Empower the Planet

YouTube Channel Animation

Client Legacy Vision Media
Youtube Channel Graphics

David Lockhart travels across the globe, highlighting those empowering their communities – all in the name of rock and roll!

Born out of a time when travel was unfortunately unwise and outright banned by several destinations, the Empower the Planet World Tour aimed to bring some excitement to audiences stuck at home across the globe by sharing some of David Lockhart’s travels and encounters. With the first episode quickly gaining over 10,000 views, the series ended up spanning 16 episodes, virtually visiting visiting four continents across the globe, and racking up over 150,000 views.

Due to the small problem of a deadly disease raging across the globe we were unfortunately unable to go out and about with a camera and thus had to simply make do with ready-made footage. Largely this worked rather well, but occasionally we needed something more – and the best way to create something more without a camera was to create it digitally. This, coupled with the fact that each and every episode would need unique motion graphics and visuals to give the show its identity meant that we suddenly had quite a chunk of work on our plate and had to embark on designing a full motion graphics visual package.

The vast majority of graphics and effects were created within After Effects, with a small number complemented by materials created with Adobe Illustrator. With some of the scenes featuring high-resolution 3D models, we sometimes had to resort to employing the use of render farms to power through particularly demanding renders!

The Opening Sequence

Opening titles of any show set the tone and lay out the track for what’s to come. It was key that Empower the Planet’s titles got audiences riled up in a good mood, ready to experience the adventure to come.

With David’s Hollywood background and position as the rock and roll actor, we thought it only right that the opening titles thematically reflect this, featuring numerous references to movies and rock culture.

It opens with a scene of Lockhart's film: Lockhart: Unleashing the Talisman (2016) inserted onto an Indiana Jones-esque visual, with an iconic red travel-montage line from the franchise slicing across the screen.

What follows after that is potentially the most Rock 'n Roll card of the entire title sequence; the map burns away to reveal David Lockhart's name written in fire.

To accompany his name and play on the theme of Rock 'n Roll, spotlight beams swing down from above and help to light the scene.

After a few glorious blazing moments, a guitar spawns out of Lockhart's name and rushes towards the camera, transitioning the sequence to the next scene. — What follows after that is potentially the most Rock 'n Roll card of the entire title sequence; the map burns away to reveal David Lockhart's name written in fire. To accompany his name and play on the theme of Rock 'n Roll, spotlight beams swing down from above and help to light the scene. After a few glorious blazing moments, a guitar spawns out of Lockhart's name and rushes towards the camera, transitioning the sequence to the next scene.

More Jones-esque lines sweep down, arranged in a pattern reminiscent of guitar strings. The inner fill of the lines reduces in opacity to reveal another high-octane scene from Lockhart: Unleashing the Talisman.

Keeping to the Rock theme, David Lockhart promptly morphs into the head of a guitar which is then swiftly wrapped in spirals of fire.

With a truly explosive explosion, a shiny black, gold-trimmed, THE ROCK & ROLL ACTOR graphic emerges from the fiery guitar, flanked on both sides by more blue spotlight beams.

We then briefly return back to the red-line-over-a-map style card in which we get enticing glimpses at the sorts of adventures we can expect to go on with Empower the Planet before we're whisked away into the final stretch of the opening titles.

The final sequence is a direct homage/parody to famous studio logos, in reference to Lockhart's Hollywood career, with the words 'EMPOWER THE PLANET' replacing original branding. Season 1 parodied Universal whilst Season 2 took aim at 20th Century Fox. This bit in particular took up a significant amount of time as we carefully examined the logos and attempted to recreate as many elements of them as possible.

The closing card; we see the main title completed with its subtitles, closing off an exhilarating thirty seconds and sending the audience on their way into the weird and wonderful world of David Lockhart adventures during lockdown.

Season 1 Opening Sequence:

Season 2 Opening Sequence:

On Screen Graphics

Throughout the show we’re introduced to various characters and places – all of whom need a proper introduction. Therefore, countless chyrons, titles, and motion graphic overlays were created. Each were carefully crafted to uphold the style of the show so you can expect to see the signature Empower The Planet text-on-fire look across the board.

Chyrons

As we encounter all sorts of people and places, it’s a good idea to let your audience know exactly who or what they’re dealing with. Throughout Empower The Planet episodes you’ll come across chyrons – a selection of which can be seen here. In the actual episodes these are animated in, with the ring of fire leading the way before the black box and text follow behind.

They follow closely with the Rock ‘n Roll style of ETP – the fire being a recurring motif throughout that helps remind audiences that they’re watching the one and only David Lockhart in Empower the Planet World Tour.

Location Titles

A bit grander than the humble chyron, location titles were in Futura Bold typeface and surrounded by the ETP fire that we all know and love by this point. In some cases we couldn’t help but add a little more flat; with the ‘Japan’ title we felt it suitable to sprinkle in a few floating cherry blossom petals. You can also see the title graphic that was created for the three-part Mysteries of the World special.

Miscellaneous Motion Graphics

Sometimes episodes just needed that special and unique motion graphic to highlight a point particularly clearly – below are a few used in various episodes:

Play

Social Media Spots

Shows these days are nothing without a spot of social media promotion sending audiences their way – and Empower the Planet was no different. We re-created and adapted the Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox sequences of the opening titles to Instagram feed and story formats. And when we reached 100,000 YouTube views we created a celebratory Instagram feed video to mark the achievement.

The social media interstitials were repurposed to fit their various Instagram formats and also featured built-in flexibility to allow for changing the tune-ins, enabling us to roll out the spots on specific days with specific times, such as ”New Episode Thursday’ or ‘New Episode Tonight’.

100k Celebratory Post

A shiny token of thanks to audiences and David Lockhart himself for bravely backing the series, made to celebrate passing the milestone of 100,000 views on YouTube.

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