This project is based on The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys comic book series by Gerard Way and Shaun Simon. Visuals are pulled from California, National Anthem, and Danger Days.
One particularly good resource for footage was the series of student projects created for the Dr. Death Defying listening party in 2014
Below is the sizzle reel I created to end the project
Initial Concept and Moodboard
I originally created this moodboard compiling content from the aforementioned sources.
I emphasized glitches, static, and distortion, chromatic aberration, and other forms of visual noise. This was pulled both from the concept of a pirate TV station, and from the visual stylings of Killjoys: National Anthem.
One major aesthetic was the bright, chaotic, punk, sticker and graffiti clad, loud and proud aesthetic of the Killjoys in all depictions.
I also pulled some of the designs for both BL/ind from Danger Days and California, and B.T. Global from National Anthem. While I used the logo and name of BL/i, I used aesthetics associated more with B.T.
The contrast between these two aesthetics were the core concept behind the project.
04 – Logo Stinger
The first thing I created for the project was a logo stinger that placed the Killjoys logo over the BL/i one. The concept was originally intended for a logo reveal, but I enjoyed it better simpler, and created another logo reveal later, though that one was much more complicated.
03 – preloader
The piece that ended up setting the tone for the rest of the project was one of the smallest. I played around with a lot of ideas and visual motifs, especially dot patterns reminiscent of screen printing, but I wasn’t thrilled with any of them, until I made a simple line pattern and started working with that. This became the touchstone for everything else I created.
00 – the things inside you
The Things Inside You uses slightly different text techniques than I ended up using, but I wanted to work with more fluid and bouncier movement. I digitized two ink drawings from the back of the hardcover copy of National Anthem, and ended up reusing the rat several times afterwards.
05 – patterns
The first two patterns I created reused effects from the preloader I made, applied to the same static lines
I then created a lighter variant of pattern 02, establishing textures I would continue to use throughout the project. I reused these lines many times in future components.
Finally I created some fun patterns including a layered text motif, and the same digitized rat illustration I used for 00 – The Things Inside You. I later reused this rat pattern in a bumper.
06 – Bumpers
The first bumper I created was 109 in the sky –
This was made almost immediately after the preloader, and was my first time integrating text. I used a similar strategy for the drips I made in the logo stinger, along with moving lines taken from pattern 01. The red is color picked from my tv static animation.
Listen Up! was an amalgamation of text in the same style as pattern – the future is bulletproof, layered with pattern – clean, and an edited portion of my logo stinger.
The place where it really stands out is the introduction slide. I used footage from the aforementioned Dr. Death Defying student projects, although I edited it slightly to match the branding scheme I had established, and overlayed several of the clean lines, while also gradually increasing a glitch effect over the source video itself. I never used this exact effect again, but it is one of my favorites.
Bumper – Rats Clog the Drains reuses the same rats pattern I created, the more notable thing here is the footage before it plays, how it integrates, and the fact that this was my first introduction of audio. Up until this point, I had kept the project strictly visual, but I was considering now the final presentation of information and sizzle reel. Both the intro footage and the static audio used are from those same student projects, although I edited it to include more texture and a visualization of the audio.
07 – Lower Thirds
The final section of the project outside of the sizzle reel was the lower thirds. I wanted to create one that showed the Killjoys overlaying BL/i, and one where the reverse happened. All the footage here is again from the student projects.
On the first, I wanted to play on having the BL/i logo blink, and modifying the text to change the message. I then did a cropped in overlay with the Killjoys logo, and overlayed the TV static animation over both the bumper and the scene as a whole.
On the second, I worked backwards. I brought in the same static animation, but in increasing monochrome, brought in the bumper with the killjoys spider, and overlayed it with a message from BL/i. I had the logo blink, and look around, and when the bumper eventually fades out, the eyes remain watching you from the darkness. This was the last piece I made, and I think it really rounded out the project.
conclusion
After all this, I compressed the project into a 50 second sizzle, full of chaotic and overlapping visuals, set of course to audio from those same student projects.
Considering that this was my first time doing graphic design in motion, I really enjoyed this project and am looking forward to hopefully doing more like it in the future.