How to Title Design I

This is the opening title for my “how to video.” I didn’t know at the time what I wanted to do for the opening title sequence. All I knew was that I wanted to do something with masking, and of course, it had to support the video that had to do with music, which was how to play the blues scale. When it came to starting the design, the idea came to me in a flash, and I quickly moved forward designing in Illustrator, Photoshop and then After Effects.

Images

The various images I designed in Photoshop before being brought into After Effects and masked. The silhouettes I designed by taking photos of my bass and of myself then brought into Photoshop where I put a color overlay on them to create the silhouettes. I found the music notes and flourishes at bing/images.com. I then manipulated them in Photoshop. For instance, I rotated the note above and made an extra large flag in Photoshop to insert my name for a credit for the animation of the title. I used Baskerville and Edwardian fonts for the title because they are old looking fonts that reminded me of fonts used on old music sheets. The background image was an old yellow paper that I found at bing/images.com. I used this in conjunction with the fonts to make the title look like old music sheets from the 1800’s. I began the entire process by designing the opening music staff of the title in Illustrator.

After Effects

I designed the title using Photoshop and After Effects. I manipulate a few images in Photoshop and then put them into After Effects to insert them into the timeline. I didn’t use any storyboards for the title; it all came to me in a flash and I started designing. Sometimes I design this way and others times I plan things out or brainstorm about ideas to get as many as possible. I was trying to find a design that would support my video, and I thought an old sheet music theme would work well for this assignment. I used masking for the most of the title sequence, and I had the camera, as well as the background image, moving forward from scene to scene where the credits are depicted. In the end I thought the title sequence was effective and I really liked it. My instructor really liked it too, and it was one of two title sequences chosen to be on display playing on a television in our hallway at NEIT.