How we create YouTube videos at scale
Making MoGRT toolkits the NerdWallet way
Ask any motion designer what their least favorite activity is, and you’ll likely hear something like: “re-exporting a lower third with slightly different text for the millionth time.” It might only take a minute to update that lower third once, but when you’re doing it over and over — remaking the same animation with changes to the text, color, or length — it’s a big time suck! And while “animation” and “efficiency” don’t often go hand in hand, there is a better way: Motion Graphic Templates, or MoGRTs. More specifically, building MoGRT toolkits for you and your editors.
Instead of being an animation bottleneck, you can empower your editors to easily create customized, sophisticated animation themselves. And don’t worry, you won’t code yourself out of a job. As video and motion design tools become increasingly accessible, knowing how to use newer technologies like MoGRTs to make video better and faster makes you even more valuable to your clients or your company. At NerdWallet we saw a 2–3x increase in video production efficiency after implementing our MoGRT visual design system and toolkit. That’s a big win.
If you’re already familiar with MoGRTs and want to dive in, we’ve created a free MoGRT pack (download link here) to spread the MoGRT love. Use it right out of the box, or open it in After Effects to see how it was built, remix it, and make it your own.
If you want to learn more about the toolkit we created for NerdWallet’s Youtube videos, read on.
But first: what is a MoGRT?
MoGRTs are an Adobe technology that enables motion designers to create animated templates in After Effects that editors can use in Premiere.
And who are you again?
I’m Chloe, Lead Motion Designer and Art Director at NerdWallet. I’m part of our small and mighty internal creative agency, Brand Studio.
When my colleague Felicia (editor/producer who runs our YouTube channel) approached me last year talking excitedly about something that sounded a lot like yogurt, I was intrigued. I’d heard of MoGRTs, but I hadn’t used them much before. As a MoGRT connoisseur, Felicia was extra excited because Adobe had quite literally just released a new feature that was going to change everything: media replacement. This one update, she said, would make it possible to build a robust MoGRT toolkit of distinct, branded, animation-rich templates and level up our YouTube programming. And that would mean she could spend less time in After Effects and more time on storytelling in Premiere to make better videos, faster.
And thus our MoGRT journey began.
How To MoGRT
There are many resources out there for folks just dipping a toe in MoGRTs (gross), such as this blog post and this eBook from Adobe. Check those out if you want to brush up on the basics. But in a nutshell, here’s how it’s done:
- Create some animation
- Open the Essential Graphics panel and drag in properties (or expression controls) you want your editor to be able to change
- Export as a MoGRT
- Open and use in Premiere
The Essential Graphics panel allows you to build animated templates and use snippets of code (expressions) to hook up your animated properties to custom, easy-to-use controls like sliders, checkboxes, dropdown menus, and more. Fortunately, you don’t have to be an Expression Wizard to create powerful MoGRTs. Many properties can be dragged straight into the Essential Graphics panel, and just like that you can change them without digging into your timeline layers and keyframes. Sometimes, you’ll need to write (or Google) more complex code to drive the behavior or give the granularity of control that you’re after; but most of the time, you can combine and layer a few simple expression controls, functions, and conditionals to achieve fine control of your animated templates.
MoGRT Toolkits
Now that you’re sold on the power of MoGRTs, you may be wondering how to actually make some of your own. Good news: we’re gonna break it down for you the NerdWallet way:
- Create a framework
- Stick to best practices for clean code
- Prioritize user experience
- Take advantage of these MoGRT ride-or-dies
1. Create a framework
This project had a big goal: give Felicia the tools she needs to efficiently create branded, custom, animation-rich videos all in Premiere.
To do that, we had to start with a robust visual design system. Senior Designer Natalie Cowan developed a digital collage style that nods to NerdWallet’s editorial roots through use of paper cutouts, grainy textures, and black and white photography — complemented by a zippy modern color palette to bring it into the 21st century. The final graphics package had well over 100 different layouts, with even more possible “looks” as we swapped out paper textures and colors. It would be a full-time job to animate and export all of the options on an ongoing basis. To turn it into a library of MoGRTs instead, we needed a framework.
I noticed that there were several smaller design elements (for example, text cutouts) that appeared in most layouts. Other layouts combined several elements (shapes, images, text, backgrounds) to create a more bespoke whole. I decided to approach the MoGRT toolkit by breaking it apart along those lines: “elements” and “combos.” Together, elements and combos give our editors both flexibility and efficiency.
- Elements are the smaller components that I knew would give our editors more optionality to layer and combine as needed in their compositions. This included things like text cutouts, lower thirds, markups, images, number callouts, and background transitions. As standalone MoGRTs, these have far more controls and adjustable properties. The animation below was created with four separate element MoGRTs: text cutouts, markup (arrow), paper cutout (blue paper), and background (beige paper)
- Combos, on the other hand, were intended to work more “out of the box,” using pre-designed layouts with multiple elements. By adding controls for the visibility of different elements within a combo (for example, being able to turn off background layer), they become very powerful; one combo can be used in pieces or as a whole. Using layer visibility to our advantage helped us do more with a smaller library of MoGRTs. More later on how to build on/off visibility controls!
