I wanted to create a kinetic type piece for a few reasons. I love music, I wanted to practice my write-ons, and I wanted to experiment more with displacement maps.
For this piece, I created a couple of gradient images to use as displacement maps during the first shot. You can see these at work as the words distort. I also used some hold keyframes and wiggle expressions to convey a broken feeling to the type.
Next, I used some abstract geometric shapes created in Illustrator to convey a look of ancient alchemy and geometry in a quick flash between the two main shots. For the second shot, I wanted to practice my write-on technique. I used trim paths on an alpha matte to reveal the type in an attempt to make it look handwritten very quickly.
I used a grungy, dirty and somewhat handwritten look overall to emulate the album's artwork that this song came from (originally designed by artist Alan Forbes). The artwork was made to look like ancient, aged text and I wanted to keep that aesthetic.
A mood board I created on Pinterest of different type treatments to prepare for this piece.
A gradient created to be used as a displacement map for the first shot
My After Effects workspace for this project.