Sebastian Lange is a German motion-graphics artist. He is best known for his widely viewed, self-described “experimental kinetic type animation” animation, Flickermood 2.0. The piece is collected, sophisticated and vivacious, but retrograde with its soundtrack and film-like dust and scratches. The Journal corresponded with Mr Lange over the last month and asked him about his project:

What got you in to motion graphics?

I think it started since I have been able to draw and paint, and when I was at school I got a book about Walt Disney animation techniques from my father. From that point on, animation was always something very fascinating for me – I used to draw a lot of flip-books at that time. I also did a lot of music and band-playing. There has always been a huge admiration for cd-covers, artist posters and music videos. After finishing school I didn’t really know what to do: studying or making music?

I went to the internationally known Basle School of Design in Switzerland – what seemed to be a good decision – and, luckily, I passed the entrance examination. I did five years of studies at the graphic-design master-class, and I specialised in motion graphics and new media. We were taught old-school animation techniques as well as new software tools like Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects. I gained some good knowledge in drawing, graphic design, Swiss typography and typefaces. After the studies, I first worked freelance and then became the Creative Director for Motion Graphics and New Media at qu-int.com in Germany. There I had the opportunity to work on a lot of interesting projects with bigger clients.

What’s the inspiration behind Flickermood?

I always wanted to combine the power of music with animated typography and graphic design to get beyond the usual ways of animated type.

When I did Flickermood, I took a long piece of time to experiment on the animation, searching for the right audio track and to try out some new things and styles.

I guess this is always a problem with commercial jobs: you don’t have enough time to experiment a lot – I guess if clients would pay a little more for this experimental phase the result would often be much better.

What were you looking for in a song?

I’m always looking for unique musical styles and handmade, more analogue sounds combined with some modern elements. I also like retro-sounding music that is remixed and sampled (like Flickermood). And it’s always good to have an audio track with many peaks and breaks, because this makes it easier to animate motion graphics on the music.

How long did it take to find what you wanted?

I found Flickermood [the track title and subsequent project name] by accident somewhere on iTunes, so I didn’t really search for it.

Was there this sort of “aha!” moment when you first heard it?

Yes, I thought that this would be the perfect song to work on in a motion graphics piece. It has a lot of great musical moments as well as surprising breaks and rhythmic figures all coming from the remix of this retro track. I’m also a guitarist, so I’m really interested in music and how it can be used to accentuate motion graphics, animation and film.

Did you pre-visualize or envision something?

Yes – I tried out a few animation styles before I found the music, and for some compositions I drew type on paper sheets or made drafts in Photoshop. Most of it was done in After Effects directly in the compositions.

I started working on it and I sent out some previews to Forss [the artist behind the song]. He was really surprised and liked the project. We started to think about the text for the typography animation.

At that point, Percy Shelley’s poem Mutability came to our minds, and I started using it for the animation. It also fit very well to the Flickermood track: In Mutability, Shelley basically says that nothing endures but change, and change is something that is always very clear in this musical piece. Change is also the only constant in our world. Flickermood expresses this through pulsing, throbbing, shifting and repositioning of typography and music, floating in fluid, drifting randomly but always precise and consistent.

Is that Helvetica you’re using?

Yes – it’s good old Helvetica. I know that I gets a lot of use, but I liked the retro style for this piece.

Flickermood appeared at a handful of festivals (including the 2009 International Festival of Cinema and Technology, the 2008 International Amsterdam Film Festival and 2008 Adobe Showreel). How was it received?

Some of them worked like a catalyst for the clip: if you are at one big festival you get a lot of new possibilities to screen your movies on other festivals. Generally, Flickermood was received very well and people like it very much.

I also showed it at some graphic design festivals and conferences and it always got a lot of applause. At one festival in Germany I had the chance to jump in as a speaker for David Carson (who couldn’t come) and the clip did very well. I also have been asked a lot about my animation techniques and whether I would do any tutorials on After Effects. A national German TV channel, ARD, even did a short documentation on the piece.

Are you planning on taking it elsewhere?

At the moment I’m not really planing to take it on more festivals.

What are your plans for the future? Any new motion graphic pieces in the works?

Yes, a lot of nice things coming up. Last weekend I was on a shoot with a group of light-painting artists from Germany called Lichtfaktor. We did a stop-motion shoot with long-exposure light animations for a local energy company which was really a good experience for me.

Another cool thing I’m working on is a trailer for Dipdive, a music film project, which I can’t really talk about a the moment, but it’s going to be great.

I’m planning some new personal projects for our experimental platform, My Name Was God, which I hope can be done by end of the year.

How do you feel about this idea of kinetic typography – a type that moves, is dynamic? What do you feel are the implications for the future?

What is really great about the kinetic type is that it has the ability to emphasis words like we do in the spoken word with our voices. So we can put a lot more expression and emotion on moving typography than in print. This is something that’s of course widely used in motion graphics and film, advertising, etc, but maybe we can also use this for new user interfaces on new devices (e.g. touch screens). If you think about the iPad and its new way of displaying magazines that have formerly been known for their print versions: I think it would be really cool to add some nice kinetic typography, not only for advertising but also to make articles, stories and interviews look more fresh and more adequate for their target audience.