Case Study 2: Build-Along — The Motion-Graphics Package for a 90-Second Branded Testimonial
Where Case Study 1 took a finished title apart, this one builds a graphics package from scratch. We take a piece that is already shot, cut, corrected, graded, and mixed — a 90-second branded testimonial in the talking-head setup, one of the book's four recurring setups — and add its information layer: a style kit, an opening title, a lower-third template, and one simple animated element. Every step shows the thinking, the result as a Described Shot or a diagram, and what got adjusted. Do it alongside your Project 3. This is a post-production, build-along walkthrough — production-heavy by design, and deliberately different in kind from Case Study 1.
The brief and the constraints
A neighborhood ceramics studio — call it Kiln & Co. — wants a 90-second video for its website and social channels. The story is already in the can and cut: the owner, to camera, talks about learning to throw pots from a mentor and now teaching a new generation; B-roll of hands centering clay, the kiln, finished mugs on a shelf; a warm music bed; clean audio; a warm grade (all the work of Chapters 19–33). It is a good little film. It is also, right now, anonymous — nothing on screen tells you who the speaker is, what the piece is called, or whose studio this is. That is the exact gap motion graphics exist to close.
The brief gives us four constraints, and constraints are a gift because they make decisions for us:
- On brand. The studio has a simple brand: a warm terracotta-orange, a clean typeface, and a small logo. The graphics must use them, not invent new ones. (This is Chapter 22, §22.2, arriving as a real constraint.)
- Two deliverables. A 16:9 version for the website and a 9:16 version for social. Text has to survive both, which pushes everything well inside the safe margins (Chapter 23, §23.1).
- Sound-off friendly. Most social views will be muted, so the title and any key text must carry meaning without audio (Chapter 23, §23.3).
- Restraint. It is a warm, human, hand-made-craft story. The graphics must feel calm and tactile, not slick and corporate. Nothing here should spin.
Our job for this chapter: an opening title, a lower third for the owner, and one simple animated element — consistent, eased, and motivated. Let us build it.
The kit and the setup
The "gear" for a motion-graphics pass is software, and the point of this book holds: it is free. Everything below is built in DaVinci Resolve — its Edit-page title tools for the straightforward pieces and, where noted, its Fusion page for a touch more control (Appendix E) — but every step maps onto any editor with a title tool and keyframes, and the simplest version is buildable on a phone app.
The real "setup," though, is not the software. It is the style kit — the handful of decisions that every graphic in the piece will obey. We fill it in first, before placing a single element, straight from the brand. This is the graphics equivalent of setting exposure and white balance before you roll.
⚙️ Settings Box: the Kiln & Co. style kit (decided before any graphic is placed).
Slot Decision Why Title font The brand's clean humanist sans, bold weight On-brand; warm but legible Body/role font Same family, regular weight One family = coherent, not busy Text color Warm off-white (#F5F0E8) Softer than pure white; suits the tactile story Accent color Brand terracotta (#C1622F) The one brand pop; used sparingly Scrim Black gradient, ~45%, bottom third Guarantees legibility over B-roll Title size ~1/10 frame height Confident, readable on a phone Lower-third name ~1/16 height, bold Clear hierarchy over the role line Lower-third role ~1/24 height, regular Supports, doesn't compete Placement Lower third on the subject's lead-room side; ~10% up from the bottom safe line Off the face; clear of captions Motion In: 14 frames, ease-out · Hold: read-twice · Out: 12 frames, ease-in Calm, consistent, tactile Sound No graphic SFX; logo sting only on the end card The story is quiet; graphics stay quiet Every graphic in the piece now has its marching orders. This card is the difference between three graphics that look like siblings and three that look like strangers.
Before we place anything, we look at the shot the lower third has to live on, because the framing decides our options. Here is the interview frame, with the graphics real estate marked.
