Let me start by saying this...   Plugins and scripts will not save your animations. Don’t rely on the tools to make your stuff “cool”. See them for what they are, tools. OK. Let’s begin. 1. Motion 2 ($35) I always start this one off with a BUT. Motion 2 is great, BUT, you should not use this until you have a firm grasp of the graph editor. The reason I use Motion 2 instead of the graph editor most of the time is it is much faster… especially for things like overshoots and bounces. BUT I know what I’m doing to the curves. I’m not guessing by sliding things around till it sorta feels righ ..read more

When you're a freelance motion designer, you're going to have time when you don't have client work.  What the best use of your time? I'm going to start by suggesting that you refrain from doing what I see a lot of people do. Don't jump on Twitter and announce to the world that you're available for freelance work. But isn't that the easiest way to get work, by letting people know you're available? Yes. That is a quick way to potentially get a project, but you're really coming across as desperate. And desperation is undesirable.  You want to build your personal brand as a co ..read more

I went to WistiaFest in 2015, but everything was different then. Last year, I was employed by a software company. They sent me to the conference to learn about video production and marketing opportunities for the 100+ employee company. I had pretty clear objectives: come back armed with knowledge and inspiration to create effective marketing video content. As you may know, I left that job in February to pursue building my motion design company. So I wasn’t 100% sure if I was going to go this year. I am no longer shooting video interviews, culture videos or customer testimonials, but the more ..read more

In part one, you learned how to take your monoline lettering from vector to smooth animation in under 60 minutes. Now I want to teach you some new techniques. Most are basic techniques and a couple are a little more advanced. If any of these are over your head, it's totally alright to stick with practicing the basic ones before moving on. Goals I took the goals that Eric Friedensohn set for the lettering design and translated them to animation goals. "I wanted the lettering style to feel fun and bouncy, to match the humor in the content of the piece mediocre joker." That definitely works for ..read more

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash Hoping this blog post finds you well. It’s a scary time. So first and foremost, please do everything you can to keep from contract and/or spreading the virus. Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay home. DO NOT LOSE HOPE The number one way to lose hope during this pandemic is to let yourself get sucked into a 24/7 news cycle of bad news. Staying informed only takes 20 or 30 minutes a day. GIVE YOURSELF SPACE Set your timer for 10 or 15 minutes in the morning and let yourself read the news.  When the timer goes off, close the tab. No more news until the af ..read more

This Tweet got me thinking. Let’s read that again… “Be the type of person who follows through on what you say you'll do.” He could have easily worded that differently... "Do what you say you're gonna do" or "Honor your word." The way Scotty worded it lines up perfectly with a concept I learned recently. Be. Do. Have. There are 3 types of people in this concept: The victim The worker The winner 1—The victim operates from a Have, Do, Be model. "If only I had mad skills like Jr. Canest, I could work for top studios and be successful..." or, "If only I had the money to go to art school, then ..read more

*originally written in early 2019, but still very relevant right now I felt like I was going to throw up It was the morning after enrollment ended on my founding member’s launch for Full Harbor Membership. I paced the living room, sweating and running my hands through my hair. It wasn't because it was a total failure. In fact, I nearly hit my stretch goal of 135 founding members (132 joined). So why the sick feeling in my stomach?! I was now on the hook. I built a treadmill I wouldn't be able to hop off of for the foreseeable future. I went into overdrive trying to find a solution to my anxi ..read more