Chapter 34 — Exercises

Motion graphics is a making skill dressed up as a design topic. You get better at it by building titles and lower thirds — badly at first, then cleanly — and by training your eye on the thousands of graphics you already scroll past every day. Every exercise here can be done in free software (DaVinci Resolve, or any editor with a title tool and keyframes) and many on a phone. Do the starred ones; they build straight into Project 3.

Exercises are graded by effort and depth:

• ⭐ Warm-up — a few minutes; locks in one idea.
• ⭐⭐ Core — the real practice; do as many as you can.
• ⭐⭐⭐ Stretch — deeper or more ambitious; the biggest gains.

Model solutions and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises are in Answers to Selected Exercises at the back of the book. Attempt each one before reading its answer.

A. Seeing the craft (Eye & Ear Training)

No software — just your attention. This is where taste is built.

1. ⭐ The lower-third audit. Watch any news broadcast or interview show for five minutes. For three different name supers, note: (a) which side of the frame it's on, (b) whether it covers the person, (c) roughly how long it holds. Do the pros follow the rules from §34.3? (Answer provided.)

2. ⭐ Count the fonts. Freeze on the opening title of three different shows or films. Count the distinct typefaces in each title card. What's the most you found, and did the busiest one look better or worse than the simplest?

3. ⭐⭐ Information or noise. Watch a two-minute stretch of any polished video and list every motion graphic that appears. For each, name which of the five jobs it does (identify / orient / clarify / brand / guide the eye) — or mark it "noise" if it does none. (Answer discusses how to judge.)

4. ⭐⭐ Find the easing. Watch title cards and lower thirds animate on, and try to see the easing: does the element arrive at constant speed and stop dead (linear), or accelerate and settle (eased)? Find one of each. Once you can see easing, you can't un-see it.

5. ⭐⭐⭐ The sound-off test. Pick a captioned social video and watch it fully muted. Can you follow it from the text alone? Is the text readable at the speed it moves? Write two sentences on what the kinetic captions did well and one thing that failed the sound-off viewer. (Model critique provided.)

B. Reading graphics (Read the Sequence)

6. ⭐ Picture it. Re-read FIGURE 34.3 (the lower-third layout). Without looking, sketch a 16:9 box, place a subject on one third looking across the frame, and mark where the name super goes. Compare. Did you put it in the lead-room dead space or across the face?

7. ⭐⭐ Diagnose the field. In FIGURE 34.7 ("Meet the owner"), THE CUT says the name fades up six seconds after the interview cuts in. Rewrite THE CUT and THE EFFECT as if the name instead appeared on the very first frame of the interview. How does the feeling change, and why is the delayed version usually better? (Answer provided.)

8. ⭐⭐ Re-time the kinetic quote. Look at FIGURE 34.6 (the kinetic pull-quote). It builds one phrase per beat. Rewrite the storyboard so the whole quote appears at once and only the final word animates. Which version serves the line better, and in what situation would you choose each? (Answer discusses the trade-off.)

9. ⭐⭐⭐ Write your own. Watch a title sequence or a graphics-heavy explainer (60–90 seconds) and write a Described Sequence — a short table (# / element / on-screen action / sound / how it leaves) plus a one-paragraph walkthrough of why the graphics are designed and timed the way they are. This is exactly the skill Case Study 1 models. (Model answer provided.)

C. Type and titles (Design This)

10. ⭐ Title-safe or not. Build one title card in any editor. Turn on the title-safe/action-safe overlay. Deliberately place the text touching the frame edge, screenshot it, then move it inside title-safe and screenshot again. Keep both — the difference is your new default.

11. ⭐⭐ One title, three voices. Set the same three words (e.g., "The Morning Shift") three times, each in a typeface with a clearly different voice: one editorial serif, one bold modern sans, one damaged/display face. Which voice suits a documentary? A product launch? A horror short? Type is meaning — prove it to yourself. (Answer provided.)

