In The Frame: Dan Lucyszyn-Hinton

On 03.12.10, In Articles, by Matt

Welcome to a new series on Motion Design Love. For ‘In The Frame’ we’re going to interviewing some motion graphic professionals on a number of aspects of the motion graphics industry, why they got into motion graphics, what they enjoy about it etc.. Hope you enjoy it and if you want to be in the next ‘In the Frame’ then get in touch!

In The Frame: Dan Lucyszyn-Hinton

So, tell us a little about yourself, who you are, where you work now and how long you’ve been in the industry?

I’m Dan Lucyszyn-Hinton – @dan_hin on twitter – I’m a Multimedia Designer at The Media Group in Ruddington (Nottingham , UK) and I’ve been in the industry for about two years now.

What made you go into motion graphics/ how did working in Motion graphics come about?

At first I fell into the role because we were taking all our authoring (DVDs, CD-ROMS etc) in-house. I actually started off as a Production Coordinator in our Media department, doing invoicing, project management etc and suddenly realised I could do a lot of the things that we were outsourcing. At the time that happened to be using Macromedia Director to author educational CDs for The FA! I soon realised that I loved animation and design (and to a lesser extent, scripting), and I made use of every opportunity I had to do more of those things.

What do you enjoy most about working in motion graphics?

Pretty much every day is different; I learn something new every week and I love those “making progress” moments…

What do you enjoy least about working in motion graphics?

Those days when you’re under the cosh and you know that you’ll have to pull a very late one in order to meet a deadline. And also when I’ve been under-briefed…

What has been you biggest highlight in motion graphics.

So far either the last job we did for the FA on their Respect Programme; or the awards visuals I did for the Sports Coach of the Year 2009. Nothing beats seeing your work on the big screens at an event!

What skill do you think a Motionographer needs?

Just one? Blimey. If anything, adaptability. Keeping up with new techniques and of course getting up to scratch with the tried and tested ones takes up a lot of time. You should be ready to get stuck into anything.

Is there any advice you’d give to an aspiring Motion graphics artist?

Never give up. It’s easy to see reels on mograph.net or cgtalk and think “I’ll never be that good”. It’s easy to forget that the people producing that standard of work will have been working for at least 3 or four years at uni and probably another 2 after that. Practice makes perfect!

What are your future plans in Motion Graphics?

I just want to keep producing better work – I think with work we’ve really pulled a great team together and we’re only just starting to see the potential that we can offer to clients. So more broadcast work. more VFX (I’ve really started to get into Syntheyes recently) and hopefully some slightly longer form work. I’ve got a couple of interesting projects in the pipeline that I can’t talk about at the moment, but watch this space!

So, Cinema 4D is your main software of choice, what do you like about it?

I use Cinema 4D almost every day. I love the MoGraph module most of all, it makes my life so much easier, but even the core package is excellent. It’s easy to use, plays nicely with other programs and one more thing….Xpresso. Programming for designers.

Is there a particular motion graphic piece you would reccomend to someone else?

There’s so much varied, amazing work going on. Rob Chiu (aka The Ronin) has just unveiled his promo for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games I just love everything about this. Of course sport always looks great in slow motion, but it’s such a well designed piece and it works in his very recognisable style. Something a little different is Ted Gore’s showreel which is just brilliant.