Psalm 18:15

the beginning and the end

And the words of my mouth shall be such as may please: and the meditation of my heart always in thy sight. O Lord, my helper, and my redeemer. (Psalm 18:15 DR)

In the final verse of this Psalm the Psalmist the panegyric to the law of the Lord is concluded, as he makes it known that it is only by conformity to God’s law that God in relation to the human soul becomes helper and redeemer.

The Psalm began with the Psalmist recognizing the wonder and beauty of creation, and how by its very essence and existence it shows forth God’s glory and majesty and inherently (by analogy) is a proxy for the word of God which is the source of all being. This analogy is then transferred to God’s law itself; as the heavens perfectly obey the will of God in their various movements, so they are a reflection of the Law that God has built into the universe both physically and spiritually.

It is after this recognition that the Psalmist takes stock of his own soul; how he delights in the law, and desires it more than anything. Yet unlike the universe which by default fulfills God’s designs, man as a rational being can choose—to his detriment and destruction—to say no to God. This can happen especially in the internal forum of man’s soul, where secrets not known to man are laid bare before God. It is thus only through grace that these can be rooted out, and this cleansing also requires that man avoid the occasions of these sins, such as those who lead one into it.

As we reach the end, the consummation is finally here, as all that comes before coalesces in the Psalmist’s recognition and confession of his helplessness before God. After all, God cannot be a helper if one does not need help; nor can he be redeemer unless one needs to be redeemed. The Psalmist thus places himself entirely in God’s hands, surrendering his will and asking to glorify his Creator in all that he does, taking his place within the celestial chorus declaring God’s praises world without end.

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This animation started out way more complicated than it ended up. I was originally going to make the letter changes happen like those vintage flip boards, and even started building out the rig for it. However, after getting a little way into it I realized that it would need to happen too fast to be noticeable, and thus switched gears to something a bit more simple.

I created precomps for every letter (along with a few duplicates) and placed a letter and a texture in each. I then spaced all the letters in a vertical precomp so I didn’t have to manually animate each letter.

I then created the signs with mattes where the letters could show through. I originally tried using Motion Tile to get the duplicates of the whole vertical precomp, but it was too big for After Effects to handle apparently. So instead I just duplicated the precomp and parented the duplicate to the original after having spaced it properly. Much easier.

The rest was just some slight position animation and some offset on the timing of the various letters. Not too hard, but it turned out nicely in my opinion.

Enjoy.

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View a higher quality version of this gif here: