Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us

The look and feel of this project are meant to be a hand-painted animation in a style of something you would have seen on Sesame Street in the late ’70s or early ’80s. The background was created in Adobe Photoshop by stacking layers of abstract paint splatters and brush strokes.

The background was then imported into After Effects and given a bit of motion and a variety of layer treatments were used to add texture and to make the layers semi-transparent.

The business of the background did not lend itself to the paint-on technique used for the featured image of each verse of the hymn, so a darker paint splatter layer was painted on at 5 frames per second to keep with the style of animation of the period we meant to copy.

The featured images for each verse were drawn in Photoshop using a stylized brush in a hand-painted style. Each brush stroke was an independent layer so when the image file was imported into After Effects as a composition, the individual layers could be “painted on”, revealing the final image by the close of the verse.

The verse’s featured image and the text were also given a slight wiggle using a displacement map in order to give the impression of a stop motion animation.

A Mighty Fortress is Our God

2017 marked the 500 year anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. To commemorate this event, WAMI award-winning Christian artist Koiné, released Cross Heart Rose Sky Ring, an album of songs by Martin Luther.

For their arrangement of A Mighty Fortress is Our God, perhaps one of Martin Luther’s most celebrated hymns, the band wanted an animation which featured the Luther Seal and told of some of the more significant events leading up to the reformation.

The Luther Seal used in this video was a wood-cut print created by artist Jason Jaspersen. The print was scanned and imported into Adobe Photoshop where it was cut into layers to prepare the image for a write-on animation in After Effects. The image was also given color as Luther had designed the seal as a teaching tool with specific colors in mind.

We All Believe in One True God

We All Believe In One True God was recorded by WAMI award-winning Christian artist Koiné, for the album Cross Heart Rose Sky Ring, an album of songs by Martin Luther.

The song is divided into 3 verses which speak to the 3 members of Trinitarian doctrine. The concept was that of moving through the ages with each verse. Verse 1, the ancient time, is represented visually with a hand-written script text, a parchment background with a sepia color treatment, and an effect to suggest scratched film skipping through an antique projector.

Verse 2, the middle time, the imagery has changed to resemble a super8 home movie from the late ’70s or early ’80s. The light leaks were created by overlaying video of super8 and 16mm film light leaks. The font is meant to appear to be a script reminiscent of fonts used during the early ages of print.

The final verse, is meant to be the present age and into the future. A digital styled font was used and the text animation was designed to look as if someone were typing on an old computer with a monochrome monitor. The digital distortion was created by overlaying video footage of “hits” on a digital video tape which was then used as a displacement map over the text layers. Finally, the background was created using the Fractal Noise effect to create a working circuit kind of effect.

He Stood Before the Court

Glory Be to Jesus