Tom Wilson’s Mystic Highway Proposed Title Sequence Animation

2020, Aug 15 | Motion Graphics, Process

Tom Wilson’s Mystic Highway was a partnership pilot project between Tom Wilson (Junkhouse, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, LeE HARVeY OsMOND) and Steady Canoe. While assisting with graphics and video production, I offered to create a short animated intro that would help delight audiences and inspire them to watch Tom Wilson’s performance of music woven between him reading excerpts from his book, Beautiful Scars. Tom is a triple threat: a visual artist, an acclaimed songwriter and performer, and an author. I proposed to parse a piece of his art digitally and have the painting’s elements dance on screen to set the stage for the show.

Two men are playing piano and guitar in front of a banner on a lit up set.
Storyboard to show how Tom's art would be animated.
A storyboard helped me to demonstrate my intended flow of the animation sequence.
I had Tom hand letter the alphabet using an acrylic pen, then I created a digital font.
I parsed the painting in Adobe Photoshop and redrew elements in Adobe Illustrator to be used in Adobe After Effects.

Here is the proposed video as it was presented to Steady Canoe as an intro for the series. 

Original Artwork by Tom Wilson, Mystic Highway
Original Music by Tom Wilson, performed by Tom Wilson and Jesse O’Brien
At the MuleSpinner in Hamilton On
Music production by Steady Canoe with the help of Soundstill Productions
July 2020