FIGURE CS2.1 — The interview frame, mapped for graphics (16:9, framing overlay)
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · │ ← title-safe (all text inside)
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ┌───────┐ · · · · · │
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · │( owner)│ · · · · · │ subject on the RIGHT third,
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · │ face │ · · · · · │ looking camera-LEFT
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · └───────┘ · · · · · │
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · │
│ · ▸ LEAD-ROOM DEAD SPACE (empty left third) ········ │ ← the lower third goes HERE
│ · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · │
│ · · · · · · · · · · (bottom safe line) · · · · · · · · │ ← captions live below this; keep clear
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The shot was framed (back in Ch.19) with the subject on the right third looking left, leaving the
left third empty. That empty third is not an accident — it is where the name super will live. The
composition did our placement work in advance. This is "shoot for the edit," paying off in the graphics.
The shot was framed with this moment in mind — the owner sits on the right third and looks left, so the left third is open and low, waiting for a name. Because the shooter left that space, we have somewhere clean to put the lower third; if they had centered the owner, every option now would be a compromise. Good framing is a gift you give your future self at the graphics stage.
Build phase 1 — the opening title
The thinking. The title has two jobs: name the piece and set the warm, hand-made tone in the first two seconds, including for a muted viewer. We are not naming it "Kiln & Co. Promotional Video" (that names the deliverable, not the story); we name it for the story — something like "Made by Hand." Two words, on brand, tactile.
We open the title over the first B-roll shot — hands centering clay — rather than over black, so the very first frame is already warm and human. The scrim from the style kit sits under the text so it survives the moving clay beneath it.
The build. One text object, the brand sans in bold, warm off-white, sized to ~1/10 of frame height, centered, inside title-safe. A gradient scrim on a track below it. Then the animation: a simple eased fade-and-rise.
FIGURE CS2.2 — Title animation keyframes: "Made by Hand" fades and rises into place
property f0 f14 (ease-out) hold ~2.5s out (f0→f12, ease-in)
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Opacity 0% ◆──────────────◆ 100% ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100% ◆──────◆ 0%
Y-position +18px ◆────────────◆ 0px (settled) ───────────────────── 0px ◆──────◆ +10px (drifts down out)
Two keyframes in, hold, two keyframes out — on TWO properties (opacity + position) moving together.
Ease-OUT on the way in (fast then gentle) so it settles; ease-IN on the way out so it leaves softly.
The 18-px rise is tiny on purpose: the title lifts into place like it's being set down, not thrown on.
Read the diagram as two properties animating at once: opacity climbs from 0 to 100 while the title rises 18 pixels into its resting place, both eased so it settles. The rise is deliberately small — a title that flies a long way calls attention to the motion; a title that lifts a few pixels calls attention to the words. Here is the result.
FIGURE CS2.3 — "Made by Hand" — the title reveal [constructed teaching example]
THE FRAME Over a soft-focus close-up of two hands centering wet clay on a wheel; the title
"Made by Hand" sits centered in the lower-middle, warm off-white on a gentle dark scrim.
THE MOVE The title fades up and rises ~18 px into place over 14 frames, eased to a settle. The
clay keeps turning behind it; the title is still. One thing moves at a time.
THE LIGHT Warm, low-key B-roll; the scrim darkens the bottom just enough to hold the text without
announcing itself. The terracotta accent is absent here — saved for the lower third.
THE SOUND The music bed and the wet-clay ambience (Ch.33); no sound on the title itself. A whoosh
would break the calm the piece is built on.
THE CUT The title holds ~2.5 seconds — read-twice time — then fades and drifts gently out as the
edit moves to the next B-roll shot.
THE EFFECT In two seconds a muted viewer knows the piece's name and its tone: warm, tactile, human.
The tone is set by the type and the footage, not by any flourish.
THE LESSON Open on something warm, put the name over it quietly, and let the footage and the font do
the tone-setting. The best title move is small.
What we adjusted. The first pass sized the title to ~1/8 of frame height — too big; it dominated the delicate clay shot and felt shouty for a gentle story. We brought it down to ~1/10. We also started with the title over black; it felt cold and generic, so we moved it over the clay B-roll, and the piece immediately felt warmer from frame one. Small calls, both, and both in the direction of less.
Build phase 2 — the lower-third template
The thinking. This piece has one speaker, but we build the lower third as a template anyway — because Project 3 and future pieces will have more, and because building it as a reusable object forces the discipline that makes it clean. The lower third names the owner and answers "why listen to them?" with a role line. It lands in the empty left third we mapped in FIGURE CS2.1, comes up once, a beat after the owner starts talking, and leaves.
