12th Grade — Motion Graphics Capstone: A Class Send-Off Reel

⏰ Do Now — Start Here

If you had 45 seconds to sum up this entire program -- four years, in one piece -- what specific moments or images would you actually choose?

🎯 Today's Big Question

What does a genuinely finished motion graphics piece look like, built from four years of this program's own real work?

📈 By the End of Today, You Will Be Able To

Plan and build a short (30-60 second) motion graphics reel using photos, video clips, and yearbook material from this year.
Apply real keyframe animation, text animation, and basic compositing techniques instead of only built-in template effects.
Export the finished reel at the correct settings to actually be shown at the Grand Send-Off.

🧰 What You'll Need

Yearbook photos/footage from this year (with appropriate permission)
Video/motion software available (Premiere Rush, CapCut, Canva, or Photoshop)
The Motion Path (companion book), as a concept reference

📋 Your Plan for Today

Day 1: Gather & Plan

Do Now (5 min, above).
Independent work (35 min): gather real photos/footage from this year and storyboard a rough sequence and pacing for the reel.

Day 2: Build

Independent production work (40 min): assemble the sequence and add at least one genuine keyframed text or graphic animation.

Day 3: Finish & Export

Independent work (25 min): finish compositing, titles, and music/sound if appropriate.
Export (15 min): export at the correct settings and confirm it plays back correctly.

🖥️ Today's Slide Deck

Short, on-the-board pacing slides — project these to follow along. (The full details are in the handout above, not here.)

📚 Key Words

Motion Graphics: Design that moves -- animated type, logos, or transitions, built frame by frame or on a timeline.
Compositing: Combining multiple visual layers (footage, graphics, text, effects) into one final integrated piece.
Text Animator: A control that animates specific text properties (position, opacity, tracking) letter by letter, word by word, or line by line.

✅ What Your Finished Work Should Include

Finished reel assessed for a real, deliberate sequence with at least one genuine keyframed animation, not just built-in transitions, and a correct final export.

Exit Ticket: Which single moment in the reel are you proudest of including, and why did it make the final cut?

📊 Before You Leave

Quick, anonymous class check-in -- takes less than a minute.

Class Check-In

📁 Portfolio Update — Once a Week

Once a week, add your best finished or in-progress yearbook (or, later, studio) work to your portfolio with a 1-2 sentence caption -- and once you're in the Design Studio phase, a photo of the piece in its real, installed location if possible. This is the same evidence trail you'll use for Archive & Portfolio and any PBAT/portfolio review.

✍️ Example description for your Google Sites portfolio (fill in YOUR blanks -- don't just copy this):

For this piece, I made ______________ (name what you made) for “Motion Graphics Capstone: A Class Send-Off Reel.” This project asked: “What does a genuinely finished motion graphics piece look like, built from four years of this program's own real work?” I used Motion Graphics by ______________ (explain how you used it in THIS piece). The hardest part was ______________, and I solved it by ______________. I'm proud of ______________ because ______________.

🔗 Want to Learn More?

The Motion Path (companion book)

🚀 The Extra Mile

Cross-Class Connection: The same storytelling and editing structure an English or Film Studies class teaches for a short narrative piece.

Career Connection: Directly ties to Video Design and Animation — a real send-off reel is a genuine, shareable portfolio piece.

Go further -- turn this into a portfolio piece:

Cut a second, even shorter (10-15 second) version of the reel specifically for social media, with different pacing than the full version. Start here: scrub through the full reel and mark your three strongest seconds before cutting anything for the short version.
Write a short "how I built this" breakdown of one specific animated moment in the reel and what made it work. Start here: pick the moment you're most proud of technically, not the flashiest one, before writing the breakdown.