be imperative to convey all the correct info in a short time. The storyboard was created to guide the visuals and ensure the timing between shots would work within the project's restrictions.
Erika Lee (Website) provided an exceptional read of the script and was the keystone to the animatic video.
Sizing up the suit
My star astronaut for the animation would have a bulkier suit, allowing for some fun animation to play with while she is walking awkwardly on the ground and floating in space. Her central design is meant to stand out in stark contrast to the darker backgrounds. You can see her evolution from drawing to Illustrator layers to fully rigged and animation ready in After Effects.
DUIK Bassel is a killer After Effects plugin that makes rigging straightforward. (Website shout-out!) I highly recommend it to all animators.
Assembling the style
Through a myriad of vector layers, I adapted the storyboard and mood board to create a style frame that befits the animation. Before I fully animate in After Effects, I would want to test the timing once more. I like to see the scene in context with their animations and transitions. If there is a complicated animation, I want to test it here first to see if I need to find alternate approaches.
From here, I am able to import the style into other scenes and adapt it to the compositions there. I’ll finalize my main animations and then complete the stylizing here.
Counting down the scenes
Having the animation and stylizations finalized, time to move on to the post workflow.
I retrieved my background music from La Repeticion using Motion Array (Profile Link) and sound effects from Soundly. Since there are going to be several versions of this video, I made a master timeline to finalize and then diverge with duplicates.
Launching video
With the final touches performed, this video is ready for liftoff! Its destination is not only the internet at large, but also social media like Instagram. For that, a slight adapation is required. I knew this and planned my After Effects compositions ahead of time to be easily formated for alternate formats like 9x16. I want to control exactly how viewers watch this video, and want to utilize the format to its full potential.
