Hung Up
For this motion graphic, I animated the lyrics of Hung Up by Madonna. Around the same time I got the idea for a video using this song, I came across some artwork featuring a halftone print style. This inspired me to create the video using a similar visual style.
About the project
About six months before creating this video, I made the Promiscuous Girl motion graphic. This project was a follow-up to that video, and I think it shows a significant improvement in my skills. For this project, I wanted to focus on fast movement and small, detailed animations. Before animating in After Effects, I first created a halftone effect to see how it would look and to figure out how the scenes should be designed and composed to work well with the effect. Below is an example showing the before and after applying the effect.
Animating the video
After creating a rough, structured plan for the different scenes, I started working on the animation. To keep everything organized and make the animations and transitions flow smoothly, I divided each scene into three separate compositions. The first composition contains the scene background, with movement where needed. The second focuses on the animated lyrics, timed to Madonna’s vocals. The final composition is the actual shot that the viewer sees. Here, I combine both compositions and use numerous null objects to control and animate the different elements and transitions between scenes.
Challenges
One of the things I found most challenging was creating smooth movement. Because everything moves quite quickly, I found it difficult to keep the animation from feeling too choppy. After watching some tutorials, I found a solution by overlapping movements using null objects, which helped create smoother transitions and more natural motion. Another challenge was running out of ideas for some of the scenes. I solved this by looking at halftone artwork and printed materials for inspiration, which helped me come up with new visual ideas while staying consistent with the overall style.
