Journal · Process Notes

Inside a Motion Graphics Reel

The toolchain and the editing philosophy behind cutting two decades of broadcast work into ninety seconds.

· 4 min read

Motion graphics for advocacy is a different discipline from motion graphics for brand. You are not selling anyone a sneaker. You are trying to make a 40-page attorney general filing feel as urgent on-screen as it is on paper. That shapes every tool choice.

The stack

My reel is cut across four programs:

  • Cinema 4D — 3D type, camera moves, the bigger transitional pieces that need to feel cinematic
  • After Effects — everything compositional: overlays, lower-thirds, kinetic type, color pass
  • Apple Motion — fast templated work, lower-third packs, live-broadcast graphics where I need something cut-ready in 20 minutes
  • Final Cut + Premiere — offline and online edit, depending on what the rest of the pipeline is using

Hardware is the boring but decisive part: BlackMagic throughout. Decklink cards for I/O, a Mini Recorder for clean capture off live broadcasts, an ATEM switcher when I need real-time titling for press conferences. When a live show is running, "render later" is not a strategy. Everything has to be rendered already or renderable inline.

What goes in the reel

The hard decision on any reel is which 8 seconds of which 25 projects to use. My working rule: a reel has to communicate range, not highlight every project. Four categories earn their slot:

  1. Concert / live event — multi-cam broadcast feel, real audience energy
  2. Broadcast journalism — title cards, data viz, chyron work under real newsroom pressure
  3. Commercial direction — a couple of tight cuts where I directed talent, not just edited footage
  4. Motion-native design — pure graphics work where the type and the form do the speaking

That pacing gives anyone watching — a producer, a client, a journalist — three different reasons to keep watching past the first ten seconds.

Why advocacy motion is harder

A soda ad has one job: make you feel a feeling and then associate that feeling with the logo. An advocacy piece has two jobs: make you feel a feeling and leave you with enough verifiable information that you could go research the claim yourself. You can't just lean on vibe. The type has to be legible at speed. The data has to be cited on-screen. The pacing has to let a statistic breathe.

That is the constraint that shaped my style, and it is what makes commercial clients who hire me for advocacy-adjacent work — legal, healthcare, policy — come back. The discipline ports.

Watch the reel

The video is on the homepage in the Featured Work block — click the reel tile to play it inline.