How I got working on this project (August 2021)
I came to know Kyle last year through Upwork, the freelancer platform. Since then, I’ve worked on a number of projects with him. First I did animations for the first section of his accounting course. Then this ad for the course that is now up on Maxwell CPA Review. This year I have been working on a couple more animations, which has been great for honing my motion graphic skills.
Workflow & Relationships
Work relations for this project is simple. Direct to my client Kyle who owns Maxwell CPA Review so communication has been straightforward.
Assets Provided
- Audio file
- Script
- Any supporting images
The script has been the greatest help ever! It is so helpful to view everything that is in the audio file almost word for word. This enables me to highlight key words and phrases that are important, would be pasted in the animation and also what visual aids I need to search for.
Key Takeaways
Although accounting is something I haven’t a clue about… perhaps that has played to my strengths. In order for me to actually understand what on earth does anything mean I really had to rely on Kyle’s analogies and illustrations to find the right assets to visually depict the concepts and equations. In that way, it has been challenging to the mind and searching for similar illustrations… because who got time to make them from scratch! I use Envato Elements to download any vector icons/illustrations to animate.
Tips & Tricks learned
Searching for Assets
This has required lots of creativity! Finding illustrations that have a similar style and feel is often the challenge when you can’t guarantee the topic/area even has an illustration out there. So when searching through Envato Elements I tried to select the closest and even mix and match certain illustrations.
Paper Crumple
For this effect, I have used two elements from different files: the full paper on the left and a crumpled paper on the right.
First I applied the ‘Mesh Warp‘ effect to the flat paper, key framed the crumple and warped it to the already crumpled paper illustration. I made sure to key the opacity as well to make the transition smoother. I’m sure there’s probably a better way of doing this, but since the animation is quick I stuck with this method.
Using Overlord
What I found the most annoying was having to shift between Illustrator and After Effects. In this project, I didn’t use Overlord yet… instead imported the entire Illustrator file with it’s different layers for animating the character. With Overlord I can create new layers and immediately push to After Effects with all it’s Bezier handles! It has been a huge time saver for any tweaks.
