Yes, I said “master”. Before you decide to run away from this article let me start by saying that this series is meant to be to the point. It is the most practical and clearest path that I know to accelerate your technical prowess in MoGraph.
Preface: What do I mean by “master”?
By “master” I mean to be so highly proficient in a skill that you are no longer intimidated or overwhelmed by a technical challenge related to that skill. It does not mean you know everything or don’t need help.
5 Ingredients to MoGraph Mastery
Aggressively pursuing understanding
Mentors
Developing your eye
Critical feedback
Collaborating at a high level
Ingredient 1: Aggressively pursuing understanding
If you’ve ever done a mentorship, internship or portfolio review with me before, you’ve heard me say over and over again: aggressively pursue understanding. If you forget anything I ever show you in a program, it won’t matter. As long as you remember how to do this one skill, you’ll be alright.
I remember when I was a student at SCAD, prowling the classrooms of Monty Hall looking for someone working on something interesting who might fall prey to my favorite question:
“Wow, that looks amazing — can you show me how you did that?”
Teacher or other student — no one was safe. Why? Ask anyone who knew me: it’s because I aggressively pursued understanding everything. I still do that today. I still ask the same type of question:
“Wow, that looks amazing — can you show me how you did that?”
Make it happen:
The next time you see something you think is cool and you don’t understand how it’s done, ask or research how it was done.
If you’re asking someone, be respectful and patient allowing them time to explain without being pushy or rude.
Don’t leave a question unanswered. Find the answer.
Ingredient 2: Mentors
I can name every mentor for every stage of my professional career. I know the first person who showed me Photoshop, and the first person who showed me a graph editor. I can recall which lesson directly impacted my success today.
Having mentors is key. Pursue them.
My favorite early mentor was Sekani Solomon. We met online in a Facebook group called the Association of Designers (big s/o) before I even considered studying motion design. At the time he was a student at SCAD and boy was he a “master”. He was far ahead even professionals working in the field while he was a junior in college. I would drill him with questions left and right. He saw hunger, interest and respect so he agreed to mentor me. Let’s use him as an example:
A great mentor…
Should be someone who is already a master.
Reliably gives you critical feedback (more on this later).
Can understand the intention behind your work.
Sharpens your eye for craft (more on this later).
Is probably always really busy…so be respectful of their time.
Make it happen:
List 3–5 artists you consider “masters”.
Find their websites / Instagram.
Email them or direct message them.
Start off by describing what about their work you think is amazing.
Concisely describe your passion (do not write your life story — I’ve done it), where you are in your technical journey and share some of your best work. Ask them if they would be willing to let you shadow them to learn.
If they can’t or they’re too busy, look for another mentor and repeat until you find success. Or just reach out to me if you like my work :)
Ingredient 3: Developing your eye for craft
I’ve heard that newly hired bank tellers are trained to differentiate a genuine $100 bill from a counterfeit $100 bill just by touching it. They undergo an intentional process of observing and feeling different bills in their hands, some authentic and others counterfeit over and over again. At the end of this process, they’ve touched so many bills that they are intuitively trained to tell when the bill between their fingertips isn’t real.
Most Motion Directors will agree. We can tell how skilled someone is in their craft by the first few movements we see in a demo reel. Though it’s not a perfect science, I’m able to quickly determine someone’s fit for a project within the first 5-seconds of their demo reel.
It’s a strange skill — to see keyframe spaces and graphs behind movements.
For a long time I didn’t know how to teach this to other interns or apprentices. I just assumed it was something you happened to be able to do. But now I realize it’s because I’ve spent countless hours combing through Creattica (if you know, you know), Motionographer, Wine After Coffee, Instagram, Tumblr, Dribbble and Vimeo Staff Picks as a student.
I know what looks good. I know what doesn’t look so good. If you want to be a master of a craft, you have to know what works and what doesn’t. Not only that, you have to know why.
“That feels way too slow” → “the keyframes are too far apart”
“That sequence feels fluid” → “their graph has no sharp kinks between keyframes”
“That move feels exaggerated” → “the graph is probably squeezed a lot between those two points”
Make it happen:
Bookmark at least 5 sources of high quality work. It could be a mix of: creative websites (Wine After Coffee), studios (Flat White Motion, The Furrow, Ordinary Folk), or artists (Romain Loubersanes, Philip von Borries, Taylor Peters, Reece Parker).
Look at work routinely and demystify the “impossible”: consider what makes it so good. What techniques might they be using?
Continue curating your bookmark list with only the best work.
Bonus: a neat trick I learned from Ash Thorp. Find something incredible that you have no idea how to do and recreate it perfectly, documenting your learnings. If it isn’t obvious, don’t share it publicly as “your work”. Don’t be lame.
Ingredient 4: Critical feedback
Critical feedback is feedback from someone who understands your intention and can identify improvement that’s relevant to that intention. Critical feedback is not “I like it” or “I don’t like it”, neither is it “I think this would be cool if it was blue” (Lord knows I’ve been in too many meetings where decisions are made like that). It should be actionable and relevant.
“I love how expressive this text animation is, but it’s too jarring for an ad that’s talking about personal data security. I think it should feel more serious and mature. Let’s try something that feels simpler and to the point.”
“This face animation of someone waking up feels really real. The way the eyes progressively open by staggering them makes it feel like the person is tired but trying to wake up. Great job.”
Feedback like this should tell you that you don’t get critical feedback from just anyone. Yes, general feedback is good, but I believe general feedback is for determining if your intention has any impact at all. Critical feedback connects that intention with the best approach.
Side note: Feedback on your work is not personal.
Make it happen:
Find someone (or a mentor) whose work you highly respect.
Ask them: “I’d love to get your critical feedback. If you would do something differently here, what would it be? I’d love if you could be specific.”
Don’t just hear them out. Make the changes and learn from it!
Ingredient 5: Collaborating at a high level
I remember in college our mood boards would be full of stills from projects by the ‘big dawgs’ at Buck, Man vs Machine, Elastic and Gunner (RIP). We’d think that our projects were going to end up looking like theirs just by casually doing them on our own. Child’s play…or so we thought.
I had a humble awakening when I found out that the project that I was most inspired by was made by 16 artists. Wait a second…this is normal? Something clicked and it changed my mentality forever.
No matter how good you are at what you do, you need other people to make something truly exceptional.
I can make a pretty good project by myself, but I’ve found that when it comes to making an exceptional, award winning and highly captivating project, working alone just doesn’t cut it. Team is the dream.
I started practicing this early on in college. I found people whose skills fit what I wanted my project to look like, I inspired them about the potential and we each set out to do our best work for each part we were assigned. Working together on projects has always produced something far greater than I originally imagined.
Make it happen:
Build good relationships with colleagues/friends who also want to create high quality work.
Start small together: agree to make a small passion project together on a topic you’re both interested in. Like a simple loop (one person designs, another person animates).
If there’s an opportunity to go big, do it! You can only learn.
If you're interested in learning more, tell me what should be next using the poll below. I'll write about it.