The build. Two text lines and one accent bar. The name line in bold at ~1/16 height; the role line in regular at ~1/24 height; a thin terracotta bar to the left that ties the two lines together and carries the brand color. All of it inside title-safe, in the lead-room dead space, above the bottom safe line so captions have room.
FIGURE CS2.4 — The lower-third template: layout + its animation
LAYOUT (in the left-third dead space) ANIMATION (on / hold / off)
┌──────────────────────────────┐ bar wipe: f0 ◆──◆ f10 (width 0 → full, ease-out)
│ ▍ [ OWNER'S NAME ] │ ← name (bold) text fade: f4 ◆──◆ f16 (opacity 0 → 100, ease-out)
│ ▍ Owner & Potter · Kiln & Co │ ← role (regular) text nudge: f4 ◆──◆ f16 (x −12px → 0, ease-out)
└──────────────────────────────┘ HOLD: ~7 s (read the two lines twice)
▍ = terracotta accent bar out: fade + settle, 12 frames, ease-in
Staggered start: the BAR wipes first (frames 0–10), then the TEXT fades and slides in behind it
(frames 4–16). The tiny 4-frame stagger makes it feel choreographed rather than dumped on at once.
Name larger than role; both inside title-safe; the whole thing sits on the subject's lead-room side.
The animation has one refinement worth noticing: the accent bar wipes in first, and the text fades in a few frames behind it. That four-frame stagger is the difference between a lower third that feels choreographed and one that feels dumped on the screen all at once. It costs nothing — you just offset the text keyframes a few frames after the bar's — and it reads as craft. Here is the moment on screen.
FIGURE CS2.5 — The owner's name super [constructed teaching example]
THE FRAME Medium close-up, the owner on the right third looking left; the workshop soft behind
them. In the empty left third, a terracotta bar wipes in and a name and role fade up
beside it, warm off-white.
THE MOVE Bar wipes (10 frames), text fades and slides 12 px into place (frames 4–16), all eased.
The owner keeps talking; the graphic is the only new motion, and it's small.
THE LIGHT Window key from the left; the lead-room third is mid-dark — a clean bed for the text, no
scrim even needed here because the background is calm and out of focus.
THE SOUND The owner's clean sync audio and the music bed; no sound on the graphic. Per the kit.
THE CUT Comes up ~5 seconds after the owner starts (once we've settled on them), holds ~7 seconds,
fades out — and never returns, because we only meet them once.
THE EFFECT We learn who is speaking and why they're worth trusting, without leaving their face. The
terracotta bar quietly ties the moment to the brand.
THE LESSON Build it as a template, stagger the bar and the text, place it in the dead space, show it
once. The name super is 90% placement and timing, 10% design.
What we adjusted. The first version brought the name up on the owner's very first word — it felt like an interruption, a label slapped on before we'd met them. We delayed it about five seconds, to a natural pause after their opening sentence, and it stopped fighting the performance. We also, at first, had the whole lower third fade in as one block; adding the four-frame bar-then-text stagger made it noticeably more polished for zero extra effort. And we checked it in the 9:16 crop: the lower third had to move further in and up so the platform's bottom interface wouldn't cover it — a reminder that the two deliverables have different safe zones.
✂️ In the Edit. Note how much of this phase was timing, not design. The name super's look was decided in five minutes from the style kit; the work was choosing the moment it appears (after the opening sentence, not on it), how long it holds (read-twice), and confirming it never returns. That is the pattern with lower thirds generally: the design is quick, the timing is the craft. An editor who rushes the timing to save two minutes produces a graphic that fights the footage; an editor who spends those two minutes produces one that disappears into it.
Build phase 3 — one simple animated element
The thinking. The brief allows one animated element beyond the title and lower thirds, and the rule from the chapter is that it must be motivated — the story has to want it. The owner mentions, in passing, that the studio has been open ten years and has fired thousands of pieces. That is a concrete, human number, and numbers land harder when they build than when they simply sit. So our one element is a count-up stat: over about a second, a number climbs to its value while the owner's line about the studio's history plays and B-roll of the loaded kiln fills the frame. It informs (the "clarify" job), it feels earned because it animates, and it is quiet enough for the tone.
