Legendary Video Creators: The Freelance Motion Designer

You will certainly have appreciated the credits of Game of Thrones. Or the special effects of Michael Bay's films. All these achievements have one thing in common: they have been supervised by a motion designer. This image worker is indeed at the origin of the most iconic computer-generated images. The motion designer is a professional modeling and 2D and 3D animation.

The freelance motion designer, between the creative and the computer scientist. Literally, the term "motion design" means "the design of motion". Indeed, the job of motion designer is to create video animations to which the soundtrack will be added. It can handle special effects as well as 3D objects or typography. Once his work is done, the motion designer has created clips of all kinds. He is a professional appreciated in the cinema or in the universe of the series, but also in advertising and in digital communication. The most famous websites in the world, like Youtube or Facebook are also recruiting.

The motion designer is both a performer and a creative. He uses his imagination and his knowledge of software to transpose the customer's request into an original and colorful universe. For this, it has a whole arsenal at its disposal: 3D modeling software (3DSMax, Maya, Blender), video editing (Adobe Premiere) or 2D design and animation (Photoshop, After Effects), etc. He will also have to navigate between these different software.

The missions of the freelance motion designer, craftsman of animation. The work of a motion designer starts from the moment when the specifications have been drafted by the client (for the motion designer freelance) or by the artistic director. From this specification, the professional develops "moodboards": only armed with his inspiration, the motion designer creates a board on which he throws various ideas. He then structures them so that this moodboard, which is concretely presented in the form of a series of vignettes, describes a message or an atmosphere.

If the customer approves this mood, the motion designer can start working on the storyboard. This one states the contents of the future animation, there it describes what is going on and how. Again, once approved, the motion designer can begin the actual project, going through multiple technical steps. For all this, the freelance motion designer is not alone. In addition to the artistic director, who ensures that the project meets expectations, he collaborates with illustrators, graphic designers and sound professionals. If it's about making an interactive interface, there's a good chance he'll have to work with developers.

The job of motion designer is also to keep abreast of the latest trends in the profession. The software it uses evolve, and given the impressive number of tools that the professional is brought to control, continue to train on these programs is a significant amount of work.
The profile of the freelance motion designer

The first quality of a good motion designer is his artistic knowledge. While this may seem abstract at first, a professional knows how to find the inspiration needed for his activity. Ideally, the motion designer must be able to respond to creations from different artistic sensibilities. So you do not have to get out of your comfort zone to respond to issues we are not used to.