12. ⭐⭐ Make it survive the footage. Put a thin white title over a bright, moving shot with no separation. Scrub the whole clip — watch it disappear. Now fix it three ways on three copies: (a) a drop shadow, (b) a thin stroke, (c) a gradient scrim. Which keeps the text most readable without drawing attention to itself?

13. ⭐⭐⭐ The hierarchy fix. Take a three-line title where all lines are the same size (title, subtitle, date). Redesign it so the eye reads them in the right order using only size and weight — no color, no motion. Then justify, in one sentence per line, why each is sized as it is. (Model answer provided.)

D. Lower thirds and name supers (Build This)

14. ⭐ Two lines, right order. Build one lower third with a name line and a role line. Make the name clearly larger and heavier than the role. That's it — the most-used graphic in video, done correctly.

15. ⭐⭐ Put it in the dead space. Take a real interview or talking-head clip (yours, or the anchor talking-head setup). Frame permitting, place your lower third in the subject's lead-room side, off the face, inside title-safe, with a subtle bar or gradient for legibility. If the framing gives you nowhere to put it, note that — it's a lesson about shooting for the edit. (Answer provided.)

16. ⭐⭐ Time it like a pro. Animate that lower third: eased fade-and-nudge in over ~14 frames, hold ~7 seconds, eased out. Bring it up a beat or two after the person starts talking, not on frame one. Watch it back — does the timing feel calm and confident, or rushed?

17. ⭐⭐⭐ Five Ways: one name, five treatments. Build the same name super five ways, changing exactly one dimension each time: (a) position/side, (b) with vs without a scrim, (c) fast vs slow ease, (d) two lines vs three, (e) with vs without a sound sting. Watch all five. Which reads most "designed," and which is over-built? Say why. (Answer discusses the trade-offs.)

18. ⭐⭐ The recurring-name test. In a two-speaker edit, deliberately re-show each name every time you cut back to them, then remove all but the first appearance of each. Watch both. Which feels professional, and what does that tell you about how often to super a name? (Answer provided.)

E. Keyframes and easing (Animate This)

19. ⭐ Two keyframes, one fade. Fade any title up: opacity 0% keyframe at frame 0, 100% at frame 15. Play it. You have just made your first animation. Note how many frames the software filled in for you (interpolation).

20. ⭐⭐ Linear vs eased, back to back. Slide a lower third in with linear keyframes, duplicate it, and ease the second (ease-out). Put them side by side and watch. Write one sentence naming the difference in feel — the sentence that separates amateur motion from professional. (Answer provided.)

21. ⭐⭐ The overshoot. Animate a title to slide to its mark, overshoot slightly past it, and settle back (a tiny bounce). Then compare to a clean ease-out with no overshoot. When does the overshoot add life, and when does it feel gimmicky? (Answer discusses restraint.)

22. ⭐⭐⭐ Match the pacing. Take one energetic, fast-cut clip and one slow, contemplative clip. Animate the same lower third onto each, but tune the timing so the motion belongs to each piece's pace. Write down the two different frame counts you landed on and why. (Model answer provided.)

23. ⭐⭐ The count-up. Animate a number from 0 to a value (e.g., "0 → 4,200") over about a second, eased. Add a label. This single element makes data feel earned — where in Project 3 could it go?

F. Kinetic type and simple elements (Build This)

24. ⭐⭐ Sync to the beat. Take ten seconds of music or narration. Lay it on the timeline, find the beats or the stressed words, and build a short kinetic phrase whose words land on those beats. Then deliberately knock the words off the beat by a few frames. Feel how much sync matters. (Answer provided.)

25. ⭐⭐ The underline wipe. Build a title, then animate a single rectangle (an underline or bar) that wipes in beneath it, eased. One shape, two keyframes — and the title suddenly looks designed. Reuse this everywhere.

26. ⭐⭐⭐ The 10-second explainer. Make a 10-second all-graphics passage (no live footage) that explains one simple idea using kinetic type and one animated element — a stat, an arrow, a map dot. Hold everything to a style kit and to a beat. This is the core of a modern social explainer. (Model answer provided.)