Taking the time upfront to lay this groundwork gave us the base we needed to build a robust, consistent MoGRT toolkit. It also gave shape to our documentation guide, which I wrote as I developed new MoGRTs for Felicia to test and add to the toolkit. Both the framework and the documentation made it possible to more easily onboard freelance motion designers (like our pal Jacob Richardson!👋) to help build pieces of this toolkit, too. Wins all around.
2. Stick to best practices for clean code
JavaScript is a pretty flexible scripting language, but there are a few common best practices and conventions that are best to follow (especially if you’re just starting out — better to build those good habits early).
- Define variables, and use them! Variables can vastly simplify your code and make it easier to write, read, and (maybe most importantly) debug when something goes awry.
var layerPosition = thisComp.layer(“Layer 01”).transform.position// Instead of having to write “thisComp.layer(“Layer 01”).transform.position” every time, you can just write “layerPosition” — saving you precious time and brain cells!
- Use clear and consistent naming conventions. “layerPosition” is a whole lot clearer than “position” or “p.” Think of the unfortunate souls that may need to crack open this file one day and do future you/them a solid and name your variables (layers, expression controls) clearly.
- Speaking of expression controls, I like to create one null layer named CONTROL in my compositions that acts as the keeper of most (if not all) my expression controls — at least all global controls (for example, every MoGRT in this toolkit had global frames per second and wiggle frequency/amplitude controls to give it that classic collage low-frame stop-motion feel). Float that CONTROL null to the top of your layer stack and it’s always easy to find. This tip comes straight from Zack Lovatt and Nol Honig’s Expression Session class on School of Motion: an excellent course for anyone looking to build or refresh their expression skills.
Stepping down from the soapbox for a moment, though — let’s be real about the fact that when you’re working against deadlines, you gotta work fast. While the code we write may not always be the most elegant way to solve the problem, we can at least make sure that code is intelligible by following best practices like these. At the end of the day, the inelegant solution that works is better than the elegant solution that doesn’t. It’s most important that you can understand and follow the logic you’ve created; if you can read it, you can always go back and retrofit it.
3. Prioritize user experience
Following best practices and clean code puts our own user experience first as the builders of these tools — but what about the people we’re actually building these tools for? We can’t forget that at the end of the day, we’re building products with end users, and we need the final output to work well for them. The editor with 10 minutes to kick out a render? Your MoGRT control panel better be easy to navigate, clearly documented, and strike that balance of enough controls to be useful but not so many controls that it slows them down.
When I’m tempted to add just one more layer of controls to an already-beefy MoGRT, I remind myself of those massive TV remote controls from my youth: the visual reminder that “more ≠ better.” If you know who will be using this MoGRT at the end of the day, ask them for feedback!
4. Take advantage of these MoGRT ride-or-dies
Now we’re really going to dive into the technical nitty gritty. Are you the person on the team who needs to quickly build MoGRTs with lots of optionality and controls? Here are some tips, including sample code.
Checkboxes:
The checkbox expression control can be applied to just about anything. The input is a boolean value, either true (1) or false (0). One of my primary use cases is using checkboxes to control opacity and turn layer visibility on or off.
In this example of our collage photo element, I’m using checkboxes to control the opacity of a few adjustment layers in my timeline. These adjustment layers are applying grayscale and levels effects and adding a grain texture overlay. Anyone using this MoGRT can drag in a full-color image into the media replace input (more on this below) and quickly apply the photo effects via these checkboxes. No need to edit photos in Photoshop! It can all be done in Premiere with the click of a checkbox.
Here’s an expression to hook up a checkbox to opacity. You’d put this expression on your layer’s opacity property.
var textureCheckbox = thisComp.layer(“CONTROL”).effect(“Texture”)(“Checkbox”);
if (textureCheckbox == 1) {
100
} else {
0
}// If the checkbox on the CONTROL layer is checked (equal to 1), opacity for this layer should be 100%. Otherwise, opacity should be 0%
Sliders:
The slider expression control gives you a number input control with a handy little slider UI. You can easily clamp the slider to a specified value range (0 to 100, for example) to limit the range of inputs. This can be useful to drive a parameter like scale or position along a single axis — or, to give your editor an easy way to cycle through visual design options.
Here, I’ve put an expression on the opacity of my markup layers that connects it to the slider expression control. It looks pretty similar to the checkbox expression above, but instead of just turning a single layer on or off, it cycles through several layers.
var markupSelection = thisComp.layer(“CONTROL”).effect(“Markup”)(“Slider”);if (markupSelection == 1) {
100
} else {
0
}// This same expression is applied to all the different layers with different markup options, swapping out “1” on the first line so that each layer’s opacity is mapped to a unique number on the slider control.
🔥 Hot tip🔥 Add the Math.round(value) function to your slider expression control to round your slider inputs to the nearest whole number. This creates a better UX in the control panel, since your slider will “snap” only to the whole numbers that you’re using to drive the behavior in your expression.