The build. A number that counts from 0 to its final value, plus a small label beneath, in the brand type, over kiln B-roll with a scrim. The count-up is eased so it decelerates as it lands on the final figure — the same ease-out that made the Stranger Things letters settle.
FIGURE CS2.6 — The count-up stat keyframes (a number that "earns" itself)
value shown
4,200 ┤ ╭──────●━━━━━━━━━━━ ← lands and HOLDS on the true figure
│ ╭────╯
3,000 ┤ ╭────╯ (ease-OUT: races up, then decelerates onto the number)
│ ╭───╯
1,500 ┤ ╭───╯
│ ╭───╯
0 ●────╯
└──┬──────┬──────┬──────┬──────┬────────► time
0 6 12 18 ~26 frames then hold ~3 s, then fade out with the label
◆ ◆
start (0) end (4,200, eased)
Label under it fades up in parallel: "pieces fired by hand · since 2014".
The number decelerating onto its final value is what makes it feel EARNED rather than just displayed.
One element, motivated by the owner's own line, gone in a few seconds. That's the whole animated layer.
The count-up races up and decelerates onto its final value — that ease-out is what makes a number feel earned rather than merely printed. The label ("pieces fired by hand · since 2014") fades up beneath it in parallel, so a muted viewer gets the full meaning. Then it holds a few seconds and clears. One element, born from a line the owner actually said, gone before it outstays its welcome. That is the entire animated layer, and it is enough — the discipline was stopping at one.
⚠️ Common Mistake we avoided: the second animated element. The temptation, having built one nice count-up, is to animate the studio's location onto a little map, and put a spinning logo in the corner, and wipe a lower third under the B-roll too. Each addition feels like "more production value" and each one actually subtracts from a calm, tactile story. We stopped at one motivated element. The restraint is the professionalism — the story wanted a title, a name, and one number, and it got exactly that.
The edit pass — laying it all on the timeline
Now the graphics go onto the timeline, each on its own video track above the picture, timed to the story. Here is the integration, top to bottom.
FIGURE CS2.7 — The finished timeline: graphics ride above the picture, timed to the story
0s 10s 30s 50s 70s 90s
|─────────|──────────|──────────|──────────|──────────|
V4 (gfx) [TITLE] [ LOGO+CTA end card ] ← graphics track
V3 (gfx) [ LOWER THIRD ] [ COUNT-UP STAT ] ← graphics track
V2 (capt) [ captions / subtitles across the whole piece ............... ] ← accessibility text
V1 (pic) [ B-roll ][ interview ][ B-roll ][ interview ][ B-roll ] ← the graded picture
A1 (dlg) [ owner's sync dialogue ........................................ ]
A2 (mus) [ warm music bed ............................................... ]
Reading it: the TITLE opens over the first B-roll (0–3s). The LOWER THIRD comes up ~5s into the first
interview block and holds ~7s. The COUNT-UP lands over the kiln B-roll where the owner mentions the
history. The end card (logo + "Kiln & Co · book a class") closes it. Captions run throughout, on their
own track, BELOW the lower third so they never collide. Turn V3/V4 off — the film still plays. That's
the test from §34.1, passed.
Walk the timeline: nothing is arbitrary. The title lives at the very top track (V4) so it draws over everything; the lower third and count-up share the graphics layer (V3) but never overlap in time; captions (V2) run the whole length on their own track, sitting below where the lower third goes so the two never fight for the same pixels (a real collision we designed out, per Chapter 36, §36.5). Each graphic is placed at the story beat that motivates it — the name where we meet the speaker, the number where the speaker cites it — not at regular intervals like a slideshow.
The key edit decisions, named:
- Title over warmth, not black. Opening the title over the clay B-roll set the tone in frame one and served the muted viewer immediately.
- Name super after the opening sentence. Timing it to a natural pause let it inform without interrupting the performance.
- One appearance each. The name comes up once; the count-up plays once. Nothing repeats. Repetition here would read as automated.
