When He Sees Me: Kinetic Type Animation

September 2025

This project was made for an assignment where I had to choose a dialogue scene or song lyrics to animate for 30 seconds to 1 minute, and add at least 2 sound effects for sound mixing. I had 6 weeks to make it, including 2 weeks for preproduction. I chose When He Sees Me from the Broadway musical Waitress.

My goal was to use the motion of the camera, the font styles, and colors to effectively capture the aesthetic of the musical’s setting and the song’s emotional transition from comedic exaggeration of fear and paranoia over falling in love to the exhilarating sensation of being swept off your feet.

I looked up examples of existing typography and kinetic animation to draw inspiration of creative motion design, as well as further researching diner aesthetics and the set design of the musical to better capture the environmental feel in which the song takes place.

Diner Aesthetic Moodboard

Musical Aesthetic Moodboard

I created concept sketches to explore different directions I could take for the motion in different parts of the song, the composition, and different elements I could incorporate to create a strong aesthetic. I drew up an in-depth storyboard plan to create a solid plan, more-so for all motion, of both the text and camera, rather than planning the aesthetics.

Initial Concept Sketches

Storyboard Page 1

Storyboard Page 2

Storyboard Page 3

Storyboard Page 4

I created a pitch deck with all my preproduction materials, including a written synopsis and treatment, mood boards, exploratory research, style frames, concept sketches, storyboards, and a project timeline.

Style Frame (1st Half)

Style Frame (1st Half)

Type Styles Experimentation

Type Motion Notes

Style Frame (2nd Half)

Style Frame (2nd Half)

Scrapped Concept for 2nd Half

Pitch Deck

I made the animation fully in After Effects, doing most of my work in the speedgraph with easy-ease and adjusting the camera movement. I utilized tools and effects such as masks, glowing effects, opacity and position animators, and gradients. I also mixed in 6 different sound effects throughout different points of the song.

My final project was graded with full points. From this experience, I learned the merits of having a solid plan, which allowed me to get an ambitious project done in time. Thanks to in-depth and detailed planning, it didn’t take long to correct and pivot when something didn’t work as well as I originally hoped it would.