Motion Graphics/Animation/VFX
The VFX Compositions you are about to see have been created throughout my journey to becoming a self-taught VFX Compositor. Having had no prior academic or professional background in VFX, but a burning drive to learn and develop new skills, I have been following tutorials online in my quest to better understand VFX and motion graphic software and what you see below are some of the things I have made along the way! So far, I have familiarity with Adobe After Effects and I am trying out some 3D modelling in Blender, though I hope to be able to start learning Nuke in the not too distant future! Click on the images below to see the effects in action!
Projects
Star Wars Title Crawl (2025)
After Effects, Premiere Pro
Made as a birthday surprise for my Dad who has been a life-long Star Wars enthusiast (which was promptly passed on to me), I recreated the opening title crawl effect of the Star Wars films, replacing the world-building text of the original with my very own message for my dad. As the surprise was disguised by me saying I had found the Widescreen version of the original film, I started the video message with the classic 20th Century Fox logo and audio before the crawl begins. I used a website to create a "Happy Birthday" title in the Star Wars title font and carefully chose a font as close to the original for the scroll text, going with Arial Bold. I applied a star burst effect to a white solid to create the space background behind the text and once I had my message written, I attached a null layer to change the orientation of the text on the Z-axis. After that, I altered the Y position of the text to create the scroll effect and used the "LoopOut" command to enforce a constant speed for the crawl.
H.I.T. Network Logo (2025)
After Effects, Premiere Pro
Inspired by retro aesthetic of one of my favourite video game series, Fallout, I created a vintage style TV network intro. For this effect, I started with creating the globe which was done using the CC Sphere effect on a diffuse of the Earth. I then keyframed the rotation around the Y-axis to give the spinning effect. For the text, I duplicated the H.I.T. Network logo and applied the CC Cylinder effect to both, with one rendering on the inside and the other on the outside so that it would wrap around the Earth as it rotates. After that, I transferred the project to Premiere Pro, where I was able to add the 4:3 bars, noise and grain, a black and white colour scheme as well as a film burn effect and some slight motion for authenticity.
Conquest of Mortality (2025)
Premiere Pro, Photoshop
Conquest of Mortality was created as a proof of concept for a module on Storyworlds at university, with the brief being to create 2 transmedia formats for an original project. I chose to make a video game for a script I had been (and still am) working on, though with my skills in coding being a bit rusty, I opted instead to create the effect of the video game through editing and motion graphics. The video game itself was heavily inspired by old-school fighting games like Tekken and Mortal Kombat and I wanted to recreate a similar effect to the photographic 2D sprites used in the latter game., thus the first step was to obtain some action photos of a subject (me) in front of a green screen which I would later key out and animate in the "game". The edit included menus from the game which I was able to simulate the selection indicator by using keyframes and the stroke tool which when mixed with the sound design, created the illusion that someone was scrolling through the options. I also meticulously animated a fight sequence using the images captured earlier, complete with moving life bars and a countdown clock to the end of the round.
Radar (2025)
After Effects
At one stage during my third year at university, I was intent on making a short Sci-Fi film about a cargo pilot in space and in an effort to convince my peers that it was achievable, I set out to create some effects that would be used in the film, one of which being this radar screen. I started by creating a circle shape in the centre and then using the repeater tool to create 5 duplicates, with each one getting 140% larger and creating a line from the centre of the circle to the top, again using the repeater tool to create 4 copies and offsetting them by 90 degrees, giving us the base for the radar. For the indicator, created another line from the centre to the edge of the radar, using a repeater this time to create 500 copies and displace each by a fraction of a degree, then altering the the rotation with the LoopOut command so that the radar is functioning and added a beginning and end opacity to the indicator to get that authentic radar look
"Cargo" Alien Title Sequence (2024)
After Effects
I have always loved the slow reveal of the title in the film Alien (1979) and in an attempt to see how I could liven up my own title sequences, I set about trying to remake my own version to set the tone for the Sci-Fi film I had been planning to make, Cargo. Overall the effect is quite simple on paper, but requires a bit of patience to do it right and I still feel I could have made the effect a little tidier. I started by adding in my title as a basic text box and then divided each letter into pieces using masks. After I had masked out each section, I then removed my text and keyframed the opacity of each section to appear at different intervals, until they are all finally visible, revealing the film's title. Just to add a bit more flair to the effect, I added in a dynamic space background using CC Star Burst on a slow speed to match the pace of the title's reveal.
Lightspeed (2024)
After Effects
As mentioned earlier, I am a big Star Wars fan and when I first started learning how to create VFX on After Effects, I was keen to see if I could make my very own lightspeed effect like the one seen in the films. Though quite a simple effect, it is the one I would attribute to igniting my passion for continuing to learn VFX. I started out with creating a white solid and applying the CC Star Burst effect. From there I adjusted the scatter and speed until I was happy with the overall look. Then I applied the CC Radial Blur effect, which helped to give the effect that we are travelling at high speed across the stars.