- Captions on their own track, clear of the lower third. Accessibility and the name super coexist because we planned their vertical space (§34.2, Chapter 36).
- An end card with a call to action. The piece closes on the logo and "book a class" — the branded job the whole video exists to do (Chapter 22, §22.5), delivered as the last, cleanest graphic.
We export a 16:9 master and then a 9:16 version, and in the vertical crop we re-check every graphic against the tighter social safe zones (Chapter 23, §23.1), nudging the lower third and captions inward. The style kit made this painless: because every graphic obeyed the same rules, adjusting them for a second aspect ratio was a matter of moving, not redesigning.
♿ Accessibility & Inclusion, verified before delivery. We ran the final checklist: text contrast is strong in both aspect ratios; no information is carried by color alone (the terracotta bar is decoration, never meaning); nothing flashes; every graphic holds long enough to read unhurried; captions are present, legible, and never collide with the lower third. A muted viewer with imperfect eyesight, on a phone, gets the whole piece. That is the standard, and it is not extra — it is what "finished" means.
Discussion questions
- We filled in the style kit before placing any graphic. What would likely have gone wrong if we'd designed the title, then the lower third, then the stat, each in the moment?
- The lower third's bar wipes in four frames before the text. Why does that tiny stagger read as more "designed," and where else could you use a staggered reveal?
- We opened the title over B-roll of hands in clay instead of over black. Argue both sides — when is black the right choice for a title, and when is footage?
- The animated element (the count-up) came from a line the owner actually said. Why is a graphic that's motivated by the content stronger than one chosen for its own sake?
- We stopped at one animated element and named the temptation to add more. Give an example from your own work where cutting a graphic would have improved the piece.
- Captions and the lower third were deliberately kept in separate vertical zones. What breaks if you ignore this, and how does it connect to designing for both 16:9 and 9:16?
- The whole graphics pass took judgment more than software skill. Which decision in this build was the hardest design call, and which was the hardest timing call?
Your turn: build the package for your own piece
Take a piece you have already cut — your Project 3, your Project 2, or the anchor talking-head — and build its full graphics package, following this build order:
- Fill in a style kit first (FIGURE CS2.1's Settings Box, or FIGURE 34.8 from the chapter). Fonts, colors, sizes, placement, timing. From the brand if there is one.
- Build an opening title over your warmest opening shot, named for the story not the deliverable, animated with one small eased move, inside title-safe.
- Build a lower-third template for your speaker(s): name and role, an accent that carries the brand, staggered bar-then-text reveal, placed in the lead-room dead space, up once, held read-twice.
- Build one motivated animated element — a count-up, an underline wipe, a location card, a logo sting — that a line in your piece actually asks for. One.
- Lay it on the timeline on tracks above the picture, timed to the story beats, with captions on their own track clear of the lower third. Then turn the graphics tracks off and confirm the film still plays.
Show it to someone and ask two questions: "Who is speaking, and what's the piece called?" (Did the graphics do their job?) and "Did anything on screen distract you?" (Did you stay restrained?) If they can answer the first and say no to the second, you have built a professional graphics package — which is exactly what Project 3 needed.
Key takeaways
- Decide the style kit before you place a single graphic. Fonts, colors, sizes, placement, and timing chosen up front are what make separate graphics look like one designed system.
- Good framing is a gift to the graphics stage. The empty lead-room third the shooter left is where the lower third lives; center-framing would have left nowhere clean to put it.
- The title's best move is small. A tiny eased fade-and-rise over warm footage sets tone in two seconds without a flourish; open over something human, not over black, when the story is human.
- Lower thirds are mostly timing. The design is quick from the kit; the craft is when it appears (after the opening sentence), how long it holds (read-twice), and showing it once. A four-frame bar-then-text stagger buys polish for free.
- One motivated animated element beats three decorative ones. The count-up worked because a line in the piece asked for it, and because it eased onto its value like a real object settling.
- Graphics ride above the picture, timed to story beats, with captions in their own lane. The test that it's right: turn the graphics tracks off and the film still plays.
- The whole pass is judgment, not software. Every decision here — what to name it, when to show it, what to leave out — is available in free tools. Restraint is the professionalism.