Conditionals:
If it’s not abundantly clear already, I love conditionals like if/else statements. You define a rule (or a condition) that the expression needs to meet — and if it does, the code will run. For example, if checkbox A is checked, do this; if checkbox B is checked, do this; if checkbox A and B are checked, do this, etc.
A fun example of this is creating different layout options based on checkboxes. As you can see above, when you click the checkbox for the “center image,” you get a different layout — no left/right images, and a different position for the yellow circle. The opacity controls we’ve already covered, but here’s what my expression on the yellow circle’s position looks like:
var visibilityMiddleCollage= thisComp.layer(“CONTROL”).effect(“Visibility collage middle”)(“Checkbox”);if (visibilityMiddleCollage == 1) {
[1920,500]
} else {
[1920,1080]
}// If the middle collage image is visible, the circle’s y position should change to 500. Note that the position output needs to be in an array with two values, since position is a multidimensional property on both x and y.
To make this even more powerful, you could add another layer of controls to drive the position of the yellow circle (like a Point expression control) instead of locking it into a fixed value. This way, you get the quick update to the layout from the checkbox and can continue to finesse the position if needed. That expression could look like this:
var visibilityMiddleCollage = thisComp.layer(“CONTROL”).effect(“Visibility collage middle”)(“Checkbox”);
var vsPosition = thisComp.layer(“CONTROL”).effect(“VS position”)(“Point”);
var newX = vsPosition[0];
var newY = vsPosition[1];if (visibilityMiddleCollage == 1) {
[1920+newX,500+newY]
} else {
[1920+newX,1080+newY]
}
Responsive Time:
This handy little marker functionality in the Composition dropdown allows you to “protect” certain parts of your animation (the intro and outro animations, for example), so that the MoGRT can be easily retimed in Premiere. So if you don’t know exactly how long the animation will need to be in the final edit, have no fear: throw some protected regions on your animation, and the editor can condense and extend it as needed in their timeline while ensuring your carefully keyframed work stays as intended. We recommend building your MoGRTs so the default time is the average duration you expect the element to stay on screen. For us, this was usually 8–10 seconds.
Media replacement: last but not least, the update that changed everything
In the before-times, any image layers in your MoGRT were fixed in your template. You could manipulate their properties, but the image itself stayed the same. After media replace was introduced, that image became replaceable (cue air horns). This opens up so much opportunity for customization: update a photo, change a background, replace a texture fill, etc. So with a few quick swaps, the same MoGRT can look very different. And it couldn’t be easier to do — just drag your media layer into the Essential Graphics panel.
Boldly MoGRTing where no one has MoGRTed before
What about footage, you ask? Alas, while video is supported by media replace, audio isn’t. This makes building MoGRTs that require synced audio very tricky — but also very necessary if someone is talking. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like audio will be supported anytime soon (if that changes, @ us, Adobe!). This meant we had to get creative with our latest interview-style YouTube show, which consists almost entirely of footage boxes animating around the screen in myriad configurations in and out.
To do this right, we called in certified Expression Wizard Zack Lovatt. He confirmed what we suspected: no one was really approaching YouTube videos — and certainly not interview-style videos — like this. A standard interview video typically uses hard cuts between one view and the next because…it’s hard to do it efficiently any other way. Creating dynamic animation with footage windows means that footage likely needs to be pulled into After Effects, which is good for animating but not good for editing. And on the flip, moving footage around in Premiere isn’t as controllable or customizable as it is in After Effects. With these constraints, we challenged ourselves to find the solution.
MoGRTS are CPU- and processor-intensive so the whole system needed to be dynamic, customizable, and small enough to be capable of supporting 10–30 minute videos without killing our computers. The design also needed to line up, crop, and resize footage while keeping talent fully-centered. There was a lot to figure out, but with Zack’s help, we were able to build a cutting-edge system that pushes MoGRTs to flex further than they’re strictly intended to — while still letting AE and Premiere do what they do best. This evolution of our MoGRT toolkit has been a total game changer, resulting in fast and efficient visual design, animation, and footage controls — all in Premiere.
In closing…
Working in the motion design/video industry requires you to have a learner’s mindset. By staying on top of the latest technology, it’s possible to make significant upgrades to workflows and output. Over the past year of building this MoGRT toolkit, I’m thankful for NerdWallet’s support as we invest time in upgrading our skills, experimenting, and creating new work. And the results are clear: this MoGRT toolkit has significantly increased our small team’s ability to produce Youtube videos at scale (for us, that’s 30+ minutes of original educational video content every month). So if you’re on the fence about figuring out how to incorporate MoGRTs into your workflow, here’s your sign that it can be well worth it.
For anyone at the start of their MoGRT journey — awesome! Go forth with a few tips from me, my friend. And if you’re an Expression Wizard who wants to work with us to build even more cutting-edge MoGRTs, or an editor who wants to create with our cutting-edge design system, get in touch and let’s get nerdy.
Want to be part of a team that writes about stuff like this? Check out open roles in Design + User Experience at NerdWallet.