27. ⭐ Photosensitivity check. Take any animated element you've built and confirm it never flashes more than three times per second and has no large high-contrast strobe. Accessibility is a pass/fail gate, not a nicety.

G. Fix the graphic (Fix the Shot)

28. ⭐⭐ Fix the failed lower third. A described graphic: a thin grey name super in a script font sits centered across the speaker's mouth, holds 12 seconds, re-appears on every cut back, and slides in at constant speed. Name every problem and its specific fix, sorted by whether it's a design, placement, timing, or motion error. (Answer provided.)

29. ⭐⭐ Fix the title. A described title: four different fonts, thin white text running to the frame edge over a bright drifting sky, on screen for one second. List every fix. (Answer provided.)

30. ⭐⭐⭐ Fix the over-animated open. A described opening: the title spins in, each letter bounces separately, a lens-flare template plays behind it, and a whoosh sound hits — for a somber documentary about loss. Explain why it fails the piece, then redesign it in words to match the tone. (Model answer provided.)

H. Settings and scenarios (Settings Drill)

31. ⭐⭐ Write the style kit. For each brief, fill in a minimal style kit (fonts, color, sizes, placement, in/hold/out timing) from FIGURE 34.8: (a) a corporate testimonial for a bank; (b) a punchy 9:16 product reel; (c) a quiet documentary short. You'll refine on the timeline — this is your first instinct. (Model answers provided.)

32. ⭐⭐ Spec the safe zones. A client wants the same interview delivered in 16:9 for their site and 9:16 for social. Write where the lower thirds and captions must sit in each aspect ratio and why the 9:16 version needs them further from the edges. (Answer provided.)

I. Integrate and interleave (Cut This / Interleaved)

33. ⭐⭐ Layer it on the timeline. Take a 30-second interview cut and add the full graphics layer: an opening title, one lower third for the speaker, and one animated element — each on its own video track above the footage (Chapter 26). Confirm the picture still plays cleanly with the graphics track turned off. (Answer provided.)

34. ⭐⭐⭐ Interleave — the finished 30 seconds. Combine four chapters: cut 30 seconds of interview with a J- or L-cut (Ch.28), color-correct it to neutral (Ch.31), add a music bed under it (Ch.33), and finish with a title and lower third (this chapter). This is the entire finishing stack in miniature. Note which layer was hardest and why. (Model answer provided.)

35. ⭐⭐ Interleave — frame for the graphic. Re-shoot (or re-frame) one talking-head shot from your earlier work specifically to leave dead space for a lower third. Compare it to your original framing. This closes the loop between Chapter 6 (composition), Chapter 19 (the interview), and this chapter. (Answer provided.)

J. Synthesis

36. ⭐⭐⭐ Teach it back. In about 200 words, explain to a beginner why "a graphic is information or it's noise," using the five jobs, one concrete example of a graphic that informs, and one of a graphic that's just decoration. Teaching it is the strongest test that you own it. (Model answer provided.)

37. ⭐⭐⭐ The Project 3 graphics pass. Complete the Production Checkpoint: a style kit, an opening title, lower thirds for every speaker (as a reusable template), and one simple animated element — all consistent, all eased, all motivated. Then watch the piece with the graphics track off and on. Write one sentence on what the layer added. This is the chapter, delivered.

38. ⭐⭐⭐ Recreate It. Pick a title card or lower third you admire from a real show, film, or channel. Study it, then rebuild its approach with your own text and project — the same kind of typeface voice, placement, palette, and easing, not a copy of its content. Put your version beside the original (screenshot both) and write one sentence on what you learned trying to match its restraint. Reverse-engineering the best is the fastest way to raise your own floor. (Model critique provided.)

When you can build a clean lower third in the dead space, ease it on and off, and stop yourself before adding the second animated element you don't need, you have the whole discipline. Move on to Chapter 35, where graphics stop sitting on top of the picture and start living inside it.