Jarrett Heather presents: Word Crimes (2014)
Jarrett Heather is the artist behind Weird Al&#x27;s &quot;Word Crimes&quot; video released in 2014 (at 48.4 million views now).<p>Word Crimes: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc</a><p>&quot;Word Crimes&quot; is Weird Al&#x27;s spot-on parody of Robin Thicke&#x27;s &quot;Blurred Lines&quot; with T.I. and Pharrell Williams. I think Weird Al&#x27;s version is better and more educational than the original -- smart and catchy like a modern Schoolhouse Rock.<p>Blurred Lines: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU</a><p>Weird Al contacted Jarrett Heather after being impressed by &quot;Shop Vac&quot;, his previous work with kinetic text (typographic animation), which he made using animation tools like AfterEffects.<p>Shop Vac: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y4sOfO8Ei1g" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=y4sOfO8Ei1g</a><p>This page on Jarrett Heather&#x27;s web site tells the story and shows the art and technology behind the &quot;Word Crimes&quot; video. He&#x27;s also published the Animatic storyboard-in-motion that took about 100 hours, to Weird Al&#x27;s original home-made demo of the song! It&#x27;s fascinating to compare them, and see how their ideas evolved from storyboard to final video.<p>Jarrett Heather presents: Word Crimes: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jarrettheather.com&#x2F;wordcrimes&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jarrettheather.com&#x2F;wordcrimes&#x2F;</a><p>&gt;The Completed Music Video: In November 2013, &quot;Weird Al&quot; Yankovic asked me to direct an animated video for &quot;Word Crimes&quot;, a parody of Robin Thicke&#x27;s &quot;Blurred Lines&quot; about the supposed abuse of proper language.<p>&gt;The result of 500 hours of work in After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere goes by in 3 minutes, 44 seconds. I hope you find each one of them entertaining.<p>The Animatic: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;102959171" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;102959171</a><p>&gt;This storyboard-in-motion took about 100 hours. Al signed off on this design on January 25th, 2014, only 3 weeks after he gave me his homemade &quot;demo&quot; for Word Crimes, which you can hear on the animatic soundtrack.<p>&gt;If you watch very closely, you might notice a gag or two that didn&#x27;t make it through to final animation or some very subtle changes in the lyrics.<p>Jarrett originally designed the Live Journal logo back in 2000 or so, and parodied it in the video, with a broken pencil tip.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jarrett.livejournal.com&#x2F;208198.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jarrett.livejournal.com&#x2F;208198.html</a><p>Here&#x27;s a great &quot;Local Boy Makes Good&quot; article and TV interview about Jarrett Heather from around the time the video came out, that was previously posted to HN -- I love his down-to-earth advice:<p>Elk Grove animator thrives as ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic’s partner in ‘Word Crimes’:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20140725043615&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sacbee.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;07&#x2F;17&#x2F;6564802&#x2F;elk-grove-animator-captures-spotlight.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20140725043615&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sacbe...</a><p>Common Ground - Jarrett Heather “Word Crimes” Music Video Artist<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;103615214" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;103615214</a><p>&gt;&quot;If I did fail, it would have been Al&#x27;s fault for hiring a software developer to make a cartoon.&quot;<p>&gt;Word Crimes is 244 seconds long. Each second took two hours at the computer. 500 hours work, in all.<p>&gt;&quot;Yeah, no classes, just, you know. I think people really underestimate the value of just sitting down and reading the manual.&quot;