My good friend, Kurt Baker, makes some of my favorite rock music. So, when I started my final semester, I asked him if I could create a music video for one of his songs. I had learned some things about kinetic text, and focused on lyrics using a really great font called “Blastatic” by Remedy667 as my inspiration for the style.

The Beatles cartoon from the 60s came to mind, and The Pink Panther title sequences, with the characters interacting with the text, so I created cartoon versions of each member of the band. It was really hard not to share the progress, but I really wanted Kurt to be surprised with the final version.

Creating the puppets in Procreate, to give them a hand drawn look, rather than a clean vector, then sending them to Photoshop for layer surgery was easier than I thought it would be, and not much is sweeter than seeing a well-synced character animation come to life! I edited the visemes – mouth shapes – as carefully as I could, and as painstaking as that can be, I’m happy with the results!

Then came After Effects. It’s like one of those really gorgeous people who acts like a douchebag, promising you trips to foreign lands, but leaves you stranded at the airport. Even now, I’m afraid to say too much, for fear it will hear me and never work again. That said, I’m really grateful to the IT staff at SMCC, my friend and advisor Kate, and a small army of healers and witches that banded together to make sure it came through for me.

After all the delays and tears shed (not too many! 😉), it’s done, and Kurt loves it, and here it is!

Check out all of Kurt’s videos while you’re there. He’s not only a great musician, but his sense of humor and humility is apparent in everything he creates. I’m really so thankful for the opportunity to do this! ❤️