VFX After Effects: Pt1

Moana Title Sequence

After reading the brief, I decided to create a title sequence for Disney's Moana. To begin with...

• The Storyboard

I decided to go with the same colour palette they use for the official Disney Moana poster before I started story-boarding because I think it would look more professional.







For inspiration I have watched numerous Disney film end credits, which I found very helpful in figuring out the structure I wanted to go with for my own title sequence.

1. Directed By - John Musker & Ron Clements
2. Co-Directed By - Chris Williams & Don Hall
3. Produced By - Osnat Shurer p.g.a
4. Executive Producer - John Lasseter
5. Screenplay By - Jared Bush
6. Story By - Ron Clements & John Musker, Chris Williams & Don Hall, Pamela Ribon, Aaron Kandell & Jordan Kandell
7. Original Songs By - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa'i, Mark Mancina
8. Original Score Composed By - Mark Mancina
9. Editor - Jeff Draheim, ACE
10. Associate Producer - Nicole P. Hearon
11. Visual Effects Supervisor - Kyle Odermatt
12. Production Designer - Ian Gooding
13. Art Director Environments & Colour - Andy Harkness
14. Art Director Characters - Bill Schwab
15. Production Manager - Yvett Merino
16. Head of Story - David Pimentel, John Ripa
17. Head of Animation - Hyrum Virl Osmond, Amy Lawson Smeed
18. DOC Layout - Rob Dressel & DOC Lighting - Adolph Lusinsky
19. Technical Supervisor - Hank Driskill
20. Head of Characters and Technical Animation - Carlos Cabral
21. Head of Environments - Larry Wu
22. Heads of Effects and Animation - Dale Mayeda, Marlon West
23. Stereoscopic Supervisor - Robert Neuman
24. Modeling Supervisors (Characters- Chad Stubblefield, Environments- Brien Hindman)
25. Look Development Supervisors (Characters- Jack Fulmer, Environments & Set Extension- Colin Eckart)
26. Character Riggin Supervisor - Matthew Schiller
27. Simulation Supervisor - Marc Thyng
28. Technical Animation Supervisors - Christopher Evart, Mark Empey
29. Animation Supervisors - Adam Green, Jennifer Hager, Mack Kablan, Daniel James Klug, Malcon B. Pierce III
30. Hand-drawn Animation Supervisor - Eric Goldberg
31. Executive Music Producers - Tom MacDougall, Chris Montan
32. Auli'i Cravalho as Moana, Dwayne Johnson as Maui

• Searching for the Right Fonts!

I really want to make sure that the fonts I choose to use for this title sequence look great together and fit well with the genre of the movie. So, I went on a wild google search for Disney and cartoon fonts to see which ones would work best.

When deciding on which fonts to use for my title sequence, I decided to with the 1st one for the main "Moana" title, then I chose the second one for the titles, and the 2nd/3rd for the names.

• Testing the Ideas out in After Effects 

Creating Water Particles

created a null object, centered the anchor point then created a solid layer.

effect > trapcode > particular

press p on the null object (make layer 3D) 

ALT-click stopwatch Position XY & Z then parent to the null object layer position

on particular layer > effect controls > physics > gravity

effect controls > particle > size & size random & opacity random

layer > light (point) > effect controls > shading > turn everything on > ambient & diffuse ^

move light around in top view then duplicate the light then back-light other side

particular layer > effect controls > shading > shadowlet settings > always in front

pre-compose all layers

new solid > effect > gradient ramp > radial gradient

effect > matte > simple choker > noise > median 

add adjustment layer to prev comp > effect > stylize > cc glass

height and displacement controls how the particles will look more like water

play around velocity, layer mode, light intensity & colour till satisfied

Creating Wave Title

pre-compose text layer

after opening a new 2000x2000px composition, new solid layer 1800x100px 

pre-comp > effect > distort > turbulent displace

animate by ALT-click evolution stopwatch then enter time*100 into timeline

place solid base under text layer > alpha matte

hit P on wave layer then keyframe start & end points

duplicate x 3

Water Splash

draw a line, then animate it using trim paths, F9+click the keyframes & change speed on graph

add repeater, and amount copies you want

(quit this idea)

Sand Text

open image

alpha matte the text and sand background

simulation > shatter

view = rendered