| Project Overview: "Keep Paddling" Motivational Video | |
|---|---|
| Project Information | Skills and Software |
| • Target: Indie Game Developers | • Graphic design via Photoshop and Illustrator |
| • Platform: YouTube/Online | • Video composition via Premiere and After Effects |
| • Production Time: 1 Month | • Audio and music editing via Audacity |
Keep Paddling
Premise
Instructor, mentor, and good friend Rick Davidson, is a multi-year veteran of the gaming industry. Having found success, he wanted to share the methods to achieving that success with indie developers; whether they be part of a team in a start-up, or going it solo with their first-ever project.
In "Keep Paddling," Rick underlines the importance of hard work and perseverance in the gaming industry. Identifying one's dreams and goals is important when following a passion, however it's equally important that one demonstrates determination and a willingness to work through inevitable hardship.
Published in May of 2014, this inspirational video showcases several indie titles and their progression from prototypes to playable titles. The developers of each demonstrate that following their passion and never giving up creates their own success.
"The most important things in our life don't come easy"
Information
For "Keep Paddling," Rick had recorded an inspirational speech, to which he requested indie titles accompany his thoughts on success as a game developer new to the industry. Some of Rick's previous videos in the same vein have featured short clips of many titles, one after the other. I felt that this de-emphasized each title, so I suggested that we instead show a select few titles, yet attempt to tell a story about each game's development and progression. The original concept had nine titles and simply displayed footage in chronological order with a few cuts in between
After some thought, I felt that, in addition to giving each title a significant amount of screen time, the titles should also have some information about them embedded within the video. Rick and his words of wisdom are the primary content, however developers and their games are the focus of his motivation. This would also give each title more substance to their "story," allowing viewers to more easily attach themselves to each title's narrative. Thus the number of titles was dropped from nine to seven to accommodate the extra time needed to reveal some information about each title.
Displaying this information was a challenge in and of itself; both in designing how it should be done, and executing on that design. I settled on rendering a freeze-frame at the end of each title's segment in bright, flat colours, with relevant and interesting information displayed while the image was still. Several layers of each freeze-frame were identified and drawn in Illustrator. Layers were drawn carefully to preserve the overall layout of each frame, as well as allowing the layers to be animated away at the end of the freeze; layers were animated bottom-to-top to prevent seams from being seen. You can view the video below, or head over to Rick's channel and watch the video there.
Filed Under:
featured,
visualdesign