"The Altar" - Kinetic Typography

The inspiration for this project is the poem "The Altar" by George Herbert. The poem is one of the first in English to combine shape with text, and I decided to incorporate another layer of design into the poem by utilizing kinetic typography or animate the shape and text as it appears on the page.

It was critical to retain the shape of the poem as the author had originally designed it, and to add depth I selected video clips that reflected the theme of the text. I designed the film to gradually shift from dark to light, as the morning dawns over the church in the opening scene and then finishing with bright light overlooking the cross as the text finishes animating. The clips were chosen to echo specific elements of the text, such as the stones of the church and the mountains appearing when the word "stones" appears in the video. For continuity, I selected videos that would naturally flow from one to another, as in the case of the clip of the round church window with white light coming though it, which is later followed by a clip of a boy looking up into the light streaming from windows of a similar shape up above him. The culminating scene focuses on a vibrant altar, reinforcing the theme of the text.

This project was created as part of a Motion Graphics I course utilizing Adobe After Effects.

To view the video with sound, click on the full size video below.